the update

Chad was laid off in April. From May until August he did various side jobs for our church, including remodeling a building for a new thrift store in Fayetteville. Our church offered him a job as a manager at this store. A couple of weeks ago he decided to accept the offer and we are now employed again! I immediately became excited about start the adoption process again. We were on hold the entire summer -- from Memorial Day until Labor Day. I decided I'd call our agency, Gladney, on Tuesday after Labor Day, with the news. Tuesday came and I felt weird. I decided to take a pregnancy test before calling. The test was positive. We are pregnant!

I was shocked into tears at the sight of the positive pregnancy test. I told Chad and his response was a surprised smile, "This is good news." he said with emotion. His positive statement brought me from tears to joy in a matter of minutes. I was sad about the adopted baby. I have been waiting for him for almost a year now. At the same time, we have been ready for another baby for a long time. We didn't expect it to happen this way, though!

I am due around May 10, which seems like a really long time away. The other night Melody asked, "Mommy, will we have to wait 30 years for this baby to get here?" Having a 4 year old in the process with us is fun. She talks about the baby all of the time. We gather she is thinking about the new baby nonstop! She even dreams about the baby. The other day we were talking about girl names. She said she liked the name Flower. I explained there are many flower names people use for girl names. Rose, Daisy, Lily, etc.

She said, "I know what we can do. We will write down all of the flower names. Then we can spread them all over the couch in rows. Then me and you and Daddy will look at them together and decide what to name the baby!"

I finally called Gladney to tell them the news. Our caseworker, Jessica, was amazing. In fact, she knows just how I feel because she got pregnant while in the adoption process as well. Gladney's guidelines state that we are not able to pursue adoption while pregnant. I am okay with this because I cannot imagine doing both pregnancy and adoption at the same time! We will be able to start the adoption again when this new baby is six months old, if we choose. For now that is our tentative plan.


For now I will leave you with a photo of Melody, Leah and myself. A sweet friend of ours, Hope, did a photo shoot in July. I have outtles of pictures to share with you over the next few weeks.