A Visit with Tasha

Yesterday, we drove up to Baltimore to visit with Tasha, Leah's birthmom. She has gone through a lot of upheaval in the three months since Leah was born, so I was very happy that we could visit her and bring her a little sunshine.

We arrived almost an hour late courtesy of the DC DOT (which is now officially on my list of DOT's that I cannot stand), but it was fine. We hung out at Tasha's place for another hour, during which her sister came by to visit, and then we headed out to where it all began: The Cheesecake Factory!

It was fun--we ate outside overlooking the paddleboats and aquarium, which I am definitely looking forward to taking Leah to someday. It was so nice to have a wonderful afternoon to catch up and just really enjoy ourselves, the pressure is off from the adoption, Michael and I can relax, and just enjoy this young woman in our lives.

It was hard to say goodbye, but nice to drive on with a text coming into my cell that read, "Thanks for everything, you are doing an amazing job. I couldn't have picked better parents in the world than you. Love ya!"

We also gave Tasha the album yesterday with the cards everyone had made and about 125 pictures of Leah's first 3 months. She actually cried over everyone's notes and sentiments. I told her there might be a few more on the way, so if you haven't sent one yet, but want to, feel free. We'll go visit her again this fall AFTER the baseball season--Baltimore sucks when everyone's in town for the O's.

It was tough to say goodbye, but the joy of an open adoption is that we're only saying "Goodbye for now" and we know we'll see her again! It's great that she's so close by and we can have regular visits. This adoption has turned into everything I didn't think I wanted, and it's made me so happy.

Thank You Book & Open House

Today I started sending out cards to people for the thank you book for Tasha. If you would like to get in on that action, kindly send me an email with your home address and I will send you a card for the book. I am even enclosing return postage so you don't have to hunt for a stamp!

If you are coming to the open house on May 30th, we will have all the supplies there for making a card and including it in the album. If you want the card early to decorate at home with your own supplies and are local, I can make arrangements to get the card to you in advance.

Also, to anyone who didn't get the Evite, our open house is officially scheduled for May 30th from 1-4pm. If you'd like to be added to the Evite to get the address, kindly send me your email address. We respectfully ask that no one arrive early or leave late. Leah runs a tight ship! Also, no gifts required, your presence is present enough.

Court and Surprises!

Ok, well, surprise surprise, I am backed up on blogging! Looking back over everything, this blog is a great place to keep memories of our adventure in adopting, and I wanted to be sure to blog about Tuesday.

This week was always going to be crazy! It is my last week of work for my job, and I knew it was the point of no return in terms of going to get my last bits of paperwork done and finishing up at the office. Because my mom is here to help out this week, and she also wanted to spend some time with my sister, our driving schedules were starting to look like Grand Central Station. Should I take Leah and spend the night at Judy's on Sunday? And if so, would my mom then spend the night as well and come to my office to get Leah from me after work? Because I had to stay over at Judy's again Monday night so I could leave bright and early to pick up Tasha to go to court.

Finally, we decided to be bold and ask Tasha to spend the night with us on Monday. Now I know, I know many of you probably think that is the nuttiest thing you've ever heard. And if I had suspected I'd have this kind of relationship with my daughter's birthmother, I'd have thought I was totally out to lunch too! But we've just been extremely fortunate to have made this match and been able to have such a good relationship with Tasha. The three of us call it "The Match Made In Heaven". So I sent Tasha a text and asked if she would like to come spend the night with us and she said she would. So I spent Sunday night with Leah at Judy's, went to work with Leah who was the hit of the office, and then we drove to Glen Burnie to pick Tasha up and bring her back to Fredericksburg. Now even I admit this is probably a little bit past the 'normal' birth parent/adoptive parent relationship, but as the old saying goes, "What is normal anyway?!" It worked for us. My mom spent Monday cleaning the house and preparing for Tasha's arrival and we got back around 9:00. She loved the house, loved Leah's room, said TomTom was the biggest rabbit she ever saw in her life, and we all ate chocolate chip cookies and then tried to go to bed.

I say tried because Leah decided that Monday night was the best night ever to throw her first temper tantrum. And I am not kidding when I say this kid was SCREAMIN'! OMG. After about 45 minutes, I just couldn't do it any more. I had been up since 5:00am, it was now midnight, I'd been driving all over God's green Earth, I had NOT gotten my work done so I was facing another day in the office, it was NUTTY. So I told Michael to please go downstairs and get my mom. She came upstairs, blinking in the light, and I sobbed, "I think the Chinese tainted her formula with paint chips" and thrust Leah into my mom's arms. I was crying, Michael was crying, Leah was crying. My mother said, "There are no paint chips in her formula!" and I said, "Well then the aliens have come down and swapped babies because my baby has never acted like this before." After about an hour, Leah sort of settled down, but the minute I put her in her crib, bang, she was off crying again. So I was like, "Screw this, it's nearly 2am, and I'm exhausted" and I picked her up, put her in bed with us, and she went right to sleep.

I woke up four hours later so totally out of it that my first thought was, "Who put this baby in my bed?" When she is in a bad mood now, she has been affectionately dubbed "Paint Chip Baby".

So Tuesday morning we all get up, and by 10:00 we realize we need to start thinking about getting ready to leave for the court date. I am a planner, I admit, I like to have A PLAN in place, but my mom is an uber-planner and wanted to know everything we had planned for the day--who was going in which cars, what we would do afterwards, etc. I honestly couldn't get past arriving at the courthouse. I just couldn't. I really had no idea what to expect from the hearing, I didn't know who was meeting us there, we didn't know if Tasha's attorney would be coming, the whole 9 yards. So I couldn't be much help. My mom feels better in times of stress knowing exactly what's going to happen and having a firm grip on the situation. In times of stress, I just give up and let nature take its course. It was kind of entertaining.

I had determined that we needed to leave at 11:00 to go to the courthouse. My internal clock told me this would be the right time to leave, so by 11:00, after 3 wardrobe changes on my part (new dress required a slip which I didn't have, suit was way too big, third choice suit was too big but at least it stayed up), we headed out--my mom in her car, Tasha, Leah, Mike, and I in our car. We made it to the courthouse around 11:20 and got past the metal detectors by 11:30, but had no idea what to do after that. Tasha found a list on the wall of all the court cases for civil court, but we weren't listed. Finally, a sheriff took pity on us and told us that we needed to go to the juvenile court clerk to find out which courtroom we were going to go to, and it turned out we were going to the basement court room. We went to get on the elevator, only it's a trick elevator, when you try to go from the basement to the first floor, it automatically goes to the second floor. So we had to wait for it to come back down before we could get on to go to the basement (the stairwells are protected and you need a special badge to go up and down them).

We got the basement and there was an austere little waiting room down there--about 15 chairs arranged in a square. At least we knew that our case was for that day, because there was NOBODY down there--it was dead quiet and a completely uninspiring decor. I guess I pictured adoption court as being kind of warm and fuzzy. But as you can see from this picture, it was deadsville. Finally a couple of deputies came out and asked if we were there for the Baby Girl X case, and we said yes, and that put our minds at ease a bit, since they were expecting us. They admired Leah for a while and then disappeared and then Colleen, our attorney arrived. She introduced herself to Tasha and I introduced my mom and the next thing out of her mouth was, "We have a small glitch."

Well, I don't have to tell you, my heart sunk to my shoes, my mother about had a coronary, and for once in his life, Michael was struck speechless. It turns out that the guardian ad litem they had selected was not actually on the list of approved GALs for the county and would not be able to act on Leah's behalf that day. Colleen was halfway through explaining that we just had to get a new court order to do something when a voice behind her said, "You have a GAL and I'm it!" and our hero, Brenda, introduced herself as the pinch hitter. We all started breathing again. Colleen spent some time with Brenda explaining that Leah's father had never replied to the letters sent to his home and getting Mike, Tasha, and I to all sign a paper requesting that the courts grant the custody transfer. And then over the loudspeaker, we were called in to the court room, at which point Leah decided to start screaming. It was nearly impossible to hear what the hell was going on, and finally after a couple minutes of Colleen trying to talk over Leah's wailing, I told my mom, "Mom! Just feed her!" So Mom slapped a bottle in Leah's mouth, and she was happy as a little clam.

The next part was for Colleen to read over the legal agreements with Tasha. Tasha was sworn in and asked a bunch of questions, such as did she know she had alternatives to the adoption including keeping the child and raising her herself, did she want or had she been offered counseling, was she sure of who the birth father was, did she belong to any Native American tribes, was she being coerced into the adoption by anyone in any way, etc. Once she answered all their questions to her satisfaction, she was given the court documents and asked to read them and sign them. Then Colleen explained to her that she had two options for that day, she could choose to terminate her rights effective immediately or she could choose to retain a 7 day waiting period during which she could change her mind at any time. She elected to terminate her rights immediately.

Once she signed everything, Colleen gave all the forms to Judge Daltan and then Brenda had a few questions and Colleen discussed the birth father with the judge. We all had a good laugh over the fact that FedEx confirmed delivery and that the package was signed for by a 'receptionist' at the man's residence, which was presumed to be his wife. Everyone expected that Mister had a real bad day after that.

After Brenda agreed that everything looked to be in order, the judge agreed and signed off on everything. With his signature, both Tasha's and the birthfather's rights were immediately terminated and Leah was put into our custody legally for a period of one year. Colleen then explained to us that all this did was set the clock ticking for us to have our social worker visits and that in about 6 months, we would appear again before the circuit courts to have the custody arrangements made permanent. This gives the courts time to make sure we are not abusive or neglectful and that Leah will be fine under our care.

A new court date was set for April 27, 2010 (again, we will go to court long before this) and the judge wished us well and sent us out. We packed up Leah and headed out. When we got back to that stupid waiting area, the dams burst. Tasha stepped towards me, handed me Leah, and said, "Congratulations, Susan." I ignored the baby, wrapped my arms around Tasha and started to weep. Having now been a mom for 3 glorious weeks, I can appreciate the act of courage it took that wonderful young woman to do what she did. I honestly can't imagine doing it myself. I heard her say, "are you OK, Mike?" and I grabbed him and the three of us crowded around Leah, hugging and crying while Mom and Colleen looked on. What do you say when "Thank you" does not even begin to cover it? We told her how much we loved her, we thanked her a million times, and we just hugged her and all of us were crying. Finally we all got it together, and Colleen stepped forward and said it really was wonderful that we had such a fantastic relationship and how unusual it was.

And we thanked her of course for all of her hard work. Seriously, there is no way you can find a better attorney than her for an adoption. We had to go upstairs to get the official decrees from the clerk, and once they were there, we were ready to leave, custody order in hand! We knew Tasha wanted to get back to Maryland ASAP as her 2 year old was coming home and *drum roll* because she (Tasha) had gotten married last week and her new husband was missing her! So we all stopped at McDonald's for a quick lunch, and then Michael, Leah, Tasha, and I hauled butt up to Maryland. Once we got to Tasha's place we went in for a bit, fed and changed Leah (who still HATES being in the car) and then it was time to go. It was bittersweet, but I am sure we will see Tasha again, and I've already heard from her, so I didn't shed any tears at saying "See you later" (we didn't say good bye :-D).

Michael, Leah, and I rolled it on south and I decided to obey the letter if not the spirit of the law by taking my family of 3 onto the HOV lanes of 95. WOW WAS IT AWESOME! We rolled past all the traffic on 95 at 4pm and made it home before 5:00. I'm not traveling 95 without my hubby and my daughter ever again. YEAH BOYS!

So we were rolling up our street and I was thinking, "Those kids better have cut the lawn today!" and as we got close to the house, I started seeing the kids moving around the lawn and I was feeling good. But then I noticed something crazy was sitting in the yard, and I said, "What the hell?!" Michael was grinning ear to ear. I said, "Honey! Someone put a giant sign in our yard!" And then I nearly drove off the road and into our neighbor's yard. I was like, "AWWWW!" because the sign is just SO CUTE and Michael said, "yes, Amy Wells took care of that!" and I was like, "OH MY GOD! AMY!?" and I got all misty-eyed. And then I damned near drove past our driveway.

So once we were inside, my mom told me all about Amy's cousin coming up to the house and installing the sign, and apparently while she was here, our neighbor Jean came over to see the baby (surprise, we were in Maryland, poor thing has stopped by twice and no baby!) after seeing the sign go up. Mom handed me all the paperwork about the sign which I immediately read to see if I might be able to keep it, but there was a pick up date on the slip (Damn it!!!! I LOVE THE SIGN AND WANT TO STEAL IT :-D)

So once the kids were done with the front yard, I told my mom, "I want pictures with the sign!" I gathered up Leah and Michael and we went out front and took some pictures. I didn't even want to waste time putting my shoes on--out we went! I just stood admiring it for a long time.



Then we took our first family "portrait". I gave my mom a little artistic direction, she was getting all of us into the shots, so she'd take a picture and I'd say, "no, zoom it closer!" and she'd take another one, and I'd say, "No, zoom it closer!" until we got this:



Which I absolutely LOVE. :-)

That night to celebrate the fact that on Sunday, Leah's umbilical cord stump FINALLY fell off, we decided to give her her first bath. Wash off the dust of the past and start her with her new family squeaky clean. Um, yeah, she pretty much hates us now.



We got it all on videotape, which I loved. It was absolutely hilarious, the level of her outrage over that bath. When she's unhappy, the entire world knows she's unhappy. I can't wait to give her another one :-)

So that was our court day. Wednesday I went back to work alone to finish up what I could of my caseload and pack up my desk and head out. It felt so weird. But it also felt really, really good. I have been anxious for this day to come, and I know that I will see my co-workers again, so I can't get too gloomy about it. I arrived home to a beautiful flower arrangement from my wonderful in-laws. Don't you love the little duck planter?

Today my mom and I gathered supplies for our freezer cooking fun, she made spaghetti sauce, and we took Leah for a walk. I've noticed that Leah sleeps A LOT better when she gets a walk in the fresh air and she sleeps TERRIBLE when she doesn't, so I'm attempting to walk her every night unless the weather is not good. She more or less sleeps through the walks, which is fine, but her nighttimes are much more mom-friendly.

Speaking of which, I'm going to hit the hay while I can still get a couple of hours sleep! G'night all!

Meet Tasha

The beautiful young woman in the picture with us is our birthmom, Tasha. She is an incredible person, and I hope Leah inherits even half of her strength.

Book of Gratitude for B.

I have decided to go ahead and make the gratitude book for B. I found an awesome package of 200 multicolored cards at Target, and what we'll do is send a card to anyone who wants to participate but won't be able to make the open house (tentatively scheduled for either May 30th or June 6th [preferences anyone?]) and you can decorate it, write on it, whatever you want to do, and send it back no later than June 1. I will even include postage so you have no excuse :) If you are local and want me to drop it off to you, I can do that as well. If you don't feel creative, you can drop me an email with your sentiments, I'll print it out and decorate a card for you. Please keep it fairly brief, the cards are 3X5 and we'll only be using 1 side.

Otherwise, at the open house, we will have markers, stickers, fancy scissors, etc. for you to decorate your card and have some fun expressing your gratitude to our wonderful birth mother. By then, I will be publishing her name publicly--she's given me her permission, but I don't want to do it till after the court date is over--so you'll be able to include her actual name as well.

Let me know if you'd like a card and would like to participate! We'll be sending out an Evite for the open house ASAP.

Doing Something For B.

A lot of people have asked me, "What can we do for B?" She has become a real heroine to so many people, most of all to us, that even though people don't know who she is, they want to express their gratitude to her.

Sometime in May, we are planning to host a little open house, and a thought I had was to have some notecards handy where people could write a note to B expressing their feelings for her. I can then compile them into a book and give it to her. She's a tough cookie, but I wish you guys could see her melt when someone says nice things to her--it's clear she loves receiving love and encouragement in a way few people genuinely need and soak it in.

What do you all think? Do you have other ideas? Shoot 'em at me! Also, if you can't make it to the open house but would like to participate, I can get a card to you and you can return it to me by mail so we can include it.

The Story of Leah's Birth

A couple of folks have asked to hear how it all went down, so I thought I'd write a post so I could remember myself. The details are already a little murky, so I would like to try and get it fixed in my head before I lose it completely!

Tuesday morning, we woke up thinking that the whole thing had been a false alarm. We knew that B. had a clinic appointment in the afternoon, so we decided to go and see what they had to say and then we planned to go home afterwards. We figured it wasn't a total waste of a trip because at least we got the crib set up and got the baby's stuff moved, and we would be ready to roll when the call did come in and would just have to jump in the car and drive. Michael didn't want to take off time from work unnecessarily, so the plan was to take B. to the clinic, take her home, and we'd go home.

Fate had other plans. B. called us around 10:00 and her exact words were, "I think we've made some progress, I woke up this morning and the bed was all wet." So we asked her what the plan was, and she had said that she called the hospital and they told her not to come in until her appointment at 2:30 anyway. So we decided we would go up there around lunch time to get her and bring her to the hospital.

We called her back around 11:30 to see if she wanted lunch, and she was getting antsy and told us that she had stuff for lunch at her house and could we just come? So we hopped in the car and went over there. Fortunately, it's only a 20 minute ride from Tom's house. When we got there, she was packed. She said she wanted to go early and asked if we wanted some lunch, and we declined. It was at that point it kind of dawned on me that it was happening and so we put her in the car and hauled butt to Baltimore. Once we got there, Baltimore was a total cluster-you-know-what. They had cops out directing traffic around the lights, which in my view is about the worst thing ever, and B was in the backseat, extremely unhappy. I put my hazard lights on hoping that would spur people to action, but no one and nothing moved. It took us 20 minutes to get to Baltimore and another half hour once we were in the city to get to the hospital.

We went to the clinic and they sent us directly upstairs to labor and delivery triage to see if she would be admitted. Michael had to wait downstairs, as only one visitor is permitted at a time in triage, and we saw a boatload of nurses and doctors and midwives in that time. They determined that B's water did in fact break, and she was still at 2cm, but they said, "Congratulations, you're not going home!" They found out about our relationship and the adoption and were thrilled to be a part of it, and so once B was admitted upstairs, I went and got Michael and we went to the laboring room and sat with B. for a while. The hospital social worker, Anita, came down to see and explain the hospital procedures and we gave her what paperwork we had, and she was totally fine with getting with the attorneys, etc. to make sure that everything was in order. Eventually it was determined that Leah would be discharged to B. and then B. would hand her over to us outside the hospital walls, which we all agreed to.

After that, Michael and I decided to go down to the cafeteria for some lunch. Nothing much else was happening, and B was resting and refusing pain medications, so she told us to go while we still could. When we got back, there was really still no progress, she was closing in on 3cm, and it had been over 12 hours since her water broke at 2:00AM (by now it was probably 5pm). I had a funny feeling things were going to be totally slow, and possibly end in a c-section, but I was hoping things went well. 7:00 was the shift change, so we got a new round of nurses and doctors, and B started getting really uncomfortable. Her contractions were steady, but not doing a whole lot. She asked for pain medications through her IV, which they gave her and she fell asleep. They woke her up every couple of hours to check her progress, which she HATED, but by midnight she was still only at 4cm. They gave her 5cm to give her some encouragement, but she was getting kind of pissed and asked for an epidural, so the doctor came in and I am pleased to say I didn't faint while they administered it and I was the one to hold her hands and give her reassurance while it was placed.

Meanwhile, we were watching terrible television, and the "pull out bed/chair" was broken and kept sliding apart into 3 pieces so rest was not easy to come by. Michael opted to stay awake the entire night--he was too excited to sleep. I dozed in the broken chair and when B. had contractions, I would try to help her breathe and relax, as she was getting very, very tense, which wasn't helping at all.

Around 3:00 they came in to check again and she was at 8cm. However, the baby was starting to get distressed--her heartbeat was dropping and the pitocin was not easy for her to tolerate. They monitored it a little while longer and finally decided that they should do a c-section. B was freaking out, shaking and crying, so I just smoothed her hair and gave her a hug and told her we wouldn't let anything bad happen to her and it was going to be OK. (She must have been doubly scared because she didn't have any other supports besides us--we who are two total amateurs at the childbirth game!) She asked me to go with her, and so the medical staff gave me a set of paper scrubs and a mask and told me that I could come into the OR in a bit.

I took one look at the scrubs and was like, "uh-huh, then. No way." The shirt fit fine, if a bit snug, but the pants did not fit at all. To be fair, if I hadn't been wearing jeans, they would have been fine. But over jeans, no way. So the nurses scrambled and tried to find a larger size, but they couldn't, so finally one of the techs grabbed a pair of scissors, told me to put them on as far as I could (got 'em up to my hips!) and then cut the sides so I could get into them the rest of the way. I was waddling like a penguin shoehorned into those suckers, but I went into that OR with 'em on, by God!

They had already started working on B by the time I was allowed in, and frankly, I don't have the world's greatest stomach around blood and needles and scalpels and such. But for some reason, I found this entire experience totally riveting. I sat down next to B's head and she was shaking, so I took her hand and told her everything was OK and she was in good hands. She was holding my hand in a death grip, so I just patted her forehead--the only part of her that was not covered--and kept whispering reassurances to her. Her shaking stopped. The doctors were working fast and I don't know what all they were doing, but they had quite a mess on their hands--lots of blood and suctioning and towels and instruments, but in about 5 minutes after I got in there, the head surgeon said, "Get ready, ladies!" and he gave a tug, and out popped Leah! I don't know if this is totally normal, but that baby's feet were kicking like David Beckham. I said to B, "No wonder all you could feel was kicking all the time!" and she smiled, closed her eyes, and promptly started snoring. Well, what could I do? I burst into tears.

I just couldn't take my eyes off her. The nurses took her over to a bed to get cleaned up and check her vitals, and I just sat and held B's hand and watched them. One of them asked me if I was the mom, but I could not speak, so I just nodded mutely, and they said, "Well get on over here and look at your baby!" B was snoring her head off, so I let go of her hand and went over to the little bed and there was Leah, perfect little Leah. I managed to ask if I could take some pictures and they said I could take as many as I wanted, and this was the first picture of her I took. They were giving her a little oxygen. The oxygen level in her blood was in the low 90's and if it dipped below 90, they'd have had to take her to the NICU, but after a couple of minutes of oxygen, her levels stabilized and she was fine and dandy.



Then they asked if I'd like to hold her. I managed to snuffle out that I needed to sit down first, I was standing on rubbery legs at this point! One of the nurses took the camera, I sat down and they handed me Leah for the first time.



They took her footprints, slapped some ID bracelets on her, and then it was time to leave. I walked out first to catch my breath--the mask was caked with tears and from my nose running and I was a total basket case. They wheeled Leah out a minute later and the nurse asked if we needed to go back to the room before we went to the nursery? I said, "My husband is in there, can he see her?" and they said, "Of course!" so we went to see Michael. He was waiting with a big grin on his face, despite not having slept, it was easy to see how excited he was! We walked in and I said, "Here she is!" and he jumped up and started to look at her.



If I thought I was moved before, it was nothing compared to how I felt when Michael saw her and held her for the first time. He was so tender and gentle and his first question was, "What was the official time?!" The nurse took the camera again and snapped the picture of the three of us together (what's awesome about that picture is the clock on the wall saying 4:20, which is our wedding anniversary!) and then it was time to go to the nursery, so I left Michael again temporarily and went up to the nursery to observe how Leah measured up. After another 30 minutes or so, I came back down and B was back, snoring her head off still, and Michael stood up, and I just grabbed him and we both started bawling. It was just the start of three days of tears, everything either one of us thought of was the cause of more tears.

We left B a note that we loved her and were going home to sleep for real and we'd be back. As a plucky bonus, the garage operators were off duty, so we got to leave without paying! We got home around 6:30 and only slept for about 4 hours before we were up and moving again and on our way back to the hospital. B was so happy to see us, but slept most of the day. Her sister was there, but also left after we arrived. The social worker called mid-day and said that she had spoken to B. and that B had said the only way she made it through was Susan keeping her calm, which really moved me! I started crying all over again. The doctors and nurses kept coming in all day to "see the adoptive parents"--we were something of superstars on the ward because they hadn't seen an open adoption actually work like that in the past and were all moved that we were all on such good terms, which also made me feel really good.

So that's how it went down on April 8, 2009--the best day ever!

Baby News and Money Info

Today was B's test to see if she was developing pre-eclampsia. Part of the testing was to do a sonogram/ultrasound and see that the baby was fine. The tech asked us if we knew what the baby was. We responded that it was a boy. The tech asked if we wanted her to make sure. We said, "Yes!" (B. and I are starting to think like one mind! Scary!)

The tech did some poking around with the wand and said, "I don't think this is a boy." I looked at B. and she looked at me. We were both bug-eyed, mouths hanging open, shocked. So the tech said, "Ok, well, we'll come back to that in a bit, let's do these other tests." I kept thinking, "Oh my God, it's a girl, oh my God, my dad is going to have a heart attack, oh my God, what are we going to name her?"

A few minutes later, the tech went back to baby's bum and started moving the wand around again. She said, "I don't see any boy parts, but I'm pretty sure these are girl parts" and started pointing them out. We were like, "No! Seriously!?" So the tech said, "I could be wrong, would you like a second opinion? But I'm telling you, I'd be willing to put money on it." Yes, we wanted a second opinion! So another tech came in, and did some poking around and said, "This is most definitely a girl."

Um, gulp! SURPRISE! :-) Thank God we did a neutral nursery is all I can say. I called Mike from the lobby of the hospital and he was just fine with the news, as of course was I. Then I called my sister and gave her the news while Mike called his parents. I called my mom and emailed my dad and brother-in-law and Mike called his sister. Then we had to come up with a name...

Over the phone from my office when I got back to work, we decided on Leah Katherine. I've always liked the name Leah and Katherine is a family name on my side of the family (and is my middle name!). So, surprise! We're having a girl.

B. has to go back to the doctor on Thursday for further monitoring and has another appointment on Friday with her regular clinic doctor. I'm hopeful that they will induce her on Thursday, as I am worried for her health. She is VERY swollen and her blood pressure is high, proteins are creeping into her urine, all signs of pre-eclampsia. However, they're putting it off another couple of days. Fingers crossed, she and Baby Leah will be fine and dandy and hang in there another couple of days. The sonogram picture here was taken today while B. and I had our mouths hanging open.

And in other great news, B. has gotten engaged! Her best friend of many years popped the question over the weekend. She's made that she's all swollen because she can't wear her new sparkly engagement ring. Another reason to have this baby!

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Someone made some comments to family members recently about the fact that we have a donation button on our blog here. While we appreciate the concern about the state of our finances, we're doing just fine. However, since this appears to be something people are concerned about, Mike and I figured we would deal with it head on.

It is tremendously, ridiculously expensive to adopt a newborn baby. While some friends and family members have commented that they are sure their pregnancies cost as much, our response is, "Yes, but your insurance paid the majority of the bills associated with your having a baby."

We do not have this luxury. To date, the Adoption Fairy has not dropped a fat check in our laps and told us to build a family for free. There is no adoption insurance, just in case you can't get pregnant. Additionally, adoptive mothers don't get short term disability payments after the birth--they get 12 weeks unpaid time off, period.

This is what we have paid to date:

$2,100 home study
$9,200 attorney fees
$16,000 agency fees
$1,040 birthmother expenses (estimated $520-$1040 still to be paid)

This does not include postage, copying, gas, mileage, phone calls, and meals. And it is to say nothing of the costs of preparing for a baby--bottles, formula, diapers, clothes, furniture, etc. We were so lucky to have people come to our rescue with showers and hand-me-downs and we've done a lot of bargain shopping, but when you start out $30,000 behind the eight ball, you've got some catching up to do.

We were tremendously lucky to receive a loan from a family member that covered approximately 2/3 the cost of the adoption. We have had to pay the rest ourselves. We covered what we could from our savings and fundraising efforts, charged the rest to credit cards, and paid everything off with this year's tax return.

To date, between the donation button, the Pampered Chef fundraiser, and a yard sale, our fundraising efforts have generated approximately $700, not enough to cover one single category of the above expenses.

Despite the fact that we both have great jobs, neither one of our employers offers adoption assistance. We have a mortgage, car payment, and student loan payments, as well as the regular expenses of living--food, utilities, gas, insurance, etc. Don't misunderstand, we are able to cover all of this with our regular paychecks. We have ZERO credit card debt. We have lived throughout our marriage that if we want something, we either have the money to buy it or we wait until we do. We learned to economize when Mike lost his job 6 years ago and have put those principles into action. You all know us. While our friends have taken fabulous vacations to Europe, the Caribbean, and the Pacific, we've visited friends in Georgia and Kentucky and taken treks to Myrtle Beach.

However, I am about to leave my job and we did need to be sure to put at least a bit of money aside "just in case". And we have done so. And in today's economy, that says something, that after paying off the above expenses on top of everything else, we can still put some money aside "just in case". Apart from pushing the heck out of the Pampered Chef fundraiser, we have not asked anyone for money. We put the button/link on the page in case anyone cared to donate some money to the cause. Several people have, and for that we are TRULY grateful--every little bit has helped beyond measure. And we have gotten away "cheap" because we didn't care a whit about the baby's skin color and because we won't have to pay for our travel or lodging once the baby is born (lest you think we're kidding, many of the leads we've gotten on babies have had agency fees upwards of $35,000 and the kids are being born to drug addicts and the mentally ill, and that $35,000 doesn't cover travel, birthmom expenses, or legal fees in many cases.). In today's economy it is not possible to drop $30,000 without feeling a pinch.

This is why there is a donation button on the page. If you do not wish to donate, feel free to ignore it. If you care to discuss this any further, please contact us directly. You can email me at s u s a n k ( a t ) m k o s i o r ( d o t ) c o m or Mike at m i k e ( a t ) m k o s i o r ( d o t ) c o m. Kindly share your concerns directly with us, versus members of our families or friends.

New Projects & New News

So I've got several projects in the works apart from the big "Build baby a bureau" and "clean the nursery" projects. One of them involves putting something on the walls of the nursery, which apart from that awesome green paint are blank canvasses at the moment.

I've wanted to put an alphabet poster up on the wall since my ideas about the nursery started coming to me. I did mega-research. Since the room was not going to be a pastel haven with lots of cute little fluffy animals, I needed to find an alphabet poster that would be a little more modern. It took a long time. A very long time. And when I finally found what I liked, it led to the question of, "WHAT!?" Seriously. Here is the poster I like. See any problems with it? Like the $85 price tag and it doesn't even come framed!?

Yeah. Not good. But if there's one thing I pride myself on, it's that I'm a pretty savvy shopper, especially on line. If there's a bargain to be had, I will usually find it. But I searched high and low and I couldn't find this poster for cheaper. Not even on Ebay.

I turned to my friends at Amazon.com Nothing. But they did offer a glimmer of hope. They didn't offer the poster, but they offered a set of notecards with the Binth alphabet on them, one card per letter, at a total cost of $16.95. (They'd be cool just as postcards, forget anything else! Want a set? Click here).

So baby project #1 is to make these into a poster or set of posters somehow and mount them on the wall. They're beautiful and I love the colors and the fun drawings, especially I is for Inchworm :-) And L for lobster is a nice nod to his New England heritage. I think this is going to be a lot of fun to put together.

I was also on a hunt for a baby book for him. It is kind of a pain in the butt to keep up with those little projects, but my mom made them for both my sister and I and they are something I cherish. I did some book store hunting, but most everything included "Here's how mommy found out she was pregnant." I did find one book that said, "Here's how we found out we were expecting you" which was good, but then it said, "Here's what Mommy was craving"... Not so good.

I was pretty sure that there must be adoption memory books out there, and so again turned to Amazon.com and started looking. Voila! There were several options, but ultimately I decided on Our Chosen Child by Judy Pelikan and Judith Levy. I like the design of it a lot, and last night Michael and I looked through it and read it together and much of it we can fill out already. It was kind of silly though, it goes all the way through the teen years (I think just in case you adopt an older child) and then adds a page for "your special day" and I said, "My God, I don't even want to think about him getting married" and burst into tears! Yeah, I'm a mess.

I also got a hanging photoclip mobile and I thought it would be fun to get B. a disposable digital camera and ask her to take a series of pictures that we could turn into a mobile and hang in his room. We'll see how she feels about that project.

Yesterday while I was blogging about the hell our nursery had become, the phone rang and it was B.! She was calling with an update about her Monday doctor's appointment. She went and told them that she was having a lot of trouble breathing and they said it was probably because the baby is a pretty good size and was pushing on all those muscles. Still, they decided to send her for a sonogram, so she went over to the hospital (Darn it! I MISSED IT!) and they did a sonogram (he still didn't want to show off his junk, so they still can't confirm 100% that it's a boy, but he better be, we have a LOT of boy clothes now). They estimated his current weight to be 9 pounds 6 ounces. Now everyone is telling me that it could be off either way by a pound, but 8 pounds 6 ounces is still a big baby, as is 10 pounds 6 ounces! B. said when she heard that news, she started crying, she is afraid of having to push out a baby that big and of having to have a c-section. I tried to offer her words of reassurance, but really, what can I say!? "Good drugs and a bottle of champagne afterwards?" She made me swear I wouldn't videotape the birth--which I hadn't planned on--and said I could shoot all the video and take all the pictures I wanted to after the fact, but not during 'the action' as she calls it. She also said that the hospital told her she could have 3 people in the labor and delivery room with her and she told the hospital that her first 2 picks were us, so they are aware of her plans.

So that's where we are right now. I am going to have to experiment with Blogger's privacy settings--we feel it is most important to keep B's privacy in highest regard. She is not computer savvy, and so we don't want to do anything that she wouldn't want us to in terms of posting pictures, etc. to a public space, but at the same time, we want to be able to share our joy at his birth and share photos with our nearest and dearest. I know Blogger will allow us to make this entire blog "by invitation only" which would mean you'd have to let me know you want access to the password. What I'm wondering is if we can just protect certain posts, so that if we got pictures of us with B as a family after the birth, we could just protect those posts with her image in them.

Other items we are discussing--our first date night! We have a tentative date planned for May 13th to go to a concert in DC, just waiting to speak with the ticket office about happy handicapped seating and then it's official. Anyone wanna babysit? :-)

We've also been getting strange calls from strange numbers in the middle of the night, so we're thinking we need to start packing for when the time comes that we do get The Call. Even if we just pack up cameras and baby gear and then only have to worry about our own clothing, etc., at least we're that step ahead of the game. So this is the game plan. We've been talking about it for a while, but we just haven't done it yet! So time to do it.

Our new freezer arrived yesterday, so we are probably going to renew our BJ's membership and start buying items in bulk--hopefully they have formula there, which should cut down on the cost considerably, although B. has offered us her formula vouchers, so that should help a lot too. When my mom comes to stay, I want to do a lot of cooking with her so we can load up the freezer and then I'll be able to just pull meals out and heat them up without worrying about it too much.

All baby's laundry is done except his cloth diapers, but I plan to use disposables for a few weeks while we get adjusted and then transition to cloth, so I'm not worried about that for now. Our washing machine died a painful death last night (it's less than a year old!), so it's being repaired tomorrow and then we can wash our clothes and be ready to roll in the event something happens soon! I'll keep everyone posted about going private and how to contact me to get put on the privilege list :-)

Ups and Downs!

The visit on Saturday went fantastically! We met B. and her daughter at the Cheesecake Factory at the Inner Harbor and from the start it was great. I gave her a great big hug, and the baby started kicking! Unbelievable! We gave the little one a big teddy bear, and she and I were instantly inseparable--every time I'd put her down, she'd start crying. By the time the visit was over, she'd drunk half my Diet Coke and I was covered in ketchup, but what a blast.

B. invited me to attend her next doctor's appointment on Monday, so hopefully if they do an ultrasound or sonogram, I'll be able to actually see the little dude myself. We got home Saturday night and she called to say she was having some contractions, so we wondered if we were going to have to turn around and go back up there. It was a total panic zone here for about an hour--trying to collapse the portable crib, wash laundry, make a phone list, etc. It's gotten us to thinking that we need a better plan than running around trying to throw things in bags, so last night we started preparing for our trip--got the laptop up and running, made a phone list, and I'm starting a list of things we need to pack up so that we can grab and go when the time comes.

This morning we got word that we were NOT approved for a Gift of Adoption grant due to our income being plenty fine to cover our fees. Oh really? I'd like to know how they figured that out. That's what I hate about financials on paper--they really don't give you a picture of how people manage. Not saying we're in dire straits, but we're not rolling in it either. The whole point of Gift of Adoption grants is to not look at people's income, but to give people that little boost they need to get over the last hurdle to the adoption. *Sigh* Oh well. We'll be fine, I'm sure. Especially now that we have someplace free to stay. That's going to be a big help indeed.

Abby's called us on Sunday to get our impression of the visit and of course we were thrilled with it and apparently B. was too and mentioned to Abby's how much her little girl had loved spending time with me. So that's good. Always up. :-)

That's all the news from here so far.

Big Day!

Today is the big day we meet B. We won't be posting pictures to protect her privacy, but we will let everyone know how it goes. Keep your fingers crossed :-)

We spoke with her last night and she said she's VERY uncomfortable and there is a lot of pressure. So we could be parents soon. We'll see!

In other news, a big THANK YOU to our friend Tom who is letting us stay at his place in Maryland for the duration of our stay. Ka-ching! Savings on hotels :-)

And also to our friend Cindy who squeezed us in to do our taxes and got them out before this week's IRS deadline for returns--our return was accepted and we should have our return in about 2 weeks! This will allow us to pay off the credit card bill we incurred paying for the attorneys. WOO HOO!