5 months old

March 1, 2010

Dear Heath~

You are 5 months old today (well, yesterday – but there was no February 29th this year so it's today). You continue to delight and amaze us!

You're sleeping through the night almost constantly. We give you a bottle around 5 or 6 pm and put you in your jammies (most of which you are quickly outgrowing!). Between 7 or 8 pm you fall asleep for the night.We usually don't have to get up with you until 430 or 5 in the morning! The pack and play is still in our bedroom so you're very easy to get to!

The exersaucer is your favorite piece of equipment. You can pull the things to make noise and music. You love to lurch back and forth in it while throwing your hands up in the air, squealing and smiling. Today, I thought you were going to flip it you had it rocking so much! You've just started to laugh occasionally. It's the best sound in the world and squeezes my heart!

You HATE to miss anything. You're constantly looking around, craning your neck and twisting your body to follow the puppy, papa, me or Nicky. When it's time to go to sleep you fuss and cry while rubbing your eyes and kicking your feet. It goes on and on and the POOF! All the sudden it stops and you are conked out. Pulling your blanket, lovey, or bib up over your face and eyes is a favorite thing to do. If we dare to pull them down or move then away from your face or mouth you wake up and glare at us! It makes us laugh everytime.

We've tried giving you cereal for a month now. Horrified is the best way to describe. I managed to capture your expression on film. It's priceless! Although, you love to eat, cereal is not cutting it. Sometimes with your bottle you're eating 8oz of formula. You've just started pushing the bottle away if you're not interested or jamming it back in your mouth if you want more.

I've been calling you “rootie toot toot” because of how gassy and stinky you are! Sometimes the puppy will even leave the room – and he LOVES stinky stuff!

We finally got your social security card in the mail. The next step is to go and get your passport. You and I went to the photographer here in town to get your passport pictures taken. The photographer said they were the cutest baby passport pictures he'd ever taken in 25 years!

Your birthmom loves you and misses you. She called the other night to make sure you were o.k. (you were). She said to give you “lots of loves”.

We need to measure and weigh you again. It seems like you are much bigger (and longer) all of the sudden.

Heath, you are such a delight. We love you to pieces! We can't believe you've been ours for 5 months already!

Love,

Mama and Papa

Reflections

As I held Heath today feeding him I was overwhelmed with waves of love. Love for the sweet little, slobbery round headed fellow clutching the front of my shirt and my pinky who was making contented sighs as he gulped down his bottle.. For his birthmom MC who I think about daily and follow on FB. She has so many good things going in her life right now. I'm very happy for her yet sad that she's missing out on all the smiles and coos, and slobbery gummy laughs of our son.

Soon he will be 4 months old. The Dr said then we can start him on cereal with his formula. I can't imagine. He's growing up so very very fast. I love this smiley happy stage of his life. I've learned though that leaning him in for a kiss can quickly get my covered in spit up and other stinky goo.

Adoption is such a weird and wonderful thing. I'm so glad we have him. I know how much I love him. I can't imagine him not being here and being a part of our lives. I can't imagine how MC and C must feel with him gone.

His birth certificate came. We are listed as his parents. It's his original birth certificate. I'd expected that we'd get an original with their names and then have to get an amended one. Apparently, that's not how it works in their state.

Getting a SS # so far has been a nightmare. Part of it is because the adoption is already finalized. Now I have to get copies of his medical records to prove he's alive. Having him
with me doesn't count. Nor does his birth certificate count as an id. The SS guy asked what I had as an id for him. Hello!! He's 15 weeks old. It's not like he's driving. I'm going to try it again on his four month dr appointment. Looks like I'll be taking the day off.

He's Here!

Mr and Mrs H are proud to announce the arrival of Baby H!

I can't believe it! We got here at 3:41 am on the 29th. 6#13 oz, 20 inches long. He arrived at 9:54 am. He was delivered by the anthologist! MC went from 6cm to "omg he's here, he's here I have to push!"

"You can't push you're at 6"

"NO HE'S HERE - I HAVE TO PUSH"

"you can't...."

I'm looking down there, I gulp (and gag a little...i mean ewwwww) and sure enough...He was here! He shot outta there like a canon after a tiny quarter of push.

I was all teary and sniffling..It was disgusting and awesome at the same time! He was covered in the stuff (which I'm too tired to think of). They had a hard time getting it all off him. MC didn't want to see him right away...she was in a lot of pain. They did the initial assessment, I cut the cord, i went to get the fathers....stepped out of the room for 3 secs and then had to get into fight with an old lady nurse/gatekeeper to get back in there. She was misinformed about how MC wanted to see him. I got back in with Mr H. The birthfather had gone to the restroom. The old lady had taken off with the bassinette so the anesthesiologist wrapped him up tight, scooped him off, and sprinted down the hall to the other side of the birthing center to our room where further assessments were made.

I'm in love...it wasn't instant. It was weird at first. I'm looking at this baby looking at me looking at him! It's 135 am now and they've got him in the nursery doing a bath and his 2nd 8 hour assessment.

Everything is going great with the birthparents. It's been very, very special. Sweet and heart wrenchingly wonderful.

Since then

It's been a week since we met the birthparents. It's been a relatively calm week. One text for money - all of which was reasonable and expected. She REALLY does not like our lawyer. So she is preferring to go through me. Anything to keep her calm and happy.

Her FB statuses (stati?) have been more and more upbeat as the weeks go by. That gladdens my heart (my cynical, fearful, excited heart).

She had some tests two weeks ago. They never got back to her with the results. I wonder how much of that is because she's a Medi.caid patient? There are two hospitals where she's giving birth. She's now being seen at the "better" one. I had to laugh though because the hospital overlooks a cemetery. If that's not incentive to get well and go home I don't know what would be! Anyway, they called her in yesterday because they'd forgotten to run one test. She's now officially in her 9th month. She was measuring small but the dr said at this point that can change from big to small daily. She's scheduled for an ultrasound on Friday. She says the doctor said "if you make it that long" GULP! Mr H and I have some serious shit getting to get done this weekend!!

The Calm

Things are calm currently. No calls from the lawyer. No calls from the emom. No news is good news it appears. Although she does have the flu. Apparently, Medicaid only pays for 3 prescriptions a month so we helped with some meds for her. A few days letter and it appears she's feeling better.

I got a exer.saucer from my sister's neighbor for $15 and a couple of outfits. We had a coupon for Babies.r.us plus hit a buy one get one sale and got some bottles. We are also the "proud" owners of two packs of diapers, some wipes and a few other things. The crib is arriving this week. We got a crib mattress Friday night. I feel confident in saying if he arrived tomorrow we'd be prepared (except emotionally of course :-).

I'm really enjoying getting people's congratulations and how excited everyone is for us.

Does anyone have any adoption/story type book recommendations? I know I've read them on other blogs but I haven't had much lucky finding posts I remember.

We're going to see the emom over labor day. Advice? Is this a gift bearing occasion? Anyone? I guess I have the next week to obsess over that.

Our baby is due in now less than 2 months!!

Budget Shortfall

I'm looking at our adoption line of credit. I see there is 3k left on it. The adoption itself...courts costs, all the legal stuff is going to be $6,600. NICE. I realize that we have a relatively cheap adoption but STILL. Good grief! I'm really starting to get panicky about money. It just seems wrong to put a kid on a credit card...that's probably what will happen though.

As a bonus..he's being born toward the end of the year so we'll get that deduction sooner which is pretty awesome.

I just talked to the emom. She was in a great mood. Telling me how much she loves the apartment. How much she's looking forward to us coming to see her. She wondered if we'd told people. I said, "Yes, our friends and family know that we're probably having a baby in October." She was glad of that and replied (forcefully) "I want y'all to know I'm not backing out of this."...Your words to God's ears my girl!

The kids got home last night. Not much deprogramming has been necessary. Throwing out of shoes and clothing that are beyond filthy, smelly and destroyed...yes. We got hair cuts and school shopped today. Tomorrow, we leave for a week's vacation in AZ. Grand Canyon here we come!

Dang! Now that I'm thinking about it some of you blog buddies of mine are down that way!!

Today is a good day.

I got the cutest, stinking outfit on sale at K.ohls today! It's a plaid button down shirt onesie with corduroy pants!! I'm seriously out of control. I'd post a picture if my cameras weren't already packed.

*******
AAACK!!! I almost posted this on my family blog! I went to put in the labels and thought "these are weird". Preoccupied much?

And it continues

Shit! I thought the waiting was the rough part. The matching is almost worse. High highs and low lows.

We've got the emom in an apt. We can pay for it until 6 weeks after the birth. We're paying 4 months worth of rent! The utilities are included. We're planning to go and see her over Labor Day weekend. She was in an unsafe situation so we've now paid for a week and a half of hotel until we could get her in the apt. At least I'm getting points. I haven't heard from her in 2 days. The lawyer couldn't get a hold of her either. panic. The laywer texted her. someone texted back saying the emom had left the phone in her car and she'd return it to her after work. I wonder if that's true.

We've found out some stuff about the emom that she didn't intend for us to know. It's stuff that is or will be part of my son's life/past. It will hurt him i'm sure. It's not horrible but it's not ideal by any means either.

AND i have to say i'm really annoyed with people asking me questions about the emom.

"does she have kids?"
"is she educated?"
"why is she giving him up?"
"is she with the father?"
"does she know who the father is?"

It's hard for me. I'm a very open person. But it's none of your effing business.

Being matched is kind of like dating. You really like the person but you don't want to seem to eager. They've said they like you (but do they really mean it?) Should I call? Why haven't they called? If i call will that annoy them and put them off? I wonder if they're ok? and on and on and on. I may need some drug therapy! Today I opted for a bff and margarita therapy!

Out of Body Experience

Talking to the emom is like having an out of body experience. I hear myself talking to her. I hear her telling me she wants us to parent her baby. I hear her saying she wants to give her child the life she can't and she wants to give me the child that I can't conceive.

I can't believe it's true. I'm excited but I'm cautious. We've told 2 friends. That's mostly because Mr H is in a different hemisphere and I'm in full freak out mode. I can't imagine how he's feeling. Luckily he's exhausted from the time change and I don't think he's dwelling on it like I am. I know he's excited and cautiously optimistic too. He's just not the one that's here..making the calls, getting calls from C etc etc.

I have let myself look at baby stuff online. And I've dug the baby quilt out of the hall and intend to get back to embroidering it.

How did you all handle this phase - if you're fortunate enough to have made it to this phase? When did you know it was official? Was there paper work to sign? Commitments to make legal? I hope we'll know more Monday or Tuesday.

Is this It?

I think this might be it! We talked to an emom tonight. She's due in October.

"I want you to be my baby's parents. You're the only ones I like. You're the only ones I'm talking to. Do you want to have my baby?"

I think I'm going to be a mom in 3 months!

This feels like this is it.

Note: Mr H is currently on the otherside of the world...for real! It's just me, the dog, and you blog buddies!

Another Phone Call

We were out celebrating Mr H's birthday last night when I got a call from "Restricted." It was the facilitator. An expectant mom wanted to talk to us. Were we in a place we were could call her? We ditched Mr H's friends and work buddies and ran over to his office to call.

The mom, I'll call her LA, had spoken to a family the previous night but wanted to speak to us too. She'd spoken to them for 1.5 hours. I was oddly calm. It was kind of like an out of body experience. We spoke for 45 min. She has a child already and wants to do right by this one. She's just in place where she is getting her life together and doesn't think it's fair to the baby, her older child or herself to try and raise this one.

The call was great. She asked us if we wanted to be there for the birth. How much openness we wanted. How she'd like to meet before the birth.

I called the facilitator afterward. Told her I'd thought it went well. Gave her a few details. (All left on her voicemail). She called me about a half hour later. Said LA had reported she really liked us but she'd asked to talk to another family. C and LA are supposed to talk again today.

Now I feel like I f'd up the phone call. LA didn't want to talk to Mr H. Maybe I should have insisted. I didn't ask her a lot about herself (C had already told me lots...I didn't want to interrogate her). I didn't tell her how much i really really want a baby ( I didn't want to pressure her).

UGH. I hate popularity contests and this is what I feel like this is.

NOW I know "the right baby will find Me" and "the Lord works in mysterious ways" and all that but DANG! Why does this have to be so hard? Isn't infertility and barrenness enough?

SO my bloggy friends...Please keep us and LA in your prayers and thoughts and anything else you do or believe. I think we all could use it.

Well then

Nothing seems to be coming of the text baby situation. I got a little excited there for a minute. If nothing else it goaded me into some action and made me realize that despite what I tell myself I really do still want a baby.

So there you have it. Still want a kid. Still don't have one. Perhaps this will cause me to be proactive and make some pass along cards. I should probably look and see when I need to update the homestudy. I know that's coming up shortly. Dealing with our dippy social worker is sure to put me in the loveliest of moods.

The Text!

I get a text from a friend today saying "If I ever heard about adoption possibilities do you want me to tell you?"

um.........

YES!!

A friend of hers (acquaintance of mine) has a friend who is 4 mo pregnant with her 3 child. She had two little ones already and cannot imagine being able to raise another child. (sounds good so far). She is very serious about adoption and the acquaintance has told her all about us, shown her our FB adoption page etc.

The emom lives on the other side of the state.

Now Mr H has to go to the Philippines for work at least once a year. I've gone with him previously. The acquaintance believes the father is Filipino. (Is that a sign or what?)

I've forwarded our adoption profile to the friend, who has forwarded it to the acquaintance who will forward it to the emom, contacted our facilitator (which gave me no small amount of angst)(who knew is was impossible to edit a pdf that you yourself didn't make?) and left a message for our lawyer friend.

I'm trying not to get my hopes up.

.....it's not working. I wonder if this could be it?

Home again

We had a fun filled whirl wind of a weekend in NYC! If I lived there I would totally spend all my money on theater tickets. There were so many shows and so many that I wanted to see!

We went to Mary Poppins (awesome!) and A little Night Music with Catherine Zeta Jones and Angela Lansbury. I was within inches of CZJ when she went in the stagedoor before the play. It was a total accident. She is skinny skinny skinny and gorgeous! We ate lots, walked lots, and slept late. It was a nice break.

City wide garage sales are this weekend. Last year a got a huge load of baby stuff, a changing table and lots more. I don't think I can bear to go this year.

I gave up Facebook for Lent. Now that I'm back I see a lady that runs and adoption support group I'm part of got the call and her son arrived while I was gone. Although I'm happy for her I can't help being jealous and sad for me. Human nature I guess. They had already gone through one disruption a few months back, too. How is it they were matched twice and we haven't even been matched once? ugh. I told the girls at work I was over "the whole adoption thing".

It's not true though.

I've got mail!

Mr H and I are members of Postcrossing. It's the coolest thing ever! You sign up and then send a receive postcards from all over the world. Well, I got this little gem today!



But that's not the cool part.........

This is:

I've been feeling down about adoption. How awesome is this to receive in the mailbox? According to her postcrossing profile she looks to be freshman in college. She's laughing and has a great smile!

Just what I needed!

Danielle of Where I Intended to Be and I are at about the same point in our adoption journey. She gave me this Beautiful Blogger Award which has really served as a pick me up as I sit here childless in the frozen tundra.

SO here are the rules:

1) Thank the person(s) who nominated you for this award
2) Copy the award and place it in your blog
3) Link to the person(s) who nominated you for this award
4) Tell us 7 interesting things about you
5) Nominate 7 bloggers and link to their blogs.

So Seven Interesting things about me. Hmm. Well, we'll see how interesting these items are!

1) I collect state map postcards. I only need to get Delaware to complete my collection.

2)I was very involved in 4-H as a child and teen. I was a state record book winner (big deal) and went to the National 4-H Congress. I was also one of two youth nation wide who attended a Master Communicator conference.

3) I bought my first home by myself at age 21 and opened my own business.

4)I've driven to west on I-80 to CA 6 times but I've only driven it back east once.

5) I fell in love with France when I was 15 and visited Annecy during high school.

6) I long to move to the country (even though I only live in town of 5,000 people).

7) I apparently make kick ass pumpkin and chocolate pecan pies even though I don't like (and won't taste) either of them.

I'm not sure who to nominate for this award. It looks like it's been making the rounds.

So (I say that a lot) on the adoption front.....


NADA. Just like the previous months. Valentine sex, resulting accidental pregnancies have to be coming to light right? Ground hog day misadventures? ST Patty's is coming up that's got to be good for drunken unprotected sex right?

The pregnant girl (for whom I'm taking over for during maternity leave) last day was today. She's got a scheduled c-section for Friday. I'm not excited to be taking over her work but I am glad not to have her big belly and swollen breasts mocking me on a daily basis.

C'est la vie I guess.

So easily disappointed

Got a call today. The caller id said "blocked". The ONLY blocked calls we get are from C, our facilitator. Well, it used to be those were the only blocked calls we got. It was the plumber :-(

Oh well. I'm feeling better. Mr H and I celebrated our wedding anniversary over the weekend with a lovely room in a historic hotel. We ate ourselves silly and spent did some relaxing in the deep and spacious jetted tub. He planned it all :-)

As he says "I am a lucky (wo)man!"

Haiti

My heart is breaking. I'm watching CNN and they're interviewing a couple watching footage of their in limbo adopted son. It's so very sad.

We sent money to the Red Cross today. Approx 92 cents of every dollar is used directly for relief.

I wish I could do more. I find myself glued to the footage like I was during Katrina.

Happy New Year!

I'm still amongst the living. I'm still childless. I'm still ok :-)

We've been staying in. It's freakin' cold. We went to It's Complicated today. We really enjoyed it.

Has anyone seen Precious? I can't do it. I also can't watch the MTV adoption show though I caught a little of it the other night. I very quickly changed the channel.

We went to SD to my in-laws over Christmas. I'm working on embroidering a baby blanket. My MIL asked "who's that for". Nice. It wasn't malicious. It just isn't part of their consciousness. Overall we had a lovely visit. My almost 8 year old nephew is hilarious, loud and adorable. We were betting on UNO and bingo. He went "all in".

I hope you all had decent holidays. I've decided I will just be like that river in Egypt. Denile Denile Denile works for me!!

It's official!

I've become one of those blogs i hate. The ones who never update. ugh (btw I totally understand not updating).

I just don't have anything to say. We're just waiting, waiting, waiting. I try not to think about it too much.

I moved the bassinet from the left side of the living room to the right side to make room for the Christmas tree once we put it up. I noticed it's getting very dusty and I'll need to wash everything in it. Maybe I should just strip it and have Mr H haul it to the basement til it's needed. The travel system is in the hall of shame (a dead end hall by our stairs which is a catch all for everything) taking up space. It is collapsible so maybe we should just collapse it and store it in the upstairs closet in the office. But really those are the only two reminders I have that we're going to have a child. Well, I mean other than the permanent ache.

Update #2

Nothing new to report. We've had two letters go out so far this month. Of the 11 to 13 moms we've already been profiled to she said none of them have made a choice for or against anyone.

C also said a bunch of new adds are dropping this month. She said October was kind of slow but it looks like November is going to be booming judging from the activity she's already had in the first 10 days.

A day last week was really strange to me. I think it was wed or thursday. Baby Mac finally arrived, a friend with PCOS was unable to conceive and whose medical condition was so bad IVF couldn't even be attempted (who has 2 adopted kids) gave birth to her biological child, and an internet friend had a match fail. All in the same day! Adoption and infertility is a strange, strange world.