Entries from February 2010 ↓

and boy did we enjoy it!  mmm…. lasagna and baked ziti at roman candle?  delicious!

oh, and we also found out that the c-section was bumped up a week to March 2.  We’re leaving tomorrow.

eek!

p.s. last night i had a really great 2 hour conversation on the phone with “c.”  it was nice to talk to her again after a long stretch of only really texting.  we crack each other up.

i realized the other day that there’s a big difference between saying that we can’t have kids OF our own vs. ON our own.  No matter how our kids come to join our family, they WILL be “our own” even if we didn’t contribute the genetics to knit them together ourselves.  Interesting how that one tiny letter makes such a big difference.

a few of my wonderful friends threw me not one, but TWO showers this weekend.  The first was on Friday night and was an everyone-is-invited sort of shower featuring homemade sushi.  YUM!

J and I got to open presents together (it’s so much more comfortable when someone else shares the spotlight!) and we got some very lovely gifts.  a few etsy treasures:

a few things off of our registry (thank you!!) and the group gift–diapers!  since the cloth diapers that we are planning to use weren’t currently in stock yet (it’s a brand new brand called “best bottoms” and they’re made as locally as possible and seem to be really well designed), I asked my friends to just get us a gift certificate and we’ll purchase them when they become available.  apparently, they felt the need to give us a stop-gap solution, so they crafted these beauties:

i’m not really sure about the logistics of using that roll of t.p. or where the handle on the milk jug is supposed to go, but hopefully we won’t have to use these very long.  🙂

the second shower took place on Sunday morning and was more of a “girl’s day out” type of shower.  Since all of the women that morning had also attended the Friday night shower, I asked that this one be “no gifts,” so instead, we all ate enormous and delicious breakfasts at the original pancake house (mmmm… potato pancakes and cherry crepes), then went and got pedicures.

i decided to go a little wild and get banana yellow toes!  (sorry about the blurry picture.  i’m still getting used to my new toy from j.)

then, three of us went back to the party organizer’s house to carve stamps.  when the kids came back from their outing, they wanted in on the stamp carving action, so i carved one drawing from each of the older kids.  (the octopus below was a kid design–i seem to have missed photographing the kitty head that the other kid drew.  the other stamps below are my own design.)

all told, it was a fantastic weekend.  thanks, dear friends, for your generosity and sense of fun.  this was a great distraction!

yes, j and i are planning to go out to see some great movies this weekend and maybe eat at a restaurant or two….

but the real “date” news is that the c-section has been scheduled for march 9.

🙂

today was my first baby shower.  the crown you see above was mine to wear and was (frankly) a little terrifying.  for several reasons.  for one, the glitter was pretty loose and if i tilted my head wrong, i got a sprinkling of sequins in my punch.  for two, well, look at that word up there.  those three little letters that represent something i’ve wanted to be for so long, but i’m not quite there yet.  and it could be three more weeks or three more years and i JUST DON”T KNOW.  But I think I managed to convince myself (at least for the duration of the party) that it will be sooner rather than later.  and i got some really wonderful gifts. (although, oddly, no books!)  here are some handmade favorites:

thanks, everyone!

last night, “C” texted me to ask if we’d come up with a name yet.

I replied with the name we’d been talking about earlier that evening (and no, I won’t tell you what the name is, so stop trying to guess!).  We’d realized that this name, while it wasn’t either of our #1 favorites (which we’ve each stubbornly stuck to for WEEKS!), was a name we both liked equally well and could see maybe fitting on this kid.

So, I texted her the name and waited for a reply.

Minutes ticked by and I started feeling anxious.  No reply.

Half an hour went by, no reply.  Is this the whole, “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all” thing? Does she hate the name?

Two hours went by.  Still no reply.  I’m in the tippy top branches of the crazy tree at this point, convinced that she hates the name and is going to raise the baby herself because these two nincompoops can’t even pick a good name, so how on earth could they take care of a child?

By 11:00, I’d done my best to shove these thoughts aside and get over it. We could come up with another name.  Back to the drawing board.

At 11:20, on a whim, I checked my phone, just in case I’d missed the ring.

She’d replied at 7:23 (right after my text–my phone just hadn’t rung for some reason).

She likes the name too.

C called me today after a doctor visit to say that they did decide, after all, to do a scheduled c-section.  when we had first talked back in November, this was what she’d been expecting to happen, but for the last month or so she’s told us that she’d prefer to be able to have a “normal” birth experience because the healing time is so much shorter.  Unfortunately, because of various medical reasons, they told her today that she will need to undergo a c-section after all.

although she must have been disappointed, when she shared this news with me, she pointed out that this would make it easier for us to plan and we will probably actually  be able to be present in Texas when he’s born.  I’m trying not to count on being in the actual room when he’s born, but that is at least a possibility now.   And despite the fact that I felt bad that she wouldn’t get to deliver him in her preferred way, the news gave me such a thrill!  First of all, THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING!  and although the surgery hasn’t been scheduled yet, they estimated that it would be in early March which means THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING SOON!  and thirdly, HOORAY for a teensy island of potential predictability in the choppy sea of uncertainty!  Granted, he could still decide to make an early entrance into the world and surprise us all, but at least we know he won’t be late and leave us all hanging with bated breath for two weeks.

Let’s just say that concentrating on homework all day tomorrow will be a challenge, but will also be a priority–I’ve got to try to get a little bit ahead of the schedule!

I made a baby quilt that tells our story.  I thought you might like to see some pictures.  Sorry the lighting is so bad.  winter, ya know.

the back of the quilt.

cute vintage camel on the back:

my favorite (non-embroidered) circle:

some close-ups of the embroidered circles (in order from top of the quilt to bottom):

tonight, driving in the car, i realized that i may, possibly have found the balance point between believing , 100%, that this baby will one day be ours and believing, also 100%, that he won’t and that a different baby is out there waiting for us instead.  how is that possible?  to believe both?  100%?  i’m really not sure.  i’m not so good with the math these days, but  it’s as though i’m standing in a hallway and if i look over in one direction i can see one room where we are at home with this baby boy, starting our new family, losing lots of sleep, probably bursting into tears a lot, and being happier than i can even imagine and if i look over in the opposite direction i can see us in a different room, learning that C has chosen to parent this child and I can see us jumping back into the pool to wait for another expectant mother to decide that maybe she could entrust her child to us (because nothing else in our story has worked on the first try, so why should this be any different?).  But I’m still in the hallway, not really allowing myself to go into either of those rooms.  Okay, maybe i’ve poked my head into the first room a few times and more often than the second room (can you blame me?) but when I think about this out of the corner of my eye, I can’t quite imagine it really happening.  I can’t quite imagine that this REALLY might work out.  But the hallway is safe and familiar.  From here, I’ve watched so many other families being born.  I’m always on the outside, looking in and wondering what it’s really like to have this little squishy being in your lives ALL THE TIME and needing so much care and attention and winning so much of your love…

I realized today that I’ve been sort of holding myself back around “C.”  I never say anything like, “When you give us the baby” or “After we get the baby” because that feels presumptous.  She hasn’t yet made (and legally can not yet make) her final decision and I don’t want to assume that she will choose to place him with us.  But I also haven’t ever said, “I’m getting so excited!” (instead, I’ll say, “this is getting so exciting!” subtle difference, I know) and I try not to talk too much about plans for after the baby is born (other than some basic logistical details) because i somehow feel that words like that might pressure her and I don’t ever want to be seen as coercive.  J pointed out tonight that at this point, we are all (C, J and I) assuming that she will place.  She has never given us any indication that she’s ever thought of changing her mind, so how could me saying that I’m getting excited about the baby be seen as coercive?  Is it even possible to coerce someone to do something that they’re already planning to do?

This article keeps running around in the back of my mind and I wonder if I’m cheating myself out of happiness.  Curse you, infertility clouds that still cast shadows over my life!

very slowly, i’ve been telling a few of my library patrons here and there about our adoption plans.  today i realized what a luxury it is (in some ways) to have an “incognito pregnancy.”  i’ve been out shopping with girlfriends when they’re very visibly pregnant.  e.v.e.r.y.o.n.e. they meet has to say something about it to them.  “Oh, you’re pregnant!  When are you due?  What are you having?  Have you decided on a name yet?  Here’s my unsolicited advice blahblahblah….”  Whereas I can choose to share that information, or not share that information as I choose.  Sometimes I don’t share because maybe I’m tired of talking about it.  Sometimes I don’t share because it’s just too complicated to explain that we’re matched but that she could change her mind or he could come early or etc, etc.  Sometimes I don’t share because it’s just none of their business.  But pregnant people don’t always have that option.

Thinking about that also made me think about C and what it would be like to have everyone asking you all of those nosy questions above.  Does she feel like she has to explain (and defend) her adoption plan to each nosy stranger that asks?  Does she just smile and nod?

Granted, we’ll likely have to deal with other nosy stranger questions for the rest of our lives, “oh, is he yours?”  “where’s he from?”  “who’s his real mom?”  “you know, I knew this one guy who was adopted and he was so messed up.”

Yep.  I think I’ll do my best to savor this last stretch of anonymity.