Thank you everyone for being so excited with us about our pregnancy! Sergi and I are completely overwhelmed by such an astounding flood of congratulations and warm comments. We did read ALL your comments and are so thankful to everyone who took the time to write and share in our happiness.
Announcing the Pregnancy to Our Families
The perfect opportunities to share our exciting news with our families came just a few weeks after our first visit to the doctor, when we finally confirmed that yes, indeed, we WERE pregnant.
The last two weekends of August, we celebrated the weddings of both our baby sisters. August 23rd, my baby sister, Karina, got married and on August 30th, Sergi's baby sister, Angie had her wedding day. Of course, all our family members came from near and far to celebrate such wonderful occasions.
The very first people to hear our very happy news were my parents. It had been so hard not to tell them up until that point, but I really wanted to tell them in person, not on the phone. In the days leading up to the wedding, we had different groups of family members arriving at different times, and my parents were going to be staying with my brother and his wife. I was just about to leave for work one evening, when my parents arrived from New York, and they decided to stop by our place for a few minutes. This was our chance! Our other guests weren't there at the time, so it was perfect timing. We told my parents to sit down and then I placed the ultrasound pictures in front of them. There they were, sitting at our dinning room table, staring at something that had for so many years seemed impossible, a picture of our baby. 
My Dad got a huge smile on his face and Mom immediately started to cry. I can safely say that they were completely shocked by the news. We asked them to keep it a secret for a few days until we told the others. There was a lot of crying and hugging in a short five minutes, because I had to run out the door quickly so as not to be late for work.
Since we had just moved into our new home, we invited my family for a "housewarming party" to our house. Little did they know that this was just a ruse to spring our surprise news on them. 
After eating our dinner, Sergi stood up and gave a beautiful speech about how blessed we were to have such an amazing family, thanked them all for their hard work helping us move and remodel (which we couldn't have done without them; they were incredible!), and finished it off saying that we were so thankful for the beautiful home God had blessed us with and a NEW BABY that was coming this spring.
I was expecting everyone to be excited, but at that point, the entire room erupted with emotions. Everyone jumped up from the table and started crying, hugging, laughing and shouting. It was a beautiful moment that will always be ingrained in my memory. My two nieces were literally sobbing from fear. They couldn't understand why all the grownups were weeping, hugging, making so much noise and had completely gone crazy. My Dad patiently calmed their fears and explained that we were all very happy that Aunt Olga and Uncle Sergi were going to have a little baby. 
Sergi and I had ordered a cake from a local bakery to go with the announcement. It turned out so cute and was really delicious too, a Cannoli cake, which is a favorite in our family. It was a long time before we all settled down.
We had wanted to do the same type of pregnancy reveal for Sergi's family the next weekend, since all of his family was in the area for Angie's wedding. Their family is twice bigger in size than my family, so it was very challenging to get them all together at the same time, and the schedule never worked out for us to get together with everyone. Of course, we were really disappointed, but we knew we needed to tell them all at the same time, because if you tell one, it will quickly spread, you know how it goes:). We sent them all a group message with our news and some pictures, of course. This time, the phone exploded with everyone's excitement:). They were definitely shocked, but everyone was thrilled.
My Health, Food Cravings/Aversions
As I already mentioned in the first post, the sight, smell and even thought of meat turns my stomach upside down. You might have noticed that recently my blog posts have all been meatless:). My poor meat loving husband. I do try to still make something with meat for him sometimes, in that case I can't even look at it when he's eating it, LOL. For the most part, though, we've become almost vegetarians.
When I can tolerate food and feel somewhat hungry, I've been craving all kinds of pickled foods and veggies in any way, shape or form. I want them grilled, roasted, steamed, you name it. The only other foods that I can tolerate are really bland types of food, like bread, toast, sushki, applesauce, apples, bananas and soup.
Pregnancy aside, I have to deal with a lot of GI issues on a regular basis. (If you're new here and don't know about why I have GI problems, you can read more about it here, and here.) When I became pregnant, not only did I have morning sickness, but the pregnancy heightened all my other issues as well. Lately, it's been really hard to keep down any food at all and instead of gaining weight, I lost weight and was extremely dehydrated. Because of this, I've spend the last few weeks in bed or on our living room couch, since I am too weak to do much else. I just had a PICC line placed yesterday and have been getting IV fluids at home. 
A PICC line is a peripherally inserted central catheter, that is a more permanent type of IV, so now I don't have to be poked every time I need a new IV. The doctors are vigorously checking up on my lab work and adding whatever I am lacking to the IV fluids. I am so thankful for modern medicine and for my amazing doctors, who are taking really great care of me and the baby.
The most important thing is that the baby is the perfect size and is growing right on target. The doctors assured me that in my case, since my only issue is malnutrition and dehydration due to my short bowel syndrome, and I don't have any other medical conditions, that they baby should be just fine. Babies will take everything that they need to grow from the mom, but the mother might suffer because of it. I think it's so amazing how God engineered it all and I am really thankful that the baby is growing and thriving. The baby will be delivered by c-section when I am about 39 weeks pregnant, unless I go into labor sooner. Hopefully, I will be feeling better soon, but for now, I just think about my precious little one, nestled within me and thank God for sending us this miracle.
May God bless your family!!! God is AMAZiNG!
I've read your whole story and it made me realize how ungrateful sometimes we are.
We are expecting our first baby and it hasn't been an easy pregnancy... Thank you for sharing your story!
AMAZING!!!!!!
Congratulations to both of you!
Praise God He is so good to us!
May God give you good health and everything you need!
So happy for you!
Olga, I am so happy for you! Your post brought tears to my eyes, reminding me how great our God is! From your blog and posts, I can see God in you and He will always take care of those who love him. I pray that your pregnancy goes smoothly with no complications and that the little person in you comes into this world healthy, beautiful, and peaceful.
Gods blessings!
Congrads Olga! I am so excited for you guys and so happy to hear such great news! May God bless you with a healthy pregnancy and a healthy beautiful baby!
I was craving a lot of apples during my pregnancy as well. Apples are good for the baby's brain development, so keep eating those apples for your precious little baby 🙂
Oh my I don't know we're to start
Congrats Olya and Sergey!!! I know that you don't know a lot of your fans, but all my sisters and I are so excited and happy for you! We go through life and as Christians we know that our God is a God of miracles and then when you see an obvious miracle, you just can't help but be in awe of the One we serve. Everything is in His perfect timing!!! Again, happy for you and hope that pregnancy will go smoothly and you will be blessed with a healthy, beautiful and spokoinen'ki rebenochek!!!!
Olga&Sergi CONGRATULATIONS!!! We are so so so happy and super excited for you! Our God is AWESOME! He knows what He is doing and His timing is always perfect! Hope you feel better soon Olga. Have a happy and healthy pregnancy! P.S. I craved apples during my first pregnancy:-)
Such a beautiful story! Im so happy for both of u! I was crying reading this post! May God Bless you and ur baby for a safe and successful delivery!
It so nice to hear from you how God made such miracle for you! I saw on the cake the sign of "gues what? March 6 2015" is that the day when u will have a Csection? Our first daughter was born on March 6 🙂 and I still remember how sweet it was when the spring comes with a new borning leaves and grass and everithing awakens from thevsleep and a new life comes to this world. It is such a nice feeling! Good luck to you and all the best wishes and wish to you a very good health. May God bless your pregnancy and comming little lady or gentelman! :)))
Congratulations!!!! I am very happy for you both!!!! Our God indeed is a wonderful God, who does the impossible!!!! May He bless the rest of your pregnancy!!!
Congratulations Olga!
When I first discovered your blog several months ago, I sat there for hours reading everything. Ever since then I have been checking back daily and making most of your recipe's. You inspired us to actively start pursing fostering again (which I hope you can continue as well). Anyway I am just so happy that you are pregnant, Our God really is amazing. God bless you on this pregnancy and delivery.
That AWESOME, congratulations to both of you! I've been using your recipes and following everything you post. When I read you are pregnant I got soooooo happy--the news made my day (and I don't even know you in person how amazing is that!!!??) I've followed you through all of the experiences you've been blogging about ; from the unfortunate pregnancy and nearly losing your life, the attempts to adopt a Russian kid, all the way to your foster parent experiences (amazing and heart-breaking at the same time). All the way through I kept wishing for you to get pregnant and I am so so glad my wish came through :). You so deserved it! Hope all goes well with your pregnancy and that you enjoy the experience to the max despite the side-effects. I also really hope its not to much of a burden on your own (fragile) health-- take care of yourself! Thanks for all of the wonderful recipes and tips and keep us all posted on how things are unfolding.
Congrats Olga! I have been following your story for a while and I'm so excited for both of you! What a wonderful blessing! I was very ill with my first daughter as well and lost weight as a result and ended up at a hospital with the IV as well. I also had exactly the same cravings as you are having. Vegetables, fruits, and no meat! I lived on bland turkey sandwich! As I was reading this post I was taken back to that difficult and at the same time special time. Thank you for sharing your story and please keep us posted on your well being! Blessings to you from my family to yours! 🙂
Congratulations on your pregnancy, may God bless this little one till the end. My heart goes out to you. Since I found your wonderful blog I can enjoy your recipes and pray for your family. After 2 miscarriages we decided to adopt. Right before the process was to start we had to refinance our house. While dealing with it I started to get sick and few weeks later found out we were pregnant. Because of the previous history and losing one of our babies at 16 weeks the next few months were a challenge. Our miracle girl turned 2 this Aug. God is good. Blessings to your growing family
Olga! Congrats to you and Sergey! You guys have been through so much... But God sees our hearts and He is faithful! As you opened your hearts and your home to those little babies that are less fortunate God has blessed you with your own!!! All I can say is God bless you and your baby!