Baby is growing like a champ

Another appt. today... heartbeat was 164. Doctor said... 'it's a girl' jokingly. Of course, this is a myth... but everyone seems to be leaning this way. I gained 7 pounds since the last appt which is good since I'm still puking - (today twice already)... it should be stopping soon I hope.

And... we find out the sex in 2 weeks. Yippee! Christopher is so freaking excited.

Fill her up!

So... yday was a great day. We got to hear the baby's heartbeat with the doppler - a strong 160 which is perfect!

After the doctor visit I went to the hospital and got 3 liters of IV's and a shot of Zofran. I've been EXTREEMLY nauseous and unable to keep most of anything down. The Dr. said I was pretty dehydrated and let me tell you - it felt GREAT to get my fluids back to normal. Last night I felt better than I had in a month and was just giddy with a night off from the barfing and nausea. I know it sounds like a small achievement but honestly - just one night off was such a blessing.

Hopefully this medicine will help curb the morning sickness a bit. Praise God - 11+ weeks and the baby was doing great!

Also, we (well mostly I - chris is still on the fence) picked out some fav baby names...
Girl - Lillian Grace
Boy - Nathaniel Edward

I love them both!

I read this on my cousin's myspace today and felt it was so appropriate for my current situation:

"Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you have now was once among the things you hoped for.""

I'm so happy to finally be pregnant. It's taken us so long to get here. And yet, with all of my excitement is an incessant fear- that something, will go wrong and we'll be right back where we started. How selfish.

The Lord has blessed me with the answer to so many prayers. For now, I must have faith and be thankful for the place I'm in at this very second rather than thinking - I'll be happy when the baby is safe and born.

Happy pregnancy - here I come.

Mysterious Ways

Everyone says the Lord works in mysterious ways. Well, now I believe it.

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. We've been 'on hold' with so many things in our life and I didn't know what to say.

Here it is.

The best and biggest news of all... is, I'm pregnant. Completely shocked and overjoyed. I can't help but think that at least for me and my husband this is what the Lord had planned for us all along. We learned and grew so much through our adoption struggles and I wouldn't be so thankful had we not spent a year in the 'valley'. I'm still a little nervous and praying everything continues to go well, but so far, so good.

I am also very thankful that we have begun the process of adoption. I have a deep desire to build our family through adoption and am so excited to see how the Lord will direct us in these next few months. We are still waiting to see if our agency can get us through the Embassy in DC but we may have to wait a few months to submit our dossier anyway so I can be confident the baby will be born before we travel. We may consider switching to another country as well and I'm using this time to research all options now that we won't be able to travel anywhere until next summer.

We are so excited and have so much to look forward to. For all of the families in line for Kazakhstan - I continue to pray things move for you and the children.

The Lord is good.

Where are you?

Where are you baby Carlberg? Are you in Kazakhstan? Are you in Russia? Are you inside me somewhere, waiting to be born? Are you in the United States?

I wish I knew where to find you. I'm tired of this hide and seek game we are playing. You can come out now.

Am I a quitter?

Quitter. It's a terrible word in my family. You could be many things growing up, but a quitter, not possible. Well here I am, fighting for what is probably the most important thing I've ever done so far in my life, and I'm contemplating just that... quitting. Well at least, in a way.

My agency didn't get the info they needed for me to move forward with my dossier submission. Apparently the Joint Council has a meeting set up with the Kaz Embassy to discuss their lack of movement with the dossier processing and reluctance to set firm dossier requirements.

Honestly, I don't know how much more of this I can take. It seems like there is no end in sight except for folks saying that the timelines are getting longer and longer in Kaz. In addition, I don't know if I have the strength to go to another country at this point as it all seems so unpredictable right now. I'm considering perhaps switching altogether to a domestic adoption and eating the thousands we've already spent on Kaz. What a tough choice.

I know God must have a plan. We'll have a lot to think over these next few days.

More Delays

Kazakhstan apparently has a lot of holidays in May. When the Embassy opens for 3 days on may 4th, my agency is traveling their to try and get the approval they need to get our dossiers translated. If they do not receive this approval, this will probably be a dead end for us and a call to explore other options. Hopefully it won't come to that.

For the first time, I felt like my casemanager was really disappointed and discouraged today. She said it is the most difficult time in the Kazak program yet. I can't say I was encouraged... but at least I know it isn't always this hard.