Blogging for 4 years

I started this blog on 12/22/06 to chronicle our adoption of 2-3 children from Ukraine. God had other plans in store for our family! I am copying Joy's idea and listing the 11 posts that had the most comments over the past 4 years. Over the last 4 years over 1,500 comments have been posted on my blog. I greatly appreciate comments as well as messages on Facebook and emails in reference to one of my posts! Eight of the posts listed below were from 2008, one from 2007, and two from 2009. No posts from 2006 or 2010 had at least 10 comments. Fifty-seven of the 129 comments listed below came within four days of Nadia's birth. Two of the posts were about Ian (the pregnancy announcement and the birth story), and the other nine posts were about Nadia. I haven't changed the url, but a couple of months ago I changed the title of the blog from "Journey to our children" to "Journey with our children" because it seems that unless there is a surprise in the future, our family is complete.

23 - NST (6/23/08)
13 - Birth Story! (6/25/08)
11 - Birth Story (12/13/09)
11 - We're thinking PINK! (3/4/08)
11 - Firsts (6/28/08)
10 - PREGNANT! (11/9/07)
10 - Baby Registries (1/20/08)
10 - She has a name! (5/16/08)
10 - Stats (6/26/08)
10 - Huggies?? (9/13/08)
10 - Two Lines!!! (5/11/09)

I also have been thinking about 12/22/09. What a VERY happy day that was! Ian was released from the NICU. It seems wrong to say this, but honestly that day (12/22) was happier for me than the day of his birth (12/12). I knew when I gave birth on 12/22 that he'd be heading to the NICU, and I knew from our experience with Nadia what a horribly stressful experience that would be. I also knew that I wouldn't get to hold him on the day of his birth, and I knew that due to H1N1 I would be experiencing a long separation from Nadia. Up until that point I hadn't spent even one day (or one night) apart from her. We did have a little contact a few times during those 11 days, but it was still very, very hard to be separated from her that long. The day I was able to come home from the hospital, sleep in my own bed (I should say just sleep in ANY bed since the last few days I was at the hospital I had no bed), be reunited with my daughter, and bring my son home was a VERY happy day. It has been SOOO wonderful to be a family of four the past year!