I am now 20 weeks.  Wow!  People are definitely starting to notice around here; although, I can still fit in to a couple of my non-maternity pants.  I felt Grace for the first time last night.  She gave a mighty kick that surprised me so much I jumped up off the couch.  I haven’t been able to feel any small movements yet, but I sure felt that!

At this point I should have gained about 10 lbs but instead I have lost 2.  Sierra ordered me whey protein shakes that I have to drink twice a day in order to bulk up.  The powder hasn’t come in yet, but I’m not really looking forward to these drinks.  I’m not too worried since Grace’s estimated weight at our last ultrasound was on target for how big she should be right now and I’m sure that when we get home I will make up for lost weight.  🙂

We’ve recently added a bunch of new pictures. We just got Andy’s 18 month pictures and they are really cute but there are 190 of them, so we only posted a few.  I’ll try to post some more over the next few days as I have time to look at them some more.  Enjoy!

Well…today we met with a new lawyer for a consult.  She was recommended to us by a District Children’s Officer that had worked with an American couple that we know on their adoption from the Sally Test Center.  Mrs. Odede was very nice and had a lot of information.  She also knows the two women that we are working with at Little Angels and called both of them while we were in her office and she is going to see the DCO that we are working with this afternoon.  Also, she will be in Nairobi later this week and is going to take Susan (from Little Angels) to meet with the National District Children’s Officer in Nairobi who has to give us her final blessing before we can wrap things up with Eden.  She was quite surprised with all that we have done so far and was very impressed with our guardianship/custody and exemption orders.

Little Angels had asked that we update our home study from the US which was completed in 2009.  It’s not possible to do that while we are here and Little Angels is concerned that we won’t be given the go-ahead on Eden without the proper paperwork.  So, Mrs. Odede has recommended that we look in to getting another travel order for Eden (an extended one that lasts even until she turns 18) and then try to get a visitors visa with multiple entries to the US.  This would allow us to come home for the birth of Grace and stay until Grace is over 1.  While in the US, Mrs. Odede said that we can continue with the adoption process, getting our paperwork submitted with Little Angels and waiting for them to grant us permission to adopt Eden.  Then when we return we would have 3 months or less of wait time for the court proceedings to take place and then Eden would be officially ours.

There are several benefits to this plan.  One being that we could all be home together for Grace’s birth.  Another being that we could possibly get a custody/guardianship order from the high courts now and in two years (around the time the adoption is finalized), we would be able to get her I-130 visa since this is a hang-up with the USCIS office.  Finally, it would give us the best chance of being able to finalize Eden’s adoption without spending an extended amount of time in Kenya.

There are also some drawbacks.  This of course drags out the adoption process which we are eager to finish.  We don’t know that we would be able to get this visa for Eden to come back to the US.  And we would probably be gone for several months in the fall of 2013 which would be the beginning of Eden’s second year of preschool and Andy’s first year.  I hate the thought of disrupting their schooling, but I think I could home school them for one semester without them losing too much and they could start back in January.

Anyway, it’s a lot to think about and, as always, hinges on a lot of things going our way.  We need to get with our lawyer, Were, and come up with a plan.  Thankfully we have great prayer warriors out there and we know that God has brought us through so many obstacles unscathed already that we are up for whatever comes next.

On a side note, August was a rough month for us.  I told Ben I felt like it was our ‘hump month’.  We made it through August and I personally feel much better about things.  I can make it until October, and maybe even December if I have to!

We had an ultrasound last Thursday at the Mother Baby Hospital here.  The ultrasound machine is quite old and doesn’t give a very big or very clear picture, so we went to a private clinic yesterday for another ultrasound.  Both doctors told us (one 60% and one 80%) that the baby is a girl!

Her name is Grace Elizabeth after my two great-grandmothers on my Mom’s side.  Eden has taken to calling her Little Gracie.  It was very fun to see her on the ultrasound.  Yesterday we were able to see a lot of clear pictures and hear her heartbeat.  Her limbs were all there, her brain looked good and her spine was perfect.  We even got to see a quick image of her cute little face!

We are so glad that everything is going well and that she is healthy and we’re very excited to have another daughter!

I cannot believe that Andy is so old!  He has been sick and had a fever today and fell asleep in my arms and I just looked at him, shocked that he has grown so fast.  He is very active and is talking a lot these days.  He climbs on everything, is trying to jump, runs like crazy and is suddenly very independent.  He no longer wants to be fed, but isn’t quite coordinated enough to do it himself.  It makes for some tears at mealtime, but we’ve found that if we put food on his fork or spoon and let him put it in his mouth he is much happier.

He has taken to calling people by the last syllable of their name so now Sonak is “Nak” and Rahab is “Hab”.  He thinks it’s very funny.  I’m amazed at how many people he can call by name.  I tried to count and came up with over 20.  He loves playing with the other kids here (Gavin who just turned 1, and Ellana who is a couple of months younger than Andy).  He gets very excited when he sees them and bends down and screams, “HI ELLANA!!” or “HI GAVIN!!” right in their faces.  His newest word is ‘dude’ which he picked up from me saying it to Ben.  He has also started calling Ben ‘Ben’ instead of Daddy and cracks himself up when he does it.

Andy still loves vehicles and has a big collection of toy cars and trucks now.  He still loves to snuggle and likes to get in his bed and curl up with his twigas and blankie any chance he gets.  He will go in to his room and bang on the zipper end of his bed yelling, “Open!” until someone goes in and unzips it for him.  He would sit in his seat and watch movies all day so we’ve had to start putting the dvd player up so that he can’t see it.  He’s figured out which button makes the movies play, so if we forget to put it up we often find him sitting on the table watching movies that he started by himself.

We had his 18 month pictures taken today by our friend Chrissie, Gavin’s mom, and will post them when we see them.  He did a really good job and wasn’t too smiley but didn’t cry or make a stink.