Let's Play

My parents have a house for sale just over the border in Missouri. With the bad housing market it has been on the market for a while (they don't live there anymore, it is just empty). Anyway, there was a swing/play set that my dad built at this house. It was not getting used at all and I don't think it was helping a whole lot to sell the house so they told me I could have it. We thought that sounded good to us. So, they took it apart and brought it to us a few weeks ago. And I finally got time to set it up yesterday.

Our friends Russ and Kristy came over for lunch so we had their daughter Sophie give it her stamp of approval. It is a little big for Esther yet but she will grow in to it and we know lots of kids who will enjoy playing on it. I had to do a little leveling with blocks since our land is not flat.

Esther really likes to swing. Hopefully soon I will get a little sandbox area set up under the platform that she can enjoy also

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Esther is getting big, and getting there fast. It is crazy to look at pictures of her when we first got her. This weekend we reached another milestone in her short life so far. Car seat upgrade. We moved up from the infant car seat to the convertible seat. The infant seat only goes to 22 pounds but the convertible goes to 65 pounds and can face back or front. Side note: New car seat guidelines were released a couple months ago. They now recommend that babies stay rear facing until they are two years old (it used to be 1 year old). Studies have shown that kids are 75% less likely to be seriously injured or killed in a car crash if they stay rear facing until 2 years. Okay, back to the post. Esther was looking really big in her infant car seat. One negative about switching her to the big seat is we can not take it out of the car with her in it like the infant seat. Usually if she fell asleep in the car we would just take her out in the car seat and let her continue to sleep, now we can't do that.

Here is an old pic of Esther in her seat, this is the day we brought her home. I wish I had got the whole seat in this pic for better comparison but you can look at the size of the tag next to her head for size comparisons.

Here she is on Saturday, she's a giant.

And her she is in her new seat.

A few pictures

Thought I would throw a few pictures on here to tide you over until we can put up a longer post.

Well

We have some big new on the Farm of Hale. We are growing again. It seems that we are pregnant. Seriously, not kidding. As some of you know we have some issues in the department of getting pregnant and were basically given an almost zero chance of getting pregnant. We tried for several years and were on some potent drugs for a while. Last year we stopped all the meds and decided to adopt. Which was awesome. What else can we say except that Esther is the best thing that has ever happened to us. Getting pregnant was not even a thought or consideration for us anymore. Well, we had us a good old fashioned miracle and got pregnant. It was quite a shock for us and very unexpected, but we will take it. Margo is 9 weeks and is due in mid December. We have had a couple ultrasounds and Margo is on some medication because she is at a higher risk for problems with her previously mentioned problems with her baby making parts.

Anyway, we are super excited and wanted to share the news. See ultrasound pic below.

I also want to go ahead and educate everyone really quick on something. I am not trying to be harsh here but more of just something that people should know. Fertility problems are hard. There are several things that people say that drive couples with fertility problems crazy and they can be hurtful. I know that people think they are being nice so we try to just smile and go on. Anyway, I wanted to share a couple things with you of what not to say to couples like us. First, when a couple is adopting because they can not have kids, don't say "I bet you will get pregnant after you adopt" "you will relax after you adopt and have a kid and get pregnant" and other statements that are similar. People who have dealt with infertility have dealt with a lot and had to go through realizing they will not get pregnant. It is hard, and these statements don't help, at all. There is a medical reason we are not able to get pregnant, adopting a baby does not change this. Second, if the couple does happen to get pregnant (like us), don't say "I knew that would happen", "it always happens to people who adopt". Again, these statements drive us crazy. We adopted because us having kids naturally is a very low chance, like 1% (it will vary from couple to couple). So not impossible but very unlikely. We found statistics that show that only 5% of people who adopt because they can not have kids get pregnant naturally down the road. So, that is my education of the day. If you have already said these things to us, we forgive you and there is no need to apologize. Just remember it the next time you are talking to someone like us. This was a total miracle for us and we give the credit to God, it wasn't "us relaxing" it was a God thing.


Here is our little blob

Happy First Mother's Day

Happy first mother's day Margo.