Craftastic!

I'm not going to lie my heart quickened when I saw this amazing craft storage solution. For any of you fellow crafters out there, you know how crazy it can be to try and find the right way to store all your goodies and still keep everything looking nice and organized. So you can understand why the sudden change in heart rate when I came across this. Oh be still my heart, I may have to start saving my pennies for one of my very own.

Found here on Oh Happy Day!
For purchase or more info here

Holy Contact Batman!!!

So it's been a couple weeks since my last post and ALOT has happened.

11 days ago we got an email, it went something like this:
we were sitting in the airport waiting for our flight to go visit hubby's parents for a few days when I checked my email...hmm, there's an email to our adoption account, probably spam, but I'll check it...wait?! it's a real email!

We spent the next few hours spinning from the fact that we had received a "real" email from a real birth mom interested in talking with us. How exciting!

Once we arrived to our destination we carefully crafted a reply and spent the entire next day obsessing about what we had written - did we say something dumb, did we scare her away - and checking email non-stop. (Ah the beauty of smart phones). Finally right before bed we got a reply. She wanted to meet us!

We spent the next few days emailing back and forth about details and it was decided, we would meet.
Needless the say the days leading up to the meeting were a bit nerve racking. But the meeting was yesterday and it went great. I really don't think it could have gone better. We all got along great and it seems at this point we are headed toward a match!

I'm going to leave it at that for now. As we all know in this crazy world of adoption there is always a chance things could change or someone could change their mind. But for now we are allowing ourselves to get excited about the idea that it seems we are truly on our way to becoming parents...probably before the end of this year!!!

Stay tuned peeps this is exciting and for those of you still waiting for your own email, just remember it really can happen at anytime. One day eating dinner at the airport, next day setting up a meeting with a birthmother...who knew?!

The stories

Something I've learned so far is the minute you tell someone you're adopting, they have a story to share. And boy have I heard some crazy ones!

A neighbor recently told me about a friend of hers who got a knock on their door. It was a woman from down the road who they had seen but never really interacted with who proceeded to tell them she was pregnant, was unable to parent and wanted them to adopt her baby! Can you believe that?! Come to find out yesterday that same couple got pregant unexpectadly right before the baby was due and decided not to go ahead with the adoption. My neighbor put in a plug for us, but I guess it was too late, the birth mother had already chosen another family.

I guess you never really know how you'll react to any given situation, but I can say with pretty good certanty that if we did (by some miracle) get pregnant, we would still move forward with adoption.

This is just one of many stories that have been shared with us. Some are inspiring and some a little annoying honestly. How many times have you been told..."now that you're adopting you'll get pregnant"? If you did get pregnant would you still adopt?

Preparing for Baby Hiatus

So, as goes the tide with adoption and waiting for a baby to arrive, I am taking a break from "prepare mode". I'm still excited and will buy little things here and there I'm sure, but for right now I need a little break. We've been talking about moving to a different city, near by where we live now, just closer to family...we keep going back and forth, it's something we think would make sense, especially once our baby arrives, but there are things about where we live now that we absolutely love. So I'm feeling a bit like a ping pong ball with the whole topic. Then on Saturday I had a minor control freak moment.

I was feeling like I just wanted to decide, pick a lane and move ahead, but after talking it through a little more I realized it really didn't have anything to do with moving, it had everything to do with "waiting". Sometimes I feel so out of control. I wish I could just want it into being, I mean if that was the case we'd have 12 kids by now!

It's been 9 months since we got into circulation - appropriate I guess, maybe that means we'll get contacted soon...I hope so, as of now it's looking like our baby is a little over due :)

Newborn Care

We took a newborn care class last night. It was great. The woman who ran the class was so enthusiastic about babies and helping new parents, she made me giggle a couple times with the amount of enthusiasm she had for the subject.

We learned how to bathe a baby, how to change a diaper, how to spot signs of possible illness, how to take their temperature and what's normal in newborns. It was really interesting and both my husband and I left feeling more prepared for when our little one arrives.

They had little dolls we were able to practice on. We diapered them and then swaddled them in a blanket. It was fun watching my hubby put the little diaper on and watching him laugh when the teacher talked about diaper blow outs and how to avoid them. I had no idea how to care for the umbilical cord - you actually don't do much of anything, just treat it kind of like a scab and don't get it wet. She went through step by step how to give the baby a bath - both sponge bath (before the cord falls off) and regular "immersion" bath (once the cord falls off). She also gave us information on when to call or bring the baby in and when something might seem strange but is normal.

It was a fun night envisioning ourselves as parents, we're both so excited. We can't wait!

A quick break from our regularly scheduled programming

I still have more to post about preparing for baby but I need to take a little detour for a moment...

I went to the ObGyn earlier this week for a non-fertility related appointment. It was a doctor I hadn't seen before so she asked if I was using contraception and if I had a regular partner, etc. all the usual questions when you're seeing a new doc. I proceeded to tell her, my usual schpeal...yes, I'm married, my husband and I have been trying to conceieve for over 4 years and have decided to pursue adoption. She asked me what we tried in terms of getting pregnant so I shared the details and told her we got to the point of IVF and felt like we were at a cross roads. We knew we didn't have the money or emotional resources for both IVF and adoption and adoption felt right. So we decided not to pursue any more fertility treatments and move forward with adoption.

She was great, excited we were becoming parents through adoption and seemed genuinely happy for us. Then she proceeded to tell me, if I decided I wanted to have IVF at some point, maybe after we adopt I could do that and that I'm "still young" (about the turn 37 in a couple months) but once I hit 40 many doctors would recommend I use donor eggs. I said ok, thanks for letting me know and we moved on. But after I left my appointment something was bothering me and after thinking about it I realized the uneasiness I was feeling was related to that conversation.

Let me clarify. It's not that it bothers me hearing about fertility treatments, this is not my first time at the rodeo so to speak, and I know alot about them already, but whenever a doctor gives me the "you still have time" litany I start to have this feeling like I better do something quick "or else". As a woman who has been trying to get pregnant for a very long time I am keenly aware of my age and how that relates to my fertility. So being confronted with that yet again makes me feel antsy. Plus my focused has shifted, I'm AM having a baby, just not giving birth.

I realized it would have been so much more helpful for me if the doctor had instead asked me about bringing home a baby and whether I might have questions about that. Given me advice on choosing a pediatrician or asked me about taking a newborn care class...the kinds of things she might address if I was pregnant. Meeting me where I am...not pursuing fertility treatments, and on my way to bringing a baby home.

I also realized this experience with my doctor is just one example, it seems many people don't know how to respond to the announcement we're adopting without making sense of why we wouldn't be having a biological child. Often people are upset by the idea that we wouldn't do everything medically possible to conceive before adopting. I get ongoing advice about something so and so did and did we try that? By the time most couples come to the decision of adopting and announce it to the world, most have more information about potential ways to get pregnant than you can imagine. Honestly, if we got pregnant (by some miracle) we would be thrilled, and we would still pursue adoption. This is a very special road to parenthood, and we are excited about our journey. Even though we came to it through infertility, it has become very important to both of us.

My hope is whoever we share our story with can celebrate with us and embrace this beautiful life we're living. It may not be the most conventional road to parenting, but it's no less valid than "the old fashioned way". It's about reinventing your dreams and celebrating what is. We're having a baby people! That's exciting!