And so it begins...

As some of you may or may not know, we have officially started the adoption process and are working with Lifeline Children's Services to adopt a baby from Uganda.

If you know me, you know that from the first time I went to Haiti, I wanted a Haitian baby. And before Justin and I ever got married, I made it clear to him that it was my intention to adopt internationally one day, and if he wasn't onboard with that then it could be a dealbreaker. Obviously he was, in fact, he was ecstatic about the idea! I knew Haiti would not be an option for us because we have been married a short time and by the time we will have been married long enough, we will be above the age limit. Our initial desire was to adopt from Uganda and then we were bitten by the China bug. After doing our initial paperwork with Lifeline and looking at our options we are now fully pursuing Uganda (the China bug isn't necessarily gone though!).

Needless to say, I am overwhelmed...this is not a bad thing! It's just that this process is truly a marathon and not a sprint and yet when I really stop to think about having a beautiful little Ugandan baby in our home I get so excited that it overwhelms me!

I just wanted to get this post going and do plan on maintaining this as our adoption blog. It only seems appropriate since this is a blog about my life and our marriage, my little Jack, and our future baby is my life!!

In the book of James God calls us to care for the widows and orphans. We believe that means many different things to many different people. To us what that means is providing a forever family for a child who otherwise wouldn't have one.

We hope you will walk with us through this process and keep us in your thoughts and prayers. We know this is a long and arduous process but the result is a joy that few people get to know!

this is about the best a working mom can do

yeah, i realize there are working moms out there that do it all...the laundry, the dishes, toilets and windows, 2am feedings, pack their lunch and their husbands, and so on and so forth...i just haven't met many of them. wait, is that maybe because we think everyone else has it together but don't give ourselves enough credit for everything we do? hmm...

last time i posted i was 21 weeks pregnant. now i have a 21 week old. what in the world!?!? yes, it's true, my son, Jack Windsor was born on April 28th. that whole experience is something i have documented but i'm pretty sure i'm keeping that just for us and not for the whole world to read. at least not yet. i did have a c-section because i had a baby that was over 10 lbs...now he's 23lbs. he was also 22 1/4 inches long at birth...now he's 29. i can't believe my 5 month old is ginormous! hah! i'm still reeling with the fact that i have a baby.

so about working motherhood. here's what's up. i work because i support my family. my husband is an amazing man and we decided he would go to grad school full time while i had a great job. we also didn't expect to get pregnant so quickly so truly i thought he'd be finished with school by the time Jack was born...didn't happen. regardless (or irregardless and we would joke at home), i would still have to work because my husband wants to be a teacher. i'm very supportive of this but it doesn't change the fact that i'd rather be at home with my son. because i had a c-section i was given 8 weeks short term disability. i took an additional 4 as was allowed by law. either way, going back to work with a 12 week old was still one of the most difficult things i've ever done. since my husband is teaching, that still gave us an additional 6 weeks where Jack could be at home with the hubs. in the meantime not only was it time for me to go back to work full time but it was time for me to start traveling again. i have a great job and in the past it's been great to have the option for travel...not as appealing these days. when my son was 14 weeks old i left to fly (literally) halfway around the world for a work trip to korea. thankfully the hunger games kept my mind occupied and skype kept us in touch. still ripped my heart out. one week after returning home i turned around and flew to italy for a week (don't be jealous, it was heart wrenching). now i'm home for a few more weeks until i leave for another week. i can't help but think that by Christmas i will have missed 4 whole weeks of Jack's life.

the point of all this is that i have an amazing job, an amazing husband, an amazing son, and an amazing support system (not necessarily in that order). but no matter what, it still hurts my heart to leave him. i know he is getting everything he needs when i am gone but it's still not me. i'm realizing this is much more difficult for me than my 5 month old who doesn't really know anything is out of sorts. well, it may be more difficult for my husband who has to play single dad for a week while also working and holding down the fort at home. i caught a good one!!

all i'm really trying to say is what i told my friend lisa, many kids of lesser households go through much worse situations that being left at a sitter or day care or family members home during the day while their moms are at work. kids are resilient. and if we can get passed ourselves and our own insecurities and inadequacies, maybe we can teach our kids that we do what we do because we love them and we want the best for them. and we make these choices for those reasons. AND maybe we ourselves need to realize that no one has it all together. if they look like they do then they're faking. no one's house is perfectly clean (except my friend Rachel's), and has the perfect kid(s) (except my sister Sita), and has everything going for them at work, and so on and so forth...NO ONE! so stop beating yourself up for thinking you're lacking and just love your kids!

what happened?

no seriously, where did the time go? last thing i knew i was a few weeks pregnant and now, here we are, 21 weeks pregnant! we now know that it's a boy, Jack Windsor Morgan, that he is tracking as quite a big baby boy, and that being 5 months pregnant leaves you quite the big belly (well, me at least). i can't get over the whole belly thing. it's like up to week 16 i just felt like a chunky monkey but didn't look pregnant (just fat). next thing i know, i'm 18 weeks preggers and have this belly that just showed up over night! now my back bows in from the weight of it and my maternity clothes are...shall we say...snug? how do i still have 4 months to go and i already feel like this? i'm gonna be HUGE!!!

anyway, enough about me, let's talk about Jack!! it was absolutely mind boggling to see him on the ultrasound. if i weren't completely overwhelmed as i laid there and stared at it, i would have been balling. seeing that little guy (who didn't look so little) and all facets of him...his head, his big belly, his long arms and legs, and his...well, you know :) i was instantly in love!! how could this little thing be inside me, growing and developing, and becoming our own! and then, when we left, we immediately began calling him Jack. i couldn't help but think about God, my father. i think about how he has called me by name. and that He has known me since he wove me together in my own mother's womb. He knows my baby Jack because Jack is on loan to us from Him! and he has already called baby Jack by name...even before we did! how amazing is our God?

ahh, the first trimester

how can you not love it? any symptom that may make you miserable, that's probably part of the first trimester symptom of pregnancy.

justin hears two things out of my mouth ALL the time: i'm hungry and/or i'm tired.

i am nauseous all the time. yep. all the time. the only thing that makes my nausea go away? eating. thus, i'm hungry all the time. and what i can and can't eat and what sounds good versus what tastes good is the wackiest thing in the world. one day i crave guacamole and want nothing but it (and make justin drive to plaza azteca to get it fresh) and the next day if i even see or smell it it makes me want to throw up. awesome (sense the sarcasm). most days i'm trying to eat healthy but unfortunately, healthy doesn't necessarily equal edible in my current state. maybe the second trimester will be better.

not only am i nauseous all the time, i also can't sleep. sweet. this state of life is awesome (again, sense the tone). everything i've read talks about how tired you are the first trimester and how you are going to sleep all the time. i must be reading the wrong books/articles/webpages and talking to the wrong people cause i can't sleep at all. i want to sleep, don't get me wrong. i am truly tired ALL the time. but it's like when i lay down on the couch or the chaise or in bed something in me clicks that says "wake up!" or "you're uncomfortable" or "you're hungry" or many of the other bizillion messages that run through my head any given day.

needless to say, eating and sleeping suck right now. and that's about all there is to say about this trimester so far.

the background

or as i call it, the temporary lack in judgment. now, justin gets a little upset with me when i use that term about our unborn child and of course i don't think a baby is poor judgment however in the instance of seeing that plus sign, i call it a temporary lack of judgment.

so here's how it went down. i get home from being gone for a week in japan (this should have been our first clue we were not thinking rationally). and off the cuff i say, "let's have a baby." justin's response was not what i anticipated because he instantly said "ok". to my surprise we decided to sit down and have a discussion about it and at the end of the discussion we decided we would try for two months and then stop trying until late winter/early spring. our concern was that of i think many couples...how long will it take us to conceive. for us we had a few major concerns. first off, we are both over thirty. and we are told time and time again how fertility goes down with age and especially over 35. with us knocking on 35's door, we thought we had reason for concern. then, we'd heard all the issues with coming off birth control pills and how it can take many months for your body to readjust after that. finally, i have hypothyroidism and most reports show that if your thyroid isn't regulated, it is very difficult to get pregnant. needless to say, i already had an appointment scheduled with an endocrinologist and my primary care doctor to try and get my thyroid issues under control because i knew mine was out of whack (that's a whole other post that i will spare you from the gory details).

needless to say, all our concerns were truly of no concern. little did we know that about two weeks later we conceived! of course we didn't know it at the time. no, in fact i was convinced i wasn't preggers and because i was convinced, i did things pregnant ladies should not be doing! for instance, busch gardens (including many massive roller coasters), a drink at my birthday party, rides at the state fair, etc., etc. it wasn't until i was two weeks late that i really had any indication that maybe, i could be preggers.

so why do i call it a temp lapse in judgment? well, while in mid-june we had decided to try for two months, about two weeks later we decided that as soon as my cycle started again i would go back on the pill. we thought, maybe now is not the right time. apparently, God had different plans for us. we have no explanation with the odds stacked against us and our first chance since we decided to try there can only be one reason! God! so, here we are. and our little miracle is on its way!!