doctors and more

november has held up it's end of the deal and been ridiculously busy! i can't believe thanksgivin's almost here. i'm turnin into one of those old folks who talks about how quickly time passes...

onto the baby stuff...since i know that's what you're all interested in anyway :)

first of all, the timeline: if the birthmother goes to term, we're 5wks and 3 days out. if they induce her before christmas like they're talkin about doin, we're around 4ish wks out. WHAT?!?!? i think it's safe to say we're nearin the freaki-out zone.

just about all of my household/rearrangin/make room for the baby projects are complete. can you believe it? those of you familiar w/my tendencies to procrastinate and not develop sound strategies should be proud of me!

we met w/the pediatrician here in town and really liked her. she was frank and candid and friendly...she had a few opinions about diapers and formula and bottles but wasn't hard-nosed about any of it. we thought we'd have a week or two before havin to take little-bit into see her, but the dr wants to see her w/in about 48hrs of us comin home. since we're not sure how much contact we'll have w/the baby in the hospital, we're not opposed to havin her in our arms and talkin to a dr ourselves within such a short period of time.

speakin of drs....i'm goin to a dr's appt this week w/the birthmother. josh can't make the trip, as the days surrounding thanksgivin are some of his busiest of the year. plus, he's workin while he can since he'll be home for a while after the baby's here. anyway...mama's gonna go w/me, which i'm excited about. when i finally got up the nerve to ask the birthmother about comin to an appt, i was relieved by her immediate reception to the idea. "oh yeah. that'd be great!" lots of good things about goin to a dr's appt at this stage in the game.... get to hear the heartbeat, meet her dr...see her (the birthmother) again...continue to work to solidify the reality of all of this - for both of us. there's just somethin about seein somebody face-to-face that helps keep you grounded, ya know?

so there we are....right in the middle of it. my stars . . .

time's flyin

november promises to be a very busy month, especially w/several papers and projects due for class as the semester begins to wind down. deer season opens this comin weekend, so josh will be super busy pretty much until the baby comes. for a while now, i've been makin a mental (and tentative literal) list of the things to do before the baby comes.... rearranging things around the house, for example...or doin some research into formula and bottles and diapers... all the while, i've thought "oh, i can wait to do a lot of that for when i get out of school. i'll have almost a month before the baby comes."

well, i tend to be a rather literal person....so until VERY recently, i've considered the due date of december 30th as THE day. but really? how many babies are actually born ON their due dates? furthermore, a recent conversation w/the birthmom revealed her dr's intent to induce her before christmas, assumin all is goin well. so....i don't finish school until the first week of december...and doin some very simple math has startled me into realizin i won't, as i have been plannin, have a month of free-er time to prepare.

AAAHHH! :)

one of the things i've decided to jump on pretty quickly is talkin to the local pediatrician. who would've thought the little town of seymour would have had a resident little people's doctor?! anyway, i scheduled an appt today, and we'll go in and talk to her in about a week and a half. after a rather instructional conversation w/mama, i have a list of questions to ask.

so now it's your turn - any questions/concerns/issues you think we need to address w/the dr before the baby comes? we're flyin pretty blind here, so we welcome any suggestions!

rearrangin...

...is the name of the game these days. as most of yall have probably experienced yourselves - we tend to fill the space we have. so needless to say, every closet and shelf and nook in this farm house are occupied by josh and lindsey stuff.

we've waited a long time to make room for a baby....so this current wave of sortin thru clothes and cleanin our drawers is such a joy! the usual burdens and frustrations and embarrassments of havin way too much stuff are bein overshadowed by the delight of the very reason we're doin all of this in the first place. how can i be annoyed by shufflin thru t-shirts we haven't worn in 3 years when onsies and and footsie-pajamas and diapers will soon take up residence in that drawer? let me assure you, it's quite impossible.

thus far, the livin room furniture has been moved around to fit a rockin chair near the stove....my shoes are now hangin out in one of those over-the-door organizers...work clothes are in the yaffa blocks my shoes used to be in (wanna give a quick shout-out to yaffa blocks! whoop!!)...and various not-worn-very-often-clothes are now in plastic tubs under the bed rather than a few necessary drawers.

i'm quite proud of myself....as i'm sure my organizationally-minded and more strategic friends will appreciate.

and that's the weekend update. next on the list: closets.

to the store...and beyond....

we went to the dreaded wal-mart the other day, needin to return a couple things...like the package of white t-shirts i had bought josh. i was so proud of my cheaper-than-usual price...until i got home and realized they were so cheap b/c they were boys shirts...not mens. so much for my frugality! anyway, we went to wal-mart and got our money back in cash and decided we'd go look at baby stuff w/the possibility of actually buyin somethin.

eek! our first trip to the baby section w/money in hand. glad it was only about $13.

we looked and oohed and awwed....touchin all the soft, cuddly stuffed animals...holdin up the tiny little shirts that hardly cover the palm of josh' hand... and then josh convinced me to try to squeeze my big noggin into a kid's baklava w/bunny ears on top. i acquiesced of course, and he took a picture and sent it to my mom. can't beat technology.

i must confess at this point - an almost constant dilemma in me these days... figurin out how to smart shop. i want to lessen my contribution to this world's environmentally downward spiral...so even bein IN wal-mart is a bit contradictory...but we also live in rural texas, so local-anything isn't prolific...and then you throw in there the whole cost of it all...the cheaper diapers are probably the most non-biodegradable item in the store, but who knows if the "green ones" are really any better? and again, i'm in wal-mart.

so even though the cute little beanies and two washrags we bought are probably synthetic and made in mass quantities overseas, we've officially made our first baby purchases. if i knew how to load a picture onto the blog, i would. maybe i'll get josh to help me :)

so...

we're gettin lots of questions these days....how the adoption's goin...if we're excited...what we've bought...what news do we have.... and really, i don't feel like we have very succinct answers.

the adoption is goin as well as can be hoped for at this point, but there's not a whole lot actually happenin. the baby is due december 30 (although josh is absolutely certain she's comin on the 22nd), and b/w now and then, there's not a whole lot to do but wait. we wait and hope and hold our breath and then keep goin.

i'm not sure if i've explained this yet or not...if i have, skip this paragraph and go onto the next... in the state of texas, birthmother's cannot sign their relinquishment of rights papers until at least 48hrs after the birth. it makes sense, really - it ensures that a pregnant woman isn't making decisions about her unborn child until that child is born. unfortunately in adoption, this is where so much of the risk lingers. until the baby's born, and until the mom signs the papers, it's simply not a done deal.

so....here we sit in october...w/a birthmother who verbalizes clearly her intentions and her wishes...but there's not a single final, legal thing in place until at least 2 days after the birth.

so we wait.

are we excited? of course we're excited... we talk about the baby girl we so hope will be ours...we laugh and get teary and talk about the color pink. josh can see himself carryin her around in one of those pack things while he's walkin thru academy....i can feel her against my chest...we're eager for the mornin we get to take her to church for the first time. and in the very same breath, we're hesitant...we're hesitant to talk too much...to plan too much...to buy too much...

as for stuff....my family's bought us a stroller and a pack-n-play and a few pink odds and ends... josh and i have actually not bought a single thing yet. there have been talks of showers and gifts, but we've opted to wait until after we're home w/her to have such celebrations.

so that's where we are....how we are....

and, as always, we are grateful for yall's prayers and words of encouragement and hope....

can't help but smile to see this

look what i found! (when you're on the new page, scroll down to the bottom)

in case you're wonderin what the big deal is....it's the 7-letter word following our name. i hadn't seen it until just a few minutes ago. even in the midst of such an emotional ride, seein this immediately swept a wave of anticipation through me.

and as it turns out, the pink shirt i wore the day we met the birthmother was an omen... yep :) if everything works out, we'll be bringin a sweet little girl home in december.

book review

i hope to have some time this weekend to catch up on the 'ol bloggin....the last month has been crazy nuts w/school and work and life. i thought i'd start w/a quick book review...especially for anyone who might be in the adoption process themselves.

first, the book i haven't read :) "adoption parenting: creating a toolbox, building connections" by jean macleod and sheena macrae, phd. sounds like a riveting experience, doesn't it? as is evident by the title, this isn't a book designed to be read while cuddled up in a chair on a rainy day. it's a guide, a helpful and informational book about the nuts-and-bolts of the adoption process...learnin to be parents to children to whom you didn't give birth. some have described it as the "what to expect when you're expecting" equivalent for those of us whose hips aren't shifting. i think this will be a helpful source for both the days and the years ahead.

"secret thoughts of an adoptive mother" by jana wolff. have you read any of anne lamott's hilarious and heart-wrenching memoirs? if not, you should. if you have, this author is like the anne lamott of adoptive parents. i took the book along to my last ob/gyn appointment...which seemed like a bittersweet fit. i sat in the waiting room w/all sorts of pregnancy magazines spread across the tables and read about 1/3 of this woman's honest telling of the awkward and unnatural and rewarding journey we call adoption. i couldn't decide if i wanted to laugh or cry...so i just kept readin. i read until i reached the chapter on the hospital experience, and i sensed the need to close the book. i haven't thought much about the hospital deal yet...and i don't think lookin or feelin that far ahead is the grandest of ideas, so i'll wait. for now, i can't not leave yall w/o a taste of this consoling gift:

"my mother tells me that, as a little girl, i used to give birth to my doll kate several times a day as i let her fall out from under my t-shirt. careful to support the baby's head, i'd pick her up and stick a little plastic bottled filled w/pretend juice or milk to her lips. i was a very good mother. thirty-something years later, i realize that delivering kate was the closest i ever got to giving birth. many little girls play 'mommy' just like i did, but none of us dreams of becoming an adoptive mother. adoption is not in the repertoire of child's play. it is nothing to which children aspire and a process for which we, as adults, are woefully unprepared" (p.17).

onto the children's books...we shot 2/3, which isn't too bad. i've been sorely disappointed in the unavailability of adoption-related children's books in local stores, even chain stores have had either one or none to look at. i knew buyin any children's book online was gonna be risky since i couldn't read every word, look at every illustration....

"little miss spider" by david kirk was the disappointment of the three. it's a cute book, and the illustrations are wonderful. this book was not written w/the idea of adoption guiding its storyline, so you can't really fault the author. some of the reviews i read said that it was a great story about a baby spider finding a mama in a non-spider bug...which is exactly what happens in the end. however, the book begins under the premise that the baby spider's biological mother has abandoned her and her un-presence in baby spider's current life is evidence of her unwillingness to look for her. that's simply not true of most adopted children....birthparents most often realize they cannot provide for the child (financially, emotionally, relationally) as he/she deserves, so they place the baby into the arms of someone who can. whether our sweet little baby would ever read this book and connect it to abandonment, i don't know....nonetheless, this one will probably be shelved or sold.

"God found us you" by lisa bergren is exactly what it sounds like...only told through the eyes and hearts of a mama fox and her adopted baby fox. baby fox asks "mama, tell me again about the day i came home." mama fox gently tells baby fox about waitin for a long, long time for him...and how when baby fox finally came home to mama fox, mama knew that she knew that she knew that God had found baby fox just for her. "little fox smiled and then thought for a moment. 'mama, will you be my forever mama?' 'always and forever...(and) i will always celebrate the day that God found us you.'" it is the sweetest book. i can see this one turnin into the book w/wrinkled pages and turned corners and some supper-stain on page 13.

finally, jamie lee curtis' "tell me again about the night i was born." this is a really popular book, written by the famous adoptive mother...and as it turns out, it's really good. it's told from the perspective of the adopted child. every page asks a question that begins with "tell me again about...." as the kid asks about the night the phone rang, the day the mama and daddy held her in their arms, the first time her diaper was changed, the first time the mama sang to her... i think it's written pretty creatively...in the voice of a child...but the child's using words that she's obviously heard from her parents - "tell me again how you carried me like a china doll all the way home and how you glared at anyone who sneezed." it's a short, honest, funny, sweet telling of those momentous happenings...some of them known only by adoptive parents...and some known by all first-time parents.

and there you have it. my opinion. just what you were lookin for today :)