I think it is so much fun to see my pregnant belly sticking out. It's not as big as I thought it would be at 7 months, but it's definitely noticeable (it doesn't just look like I have been visiting the ice cream aisle too much).
Before I was pregnant, when I so desperately wanted to be pregnant, I used to sit in nice hot bubble baths just staring at my stomach. This more or less happened when I was bloated thanks to my menstrual cycle. I would stare at my belly (that was a little round from bloat) and just wish it was because I was pregnant and not because I was retaining water. Now (like last night), I sit in bubble baths and just stare at my pregnant belly. And every time I look in a mirror I can't help but to smooth my shirt over my belly and admire it. I'm in awe. Because to be completely honest, I never thought this would be me. I thought it would always just be something that I would watch family, friends, and strangers experience.
But God had other plans for me...so I am trying my best to enjoy every moment of this pregnancy, just in case it's my last. But I'm hopeful that we will have a surprise pregnancy in the future. I think it would be great to have an adopted child, a child from IVF, and then a complete surprise. I also want to adopt again. Since we adopted our son through CAS and CAS's policy is to try their best to keep families together, if either of J's birth parents have another child that needs to come into care, we would be notified first and given the option to adopt his sibling (which we would do in a heartbeat). It would be another roller coaster of working things through the court system and the potential for the adoption to not go through (like what happened with our first experience with CAS), but it would be a chance we would be willing to take.
One of my biggest fears with J is him wondering why we decided to do IVF after we adopted him. I never want him to think that we did it because we wanted a child who was biologically related to us. That would break my heart. That's not the case at all. It was because I wanted to carry a child, feel a child growing inside of me, and to experience labour (if I could have experienced this carrying J, I would have). God made my body to do this and it's something I felt I needed to do. It wouldn't have mattered if we did IVF and used a donor embryo, a donor egg, or donor sperm (and for a while, it looked like we were going to have to use a donor). All that mattered to me was to be able to have the experience of pregnancy, not the biological ties. Yes, it will be neat to see our features in this child, but it is amazing to see how well J's features actually match ours (well, not so much me). Everyone comments on how much J looks like my hubby and how his red hair matches my brother's, and once you get to know J and I, you can see how much he acts like me. Nothing, and I mean nothing, could ever make me love the child I am carrying now more than I love J. I look at J and he is my son. It doesn't matter that I did not carry him or that he is not biologically mine, all that matters is he is my son, my family, and this is how God intended it to be. I hope if he ever does ask me this when he is older, that he will understand that it was never because he wasn't enough. J is my entire world and I am so glad we decided to choose adoption first.
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