Happy New Year!

2009 is already here...seems like 2008 flew by....lots and lots happened in 08...Hubby deployed in January for 4 months to Iraq, I traveled the USA...visiting friends and family...In May right before Mother's Day and a couple weeks before Hubby returned from Iraq I flew from TX to SC to adopt a little boy. My first Mother's Day...it was bittersweet. I brought him home on Thursday from the hospital, the birth parents signed the paperwork on Friday and the Monday after Mother's Day the birth mother called to say she changed her mind. Tuesday she went to the lawyer to sign new paperwork revoking the original and I took him to her home Tuesday night. On Friday I was back home in TX...what a whirlwind. Hubby returned, we wept and took care of each other, spoke of this loss and resolved that we would start a family somehow.

After 5 years of unexplained infertility, lots of drugs, shots, procedures, grieving the loss of a would be child month after month, a failed adoption and then the overwhelming thoughts that we would have to start all over again....IT happened. I was late, I thought maybe I am pregnant and then decided I had played that game with myself month upon month, year after year....I should just accept that we were not going to get pregnant. I started to have some light cramping, going to bed in the middle of the day...to cry it out, accept yet another month of lost ability and this promise of a child right outside of my reach...I laid there, grieving, my little Elliot curled up beside me....then well..life will go on....I got up and proceeded to put the disappointment behind me. Late that night after still not starting I decided to take a test...and the rest is as is said history.

I am now on week 26...one week away from the start of my third trimester. I am feeling great for the most part. She has changed position recently and the physical feeling of carrying her inside of me has changed. The weight in my pelvic area is new and her movement areas have changed. Last week they were on the sides of my belly and now I feel her more everywhere. I know she has grown by where I can feel her....sometimes I feel movement at the top of my belly and at the same time at the bottom or on one of my sides. I've started to go to bed earlier...not to go to sleep...but sit in the quiet and feel her movement....enjoy the miracle of what is going on inside of me...revel in it...contemplate and allow myself to be absorbed in the idea of a daughter...of me becoming a Mom.

This past 20 plus weeks have been quite the journey. Much to do in preparation for her arrival, diapers to buy and wash, a room to set up, more books to read...more quiet evenings of reveling to enjoy. On New Year's Eve when the clock stuck midnight and my Hubby held me in his arms with our little girl moving in my belly...the THREE of us together...I could not help but marvel at the wonder and newness that this new year is going to be bringing to our door. I've said that 2000 was a wonderful year for me....my favorite so far...I'm pretty sure 2009 will surpass the wonderfulness of 2000 and I can't wait to live this year out!

Peace and Joy!
Nili