I dreamed a dream

Last night she was in my dream. I was swaddling her in a blanket that was too big while my social worker looked on to make sure I was doing a good job. When we were done I called her my little burrito. When I looked at her the first time she had thick curly hair, but then I looked back and it was gone...this pattern repeated itself several times. I said to my social worker that I was scared I wasn't going to think she was cute (a fear I had with Simon in real life as well), but it turned out that she was the most beautiful baby I'd ever seen. I wasn't allowed to be alone with her yet, so my social worker took her to a different room and while she was gone all I wanted to do was go find her.

I've never once dreamed about adoption before. I think I did because my friend told me she had a dream about the baby, so I guess I followed suit. I'm not a believer in dream premonitions so I don't take this as a sign that this will happen, but it was sure nice to think the baby was cute! And I got to hold her. Definitely a dream in more ways than one :)

Words with Friends

Please play a game with me. I am thermus821. Play as often as you can. Give my mind something else to focus on!! :)

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Supposedly tomorrow the birth mom, E, will have another weekly doctor appointment, so I'm hoping we will get an update tomorrow. Let's face it, though, I'm not hearing jack diddly until Wednesday at the earliest.

I could kiss that brilliant OB/GYN who thought E would go naturally on her own before her next doctor appointment. Thanks, doc. If it weren't for you I could be holding that baby in my arms right now instead of sitting here blogging about my persistent lack of information. Or I could be well into the process of dealing with the emotional backlash from being told we had a baby on the way only to have the decision revoked. Either way, I wouldn't be here in the dark and that would be just plain fantastic.

This does kind of remind me of when I was pregnant and was convinced I was going to be the first woman on the planet to be pregnant forever. I distinctly remember asking my mom if she thought that was possible. That's how I feel right now. E is going to be pregnant forever and we are going to therefore be in limbo forever.

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Apparently I handle these situations much better when the hubby is around. Friday I was a mess until he got home and I was fine until he left this morning. He must have a calming effect on me. Thank God for that!

A surprisingly nice weekend

Friday morning and afternoon I was pretty much a mess, but by dinner I was able to turn things around. Bryan and I went out to Bonefish (thank you sisters for the babysitting and gift card!) and it was fantastic all around. Good food, drinks and conversation was just what I needed. That relaxed feeling spilled over to the rest of the weekend and I'm still trying to ride it out.

Maybe not having an induction date to look forward to is a little better; it eliminates that uncomfortable familiar feeling of acute anticipation that you can feel throughout your entire body all day long. This way, I can just kind of idly wonder about it all and there isn't the same kind of intense build-up. Although, I must admit that now every time I hear the strumming of a guitar coming from my phone my stomach does a little dance.

I'm trying to imagine hearing my social workers voice on the other end and if I'll be able to detect a smile or a frown. Soooooooooo hoping for a smile.

Breaking Point

You know you're at your breaking point when the second you hear your mom's voice on the phone you burst into tears. So hello, Breaking Point. I knew we'd be meeting up eventually.

I don't know why today of all days is the worst so far. Maybe because we originally thought we might be on the road by now? Who knows. All I can tell myself is that every day that passes is one day closer to answers. I am desperate to know if this baby is going to be ours and trying so hard to prepare for another disappointment. And would you like to know how I'm expertly preparing for another disappointment? By washing new baby clothes, washing my new cloth diapers, organizing to make room for baby things in the bathroom, ordering things for her online, obsessing over what to name her, etc.

Super smart, I know.

In any case, I am very grateful for my little sister right now who offered to babysit Simon so Bryan and I can have a dinner out together. I'm getting drunk.

Little a this, little a that

Today we're just going about our business.
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It was a pomegranate snack kind of day...before I got the seeds nicely into a bowl, he tried getting the seeds out himself. It made him look like he had Chicken Pox.

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Now that he is a big 4 year old he can fully understand what a "thank you card" is. Or at least he can understand, "If you don't write a thank you card, they won't know how much you love your gifts and won't get you anything next year." He also understands, "If you sign your name on all the cards, you can have candy." So sign his name he did :) I actually just thought it would be a great way to practice writing his name and it was cute to see him doing such a big boy thing!

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Right now we are vegging on the couch watching Toy Story 3 and waiting for our new high efficiency wash machine to arrive. When we first sat down this was our conversation and the underlying meanings:

Simon: Mommy, can I have milk please? {read: Can you get milk for me please?}
Me: I think you have a cup in the fridge. {read: Get it yourself}
Simon: I changed my mind, I think I want water...and I think the water cup upstairs is old. {read: You can't make me drink old water and you know I can't get the water myself so...I win}

Gotta say, I love 4 year olds...and this particular 4 year old knows just how to help me focus on today rather than tomorrow.

Induction Postponed...

Today we got a call from our social worker to tell us that the birth mother will not be induced tomorrow as planned; she is 3 cm dilated and they believe she might naturally go into labor in the next few days. If she does not, she will have another doctor appointment on Tuesday with a plan to be induced that Thursday.

So we wait: the story of my life.

The good news is that it doesn't sound like she is wavering from the adoption plan right now and it sounds like she is just as ready for this baby to be born as I am. 

The Domes

Today my friend Jessi and I took Simon to see some trains at the Domes. In one of the "dumbs" as Simon was calling it accidentally, they had all these train tracks set up and several trains running through the gardens. When we first got in, he was all excited looking at them and Jessi remarked that he is "such a little boy." :)

My iPhone was going too slow to catch his smile!

The trains were set up in the middle of a garden with a path going all around it. He ran around the path looking at the trains...and around and around again. He literally ran in circles the whole time we were in there, only stopping every once in a while when a train got close to wherever he was (I later learned he was running to catch the train he liked). After about the 15th round, I got out my iPhone out to try getting a video. I apologize for the first few seconds, but the rest illustrates how he kept himself entertained while we were there:



It was nice to get out with him free of a stroller or a diaper bag or the need to eat like clockwork. Since I know our days won't always be this fancy free, I always take an extra minute to appreciate the ease of such outings. More than that, though, it's such a good reminder to just appreciate all the stages that come with a new baby. I want to try to enjoy the stroller and the diapers and the bottles because before we know it, she'll be running around just like him.

Man, I hope this one is the one....two more days.

A set up

Today I let myself prepare a little bit. I don't want to really prepare because this really might not happen. However, at some point I suppose it will. So I figured there was no real harm in doing the following:

• Cleaning out my car
• Buying my first lot of cloth diapers (a whole post for another day, I think)
• Setting up my sister's Pack N' Play to make sure all the pieces were there (bonus: it matches our living room PERFECTLY)
• Buying (yellow) curtains and (butterfly) curtain rods for the baby room

It kind of feels like I'm setting myself up for an even bigger letdown if all this falls through, but I truly do have faith that one day we'll need all these things. And Lord knows my car could have used a serious cleaning out either way.
:)

5 Days

In 5 days a woman in IL is going to be induced. In 5 days we will get a call. In 5 days we'll know if she plans to go forward with her adoption plan. In 5 days we will either start packing to go see her or start blogging about how she changed her mind.

So for 5 days I am going to try not to be crabby; I'm going to try to enjoy our simple life just how it is; I'm going to try preparing just in case this is the real deal; I'm going to try not to teeter on the edge of tears all day long. For 5 days I will think about this woman and pray for her endlessly.

What I really want to do is sleep straight through the next 5 days and have that phone call wake me up...

Yesterday was a good (GOOD!) day :)

Yesterday our boy turned 4. I made Spiderman cupcakes for his classmates. He got to wear a birthday crown. He behaved like normal again (yay!). I took him to the Betty Brinn Children's Museum after school and relished in the ease of taking a 4 year old to a place like that...no stroller, no diaper bag, no nothing. Just him, me and a camera. He never stood still long enough for me to get a decent shot, despite my efforts.

Later in the day, Bryan and I took Simon to see Beauty and the Beast. We were the only ones there except for another family of three whose little boy was also named Simon. I wondered if it was his birthday too, but decided not to ask. I was surprised that I was able to pay attention to the movie at all, knowing this life as a family of three would probably be no longer two weeks from now.

If she doesn't change her mind, that is.

You see, we've been picked. We've been picked by a woman who is having a scheduled induction on January 26th in a town just south of Chicago. I'll do the math for you...our daughter's birthday could very well be a mere 9 days away.

All there is to do now is get our ducks in a row and pray that it all works out. I won't stop you from saying a prayer too :)

Four YEARS Ago

I don't know how this came to be. How could four years have passed already, but the day it all started is so crystal clear in my mind? I guess it's like anything huge that happens...you just remember it. I'm afraid I'm going to forget the details one day, though, so that is why I've been writing about the days leading up to the first look at my son.

Last night, as I mentioned yesterday, Simon had a really hard time going to sleep. Know what finally calmed him down? Telling him an abbreviated version of his birth story for the first time ever. I told him and he listened intently, finally quieting down. When I finished, he asked to hear it again so I told him once more. I love that on the eve of his birthday and after over a half hour of tears and fighting sleep, this story is what ultimately settled him down. I wonder how many more times I will get to tell him before he gets tired of it. Hopefully, not for a long time.

--

After I called the doctor around 5am, we started getting ourselves ready to go to the hospital. Getting up and taking a shower was enough activity for my contractions to start coming every 2 minutes and sent Bryan into a panic. He likes to tell anyone who will listen about the "bag" I promised I had packed. It was really a pile of stuff on a chair that was missing several important items; this did not help his state of panic. I was fine, though. I was still just worried I would be sent home and this wasn't actually real labor...it's all I talked about on the way there (in between contractions that I couldn't really talk through).

We got there and I got checked. 4cm. It was happening for real and I didn't have to go back home. I walked to my room, stopping half way there because a contraction came and the nurse kept telling me to breathe. I was thinking, "I am breathing, get me a freaking wheelchair," but I just looked at her and waited until I could really walk again.

I figured that since I was only 4cm after over 6 hours of labor, I had a long time to go.  While it wasn't unbearable, I knew it was only going to get worse so I ordered an epidural right away. By 7am I was numb and napping.

Eventually I got to 10cm and the doctor broke my water (which splashed her street clothes...haha). I started pushing and a few pushes later there he was! Just kidding. It was a lot of pushes later (have you seen this kid's head?). Bryan and the nurse said whatever they could to get me to keep trying and to stay awake (those of you who had to push for a while know what I'm talking about when I say I literally fell asleep between pushes....it's like no exhaustion I've ever felt). I pushed for about an hour an a half or so and finally I got to look at his beautiful face. It looked just like his daddy's, even if the pictures don't really show it:

I was afraid I wasn't going to think he was cute, but it turns out that I thought he was the cutest baby I'd ever laid eyes on. Even if the rest of the world thought he was super unfortunate looking I still thought he was absolutely stunning, just like a mother should. What a relief :) Once he was all cleaned up he looked a little like this:

Now he looks a little like this:

Simon got a transformer from friends and when Bryan finally got it transformed to a car Simon said, "My dad's a genius!"

The kids were playing upstairs at his party and the next thing we knew, the boys were streaking through the house!

That face. It kills me.

Cousin love!

At this point in the night, Clara helped him into one of the dresses she brought with. A 4 year old boy, in a dress, shooting off a pop gun. Sounds about right. At least nobody would ever call this kid boring :)

And TA DA! The lamest cake I've ever made. HA! He wanted a dinosaur cake and I happened to have a mold for it. He also wanted marshmallows on it, so that worked nicely. The candles are supposed to be forming the T-rex arm. The 4 candle is just where Simon put it. His cakes have gotten progressively worse over the years, but he loved it and it tasted good so all was well in the world.

Happy birthday, Simon. I love you more than you will ever know!

Four years ago, January 15th

I woke up in the morning after staying up until the wee hours with unproductive contractions to a pain free abdomen. Where was the pain? I wanted it back! But, alas, the bun was still in the oven and now I was just extra tired from being up half the night.

I decided to go mall walking that day with my sister to try to jiggle him out. Every few steps I had to stop and literally lift my belly up because the weight of the baby was sending shooting pains through my cervix. It actually just made us both laugh.

Later that evening around 6pm I remember talking to my father-in-law about the night before and how the contractions went away. While we were on on the phone I started noticing the familiar tightness coming and going and said I thought they might be making a comeback. It was all just like the day before, though, so I didn't get my hopes up. We just went to bed at a normal hour and tried to wait it out.

Midnight came along and sleep was no longer an option. We were laying in bed timing contractions with my old cell phone for a while. Bryan kept making me laugh about who knows what, which made the contractions more challenging and more fun at the same time somehow. Eventually I got up to call the doctor to get her advice, which was something on the lines of "head to the hospital once they are 5 minutes apart for an hour." We were already at that point, but I was still unconvinced this was the real deal (I had a ridiculous, but very real phobia of being sent home from the hospital with false labor). Once I got up and started moving around, they started getting much more intense and much closer together, though. I also started bleeding (sorry, tmi) and got what I thought were the chills...I was perfectly warm, but shaking uncontrollably for a while.

All this, and still I was unsure...

--

Today we celebrated Simon's birthday with family, though tomorrow it's the actual day (a confusing concept for this little guy). He was in such a good mood all morning and everything was making him wiggle with excitement. He said, "I love birthdays...especially when it's mine!"

More on his party tomorrow...I'm too exhausted to finish and the birthday boy is upstairs throwing a fit and not sleeping. Thank you fun, sugar, gifts and partying for this extra horrible bedtime tonight!

Four years ago, January 14th

As I've mentioned once or twice, I didn't exactly handle pregnancy well and I could not have been more ready meet the baby behind the bump on this day, 4 years back. So you can imagine my delight when I thought for sure my water was slowly breaking (I'll spare you the details, but you can do the math). I was off to see the doctor. They did a test and told me I was perpetually peeing in my pants. I explained that I know what it feels like to pee, and they assured me I could not (it was quite the argument). They did an ultrasound to verify there was plenty of fluid left, measured him at 6lbs 14oz and sent me on my fat way.

Despite my doctor's insistence that I was no more near labor than I was the day before, contractions started (in your face, doc!). The contractions were getting stronger and closer together for a while, but my doctor got the last laugh because eventually they stopped getting stronger and closer...they just kind of stayed the same (yes, in my head my doctor was the enemy at this point). With these teaser contractions I was up until about 3 in the morning when I finally decided to try going to sleep. My head hit the pillow and POOF! I was out and the contractions disappeared....it wasn't meant to happen on 1-14-08.

--

That baby taunting me with contractions four years ago grew up to have his first bad report from his teacher yesterday. Apparently he was all out of sorts. He wasn't listening, was being mean to other kids, was talking inappropriately (think "poopy head") and was in general being a giant brat. Frankly, I'm surprised this day hasn't come sooner....I'm just really hoping it was a one time deal!

Four years ago, January 13th

Four years ago, I went to the hospital to visit my BFF and her new baby girl. Macey was born the day before and I sat there holding her alongside my big pregnant belly. Both Macey and Simon did their newborn wiggle at the same time; one of them was breathing air and the other was still tucked inside, but they moved exactly the same. It was one experience I will never, ever forget and actually made it a little easier to stomach the fact that Simon was still pumping amniotic fluid through his lungs.

You see, I was not interested in being pregnant anymore. I was just over 38 weeks and that seemed like long enough to me.

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Now here we. It's been 4 years and a few days since that memorable double wiggle. I can hardly believe how big he is and everything he can do now. I was thinking about all the milestones he hit before his last birthday and how significant they were: talking in actual sentences, ditching diapers, ditching his crib, ditching his nuk, learning a million things, etc.

There aren't as many "milestones" to note before this birthday, but here is everything I can think of that makes Simon the 4 Year Old different than Simon the Three Year Old. This is really for me to look back on some day, so I apologize if it seems like overkill...feel free to skip it :)

Let's see....this past year, he graduated to a booster seat. His voice sounds like he went through puberty. He can now tell stories, be manipulative, put up a solid argument, make jokes, go potty without assistance, sound out small words (when he's in the mood), sit on the naughty bench for 3 minutes without his butt leaving it for a second, write his name, use the numbers and hands on the clock to help him know when we're leaving or someone is coming (no, he cannot really tell time), get undressed, get dressed (challenging when your head is adult sized but your clothes are kid sized), swim with nothing but a noodle, navigate through the blu-ray player to quietly get a Netflix show on if I won't do it for him (naughty business). He loves to show us the things he can do and always requests we stop what we're doing to watch. He pretends he is a superhero all the time and has "punch power" that gets him in trouble. He goes to school 3 mornings a week and loves it, especially the art projects. According to his teacher he is funny and social. He's still not great at sharing. He asks about our baby. He can play with a little action figure for hours and has a great imagination, despite his sad love for the boob tube. He has a major sweet tooth and would live on candy if we'd let him. He's no longer afraid of the dentist. The second he sees Daddy starting on a house project he runs all over to collect his tools so he can help. Okay, okay. I could probably go on forever trying to capture everything this boy is.

Right now, though, we have to get ready for school....

Shiner

A few days ago, Simon dodged a bullet and managed to avoid splitting his eyebrow right open. He did not, however, walk away without a scratch. He got a bit of a shiner.

We were playing basketball in his toy room and the combination of excitement, socks and hardwood floors teamed up against him and down he went. Bryan has a bike trainer which is stand you set up and put your road bike on so you can bike indoors, and for some reason it wound up in his toy room; I think the idea was that it was out of the way and in a room that's already a little chaotic (hello, toys), but it turns out that a bike and its trainer don't belong in a toy room. When Simon went down, his eye hit a hard piece of metal and it had to HURT.

He refused to put ice on it because his face would get too cold, but he did let me take a picture. While I have an awesome new camera I'm not super skilled with it yet, so the picture doesn't really do it justice:

Really it just looked like he was wearing various shades of eye shadow over the past few days and the lid was a little puffy. When his teacher asked him what happened he told her "I hit it on one of my daddy's bike ingredients." Interesting way to put it! :)

"Christian" Adoption Consultants

I feel heavy today.

This consulting agency that we signed on with in the hopes of getting our baby a little sooner has turned out to be a huge mistake. When we signed on they gave us information to a handful of agencies that we could apply directly to with the understanding that there would be opportunities to adopt within our budget. Only after we signed on, we found that if we wanted to actually use all of these agencies we'd have to fork over another $850 in application fees and none of their total agency fees are actually in our total budget.

I explained to the consultants that for the aforementioned reasons, we no longer wanted to use their services and had we been given the whole picture from the beginning we wouldn't be in this predicament. I think we deserve a refund and they continue to say they "don't understand" and are "confused" about why we feel they have not followed through with their end of the contract. There is no amount of explaining I can do to get them to see it from my side.

They have our money and they are holding on tight.

So we are going to attempt to go through the credit card company to get our money back, but I'm sure it will be futile. Just chalk it up to another shady corner in the world of adoption :(

Boy's First Movie

I've been hearing about all these kids who have gone to movies and have done just fine, so we finally decided to jump on the bandwagon and took Simon to his first show: Chipwrecked.

{Bryan and I were not super excited about going to a chipmunks movie, but it turned out to be mildly amusing.}

Simon was pretty mesmerized by the whole experience and sat perfectly still the whole time. Towards the end he was snuggling on my lap and in a sad little voice told me he wanted to go home. The boy was wiped. So rather than forcing him to fight sleep in a movie theater, we packed up and headed home. Simon is no longer a napper, but every once in a while he just cannot stay awake and this was one of those days. I'm glad we left early because he wound up napping for about 2 hours - nothing short of a miracle in our house these days!

The best part of it all was seeing the shocked expression on Bryan's face when Simon exclaimed "Hey, that's not a fox!" when the 20th Century Fox logo came on the screen :) Priceless!