Remember that productive day?

I've had productive days since CC joined us. I've also had some very unproductive ones. This past week has been slightly more challenging as Cecilia is waking up more and needs a little more attention than she did in the past. I'm not mad at myself for being less productive, but I think the clutter in my house is getting to me....

Yesterday I felt a little blue all afternoon and into the evening and I couldn't figure out why. When we got back from a friend's house I looked around, saw crap everywhere, and decided that the mess was weighing on me.

Right now I am using this blog to further procrastinate, but as soon as I hit "publish" it's Me vs. Home. If I tell the world I'm going to do it, maybe I actually will...

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Yeah, my three week old can climb on the couch and look over the back of it. She's pretty advanced.

She's wondering why Mommy and Auntie Al are making her do silly things...(Auntie Al was holding her up and hiding behind the couch haha).

Cloth Baby

Cecilia's cord finally came off last weekend, so I figured I was free to test out my cloth diapers any time. I thought they would still be too big on her, but they are actually not much bigger than the size 1 disposable diapers I have. In other words, no more excuses to wait!

This is what it looks like on the smallest setting, ready to wear. Not your mom's cloth diaper!

And here it is opened up. There is a "soaker" that gets stuffed in the middle from the back before use, then the whole thing gets washed.

I got it all positioned and just about closed at the top when her familiar poop shriek rang in my ears. So my first try at a cloth diaper very quickly turned into my first try at changing a poopy cloth diaper. Luckily (for me, not for her...ouch) it was a only few nuggets so the clean up was a breeze. I got her into a fresh one and we were on our way.

Chica needs some lotion!

As you can see, it goes on just like a regular diaper.

We started on Monday afternoon and here we are on Thursday afternoon...so far so good. We've used them exclusively except at night because I'm not confident yet that the cloth diapers will hold as well for longer stretches. I also decided to use disposable at my Grandma's this morning since my wet bag was in need of a wash...I've since ordered another one so I don't have to worry about that. I know we will continue to use disposables occasionally, I'm just not sure what "occasionally" will come to mean.

I'm glad a couple of my green friends got me thinking about this...it's turning out to be a relatively easy way to save money and a lot of garbage. I'm just hoping it stays easy. After all, we're only a few days in!

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And this is just because she is so freaking pretty...

Look Up

I can't believe those two beautiful creatures at the top of my blog are ours. Beautiful doesn't seem like a strong enough word...

Man, I love them.

These Guys

The man....
Calls her "Little One."
Stays up with her until 11 or later every night so I can go to sleep early.
Listens to me repeat detailed bedtime instructions every night without snapping an "I KNOW!"
Meets up with her again around 4am.
Talks to her in this crazy baby voice that was in hibernation for the past few years.
Is trying hard to be helpful so I don't lose my mind.

The boy...
Calls her "Our Baby"
Expresses his distaste for her crying ("Cecilia, stop it!").
Had trouble sleeping in his bed all night for a few nights, but seems to be back on track (thanks to the power of a bribe).
Is all about the Daddy since the Mommy is a little preoccupied.
Acts like she's always been here.
Wants to know why she doesn't want to play with toys.
Is being as good of a big brother as any kid could be.

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It's kind of interesting to sit back and watch these two men in my life adjust to a new baby. I like what I see.

Productivity

It's just shy of 3pm and today I got dishes done, started laundry, went grocery shopping, started dinner, worked on Run Like a Mother for two solid hours and right now I'm getting pictures uploaded for those of you who feel I should be doing this daily...you know who you are :)

I'm relieved I was able to make today work just like any other day and have a teeny tiny bit more confidence that I'm not going to fall apart at the seams trying to juggle everything. I feel stupid for even getting overwhelmed at all considering I only need to work a few hours a week from home and have children 4 whole years apart, one of whom goes to school three mornings a week. But a change is a change, right?


Scrunchy baby...

Twinkle toes...

I don't know why, but I LOVE this picture....

And while he was doing this today.....

She was doing this....

A week in review

It's been several days since my last post and a lot has happened since then. It feels like a lifetime ago that we were starting our first morning together without Bryan back in IL....

Monday, February 6:
Last Monday was Bryan's first day back at work and Cecilia and I were on our own in IL for the day. The whites of her eyes weren't looking white enough for me so I decided to go on mission to get her checked out by a doctor. Easy enough, right? Here's how easy it was:

Leave around 12:30pm. Head to hospital 25 minutes away, per advice of insurance company rep. Miss exit on the way there. Navigate back on track using phone, trying not to get us both killed. Get there to find out they do not have urgent care, only an emergency room. Decide there has to be an urgent care around to save us a few hundred bucks. Call insurance company back for an alternative solution. Realize my phone has 10% battery left. Try not to freak out. Remember I passed a Walmart. Buy car charger. Buy them completely out of the Similac pre-filled 2oz bottles because I think it will make me feel less stressed. Head to "immediate care" another 25 minutes away. Get to said immediate care center, try to be brave because it's in a shady area and proceed to get turned away because they don't treat anyone under 7. Call mom sobbing. Get out of shady area. Park in safer looking grocery store lot. Feed and change baby. Call social worker for advice. She's out. Call Bryan to take care of it and tell me where to go. Make various other phone calls trying to solve problem until I hear back from Bryan. He tells me to go back to original hospital for blood work, sans exam. Get to hospital. Order isn't in. Lady has to call for it. Baby screams whilst getting blood drawn from heel. I try not to cry with her. Head back to hotel. Miss exit. Finally get back to hotel at 6:30pm, starving from lack of time to get food since breakfast.

Glad that day is behind me...and thank goodness Cecilia slept through it all (and she's fine by the way)!

This just shows you that even a 9 pound baby is still a peanut!

Tuesday, February 7:
PW visited me for the whole day, which was great. We went out to lunch and went to Gurnee Mills. Some ladies stopped us in the mall to ogle over Cecilia and asked, "Who is the mother?" I said I was and she said, "Oh I didn't know because you both look so great!" As if our physiques was the only thing that really made her wonder. HA!

Wednesday, February 8:
Court day! We went into downtown Chicago to meet with an attorney and have our time in front of a judge to give us custody of Cecilia. We got there early and were therefore able to get squeezed in before the judge's lunch break so all in all it was a smooth process. We had a surprise visit to the sheriff's department too, where she had to be summoned or something. Next thing we know this is happening and my face is beat red:

We got back to the hotel around 2pm, and at 3pm we got the call saying we've been approved to go home! We were back before 6pm and ready to start this new crazy life.

Thursday, February 8 through Sunday, February 12:
These days we're just trying to adjust. Simon has been pushing buttons a little more than usual and I am having an even harder time keeping my house picked up than usual (which means it's getting pretty wild looking 'round these parts). It was nice to have Bryan back for a few days to help out and he got Cecilia's room finished up today, so that's one less thing to think about. Tomorrow, I have to focus on keeping my house picked up, work on Run Like a Mother and figure out dinner. Why does that sound overwhelming?!

Don't mind my tired face...just make note of the wrap. I bought it a few days ago and love that I can get things done while holding her. It helps reduce that overwhelming feeling, at least a little!

A blurry iPhone pic, but I still thought it was cute.

I really think yellow is her color.

Can't leave out the boy!

Check out those lips!

Baby Girl and Me :)

Today it's just me and this little beauty hanging out. We took a field trip to Target to get some burp cloths, new bottles and a wipes container. We ran out of the little 2oz shot bottles from the hospital yesterday. I miss them. A LOT. She ate out of them like a champ and I didn't have to worry about dishes in a tiny little sink. I have a handful of Dr. Brown's bottles but the nipples on them turned out to be for older babies so she was choking on her formula, plus I loathe Dr. Brown's bottles and all of their damn pieces! So I got a new kind that are less annoying, but she doesn't love those either. Urg.

I still just can't believe Baby Girl is no longer a figment of my imagination. She has a name. A preferred bottle. Sleep habits I've come to expect. She is on the bed, snoozing away right here in this same room as me.

Crazy.

What a couple of days....

I'll warn you now...this post is a little lengthy. This is why I blog, though. So I can look back on things that happened in my life, big and small. Plus, I know some of you out there are detail people...you know who you are :)

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Wednesday, February 1:

I got Simon to school in the morning and spent the hours between 9 and noon packing. After school, I brought him to my mom's house, went home, collected Bryan and we were on our way at about 2pm. We had to make a pit stop at the UW-Credit Union so they could issue us a cashier's check in the amount of a small (or not so small) fortune for the adoption agency in IL.

On the way there, we went over our list of names:
Lucy
Lydia
Celia
Ada
Penelope
Violet
Vanessa

In the days between finding out about the baby and this day, Ada was highest on the list. I really love the name but couldn't get over the fear that she would one day fall in love with a man named Burger. What if she was Ada Burger? You know, ate a burger? My love for the name couldn't outweigh the burger factor I guess.

Bryan really liked Celia but there was something about it that didn't seem right to me, so we thought about adding an extra Ce and going with Cecilia. I checked the 2010 popularity of the name on my iPhone and was happy it was ranked somewhere in the 200s and that was it!

We got to the town of Morris around 6pm and checked into the Days Inn. It was quite the dive, but it was cheap and we'd only have to be there for 2 nights so we decided to roll with it. After we got checked in we went to dinner and while there we got a call from Julie, the social worker from the agency in IL. She would meet us at the hospital in 40 minutes to introduce us to the baby.

We waited for her in the hospital lobby for a few minutes and before we knew it we were walking through the halls of labor and delivery to the "nesting room" where we were able to spend time with the baby. The nurse turned to me and said how cute she was and I just lost it. I was so overwhelmed and the idea of the baby being cute on top of everything was just too much to take so on came the waterworks. Julie documented all of this, but I'm not going to post crying pictures :)

We got to the nesting room and they wheeled her in. I could barely contain myself! She had a bow in her hair! She was cute! I could hold her! It was an incredibly surreal moment.

We spend a couple of hours with her before going back to the hotel for the night...I was exhausted.

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Thursday, February 2:

We got to the hospital around 8am and sat with the baby until she was discharged at noon. Julie met us there to do the paperwork and to collect the aforementioned fortune. It all went smoothly and we headed back to the lovely Days Inn.

Later that evening we took a field trip to the local Walmart. We encountered an angry teenage boy loudly yelling at his mother. It went a little something like this: "F*** you, you f****ng c*nt, f****ng b**ch! F*** you!" I think he was upset she wouldn't buy him something, but I can't be 100% sure.

ANYWAY, later that night we had a three way call scheduled between us, one of the social workers (Rita) and the birth mom. It. Did. Not. Go. Well. And so began the worst night of my life.

On this phone call, the birth mom was going crazy. Not in a mentally deranged kind of way, but in an "Oh my God I might never see my baby again" kind of way. She was absolutely wavering and made it clear she didn't know if she could go through with it. She was crying, I was crying, the social worker was NOT crying (she later told me I needed to "toughen up"). I hung up the phone with every confidence in the world that we were going home empty handed. Even rehashing it here is making me get emotional. I cried for hours and could barely look at the baby the rest of the night. THANK GOD for Bryan. I fell in love with him all over again that night. He held the baby close all evening and never pushed me to hold her. He knew I just couldn't.

It was a night from hell.

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Friday, February 3:

We got up Friday and took our time packing up the car. We got checked out around 10:30 and headed to the city where the birth mom was meeting with the social workers to sign the papers. We were all supposed to be there at 11. I was in the dark about E's (birth mom) whereabouts, but it didn't matter. One of the two social workers who were meeting her was an hour and a half late. Yes, folks, an hour and a half. And anyone who knows me knows that tardiness is not something I participate in or tolerate well from others. It actually makes me crazy. So imagine my delight when she was THIS late for THIS event.

Finally around 1 they had their things together and were ready to get the meeting started. It was decided - last minute - that we would not meet E in person based on our horrid phone call from the night before. E would, however, want to see the baby again. So we left the baby there, got in the car and drove off waiting for the call telling us it was over. Saying goodbye to that baby right then was dreadful. She was never really ours, but I felt like it was the last time she would even sort of be ours. And it was a moment of complete loss of control, which is never fun.

So we drove. We drove to Arby's where we got greasy french fries and sodas. Then we got an apple pie from Burger King. We talked about whether we would be done with adoption if this fell through. We tried to read between the lines of all we knew leading up to this moment to predict the outcome. I tried not to let the physical effects of anxiety completely overcome me, which was the hardest part of all. I felt uncomfortable from my toes to my eyeballs and everywhere in between. Honestly, it was agony like I've never felt. I'm sure there are bigger deals out there, but for me this was the biggest of deals in my life so far and I was feeling every bit of that reality.

We drove around for an hour and 40 minutes before deciding enough was enough and just waited in the parking lot. We got a call from a blocked number a few minutes later, but it was my father in law. I believe I said disappointingly, "oh (pause), it's you." I barely had time to explain why he was the last person I wanted to hear from at that moment (everyone but one person was last at this moment) and there was the number we were waiting for on call waiting. I hung up on him and answered the call. I asked, "did she sign?" and my social worker said, "She signed the papers, she's all yours! Come and get her!"

I immediately burst into tears and gave Bryan a hug before bolting out of the car to get Cecilia - I could call her that now. She was in her car seat carrier and I shoved my face right in and kissed her face a bunch and told her I loved her. All the while the tears wouldn't stop. We got her to the car and started making calls and texting people the good news.

It's amazing the extreme ups and downs we experienced in such a short amount of time. It's no wonder I have been exhausted! I feel like this post doesn't really do this experience justice, but it's the best I can do. After all, I am busy with a 4 year old and a newborn now :)

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As a side note, this chick poops a lot.

Just Pictures

First look :)

Simon's first look....video to come!

WISH this was more clear!

Cecilia Rose

For whatever reason the idea of writing about everything that happened over the past 24 hours just sounds exhausting right now, so I think I will wait on that. For now, I just want to share this:

 

We cannot wait until tomorrow when her birth mother can sign the papers! Can. Not. Wait.

1-31-12

Yesterday my good friend Jessi came over for the afternoon to help keep my mind occupied. While she was here, my mom ran over (literally) from her house and the three of us were sitting around the kitchen table when I got a call from a 608 number. It had to be my social worker calling from home.

It was. All she said was, "I don't know anything, except that the baby was born today."

She had literally no other information - not the time of birth, size, gender verification, etc. My mom announced that the baby was a 9 pounder (this was a statement, not a guess), but she turned out to be off...by an ounce.

An hour or so after Jessi and my mom left, we got the news that the baby was born around 9:15am, she was indeed a girl, and she was a healthy 8lbs 15oz. I even got to talk to the birth mom for a minute. Not near long enough, but long enough to hear her voice and tell her we want to do whatever we can to make this easier for her.

We are waiting for more information today, but as of now the plan is to get on the road this afternoon to go meet Baby Girl. I can't even wrap my head around this....