Gonna start blogging from my phone, let's see if I can stay more updated?!?!

Adoption Update

Dear friends,
I'm writing today to tell you all about our update involving the adoption. It would be nice to share this with you all in person, but obviously that would be a lot of phone calls. So here's the update all written out for you.
After months now of feeling discontented since we started back in the adoption process Evan and I made the very difficult decision of canceling our adoption. Since we started back in the process late summer we have both felt stressed about the process and overwhelmed by the urgency of trying to finish paperwork and bringing a child home prior to Evan starting dental school. The paperwork was more than we thought we would have to go through again, and the wait list has nearly tripled since we went through in before, and the agency said they are sorry for the "misunderstanding" but we would have to wait the entire wait list again, all of this would bring the total time to nearly 3 more years. After a lot of prayer, discussion and tears we realized that it would be impossible to have a child home with us prior to Evan starting school, and once he's in school the days are long and overflow into the weekends, leaving little to no time for Evan to be intentionally bonding with a newly adopted son. A process we both desperately want to be present for and intentional about. We both feel this is the right thing for our family now and we feel such peace and relief since making the decision. We're trusting this peace is from God and know that we will fulfill His call for our family to adopt once Evan is finished with dental school and we can provide the best possible home for a newly adopted child. Thank you all for your support through the past few years as Evan and I have been going through the process of starting our family and for the support you continually give us as we continue in that journey. I'm so thankful to God for the friendships we have with all of you and the blessings you are to us both.

Life's just crazy!!!

One of our family pics from our family and Brody's one year photo shoot with our brother-in-law Garrett!

Well, if anyone even still checks my blog and reads this, I'll give a super quick recap of the past year and a little more... I just can't believe how life got so crazy and then just flew by!!!
I'm pretty sure most, if not all of you know that after I was put on bed rest last year, I was induced on 10/20/09 after a visit at the perinatologists at St. Vincent's. I was confirmed to also have pre-eclampsia, which in combination with the cholestasis, made me a high risk patient and there was enough risk of continuing the pregnancy to Brody and me that the best thing for us would be to deliver. So, I was induced and delivered Brody at 6:14pm on Wednesday, October 21, 2009!!! He was the most precious thing I'd every seen!!! We had three nights in the hospital, the last of which was on the pediatric unit for Brody to be under bili lights for his hyperbilirubinemia. I was of course a wreck for all of this, but Evan was my strength and encouragement. The next week I had a gallbladder attack (worse pain than labor and delivery if you ask me!) which sent us to the ER at St. Vincent's at 4 in the morning one night. A few weeks later I had my gallbladder out and I have felt great ever since!
Then, the past year just flew by! It's been full of everything wonderful that comes with having a child... his first Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, Easter, 4th of July and every other Holiday we celebrate, along with all his milestones... rolling over, sitting, first word "mama" quickly followed by "dada," swimming lessons, crawling (while visiting the Campbell grandparents in DC), standing, creeping and walking with a walker toy, soon to be on his own! Brody has brought such joy to our lives and we thank God so much for the precious gift he is to us! I cannot imagine life without him!
Now, we are back in the thick of adoption paperwork for son #2! Once Brody was 9 months old we re-entered the adoption paperwork process, but unfortunately all of our paperwork from before had expired, so when I say re-entered, I really mean restarted! We started from step one again, but have moved as quickly as possible through all the paperwork and we are almost done with our home study paper work. Once we finish it again, then we'll have our home study interviews, visitation and then submit our dossier, and then we'll be on the wait list once again! Unfortunately, the wait list has more than doubled since we were on it before! :o( Therefore, it will most likely take 1.5-2 years from now before we bring our son home. Although this time line is disappointing, we are trusting God and know that He has the right and perfect son for our family and we are trusting His timing... and I just need to keep reminding myself of that! :o) Thank you for your continued prayers for this process and we'll keep you posted as things progress, and I'll try to be better about posting pictures of our family and Mr. Brody Bear!

34 weeks now... and much to tell!

34 weeks

32 weeks

Well, yesterday I completed 34 weeks of pregnancy. For the past 10-12 weeks I've been having this weird side effect of pregnancy with really itchy feet, and skin in general, but the feet have been the worst. We weren't thinking much of it until one of my nurse co-workers suggested that I might have something called Cholestasis of Pregnancy. So we did a little research last weekend, and talked to my midwife about testing for it and sure enough I was diagnosed with it this week. You can google it for more info, but more or less it has to do with the way pregnancy hormones are effecting my gallbladder and liver. They don't work properly due to those darn hormones, causing increased bile acids in my blood stream which are deposited in the skin causing extreme itching. Now, when I say extreme, I mean extreme... many nights awake for hours at a time just scratching my stupid feet and sometimes the rest of my skin too. Anyway, there really isn't any negative effect on me other than it being SUPER ANNOYING but there is a risk to the baby because it causes his liver to have to over compensate for what my liver is not doing. Basically the only cure is to deliver early, so now we will be induced no later than 38 weeks, and very likely sometime between 36-37! I'm headed into the hospital today for a few tests to check the baby's well-being right now, these are called a Non-Stress Test(watching his heartrate for about 20-30min or so to ensure proper oxygenation and movement) and a Biophysical Profile (an ultrasound that looks at several different components of fetal well-being - lungs, muscles, fluid, etc). I will also be receiving a steroid injection today and tomorrow to ensure that our son's lungs are developed by the time we have our induction. And along with all this, I am off of work and on bedrest to ensure my body is not having any other extra stressors... like working full time night shift! :o) I am thankful for the time to rest, although I'm sure I'll get a little stir crazy soon enough. I've got a good book to finish and several movie donations from friends, as well as a Baby Book to start of course!!! Prayers are greatly appreciated for the well-being of our boy, the sanity of his mother, and patience for his father (as Ev is being SUPER husband and picking up extra house work, working full time and going to school part time! Yikes!)

Oh, and it's a boy!!!

OK, now I blame this excuse on the prego brain!!! I just realized I hadn't announced on here that we did find out we're having a boy! We're super excited, either way we would have been excited, but it will be super fun to have two boys close in age once our adoption is complete! (which is just on hold until this son is 9 months old)

The Past 14 weeks... only 8 left 'til the due date!

30 weeks

So sorry everyone that I have been a total slacker at updating the blog for the past 14 weeks! I have no excuse other than procrastination and forgetfulness! I've been feeling pretty good. Growing more each week for sure! Baby Soup Campbell is moving lots and it has been so fun to be able to see him move now! Based on average fetal growth, he is around 17 inches long now and around 4 lbs in weight! Pretty exciting! A few weeks ago Evan's parents were here and they blessed us with the gift of our crib and rocker/glider chair for the nursery!!! Thanks Fath and Moth! We're working slowly but surely on the nursery, once we have things ready I'll be sure to post pics! So, here's the last several weeks of belly growth pics!!!

28 weeks

26 weeks

24 weeks here with my friend Diana who is 25 weeks, only it's her 3rd baby, so she shows a little more than me!

24 weeks

22 weeks

20 weeks

18 weeks and growing!

Here we are! We'll find out in about 8 days if it's Baby Boy or Baby Girl Campbell!!!