This Week

A busy week with work, but there are many more fun things to post about than that! Here are the highlights:

~Mary-Michael was put in time out for the first time...I told her "No ma'am" (I can't even remember for what!), and she proceeded to grab my hand and bite it. After a few moments of disbelief I sat her down and counted for 15 seconds. It's small, I know, but for this busy bee, it was enough to make her mad. No more biting has occurred, so either my time out worked (doubtful) or it was a fluke (hopefully).

~I had my 16-week check up on Tuesday, and everything is going swimmingly. I've gained 4 pounds, which is just fine the doc said. I had been worried I wasn't gaining enough weight because I still have a day or two a week when I get sick, and I just haven't been that hungry. I heard Skittle's heartbeat, which always makes me smile - he/she was coming in at 150 beats/minute. And I scheduled our next appointment, which will be the big reveal with the 20 week ultrasound on August 10!

~While I was at Skittle's appointment, Geoff was with Mary-Michael at her 15 month check-up (one month late). He had the fun job of shots and pinning Mary-Michael down so the doc could just look in her ears. She certainly knows right where she is (and doesn't want to be) when we enter that patient room. She is on track with her age milestones and growing! She's 83% in height (32 inches) and 4% in weight (21 lbs), so my suspicion that she was too skinny was confirmed. So, now we give her a snack at bedtime to see if we can get a few more calories in our girl. Her chart shows that she has done this before though, so I'm not too concerned - she grows taller and then a few months later her weight catches up and she's near 50/50 in percentiles, so we'll see what the 18 month check-up brings.

~The week rounded out with my 28th birthday! My dad watched Mary-Michael (thanks, Dad!), and Geoff took me to Acacia, a lovely restaurant in the city. We sat on the patio, I had a mocktail of kumquat juice and other delicious things I'd never heard of, and we both enjoyed really good dinners. I was needing a date, so this fit the bill. And my present from my wonderful husband is a cleaning lady once a month for the rest of my pregnancy. Woohoo!! Thanks to everyone who made me feel very loved on my 28th birthday.

~And lastly, I ask for prayers for my Grandad who is not recovering well from pneumonia and a wound that just won't heal. My mom flew to Las Vegas yesterday to see him and help my Mimi out. He made it through a tough battle with Lymphoma in his seventies that many say is a miracle he survived, so here's hoping he will gather the strength and will again.

I will get some pictures on here soon when I get my camera back from my dad's where I keep forgetting it! Have a great weekend. I hope you make some time to spend with family and those that you love.

And the Lawrence Family Grows...

So, remember a while ago when I wrote about starting the adoption process? Well, we had a great meeting with a lawyer we felt confident would guide us through private domestic adoption (where we find the birth mother vs. an agency) and then settled on an organization to conduct our homestudy. We had our first meeting with Jewish Family Services and scheduled our in-home meeting for the first Friday of May. We were excited! The first part of the week I was scheduled to go to Indianapolis for a work conference. My mother-in-law was kind enough to come down to stay with M&M while I was gone, so she and M&M drove me to the airport. On the way, I had her stop at the store so I could pick up a few things. One of these items was a pregnancy test because most people take pregnancy tests at the airport, alone, right?! Well, I had to squelch a tiny part of me that thought my nausea and other no-need-to-name symptoms were more than a bug. The joke was on me - that test was POSITIVE!!!

So, here I am alone in an airport bathroom stall (on my way to go out of town for 4 days, nonetheless) with a positive pregnancy test. I could hardly believe it! I called Geoff who also couldn't believe it and insisted I get more tests when I arrived in Indy. So, I did just that, and the results were the same. Then and even a little bit now I was/am in shock. We were told by the fertility doc we'd have to come back in the next time we wanted to conceive. Boy was he wrong. I know God is laughing with joy right now. The awesome thing is we were ready to grow our family, but we thought this would be through adoption when actually it was through me - on my own - no drugs - no fretting - surprise!

So, here I am at almost 16 weeks with a beautiful Christmas present on his/her way (due date is Dec 26). We have affectionately named this little blessing "Skittle" to keep with the candy theme (thanks, Canon!). I have been nauseous longer with this one and definitely more tired. I hear that happens when you're chasing a toddler around who is quite active.

M&M has no idea what's happening, and that might be for the best. She seems to do really well with little babies, though I have to teach her while she can point at her own eyes and mouth, she cannot do that to other small children.

So, what about adoption now? Well, we put that on hold for the next go round. We will be able to pick our homestudy back up when we're ready, and we know we'll be ready at some point and that adoption will still play a role in our lives...just not right now.

Pictures and more updates coming soon. I waited to post our super exciting news so we could tell some key people - we haven't reached all of them but I couldn't not share any longer.

Please pray for us in this exciting time. And for a few short months when I have two children under 2, I will really need your prayers. What a crazy, awesome journey we're on!