20 Week Update

I think I was a little over confident about how easy this pregnancy thing is. This month I had 5 days of spotting in a row and thought it was over for sure. Two extra doctor appointments and a level 2 ultrasound later and it turns out baby is fine but Mom and Dad were a nervous wreck. I guess it begins.

It was reassuring to have our 20 week ultrasound and hear that everything looks fine. However, we have a shy and stubborn baby (no idea where that comes from) who refused to show its face no matter how hard the ultrasound tech poked and prodded. And the disappointment of the day - no pictures. I'm hoping to get another ultrasound though because baby measured small, which doctor said was fine but Mom needs reassurance.

Yes, we lovingly refer to our baby as "it" because we did not want to find out the gender. No, contrary to popular belief we did not find out only to keep it a secret. Why?
1. The realist in me knows this has been 5 years in coming and I would go crazy buying way to much blue or pink. The past few years has taught me life can't and shouldn't be planned.
2. The traditionalist in me feels like my mom didn't know, grandma didn't know, great grandma didn't know - it is not meant to be known.
3. The surprise lover in me thinks this is the ultimate surprise. I love when others don't find out and when you finally get "the call" you hear if it is a boy or girl.
4. The romantic in me wants the "It's a boy (or girl)" to be part of our first moment as a family of 3.

I was super surprised baby is measuring small because I have been starving and not sick. I used to think pregnancy cravings were something women made up because they wanted an excuse to eat ice cream every day. Then one day I was driving home from work and suddenly I HAD to have peanut butter and jelly toast on cinnamon swirl bread for dinner. I probably haven't had a PB+J since my day care days when I OD'd on them because I was a picky eater (UH-OH.) Now I have this treat almost daily and I was only a little embarrassed when our local grocery store ran out of cinnamon swirl bread.

Thanksgiving

After dinner there was lots of Black Friday planning.
Baby holding. This year in our family 5 babies were born in 5 months. Lots of little buddies for our baby to look up to.
Hair styling. Poor Izzy, all the little kids are too young to play with and the adults are kind of boring. At least Ken is a good sport!

It's a Girl!!

We finally welcomed Elise Rachel into our family last night. She weighed 7 lbs 14 oz and was 20.5 inches long. She has dark hair and in my opinion looks just like Ken. What do you think?






I'm so excited to have another niece and a namesake!

E-money Turns One

Birthday Boy.
Mommy is HI-larious and Uncle Bri is not bad either.

Waiting for my guests to arrive.

Yep, I can stand.

This is way too messy to eat with my hands good thing I have a fork. Happy Birthday Everett can't wait to see what year 2 brings! We love you!

Week 16 Stats

Just had my 16 week appointment and while I still don't look or feel particularly pregnant the baby still had a heartbeat so I guess I am. At this point the baby should be about 5 inches long and the size of an avocado. No, I can't feel it move yet but it should happen any day.

Good Old Norwegian Family Fun

We got together with family and friends for a joint rock themed shower in honor of Sarah and Maren's future rock stars. Ruby and Vivian showed up ready to rock.


Love you both and your little stars! Can't wait for December!
After the shower Grandma Angie bought us tickets to the Norwegian supper at her church. These are a big deal this time of year among rural Lutheran churches with Scandinavian roots. And definitely a tradition for my Norwegian Grandmother, Aunts and Uncles. Uncle David even has a special shirt for the occasion and tells us one year he made it to 9 Norwegian Suppers.It was a first for Brian, Ken, Ken, Bianca and Everett. I don't think they will soon forget their first taste of sweet soup, bread that Brian called "bread from a magical land," and of course Lutefisk. Don't worry there were meatballs, potatoes, lefse and cookies to make the meal worth
it.

Everett says "yay lutefisk!" Ok,I'm pretty sure there isn't a drop of Norwegian blood in this kid but since family is about more than biology this probably won't be his last sweet soup ever. We ended the weekend visiting a super cute dragon on his first trick or treat excursion.

First Trimester Recap

So, I left off on week 4 where the nurse just confirmed a positive pregnancy via blood test. However, later that afternoon I get a call from my infertility doctor and I don't think he believed the results either because he wanted me to come in for a 7 week ultrasound to confirm it. I was very glad about this because while my body is horrible at getting pregnant it turns out it is great at being pregnant (so far,) no nausea, indigestion, food aversions, heartburn - nothing to make me feel pregnant. I thought I would feel much better and more pregnant after the ultrasound but this is what I saw.

O.k. it had a heartbeat but didn't look anything like a baby and I still wasn't convinced.

Week 9 came and our agency called with travel dates for Russia. I felt the need to disclose the pregnancy to them except I hadn't actually seen a doctor yet. My OB doesn't see patients until 12 weeks. I called the clinic a little hysterical and my doctor agreed to get me in earlier. She found a heartbeat right away so I told our agency about the pregnancy. I was ecstatic when our Russia agency would allow us to continue with the adoption. I would travel early in my second trimester which my doctor thought was fine and it turns out to be a blessing that we are in a region with a loooooong wait for a court date because we wouldn't go back until after the baby was born. We had all sorts of plans in place for how we were going to make this work. Yes, it would be tough but we have lots of help and support. A couple days later our home study agency told us they had a policy and we weren't able to continue our adoption. We were devastated! We have spent so much time, emotion and a huge portion of our savings on this adoption. While we were excited about the pregnancy, at this point, it just seemed like another way to ruin our chances at adoption.

Week 10 our adoption was put "on hold." However, if I had a miscarriage we would not be allowed to return to the same region since they get offended if you turn down travel dates so basically it meant we would have to start over - again. So of course week 11 I had spotting. My doctor assured me it was normal and it was just because I was overdoing it - apparently 12 hour shifts as a nurse on my feet with lots of lifting and bending aren't good for a pregnant person plus I don't have the normal first trimester symptoms to remind me to slow down. She set me up for another ultrasound just to make sure.

Week 13 I saw a leg kicking, arm waving, hiccuping baby. And I finally allowed myself to get excited about this pregnancy.
So the Russkiy will have to wait a little while longer. Maybe by then they will finally have this bilateral agreement worked out.

We Got Travel Dates For Russia, BUT....

Apparently even God got annoyed that our adoption journey has reached the 3 year point with no end in sight because.........

I'm Pregnant!!

Shocked? Tell me about it! Here is what happens when you have tried for 5 years to become a parent - including 6 failed rounds of IUI, 1 failed round of IVF, and 1 failed adoption.

I'm about to head out of town with my husband to celebrate our anniversary and my period is a few days late. Years ago I stopped taking pregnancy tests when this happened because it was more emotional for me than just waiting for my period. However this weekend we had a bottle of champagne chilling in the fridge, had booked a hot tub suite and I planned to eat my fill of mercury infused walleye so I dusted off an old pregnancy test that had not yet expired, used it, set it on the counter and forgot about it. I ran some errands, did some laundry and packed. At one point I walked by the bathroom and realized I had forgotten to throw the test away only when I looked at it, it said pregnant.

I was totally numb and wandered around the house aimlessly for a few minutes until I remembered Brian will be home soon and I should wrap the gift I bought long ago when I thought getting pregnant would be easy. I dug it out of the back of a closet that was now filled with toddler boy clothes for our pending adoption.
Brian opens the gift and says "Are you serious?" Then he says "I really can't get excited about this." To which I replied "Yeah, me neither." After all we have had our dreams of being parents crushed so many times - in multiple languages!

I spent the rest of the weekend convinced the hormones I had been on in the past had wreaked havoc on my system and from now on I would have false positive pregnancy tests. So on Monday I called my infertility clinic to discuss my theory. The nurse assured me the hormones would be out of my system in a matter of weeks and that I was probably pregnant. I reminded her that this is not possible. She informed me that, in fact, it looks like it is possible but sensing that this debate could go on for awhile she said I should c0me in for a blood test. That afternoon I had a message from the nurse saying congratulations you are going to have a baby and you might even be able to afford to send it to college (might sound rude but if you've been there, you understand.)

This post is going to get very long and I want to remember it someday so I will get to the Russia part in my next post. Oh, and please keep the news off Facebook, I'm not telling at work yet :) To be continued.......

Weekend Update

Vivian attended her first jewelry party this weekend, hosted by Auntie Em, at International Market Square.
The Chaing Mai Thai Book Club helped Jenny celebrate her upcoming wedding at her bachelorette party.And we made our annual trip to Pine Tree Apple Orchard so I could have Dad's apple crisp the way it was meant to be made.

Fall

This fall we went to cheer The Knights on in a volleyball tournament coached by Jeff. Everett's parents went on vacation so he tagged along for the weekend.

We celebrated Ruby's 3rd Birthday at the apple orchard.


We froze at Steve and Jen's wedding!

Yeah, it was that cold.

And Maren had her first baby shower, where I delegated gift wrapping to Brian.