Merry Christmas Eve!

Merry Christmas Eve! We're having a good one. I actually slept until 10:30 this morning. I'm not sure when I last slept that long. Grandma is here to visit and so sweet baby L is busy playing. We've got a lazy day planned today (if you can't tell by my sleeping in) and tonight I'm playing at the early Christmas Eve service. I haven't played much this year, and I'm a bit nervous.



I am so thankful that sweet baby L finally got back into some sort of sleep routine this week. She's pushed her bedtime up, she's going down around 7:00 now, but she's napping more regularly during the day. We had a few rough nights where she was waking and fussing. I think she might be entering that pre-teething territory, she's drooling buckets.





We had a playdate with sweet C this week. There was cookie decorating and a lot of block tower building. It was definitely a really good time! Sweet baby L is definitely on her way to turning over. She gets those legs up and that back arched and goes halfway to the side and then comes back. She's almost got it!



Sweet baby L went to her very first caroling party (although we didn't stay to carol, we've got that strict bedtime going on :-)) and Brad played with our good buddy sweet C. They had a fantastic time with the piano. Sweet C would point to a song and say, let's do that one, and then they would (well, sort of...).



We also got to see some great friends, Darius and Sherrie and their sweet baby K. Sweet baby K is only a week and a half younger than sweet baby L and they had a great time playing with each other (well, staring at each other). K is such a cutey!!!!!! L is jealous, because K has hair on the sides of his head. It was a really fun visit!



Sweet baby L also got to meet Santa this week! I can't tell you how excited I am about this. I mean, really excited. Mostly because I really wanted to get a photo of her with Santa, but I reeeeaaaaaalllllllly didn't want to pay the mall $20 to do it (especially when she won't remember...). Brad played in his annual holiday concert on Saturday, and Santa always pays a visit beforehand. We were able to take a free photo with Santa and L did great. Stay tuned for next year when I'm sure her expression won't be nearly so pleasant.





Sweet baby L and I did stay for the concert, although she didn't think much of it. She had drifted off to sleep (remember the bedtime?) and everytime the band would get loud, and everytime the audience clapped she would startle awake. She tolerated it for a couple of songs and then she had enough. We left after the third piece on the program. She'll have lots of opportunities to get used to it as she gets older.

It's been a busy week, but it's been really great!! I hope that everyone has a really great Christmas and keep checking back.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas!

I love Christmas. Those of you in my family know that I get really excited this time of year. By this time, I've usually opened my gifts and am gearing up for our trip home. It seems like that's changed a little this year (like everything else). I'm still very excited about Christmas, but Brad won't let me open my gifts yet (he seems to think it's a bad example, but I say she won't remember...) and we're spending the holiday here.

I am still as excited as ever, maybe even more so. This year is our opportunity to start new traditions. I've been really trying to concentrate on making our house very homey this season. I know that sweet baby L won't remember this year, but I know that it will be very special for all of us.

Here's what is going on:

This is an advent calendar that Lisa and I made last year after Christmas. It's just a mini-muffin tin, painted and then magnets made for coverings. I know that I saw this in a magazine, maybe Paper Trends, but it was tons of fun to make. We've got caramel kisses in there. Yum!

I'm particularly proud of this idea for displaying Christmas cards. I've never had a proper display for them, and this year I really wanted to do something. I had to come up with something cheap, so I found this wonderful idea on the internet. I simply punched a hole in the end and tied them to the garland in our house (I already have waaaaaay too much ribbon sitting around here, it's my weakness). I think it's really nice and I find myself actually looking at the cards!

Having a baby has given me the motivation to learn everything I can about freezing. I find that it's just as easy for me to make two recipes of a dish, as it is to make one, and then I can freeze the dish for later. It has really made this holiday season easier, as I have been able to make most everything ahead and we have nice things to serve when people pop in or when we'd like to take something to someone else. These are French Breakfast Puffs from The Pioneer Woman Cooks. We're having them for Christmas morning breakfast, although having them sitting in the freezer, just 30 seconds away from piping hot and in my belly has been hard.

Okay I lied, I have opened one gift. Brad got me this awesome little crafty pattern book, The Cute Book. It's got patterns for lots of tiny felt characters. I plan on enlarging the patterns and making some larger dolls for sweet baby L's room. They really are really cute.

James has really gotten worn out from all of the cooking and un-decorating (our poor tree). All of that work makes him crave a little sun-spot where he can block out the world. I think he'd probably better enjoy this sort of thing now, because sweet baby L is starting to notice him as he walks around.

Merry Christmas, everyone! This is just a taste of what is going on at our house this season. We miss all of our friends and family so much. I can't wait to hear of all the fun things you're doing this holiday season. We'll be around if anyone would like to pop in, and stay tuned! TOMORROW is MONDAY and I'll be posting a weekly update on sweet baby L!

I just looked down at my watch and it's December!

Hi! Okay...I've said it before, but I'm dead serious this time. I'm going to spruce this old blog up and I'm really going to start posting. I'm going to try to do an update weekly at least. It'll be my new year's resolution. So check back. I'm serious. Really. Well, give me a couple of days. Then check back. :-)




Oh my goodness, I just love those beautiful eyes. I am so amazed at how expressive her little eyes can be. Sweet baby L is now 16 weeks old. She's so big! She's already doubled her birthweight (I'm really looking forward to our well baby appointment just after the first of the year to see just how much over that milestone she is). She's smiling all the time, and laughing at us. I think my favorite thing about this age is that she's really interactive. When we sing to her, she "sings" back. When we tickle her or "get" her belly, she laughs hysterically. When we talk to her, she "talks" back just like we can all understand her. I've loved her to pieces since the day we met her, but I think every age just gets better (Mary might disagree just at this stage right now). She's certainly at a wonderful age.



The first thing that everyone asks me about sweet baby L is: "How is she sleeping?" The good news is that she really is sleeping, but she's not making it through the night quite yet. I'm happy to say that she is sleeping around 4 hours at a time, which is a VAST improvement from the 2 hour blocks we had for so long. I feel like this is definitely something I can live with. Something that I find interesting is that all of our friends with tiny babies report that their kids sleep through the night while all of our friends with toddlers report that their children did not start sleeping through the night until they were eight or nine months. I've somehow tricked myself into believing that she's going to start sleeping longer when she's 15 pounds. I'm not sure why I decided that, but I did and it's fast approaching!



She had her first round in the exersaucer this week. She loves it. She's just tall enough that her feet touch the ground. Standing is one of her most favorite things and she can do it until her poor little knees just give out in this awesome little piano themed (cute, I know!) toy.

Off to convince Brad to wrap the presents to send by (YIKES) Wednesday!

This year is different...

Wow. I was just thinking about last year. This was a hard time for me last year. Brad and I had just decided to start pursuing IVF, and I remember feeling really sad. I was sad because my Christmas would not include the laughter and excitement of small children. I had told myself one year earlier that I just wanted to be pregnant by that Christmas, and we were looking at a long road ahead. This Christmas is definitely different.

I don't want to try to give the idea that adoption is a cure for infertility. It isn't. There are still losses that we've experienced (and continue to experience) as a result of infertility. We will never bear the child that is the product of our love. We will never experience a little life growing inside of me, never feel our baby kick. We'll not see Brad's father's eyes in our child. Our decision to adopt and ultimately our adoption didn't fix those things.

I am at the place, however, where I'm glad to have gone through infertility. (I don't always feel that way, sometimes it still stings, but we're talking most of the time here) If I hadn't gone through infertility, I would never have met sweet baby L and I wouldn't trade that for the world. I really wouldn't.

Adoption is complicated and it comes with a steep learning curve. I've learned so much in the short time we've been on this journey and I'm going to continue to devour everything I can. Adoption is a big part of our lives and always will be. I'm trying to find a balance between not giving adoption enough of a place in our lives and making it too much the center of our focus. We will hopefully find that as we move through this experience. With as much as we can control the situation, we will always try to honor Mama N (sweet baby L's birthmama, we love her beyond what words can express, she is an amazing woman, my heart just breaks and aches for her this Christmas), and to do what's best for sweet baby L.

Last year, I didn't know a lot. I really didn't. This year, I don't think I know that much more, but man I feel like I'm learning a lot everyday (but then of course I'm not sleeping more than four hours at a stretch so some of it just falls right out of my brain). AND...we have the most beautiful, amazing, wonderous sweet laughter filling the house this Christmas. It's really amazing. I mean, it's really amazing.

Here goes...

It's been a long time since I wrote. I really intended for this to be a much more active place for everyone to check on us, but it's been busy. I have several half-started posts and so now I'm going to just combine all these things together.

Baby L is doing so well! She'll be 8 weeks old on Monday. Can you believe that?! She's doing so many things, she can lift her head way up and look around. She's smiling and cooing and staying awake for much longer periods now. I feel like we are finally able to communicate with her a little more.

She's sleeping longer, three or more hours at a time. She's not yet started skipping night feedings, but I am really looking forward to that. She is such a great sleeper. She's sleeping in her crib now and goes down so easily (we feel really blessed for that!).

She's just really really wonderful. It seems as though things are happening so quickly. Our days are so similar, they just seem like a blur. Brad and I are definitely some of the most blessed people on the planet. She's amazing.

I've got tons of photos on flickr. Please make sure to check them out!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/scrappindiva79/sets/72157601759177653/

It's been a busy week...

I can't even believe that I'm writing this. I'm really still in a dream world.

A week ago on Monday we got "the call." It was the first day of school. I'd gotten up early and dealt with totally heinous traffic on the way to work. There was a wreck blocking two of the four lanes on I-66 and it took me forever to get to work. After I got home at 3:30, I was totally beat and just wanted to put my pajamas on. Brad had noticed a squeak in the breaks on the blue car, so we got the brakes checked and got some dinner and came home. We were on the computer (as usual) and heard the phone but didn't get to it in time. L left a message "Hi guys, it's L, give me a call when you get this." It was very easy going. We figured it was about the fingerprints coming back. Brad called her back while I finished checking email and all I heard through the receiver was, "born this morning..." and my ears definitely perked up. Brad told her, "I need to talk to Sarah about this" and hung up. I said, "You know the answer is yes." He told me what he remembered about the situation. There was a baby born that needed immediate placement, we had come up as a good match, were we interested? We talked about it and we decided we were.

This came as a huge shock to us, obviously. We were gearing up for a long wait, and were expecting to be matched for awhile before placement. L had warned us that this happens sometimes, and had asked us if we would consider immediate placement if the situation came up. We had said yes, but Brad had been apprehensive about it since the beginning. He's very much a person who needs time to get used to changes, and a long match would be perfect for that. Well... it worked out to be very fast.

Brad sat on the floor for a long time just to process the information, and I got to work calling my parents, K&L and LS and then emailing my various work people. Brad got his bearing and called his mom. Then we went into high gear. We threw some things in a bag, got the few baby things we had (at least we had a carseat!) and I went to target to pick up a few things. Mom and sister M called from Walmart and had bought tons of baby things. We called L back to tell her we were interested in receiving the child and we would leave that night.

Around 9:00, we left our house and headed out. We stopped at the grocery store and at LS's house to drop off a key and started our drive around 10:30. We knew the drive would be hard. We had both worked a full day and had 24 hours in front of us. We stopped for snacks and bathrooms and to take a short nap at a rest stop, but the pure adrenaline of meeting our baby girl kept us driving through the night. We arrived at our destination around 11:00 on Tuesday still completely in shock that this was happening.

We woke up to visitors early the next morning. Everyone was so pumped to see us and to be involved with our miracle. L arrived at 8:00 to take us to the hospital to meet our baby. We arrived at the hospital just after ten. We found the nursery, but the hospital social worker was in a meeting and wouldn't be able to come and see us for a few minutes. The nurses invited us in to the nursery. The nurses were pouring over her when we came in and we were able to hold her for the first time.





She was so tiny with a full head of hair. The nurses really wanted her to eat something, but she was much more interested in sleeping. The doctor came in while we were there and told us that she was very healthy. We were just in such a dream state. I couldn't believe that this was real. We were really there in the hospital and she was coming home with us. We spent the afternoon in our own hospital room. We dressed her up and the nurses came in to let us know the basics of caring for a newborn. I was so nervous. I just felt like she was so small and was such an angel. It was so overwhelming to think that she would be coming home with us. The afternoon was spent with lots of paperwork, and holding our precious girl. Around three we put her in her carseat and headed out.






She is so tiny in her carseat!



The night was a blur. We had so many visitors wishing to see her and helping us out. We went to sleep early and baby L helped us to wake up several times throughout the night to feed her. The following days were spent bonding with baby L and showing her off to lots of visitors. She had aunts and uncles and cousins and friends coming from everywhere. She was such a little sport, too. She just slept through it all.

She has been a strong baby from the beginning, able to lift her head. Before our trip back, Baby L had her first bath (and wasn't wild about it) on Thursday August 30, and her first birthday party (for daddy) on August 31. We held her most of the time. She didn't want to be put down even while she was sleeping and we didn't want to put her down. There were plenty of arms to hold her.

We left Sunday morning on our three day journey home. Baby L slept most of the time, but she started demanding her food more often, so we were stopping every two hours or so. Our nights were interrupted frequently, and the driving was long, but we made it home on Tuesday afternoon. I expected a pack n' play to be in our home. When we had stopped at LS's house to leave a key, she indicated that she would take hers over to the house and leave it there. We walked up the stairs and saw this:





We were shocked. Our church friends had "broken into" our house while we were out and had decorated and left all kinds of baby things for us to borrow and to keep. It was an amazing feeling to feel all of the love that our church family has for us and for our baby girl. The dining room now looks like a tornado swept through it, with things here and there around the house, and it probably will for awhile. We're just so blessed!

Our lives have changed forever. Nothing feels the same anymore, and we're just overwhelmed with emotions. We're so happy and blessed to have this amazing gift of baby L in our lives. It can't even be expressed. We've received the most precious gift we could ever receive. We're going to do our very best to live up to that.

Since we've gotten home, nothing much has happened. Baby L has her days and nights mixed up, so she does a lot of sleeping during the day, but stays awake a lot at night. Her little cord stump fell out yesterday on September 6. She went to the doctor on September 5 and came out with a clean bill of health. She's gaining and growing properly. We think she's just perfect.

We have more photos of her on flickr, and we'll keep adding more all the time. Click on any of the photos above to visit. Also, please feel free to come by anytime. Baby L is loving getting to know her new friends and family!

Doctor's Visit

It's been a few days since I've checked in here. (K & L are supposed to get internet today, so I'm just staying online until I see her in my chat. Plus it's my last day of summer since professional days start on Monday, so I'm going to be online all day). It occurred to me that I never said anything about my doctor's visit.

Tuesday morning we headed into the RE's office for our follow-up. After my first IVF cycle, Dr. M noticed the poor egg quality, but cited that there could be many causes and we couldn't say for sure that it was a problem. We changed some medications between cycles. I took birth control and started on glucophage to create a more normal hormonal environment for eggs to grow. My medication protocol for stimulating egg production was also changed. Things looked like they were going really really well, but the results were actually worse. We got fewer eggs that were worse than the first cycle.

Dr. M told us that this means that it is not completely impossible for us to get pregnant on our own. Here is the basic idea: nobody has all bad or all good eggs. If I have five good eggs, then theoretically sometime before menopause I should release at least a couple of those. Part of my problem is that I am not ovulating regularly, so you can imagine how things would have to be for us to conceive a child. Things would have to line up exactly right. IVF won't really help us here. It will make me actually produce eggs and helps them to get together with the sperm (something quite impossible with my stubborn ovaries that won't release eggs), but it can't make any good eggs I might have appear. Basically, there is nothing else they can do for me using my own eggs.

The option that Dr. M presented was the use of donor eggs. It's kind of crazy because it's like doing IVF with a partner. The egg donor goes through the first part of IVF, all of the shots, blood work and ultrasounds and then the retrieval surgery. Then the eggs are fertilized using Brad's sperm, then they are transfered to me and hopefully I get pregnant.

Basically traditional adoption or using an egg donor (egg adoption) means the same thing for us genetically. We both lose having a jointly conceived child. Egg adoption does provide us with a pregnancy though. One thing that has been hard for us was losing the idea of a shared pregnancy and those intimate moments that couples experience as they go through that period in their lives. Lots of people say things to me like, "oh, why go through a pregnancy if you don't have to," but honestly, I think I would love enduring the sickness, fatigue and trouble to get to feel my baby moving inside of me, to have the option to really breastfeed and to wear those cute maternity clothes.

Sounds great, right? Of course! There are some issues that go along with both, but I'm sad to say that the major issue at hand is risk and cost. Egg adoption is expensive. It would cost us about the same as our adoption would, but there are no guarantees. (It seems awful to talk about children in terms of cost. We aren't "buying" our child, so the cost should be no object. We do have to think practically though, on some level. SO... even though I find it incredibly offensive to even think about the money, it has to be considered). If we had a miscarriage, or if we failed to get pregnant, the money is just gone. With the adoption, if a mother decides to parent, then the fee that we pay gets applied to any future match.

Taking into account all of the issues involved, we decided to table egg adoption for now. Maybe we'll revisit it in the future, but for now, we've decided to pursue traditional adoption.

The doctor's visit was great. We actually didn't learn anything new, but there was so much finality. It just felt good to finally have some closure on the whole thing. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted. It's official, we're done with treatment and I feel good knowing that we did what we could to expand our family in the traditional way. I also feel really good going forward with our adoption with no reservations. I'm not wondering if I should have tried this or that, and I'm not wishing that we could have done something else. I feel like a decision has been made and we get to be excited about the future. We get to be excited about waiting to be matched and about how our lives are going to change forever.

It was a great visit.