7 month (and 1/2)

I CAN NOT believe M is 7 (1/2) months old. Time is absolutely flying! This would've been posted sooner, but we had a death in our extended family. ....

To M on her 7th month:

Oh baby girl, you are growing up so incredibly fast now. I blink and you are doing something new EVERY SINGLE DAY. Your personality is coming out full force now...and just when I thought that my heart would burst from my love for you, well, my heart just keeps getting bigger.

You are the happiest baby that I know. You are always giving smiles, grabbing our faces, talking to us, and your eyes just sparkle. The neatest thing is that your eyes light up particularly for your daddy and I. We come into the room and you grin from ear to ear. Actually, you are a complete ham. You crack up laughing all the time...and you actually get even sillier as you get tired.

You are doing lots of new things now! You have started babbling...a few days ago, in your high chair, you said "mmmmmm,mamamama,mmmmm," then "bububububu", and daddy swears you said dadadada to him, but I haven't heard it yet. =)

You sit forever, and you just started getting from a laying down to a sitting up position today. This all but did away with your naps today as daddy just heard you laughing in your room and when he came to check on you, you were sitting up in bed! Whoops!

You are army crawling all over the place and starting to take some tentative up on all fours crawling steps. You love yoga, I think, as downward facing dog and plank position are done often. You love to stand up against objects as well....

However, I think your true loves continue to be the dogs. If we ever want to hear you laugh and laugh and laugh, we just bring the dogs around. Luckily, they both tolerate you, and the black one adores you. ....

You continue to LOVE food. You've polished off a whole avocado in one sitting, and you love cheese as well. You actually like the baby food too!

You also continue to adore water. It's pretty humorous when you take your baths....now that we are used to what you do...at first, you scared the living daylights out of us! You sit up in the bath tub and then DIVE onto your belly, and swim like a fish. If we put you in the sitting position again, back down you go! We can't wait to get you into a pool again....alas, the neighborhood pool is closed for the year.

What don't you like? Well, you don't take a bink (which cracks me up), you will not let us change your diaper (and that's fun!), but that's about it.

Sept 1, 2010

We finalized. As the judge said, she is, has been, and will forever be yours.

M, you are the love of our lives. I didn't know my heart could be so full.

I will post more. However, the weather is currently GORGEOUS here and I must enjoy.

Oh wait, it's the weight.

So, yeah, it's ok to be 6 months old and be delightfully chubby. It's great to have rolly polly thighs, a dimpled bum, and multiple chins.

It's not ok for the mom.

I've got to lose this infertility, hormones, I have a new baby, I'm back at work, I'm tired weight. Argh. I joined weight watchers online tonight and am on board. I've done WW before, and it just works for me. Now I just have to stick with the program.

6 months old

Dear M-

I can't believe that you are already six months old. In some ways, it only feels like yesterday that we were leaving the hospital, with you in our arms. And now, you aren't a newborn anymore. You're a delightful, happy little girl, and every day you show us more of your wonderful personality!

You're sitting up so well now! And it happened so fast! One day, we were holding you up in the sitting position and the next day, bam! I can do this myself! You love playing with your toys while you are sitting up...and then you love flipping to your tummy and ARMY CRAWLING to try and catch the dog! He's just starting to get used to you. We think he really likes you a lot, but he's still keeping his distance.

You are sleeping all night, usually 11-12 hours. You tell us pretty clearly when you are tired...in fact, really the only time you are upset is when you are hungry or tired. When we bring you your bottle, you start giggling...you are so happy to eat! Speaking of eating, you LOVE solid foods. You've had multiple fruits and vegetables, but your current favorites are sweet potatoes and applesauce. We've had a great time making your baby food. Daddy just bought you some puffs, and you LOVE those too. I'm amazed at your fine motor control already! Today, at lunchtime, I gave you some small pieces of avocado on your tray....and you loved that too!

You are a complete social bug. Stranger anxiety has definitely not hit yet! You love to touch faces, laugh, and talk. While you initially hated the car, now you actually like it now!

You are the love of our lives. We praise God for you on a daily basis, and can't imagine life without you in it. Our hearts are more full than we could ever imagine.

What you like: baths, the swimming pool, food, sleeping, sophie the giraffe, your "pup-pup" (stuffed dog), your activity center, shaking your head "no", the dogs, and cuddling with daddy.

You don't like: getting your diaper changed, changing clothes, pacifiers, and getting your hair brushed.

Words

It's amazing to me how many people have the ability to say exactly what is on their minds, regardless of how it may impact/hurt/affect the person that they are talking to. When I was little, a phrase that my mom often said to me was "think before you speak." Now, hearing that my whole life, I think I may have taken that to the other extreme and now I think TOO much. You know, you're flabergasted, and then speak your reply in your mind for the next 2-3 days. That would be me.

Anyway, I've been reading more adoption blogs lately, and just getting a feel for other people's experiences, lives, etc. Some of the posts that have caught my eye lately are the ones where strangers or friends make comments on:
1. How bad you are for not breastfeeding...without knowing you adopted (btw, what a serious idiot Gisele Bundchen is)
2. How your child doesn't look like you
3. Asking if your child is adopted

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm PROUD that M is adopted. I love telling our adoption story. At the same time, I don't want the focus to be that she is adopted. I want the focus to be that she is our daughter.

I digress. Ok, so we were with a group of "friends" the other day, and I was talking about M's hair. M has curly hair, and I'm a straight-haired girl, so I don't have much experience with the curly...so, I'm learning as I go. So, I was talking about her hair, and one of the girls said, "Well, I have a friend that adopted a mixed baby too...."

Whoah, sister. I mean, is it just me or is the term "mixed" pretty derogatory? I'm not the PC princess by any means, but seriously? Not that we go around saying "transracial" or "rich genetic heritage" but seriously?

I wouldn't have gotten my panties completely in a wad, but this is the second time this lady has said that...the first being, "M is mixed, right?" My response was, "M's bfather is hispanic and her bmother is caucasian."

So, I still didn't respond. It's the whole think before you speak crap. I have too much of it. But, this is likely to come up again. Do I have a response or do I just smile?

Happy Wednesday

I have come to the realization that if I am going to continue reading blogs, that I should post my own!

Wednesday is a fun day for us....so my husband is staying at home with M. He LOVES it, and I LOVE seeing the relationship that the two of them are building. They are totally enamored with each other! I get to stay home on Wednesday afternoon (my half day of work) and my husband (T) works...and also on Tuesday nights. M and I ate some lunch (yup, she's eating solids, but more on that later!) and then a mid day bath (oh to be six months old!) and now she's down for her nap.

This girl can sleep!!!! She takes two solid naps a day, with her afternoon nap usually lasting 3-4 hours. Oh, and did I mention that she's been sleeping through the night since she was 3 months old? Obviously, this has nothing to do with us!!!!

Well, I think I might go take a siesta of my own......

I have a 6 month old!

I just wanted anyone out there (anyone, anyone??) to know that we've made it through half of the first year. Ok, not only have we made it, but we are LOVING being parents! I am still following all of your blogs on my blackberry, and hopefully, SOMEDAY, I will start commenting again. Contemplating blogging......we'll see. =)

The rest of that week

Ok, so let me say that from Tuesday on, my head was constantly spinning and I was also in a pretty constant state of tears. Could this really really be happening? Could we maybe be getting a baby?

We found out pretty quickly that the birth mom was living with a family who she had known for years. Without getting into all the details, she was basically out on the streets and this family took her in, was loving on her, and the mom in this family agreed to help the birth mom find a family for the baby after the birth mom decided to place the baby for adoption.

We also found out that there were several other couples that had found out about the original email and were also interested in adopting the baby. *Gulp*

So, over the course of the next several days, the mom figure in this family interviewed each of the prospective families multiple times. She talked with my husband, she talked with me. We poured out our hearts to this person that we didn't know at all and told her our life story. She heard everything and went through this process with each of the other families and then passed along the information to the birth mom. We quickly put together a sort of biography on us with lots of pictures of us, our house, our families, and of course, our dogs. This process went on from Wednesday-Friday. We were told that we would get a phone call on Friday regardless of the decision....so we went through the longest 24 hours in our lives from Thursday-Friday (ok, we've had a lot of long 24 hour periods since then, but that was the longest one up to that point!) I cried. A LOT.

So, right at 1200 on Friday, she called. She talked about how she had interviewed each of the families and had spent a lot of time in prayer with others and a lot of discussion with the birth mom. All during this time, I was just thinking...just tell us!!!!---as my heart was sinking. In my heart of hearts, I KNEW it was us, but at the same time, my heart was just sinking. Probably IF has done that to me...always preparing for the worst. Anyway, after that, she said "Congratulations mommy and daddy!" And we just sobbed. I can't even tell you the level of emotion experienced on that day. It was completely amazing.

As an aside, the older woman later told me that as soon as she heard my voice on the phone the first time, God told her that we were it. And she had a complete sense of peace. And she basically didn't hear anything else either of us said in our 2+ hour interviews, because she knew she was done. How incredibly cool is that?

Ok, enough for today. Next up, hearing the gender and meeting the birth mom for the first time.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

And...our peanut loves to eat! I'll have to post more pictures soon. I'm trying to improve my blogging..and tell this entire story! =)

November 10th, 2009

Or, otherwise entitled, the day our lives changed forever.

Ok, so to backtrack a little, I was in the midst of an IUI cycle. Injecting a little Follistim, starting to feel the hormonal overload. Like, really bad. I was an emotional wreck. I was feeling sorry for myself, crying a lot, and probably getting pretty close to needing a third party to talk to and a little celexa. I think I hit rock bottom on November the 9th. I was shopping in Target for a baby gift for a friend's upcoming shower, and just started crying. In the middle of Target. It was lovely. I think I hid out for ten minutes in the workout clothes area (interestingly enough, the emptiest area in Target) and tried to stop crying. I couldn't handle looking at baby clothes, baby gear, baby this and that. It was just too much.

I spent a lot of that day in quiet reflection. I didn't have to work, so luckily, I had the luxury of being able to do that. I had a monitoring appointment later that day, and my ovaries were responding just as slowly as usual. Even better. Even better.

Fast forward to Tuesday. November 10th. These days, I have been carrying my cell phone with me at work, even though that is something that I typically do not do. You know, phone calls from the lab, RE, etc...can not be missed! Well, at about 9:30, I got a text message from my husband. *URGENT--call me right now*. So, I'm thinking to myself, who died? How can this week get any better?

So, I called him back. He asked me to sit down. He told me he just got off the phone with his dad--and his dad just got an email from one of the pastor's of their church. The email stated that there was a young pregnant woman who was looking to place her unborn baby for adoption. Did he (my husband's dad) know of anyone who would be interested? My husband's dad is a deacon in their church, and this email went out to all of the deacons.

The world stopped.

My husband asked if we would be interested.

Without hesitation.

Yes!

And so the story began.

From a day of despair to a day of realizing that there was a plan in all of this crazy mess.

to be continued...

Introducing

Our little peanut. Our beautiful girl was born on 2.9.10 via c-section after failure to progress. She weighed 6#13oz, was 20.25 inches long, and as you can see, has a full head of black hair!

We're totally in love. The adoption process went well, though with its emotional hiccups. At this point, I'm trying to figure out what to do with this blog...obviously, I'm not at all thinking about ttc right now, so thoughts and ideas would be appreciated. I do think I want to continue blogging, if little miss M lets me! =)

A PSA to well-meaning friends and family

*Ok, we're working on getting the whole baby story out, but life has been CRAZY around here! The due date is this Thursday, no baby yet!*

And now onto the PSA:

1. Please don't tell me: " Well, now that you are adopting, you'll get pregnant in no time. I know _____ who was trying to get pregnant for years, and then they adopted, and *poof* she was pregnant just like that!"

2. Never make the comment to me, however well-meaning it may be, " Well, I hope that you can experience having one of your own someday."

My response:
1. Hey, it would be great if we got pregnant. However, we aren't even thinking about that right now, and we're beyond thrilled that we are HAVING A BABY. Oh, and we have several medical diagnoses that make it really difficult for us to get pregnant. So, thanks for discounting that and basically saying that if we stop thinking about it, we will get preggers.

2 . I am experiencing having one of my own. She is my own.

PEOPLE SOMETIMES!

why there have been no posts since Monday Nov. 9th.

Because Tuesday, November 10th, our lives changed forever.

Let's backtrack to Monday November 9th. I was in the midst of my injectible cycle, ready to try some acupuncture. Bring it on. However, my mood was getting lower and lower as the day went on. I had to shop for a baby shower gift for a friend. I cried the whole time I was in the baby store. It had been enough. I had reached a new level of sad. Life was bad.

Tuesday, Nov 10th. Unexpected text from my husband. "Call me back, NOW." That was the text. Nothing more. I called him right back, and the next thing he said has changed our lives forever.....

"I got a phone call, and there is an email that there is a young woman that is looking to place her yet to be born baby for adoption. Are we interested?"

Ummm, yeah. No second thoughts. Seriously? Seriously?!?!?!

Long story short, the whole week was a crazy series of events that ended up in the birth mom picking us. Someday, I will post the whole story, because all of it is amazing. Truly amazing. And totally all God.

So. I'm going to be a mom in about 2 weeks! She's 37 and 6 days today. We've met the birth mom. We've been scrambling to prepare for a baby for the last 2 months. It's been the shortest pregnancy ever!

I am the happiest and the most excited that I have ever been. We are full of anticipation and expectation. Life is good.

Oh, and completing a homestudy in less than one month? We are rock stars. That's all I'm going to say.

I hope to post more often now. Maybe. Obviously, the tone of this blog is different, but I hope some continue to read, because this is a beautiful story.

And we're not pregnant. I could care less. =)

And we're having a girl!!