Pregnancy: Messy and Unfiltered

First of all, a heartfelt THANK YOU to the hundreds of you who've read our blog, texted me, called me, posted on Facebook, emailed/messaged me, and hugged me over the past week. It has been quite humbling and overwhelming to receive your joy and congratulations. It has literally enCOURAGEd me and boltered my capacity to celebrate this pregnancy more freely. Thank you.

Also, thank you for carefully guarding your tongue as you've jubilantly celebrated this pregnancy. While we have been recipients of "stupid comments", it pales in comparison to the sensitive, thoughtful, and loving words we've received. For that I am most profoundly grateful.

So, on to some of your questions - stated and sensed - as to "how are you feeling?" in this pregnancy.

PHYSICALLY :: Not bad considering I'm growing a human inside of me [so weird, right?!?]. My first trimester wasn't wonderful but it was so much better than many of my friends' pregnancies. I never puked and only felt nauseous for about a month off and on. My biggest nemesis was exhaustion. Pure, utter, uncontrollable exhaustion. For a while I couldn't decipher whether it was because I was pregnant or just tired from working full time and being a mom to two toddlers. Eventually, I gave in to the reality that it was all of it combined. Brian said I've been at 60-70% of my normal capacity, but since my coworkers couldn't tell most of the time I consider that pretty darn good.

I've felt pregnant since before we officially found out in mid-October because of the wacky symptoms I was experiencing. But since we aren't conversing over a cup of decaf coffee, I'll spare you the unappetizing specifics. Suffice it to say that what makes you impregnate-able beforehand makes you not-so-attractive after getting knocked up. Follow me?

EMOTIONALLY :: This is a loaded one question. Like I alluded in my previous post, I will unpack this further in the days to come. Yet I will elaborate a bit more here. We wanted to adopt again. I didn't want to get pregnant after experiencing the miracle of adoption. I had FULLY died to the dream of carrying a child and was totally accepting of that. The thought of having 3 kids under the age of 4 join our family in the span of 18 months is quite intimidating. The fact that we drive 2 Honda Civics and live in a cozy 2 bedroom, 1100 square foot condo without a washer/dryer cramps my style. The shocking reality that our baby will not be black like his/her sibling still confounds me. The fears of others' comments about Judah and Addise and Baby #3 could be paralyzing if I thought about it too long. Accepting that my body is hosting then sustaining another's life for nearly 18 months doesn't fit my ideal. It's also been a bit guilt inducing that I'm not altogether joyful about this miracle. After all we've been through, why wouldn't my wholehearted, exclusive response be worship to Creator God?

These are not insurmountable feelings, but they are requiring me to name them all and take them to the Cross where Jesus can deal with them and me together. My feelings are nothing God is surprised by nor overwhelmed with. He's been patient with me as I've taken them to him one by one and let him transform them.

Emotionally, it's also a HUGE relief that people now know. I felt like a fraud and liar for 6+ weeks walking around. When people asked, "how are you?" I wanted to blurt out, "PREGNANT! What the $&@%?!?" But instead I eeked out some lame response. I also feel more authentic in my clothes, not trying so desperately to hide a belly demanding attention. Daily I felt betrayed by my tightening jeans and unforgiving shirts. Finally, I can say, "I'm pregnant. I'm not just getting fat." What a load off.

RELATIONALLY :: Brian and I are doing really well. Honestly, he's been way more excited [albeit still very overwhelmed] than I have since day one. But he's been careful and sensitive to allowing me to journey through my emotions. He's really the most amazing, wise man. He has said that I've been more irritable and grumpy with him, but he gets that I've been growing body parts inside of my body. As a sci-fi guy, he gets this and sympathizes. Our time together seems to be more defined by exhaustion these days [me growing a baby; him pulling extra weight in our family], but after 10+ years of marriage there's a deep connection and "I got your back" determination.

Our kiddos are also doing great with this news they don't fully understand. When I ask Addise where mommy's baby is, she gets a very puzzled and determined look over her face, then repeats "baby" on turbo speed until she finds one of her baby dolls and brings it to me. Pure simplicity! When I ask Judah where the baby is, he replies verbatim every time, "there's a baby in mommy's belly." The other morning I asked him while he was playing and he said the above statement, then ran over to me, pointed to my bulging belly and cleverly exclaimed, "I found it!" Pure joy!

SPIRITUALLY :: This is the most wonderfully messy and complex part. Again, I promise to unpack my soul over the coming posts, but I will say I'm in a familiar a place of surrender and dependency like I was throughout our adoption journey. As a friend told me today, "God reminded me for you that he's way more interested in the journey than the outcome. God said 'Journey'." Very little of this pregnancy makes sense to me other than God proving that he's a God of miracles and humor. In fact, laughter is my favorite response from people when they find out we are pregnant. It shows they've entered into the craziness with us. Wonder and awe are my next favorite responses because those seem to make sense with who God is to us, too. [Although a shock-filled response is most like our response.]

Prayers are greatly appreciated. Any words from the Lord? We'll take them. Just be sure he wants us to hear "that" word now. :) There's a lot to figure out in the next 27 weeks. Ai ai ai. And because I'm feeling bold this evening, my first pregnancy picture...

12 weeks pregnant...cannot believe the size of this baby bump!


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April L. Diaz

April has been a visionary activist her entire life. She has made it her mission to lead high performing teams and develop leaders in the margins of society while caring for our bodies, mind, and spirit. Secretly, she’s a mix of a total girly girl and a tomboy, and is still crazy about her high school sweetheart, Brian. Together, they co-parent 3 fabulous kiddos and live in Orange County, CA.

Expecting the Unexpected

There were a lot of things that we expected when we brought home Judah and Addise 11 months ago. Getting pregnant was not one of those things. SURPRISE - WE ARE PREGNANT! We are expecting a baby and it's completely unexpected! We are currently at 12 weeks.

Ok. Pick your jaw up off the floor. Grab a Kleenex box. Catch your breath. And shout out a couple desperate prayers for us. Then, read on [if you dare] for the saga that has been our Fall.

If you've been reading our story for long, you know that adopting Judah and Addise was our family's PLAN A. God planted that dream in our hearts long ago. However, we expected to have biological children before adopting. Making a deeply long and painful story short, after three years of trying to get pregnant - including over a year of extensive and intensive infertility treatment - we decided to start the adoption process. You can read much of our story on our blog [TIP: search "pain" for many of those posts].

Since becoming Judah and Addise's parents, we have been BLISSFULLY HAPPY. Complete. Whole. The old dream of having biological children had all but disappeared. Most days it feels like I birthed J & A because I so fully know I'm their momma. And then I remember they're black and I'm not. :)

Then, in mid-September I had a DREAM. I don't often dream and remember. But this felt like a dream from God. It was simple: I dreamed I was pregnant and it culminated in a baby. I woke up terrified. I didn't tell Brian because it freaked me out. A couple weeks later we were out on a date and I casually said, "Hey, just so ya know, I had a dream that we were pregnant. And it felt like a God-dream. It's probably nothing, but just in case something happens, I want you to know." What followed was a very brief and freaked out conversation.

As it turned out, I was barely pregnant when I had that dream.

A couple weeks later, I started wondering if something was going on with my body. Too many ODD THINGS HAPPENING IN MY BODY. So, I took a home pregnancy test and it turned positive right away [October 13th]. I immediately called Brian to the bathroom. We stared at the test together and had no words. I had never received a positive pregnancy test before. Scores of negative tests, but never a positive. We freaked out. Brian laughed nervously. Shortly after we took another test. It was like that second line couldn't appear fast enough. I felt light-headed. There are not appropriate words in the English language to describe my emotions that night or in the days that followed.

Needless to say, it's been an EMOTIONAL 6 WEEKS since we first took that pregnancy test and first heard our baby's heartbeat [October 17]. Honestly, I've been grieving and surrendering and embracing our new reality WAY MORE than simply celebrating. It's been messy. I will blog more about this soon, so please hold your judgment until I can explain this unlikely reaction. I will say that after seeing our baby at our most recent appointment, there was much delight and joy from Brian and me. I'm starting to get excited about Judah and Addise's baby brother/sister. And I'm starting to embrace my bulging body. :)

One of the reasons I've been wrestling is because of the "PREGNANCY-AFTER-ADOPTION MYTH". We've expected to hear "we knew you'd get pregnant after you brought those babies home". The truth is that less than 10% of couples who struggle with infertility then adopt EVER get pregnant [many stats place odds around 3-8% and the stats don't budge based on adoption or not]. Ultimately, I feel very sensitive for couples currently experiencing infertility AND protective over J & A never feeling 2nd choice. I will say this until I die: I'm profoundly grateful God chose this path for us because of the immeasurable blessings of Judah and Addise in our lives.

God-willing, Baby Diaz #3 will enter the world around June 10. What happens when you receive unexpected news? Chances are, it reveals something much deeper in your soul. I look forward to sharing honestly and vulnerably what's emerged from my soul as a result of this pregnancy.


Until then, thanks for joining us in celebrating our new life!

PS. In my next couple posts, I'll do my best to respond to whatever questions you post here.  :)

23 Comments

April L. Diaz

April has been a visionary activist her entire life. She has made it her mission to lead high performing teams and develop leaders in the margins of society while caring for our bodies, mind, and spirit. Secretly, she’s a mix of a total girly girl and a tomboy, and is still crazy about her high school sweetheart, Brian. Together, they co-parent 3 fabulous kiddos and live in Orange County, CA.

Dedicating Judah and Addise

It happened on Orphan Sunday, November 6th.

I didn't imagine it would take us 11 months to dedicate Judah and Addise back to God at our church. But God knew. Sunday marked 1 year to the day when we met Judah and Addise in Ethiopia. One year prior on Orphan Sunday we were headed to Ethiopia and shared THIS VIDEO with our unsuspecting church family. One year later, it was overwhelming to see all God has done in our family.

As we celebrated Orphan Sunday at Newsong, we weren't celebrating the 140+ million orphans in the world, but were celebrating how God is awakening the hearts of our community to care for orphans and vulnerable children, locally and globally. One of the ways our church celebrated this was dedicating 6 children who've been adopted this year by 4 Newsong families.

Our church practices baby/child dedications for a couple main reasons:

  • Our Children are God's and Have Always Been. Hannah in the Old Testament models dedicating her son back to God in 1 Samuel 1:9-18. I resonate so much with Hannah because of her infertility and struggle to become a mom, but also for her unwavering faith in her God. For years, Hannah's been a biblical companion to me. Dedicating our children is a statement of faith, hope, and commitment for parents.
  • We Need the Village. The Shema in Deuteronomy 6:1-9 is often inadvertently misquoted as a command for parents to raise up their children to know and whole-heartedly love God. But the "you's" of this passage are actually more like "all y'all's" calling the faith community to raise a child in the ways of Jesus. As we dedicate our kids, we remind the church community of their responsibility and privilege to partner with us.

It was beyond meaningful to dedicate Judah and Addise with the 4 families we stood with on Sunday. All of our families are interconnected. The Kim's are some of our dearest friends and our adoption journeys [though VERY different] happened simultaneously with ours. The mom in the second family was our social worker for our home study AND the social worker for the last family, the Rhee's. We are connected to the Rhee's because God also surprised them in adopting 2 boys - not just 1! And we have served together throughout Newsong for years.

When we thought about dedicating our kids at Newsong, it meant the world because this faith community literally prayed and sacrificially gave so Judah and Addise could come home. They walked us through the lows of infertility and the roller coaster of our 22 month adoption. For them to witness and support us on this day, was supernatural.

We chose a couple very specific and important things for our kids on this epic day. First, Judah and Addise both wore traditional outfits that we bought for them 1 year ago in Ethiopia. Amazingly enough, they fit and they were beautiful on our kids!

Second, we asked Julie [our children's pastor and my co-worker] and Ed [a co-worker and close friend over the past 6 years] to dedicate our kids. The weight of their words sits deep in our spirit.

Third, we also chose Biblical life verses for our kids.  Judah's name means "praise", so we felt it was very meaningful to choose Psalm 117 which also affirms his heritage, blesses his story, and calls out the man we want him to be...

"Praise the Lord, all you nations. Praise him, all you people of the earth. For he loves us with unfailing love; the Lord’s faithfulness endures forever. Praise the Lord!"

    Addise's name means "new life" so we chose Jeremiah 31:17 which is Brian's favorite biblical book and also affirms her history and story. This entire chapter is also ALL about hope for the restoration of God's people. It's perfect for her...

    "They will come home and sing songs of joy on the heights of Jerusalem.
          They will be radiant because of the Lord’s good gifts—
       the abundant crops of grain, new wine, and olive oil,
          and the healthy flocks and herds.
       Their life will be like a watered garden,
          and all their sorrows will be gone."



    Grab a Kleenex and enjoy this 9 minute video of our kids' dedication...

    6 Comments

    April L. Diaz

    April has been a visionary activist her entire life. She has made it her mission to lead high performing teams and develop leaders in the margins of society while caring for our bodies, mind, and spirit. Secretly, she’s a mix of a total girly girl and a tomboy, and is still crazy about her high school sweetheart, Brian. Together, they co-parent 3 fabulous kiddos and live in Orange County, CA.