By His Grace

I just booked our plane tickets to go down and have lunch with our birthmom in a few weeks. I would much rather drive because I am not a fan of flying but this trip makes more sense to fly since it would take a while to drive there for just a two day trip. This is starting to get more real and I am starting to get excited. In six days I will have a conference call with our birthmom and I think after that I will really start to let my guard down. We still have a little less than 3.5 months to go and time is passing by quickly.

We still do not know the gender and I am not sure if she is waiting until we see her in person to tell us or if maybe she just hasn't found out yet. I don't mind not knowing the gender - I think our family members are more concerned than we are about finding out! It's sweet how they cannot wait to find out if the baby will be a boy or a girl. Kyle and one of my sisters said they think it will be a boy since both of the failed adoptions were girls. I don't really have a guess either way. I think the baby will be a girl even though several times over the past couple of years I have had very vivid dreams of us having a little boy. I kind of hope we don't find out the gender until either birth or until a few weeks until the due date...finding out late like that will prevent my heart from completely going into love overload (let's face it, it's already in love overload for our child and that is definitely not a bad thing).

I just completed week 8 out of week 9 of a running program I have been doing. It's really helped to take the stress off and somewhat clear my mind (okay, let's be honest - in the adoption journey one's mind is never cleared!). My sweet husband, who is in incredible shape, has been doing the running program with me. The last couple of weeks have been challenging for me and he is there right by my side encouraging me when I feel like giving up. He is so sweet and I cannot wait to see him encouraging our child when he or she is older. Kyle has such a patient heart and a sweet demeanor. To see him with our niece is breathtaking...I can only imagine how I will feel when I see him with our child.