Wellllll, it has been awhile hasn't it? Sooo many things have happened between the last time I posted and now that it seems absurd to try to fit it into one post, but I'm going to anyway.
So, here is the short version: We found out in December that we would be moving to the Dallas area for Greg's job in March. And thus began what seemed like an eternity of sheer craziness. Greg had business trip after business trip during that time, I flew to Orlando to run my first full marathon, we had to find a house, sell a house (and deal with all the showings of the house, of course) find a new preschool for Ben and on and on it went. I was beyond stressed out. In fact, I think it's fair to say I have never been that stressed out for such an extended period of time in my entire life....
Which is why I didn't really think much about it when my "time of the month" was late. Even though I've never been more than a couple of days late in my life, I figured the stress I was under was to blame. A week before the actual move took place, Ben and I went to Illinois to stay with my mom and dad while Greg dealt with the packers and movers and then went ahead to Texas to get things squared away before Ben and I arrived. During that week, I started to feel "off". Again, I chalked it up to stress until I went to lunch with one of my best high school friends and had to have her pull the car over because I thought I was going to be sick. At that point, I was a week and a half "late" and started to think that maybe there was more going on than just stress, so I mentioned it to my friend and she couldn't believe I hadn't taken a pregnancy test yet. She knows our history of infertility and was dying for me to take a test, so I told her I would as soon as we got to Texas.
Fast forward a few days and Ben and I were on the road to Texas and I was noticing that NOTHING sounded good to eat (that NEVER happens to me...I love to eat :-)). Normally, when we're on a road trip, we stop at McDonald's and Ben gets a happy meal and I get chicken mcnuggets, but it sounded absolutely repulsive to me all of a sudden. Just the thought of it made me want to throw up. So we had tacos at Taco Bell instead.
When we finally arrived at our house in Texas, I knew I needed to take a pregnancy test ASAP (I was 2 weeks late at this point). Greg went out and picked one up for me and the instant I peed on the stick....two blue lines.....PREGNANT!!! WHAT THE ?!?!?
So, a few months later, here we are.....new house, new state, new job for Greg and now a new baby on the way. Due date: November 3rd. Yowza!! I will admit it took me awhile to wrap my head around it. Greg and I had actually already started the adoption process again in Korea and I had it in my mind that child #2 was about 2 years away....not 9 months. Aaaaand I was expecting an 18-24 month old, not a newborn!!! Needless to say, the adoption process has been halted for now...maybe for good, but we aren't 100% sure on that yet.
I'm planning to post regular belly shots and updates. Since I'm 16 weeks and some change now, I already have some pics to share, but there isn't a whole lot going on belly-wise yet. As far as how I'm feeling goes, I'm not gonna lie, it was ROUGH there for awhile. I had really bad nausea and food aversions until about week 13 and then I started having some good days here and there. Now I have several good days, but still deal with the nausea and exhaustion to varying degrees at least a couple of days each week. Hopefully I'll be completely done with the nausea very soon!! Ok, on to the pics.....
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9 weeks 4 days
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11 weeks 3 days
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13 weeks
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14 weeks--I think I was extra bloated in this one
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15 weeks
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16 weeks--Please ignore my alien claw-hand
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Sorry, most of these pictures are awful since I took them with my phone. I'll have to get Greg to start taking them for me. It's really hard for me to tell if I'm actually showing or if I'm just bloated because when I wake up in the morning, my stomach is pretty close to being flat. As the day goes on, my belly gets bigger...so that leads me to believe most of this is bloat right now. Looking forward to a legit bump so I don't just look like I ate too much :-)
I also want to take a moment to say how blessed and thankful we are. Only our God could weave our family together the way he has. He never ceases to amaze me with His plans. More to come....
-Brooke
