Allie

My sweet Allie is now 7 months old.  She is just the most adorable little girl.  She is sleeping through the night, sitting up, kind of eating solids (even though she isn't wild about it),  playing, babbling, and getting closer to crawling.  She can turn circles and scoot backwards but hasn't quite figured out how to move forward.  I know it will be crazy once she starts crawling but I can't wait.  I love seeing her grow and do new things.

Her and Brad have the cutest relationship.  She just lights up when he enters the room.  I love it!!!

Long time no post

I haven't posted in a while and am kind of sad I haven't.  I love that I can look back at my post from before and right up until we got Allie and just relive all those emotions.

So, what's been going on......
I am 35 weeks pregnant today and really feeling pretty good.  5 weeks ago I was put on bed rest for a shortened cervix which has been really hard.  The hardest part of this pregnancy has been that I haven't been able to be as active as I usually am and being put on bed rest has been a true adjustment. Up until last week I really felt 100% but now I am starting to have some pains- mostly hips and back aches that wake me up at night and then just having a huge belly in the way makes it harder to move.

My work and family have been such blessings.  Work is allowing me to work from home during this time which I think has saved me mentally and emotionally.  It gives me a reason to get out of bed and feel like a functioning adult especially since my mom, mother in law and Brad have been doing everything else for me- taking care of Allie, getting me food, cleaning, etc.  I am very grateful for the support of my family! And very lucky my mom is a teacher and has been off work this whole time.  She comes over every day sometimes more than once to check on me, bring me stuff and of course bring Allie home and play with her until Brad gets home.  Oh and she takes me to all of my doctors appointments!  I know this has been a very special time for them to spend so much more time with Allie which makes me happy especially since I hate not being able to play with her as much or even pick her up.

So just some things have been going on the last 5 weeks.
1. Put on bed rest for shortened cervix- at 29 1/2 weeks my cervix measured at 2.1cm
2. The next week it dropped to 1.8cm
3. The next week it dropped again to 1.7cm.  They had me take a fetal fibronoctin test- it actually came back positive!! Which completely freaked me out!
4. They put me on blood pressure meds, progestrone, and 2 steroid shots.- The blood pressure meds give me incredibly bad headaches so instead of taking 2 a day I only take one.  The steroid shot gave me insomnia- so for two-three days I only slept about 3 hours a night.
5. Last 2 sonos have shown stable with no more shortening. YAY!! Praise God!

The next goal is to get me to 36 weeks which is next Friday!! Then of course I am sure they will say it is to get me to 40 weeks.  Even though bed rest has been hard it is all worth it as long as she gets here healthy.

My Girls

I am back! I took a little break due to everything that has been going on but mostly because....I am pregnant and wanted to wait until we knew for sure and let our adoption agency know before announcing it anywhere. 

So, here are some updates.....


It's a Girl!
We found out around the time Allie was born that we were pregnant but after my history of miscarriages we really didn't get our hopes up.  The pregnancy has not been the smoothest; the usual spotting and bleeding started around 6 weeks.  I actually had two major bleeds where I even passed some clots (sorry TMI) and I thought for sure I had miscarried. Somehow this little fighter held on.  The bleeding was due to a subchoronic hemorrhage and since I am on blood thinners for my APA  the bleeding was heavier.  At 10wks we ended up doing a Panaramic blood test that test for major chromosomal issues and it just happens to let you know the sex of the baby.  So around 12 weeks we found out we were having a baby girl!!

About 3 weeks ago, I started having brown spotting again and of coursed freaked out!  I went in for a sono and it showed my hemorrhage was still there and there was this odd looking band of tissue that had formed.  Long story kind of short, I went to two perintologist (fetal and maternal specialist) the first one was able to locate the hemorrhage and tissue but said it was really nothing to be concerned about.  The second (and probably more well known doctor) said he could not even see the hemorrhage or band and said in his opinion my pregnancy is too normal for me to be there. YAY!

As of today, I am 18 week pregnant and my due date is September 5th.  I have had 3 due dates  (6th, 8th, then 5th) so only God really knows when she will come, ha!

Allie Girl
Allie is at the cutest stage!  She wakes up every morning smiling and "talking".  It makes it sooo easy to get up in the mornings and really hard to leave her.  She probably gets 500 kisses from me every morning.  I can't imagine my life without her. Just thinking about her I wish I could hug and squeeze her.  She started daycare and it is going really well.  She has been sick once but was over it in about 4-5 days. 

I found out yesterday she rolled over for the first time....I am still really sad that I missed it.  I knew she was close she almost did it on Sunday and I was hoping it would happen this weekend. She also LOVES playing on her play mat.  It is the cutest thing.  She can now grab and pull at stuff and almost entertain herself for a good while.   She isn't sitting up on her own yet but can sit in the bumbo for short periods of time.

I am starting to feel guilt about not being around her enough and what I am missing and if she is getting the right amount of love and attention.   But her teachers are great and I am very lucky to have her in a place that I trust. 

Faith and Trusting in God
I have no doubt over our struggles with staying pregnant that God was leading us to Allie. It makes me tear up when I think of how much we prayed for her and how I am sure her birth mother and birth family prayed for us.  I also have no doubt the only reason this pregnancy has lasted as long as it has is b/c we have Allie I think God knew it would be harder to lead us down this path if our first or second or third or fourth pregnancy had worked out.  I am sure everyone who reads this and everyone who knows thought the same thing...omg two babies in one year.  Now maybe closer to September I will start freaking out but right now I think it is perfect!  
Finally, with having to go on maternity leave twice in one year and end up having two children in daycare there has been moments when we thought about our income and how that will affected.  Well, I am happy to say God has taken care of that worry too!  I got a promotion this week!! Makes being back at work a little easier when stuff like this happens:)

Public to Private

Hey everyone, I have made the decision to make my blog private for a while.   If you want to keep following me please email me at ajbkd09@gmail and I will add you to the list:)

Thanks!

Daycare and sip and sees

So, last weekend was Allie's first Sip and See.  It was great, except she was a tad fussy for like the first hour but after that she was a sweetie!  I felt/ feel very loved and blessed by all the love and support. Oh and she got some CUTE stuff!

Now, I know this is a big shocker to most people, but I have decided to go back to work early and start Allie in daycare.  Now, this decision was ONLY made because we had to get her into a place before I went back and this place could get us in in March but not April.  I actually think it will work out perfectly though.  The first 2 weeks I will be slowly transitioning her... And me to the daycare.  This was actually Brad's idea to take 2 weeks- he said maybe I can get some sleep, ha! I guess I have been complaining about that a little;).

As far as the daycare, I really like it! They seem very attentive to the babies and have cameras that I can log onto online and watch her all day 😁.  Also, a friend just started her daughter there and they will be in the same class!   I was really sad about it at first but I know it is the right choice right now.  Maybe one day I can stay at home or find a job that is a little more flexible. So everyone keep your ears/ eyes open for me;)

Allie is so sweet right now.  She is sleeping from about 11pm - 4am which isn't solid sleep but she is still much better!  She is smiling and cooing and it just brightens my day!! Yesterday as soon as Brad got home he said "hey sweet girl" and her face lit up with smiles- totally melted my heart!!!

Life is so precious.

Wow, it crazy how much life can change in a short amount of time.  We brought Allie home a little over 2 weeks ago and already can't imagine life without her....although I can imagine life with a little more sleep:) 

She had her 2 week follow up and doctor said she looks great!  She is now up to 7lbs and grew 1 inch.  She still isn't smiling at me but I feel it is coming.  She is so sweet and easy...I know that can change any week but right now she's perfect. I am also getting out more which has been AMAZING.  I am not the type of person that can just sit at home so even little trips to Target, Central Market or the mall feel so rejuvenating!

Last Sunday Allie had her newborn pictures taken.  It was a real "mom" moment for me.  First, it was like the first time in 2 weeks she would sleep.  Then once we kind of got her sleeping I moved her and she pooped in my hand!  When women would talk about stuff like that happening I would think- why would you put yourself in a situation for that to happen or I don't care whose poop it is thats gross BUT it didn't even phase me.  In fact, I waited until after the photo shoot to change my pooped stained pants, ha!

On a sadder note, as quickly as my life  for the better in the last two weeks my neighbors life changed for the worse.  Two days after we brought Allie home our neighbor was admitted into ICU for pneumonia.  How quickly his wife's life has changed.  My heart is so sad for her.  Life is so precious.

Events leading to Allie

Okay, so I actually got a little more sleep last night so I thought I would write out some of the events that happened leading up to Allie.

1. We had to get a new homestudy b/c our new agency, American Adoption requested the case worker to be registered. FYI- in Texas you don't have to be certified....just have the years of experience.  CRAZY!

2. The new case worker works with a lot of agency in Dallas, including Life Tree (the one we ended up being connected with)

3. November 1st- we were about to pay for our video kit to start our video with American Adoption when our case worker called about a potential match with Lifetree

4. This match fell through and delayed our video for about a week.

5. Over thanksgiving we worked on our video and sent it in.

6.  Finally, we could go live with American Adoption!  We requested the agreement- only to find a clause we didn't like so decided to wait a week.

7. I was planning on submitting our aggreement and a 4K activation fee on a Wednesday....well on the Monday before we got a call about another birthmother with Lifetree.

8. That Thursday we met the birthmother that gave us Allie.

I feel like God put little obstacles in our way to wait for Allie.  Had we never had any hesitation about the agreement or had we never received that first call about the other birth mother we would have been active with a national agency and probably passed on meeting with our birthmother.

Life has been great with Allie.  I am not sleeping much but I know it will get better and every minute awake with her is just amazing.....and she has no problem sleeping during the day, ha!