Ummm...

Day 267 Waiting for our miracle babies

As you all know, adoption is incredibly expensive. And I'm sure you can all guess that my pregnancies are also incredibly expensive. Combined, it creates somewhat of a financial crunch. We're not complaining, obviously any expense is worth it. But we are really trying hard not to go into debt for any of it. So, we have been saving as much as possible, we have done a fundraiser garage sale, and we have added a paypal button on our blog for donations. It hasn't been successful enough though. So, we are going to make and sell the little rocking chairs that we make. You can see pictures of them in this post. Our dilemma is that we really don't know how much to sell them for. Malone estimates that it costs us somewhere between $20-$25 in materials to make each one. Then I hand paint each one and customize it for the person it's going to. So, how much do you all think we could sell them for?

And... 18

Day 264 Waiting for our miracle babies

Well here I am at 18 weeks. I had a doctor's appointment today and she confirmed that our little baby is still growing and has a great heartbeat. She scheduled me to have an ultrasound with a perinatologist (a high risk pregnancy doctor) on November 24th. He will do all the regular ultrasound stuff. He will also assess the status of my cervix and offer an opinion about how much longer he thinks I'll be able to hold onto the baby. Sounds fun, right? NOT. I'm actually terrified that I'm going to get there and he's going to have bad news. We shall see. Hopefully the worst thing that will happen is he will order me to stay in bed for the duration of my "confinement." Frankly, if that's all that happens, I will be relieved. After all, I never expected that I'd make it this far without getting strapped down, so I'm grateful for every day that I can still do the normal things. You know, walk to the bathroom, bathe myself, work, go to the store, etc... Stuff like that really makes me thankful! (Don't mock)

On a brighter note, I have now posted the poll where you can guess whether I'm having a boy or a girl! It's in the right sidebar.

Just ignore our laundry in the background. Oh, and the fact that I'm not wearing makeup. Just one of those days...

For starters

Day 262 Waiting for our miracle babies

One thing I would like to do this month to help spread the word about adoption is feature waiting couples. What better way to promote adoption than to try to help connect families? So, if you are a waiting family, send me your information. Include a photo, a way to contact you, a link to your online profile, and a short paragraph about your family. You can send this information to me at maloneandbrittanyadopt@gmail.com. I will ask my contacts to spread the word for you too. The only thing I ask in return is that you be sure to let your waiting friends know about this opportunity so that I can spread the word for them too.

Somethings brewing...

Day 261 Waiting for our miracle babies

What many of you don't know is that November is national adoption month. It's a chance for all of us to educate others about the miracle of adoption. With that in mind, I have decided that I want to do something special on my blog throughout the month to do my part. I'm not sure yet exactly what I'm going to do, but stay tuned. I have some ideas brewing in this brain of mine...

17 Weeks

Day 257 Waiting for our miracle babies

I have made it to 17 weeks! In 19 weeks the doctor will cut the stitches. Next Friday will be the half-way point. I feel like I'm getting HUGE. I don't think I ever got this big with Gavin, and his gestational age was 24 weeks. I guess it's true when they say every pregnancy is different!

Our Big Halloween Tradition

Day 255 Waiting for our miracle babies

So this is a lot later coming this year. We have been SUPER busy. But, at least we got it finished! Anyway, from our house to yours... We give you the haunted gingerbread mansions of 2009.

Here's a shot of the two houses together. The house on the left is the one that Malone and I did. The house on the right is the one that my brother, Garth, and his wife, Laura, did.

This is Garth and Laura's mansion. They imagined their house was the headquarters of a head hunter. I thought they did such a good job with that idea in mind!

This is the house Malone and I decorated. Have you ever read the book called, "The Witches" by Roald Dahl? Well this is what we imagined the witches lair might look like in that book. So we did lots of crooked angles on the house and we used food coloring to paint the walls purple and grey.

We normally use a pattern that a lot of people recognize. For example, last year we patterned it off of the haunted mansion in Disneyland, Paris. But this year with everything going on we decided to just do a more simple design. So we made up our own!

Week 16

Day 250 Waiting for our miracle babies

So, I decided just now that I want to take a weekly photo to document my progress with this pregnancy. Because of the possible complications with my prior history of incompetent cervix, every week completed is something to celebrate. So, as of today I am 16 weeks along and this is my photo. I have to admit it's not the most beautiful picture of me. After all, it's late at night and let's face it... I'm pregnant and not feeling my best. But it will have to do because I'm not about to get all gussied up. This is REALITY people! Now if only I could find a way for our birthmom J to do the same... unfortunately she does not have a digital camera. Darn it!

Bet you never saw this coming...

Day 246 Waiting for our miracle babies

So, many of you have been asking what the surgery was for. I have to admit, I purposely didn't answer because we were waiting to see the outcome. But after months of keeping this secret, we can finally share with the whole world that I am...

PREGNANT

Yes, you read that right! I am expecting! My due date is April 9, 2010. Today my surgery was a cervical cerclage. It was necessary because of my prior history with Incompetent Cervix. Everything went well. Although we aren't out of the woods yet as far as risks are concerned, we passed a major hurdle today. So long as the bleeding slows down and I don't get an infection, things will most likely be ok. In fact, one doctor told us that so long as complications don't happen, the chances of the cerclage failing are only about 1%.

This pregnancy is such a miracle, it was completely unplanned and unexpected. When I was pregnant with Gavin, doctor's told us it was a "statistical fluke." AKA according to them, it never should have happened. Then after Gavin was born we were specifically told we would never be able to conceive again without major medical intervention. I guess this just goes to show that doctors should take into consideration God's influence.

So here's the somewhat condensed story. Don't worry, I won't get too graphic! Remember back in July when we were called to go to North Carolina to adopt a baby girl? Well, that call came at 4:30 in the morning and we packed in a frenzied hurry. In the frenzy we managed to forget to pack the... birth control. So all told I managed to miss about a week of my pills. (A little side note here... I don't actually take the pills as a contraceptive. In fact, my body has always served quite well as its very own contraceptive. The pills are actually used to manage my PCOS, or poly cystic ovarian syndrome. Without them I have incredibly screwed up cycles.) Anyway, unbeknownst to us, a whole week of missed birth control can really screw up your whole month's cycle and you can ovulate. Apparently that's what happened to us. I actually ovulated for the first time in probably 2 1/2 years. And it was just our luck that this one time, we managed to conceive. I guess even though the adoption of Jaida failed, there really was a reason we needed to go to North Carolina!

It was only a short time after our birthmom, J, selected us that we found out about my pregnancy. Of course we were floored. I can't even tell you how much we both cried. We have been so terrified that we will lose this baby the way we lost Gavin. But we called our caseworker with LDS Family Services right away. Charity told us that because J had already selected us, we could move forward with the adoption plan. Of course that's what we wanted, but we knew it was J's decision. We were strongly prompted to talk to her about it as soon as possible so that she could make her decision before becoming too emotionally tied to us. We were just so afraid to hurt her. Telling her about my pregnancy was very hard. We explained to her what our desires were, and then told her we loved her and would understand if she needed to choose another couple. We even told her that we knew of some really great people if she wanted some suggestions. She asked for some time to think about it, and we agreed to give her all the time she needed.

Later that day J asked us to drive down to see her. We were so nervous. But when we picked her up we felt an overwhelming sense of peace. She directed us to a park and we sat down on a bench. She told us that after she was able to get past the shock of our announcement, she was able to think about it clearly. She told us the most important thing about adoption is that the baby goes to the right parents. Then J told us that she felt from the very beginning that we were the right ones and that my pregnancy didn't change that. I think that was one of those moments that just drew us so much closer to her. She is a truly amazing woman. It was interesting though, she did say that if we had waited to tell her, she probably would not have made the same decision. We are so grateful we followed that prompting we had.

So, the long and short of it is that we are expecting two babies!!! The doctor plans to remove the cerclage at 36 weeks and expects that at that point I will have the baby. That puts us around mid March. So that means these two babies could be born as little as 3 weeks apart! So basically that means.... TWINS. We couldn't be more thrilled and are so thankful that God has provided this opportunity to us.

We will find out this baby's gender in about 4 weeks. Oh, and I felt the baby move for the first time last night.