i filled out a survey and was quoted....

in this months issue of Adoptive Families magazine!  OK, a silly dopey little quote on how we saved money during our adoption process.  Kind of embarrassing once you see it in print, but hey when you are in the thick of it and want to make sure you have all the resources you need for your child, you try to cut corners...right?  

While I am on the subject of being quoted, I was contacted by a freelance journalist for same magazine who is writing an article and wanted to know if she could take another quote of mine for the article.  This one not nearly as silly as the first though.  I had answered some questions about what we had done to create our family prior to choosing adoption.  I had used donor eggs and made some comments in my answers about how having a donor paved our path even more towards adoption.   I will admit I am  a person who takes great pains to make sure my communications are understood and will frequently punctuate with "does that make sense?" to make sure I am understood.  Having said that I have some trepidation about being quoted for an article with a mostly unknown topic, except for the fact it is in AF magazine, as I take what messages I give about fertility and adoption very seriously.   Not sure when the article will appear but I will let you know how it works out.

on needles: hooded pullover for AM in koigu kersti multi, (looks like juicyfruit gum colors), it seems a little big and likely to fit her this fall.   still finishing the Zara butter yellow blanket.

bonding and the first giggle

Some folks told hubby and I that it would be easier for me to bond first, because it was woman's instinct, and that T's bond wouldn't come until maybe a few months later when she began interacting with him. Interestingly enough that advice or prediction came from both parents with an adopted child and parents with a bio child.  At the time I think it was comforting to us both to know that maybe we weren't expected to immediately fall in love with this little stranger.   Friends told us that in the first weeks their bio-child was home and crying they would wonder, "when are her parents going to come and get her."    T and I have talked about this a bit and pretty much have the same ideas.   But, in my perception he bonded with her the minute she needed him. The minute her first cry in that hotel room came and he gave her a bottle, if I am not mistaken the first bottle he has ever given. The minute he tried to make her comfortable in that dopey moses basket we had lugged all the way from new york and she refused to sleep in it, the minute she wanted a a heartbeat and warm skin next to her body and he could smell her was the minute he started to bond.  Is that bonding?  I would imagine it is at least the start of it, no matter how frightening and daunting the responsibility seems to be.

Of course now the bond is different, I wouldn't say stronger, I just think like parents of bio children it grows and is not greater in emotion at any given point. The loss of that child would be devastating at any point and not worse because they were older. Does that make sense?

I think the difference is now she is bonded with us. She has of course known our voices and scents for quite some time now, but now she looks for us in a room and settles when it is one of her immediate family holding or consoling her. She has had nothing but huge smiles for us...unless hungry or ready for a nap...for at least a month now, but today when she was just about ready for a nap and we were getting to hit the streets for a long walk for that nap, I started singing bye bye love and dancing to it as well with some erratic voice and tone changes and my girl giggled...it was a joyful throaty little gurgle that ended with a bit of a squeak.   She seemed as surprised as we were that she could do that with her voice, since she only learned last week that she could "yell".  We of course couldn't stop singing that song to make her do it again so Daddy could get it on video. It was the highlight of my month...that first giggle.

the things people say

I was away last week at a work meeting and of course since it was my first meeting back from Family Leave, everyone wanted to see baby pictures and ask how things were. Many folks at the meeting knew that we had been trying to create our family for the past few years and most by now had known we were adopting....except for one woman, who at lunch after looking at my little, 15 photo, brag book, said, "I remember when you were pregnant." My boss was actually the first one to respond and said, "uhhhh, noooo", trying ever so delicately to cut her off before it got worse, when I just blurted out, "No, I was never pregnant with AM." Well you could have knocked her over with a feather, but I didn't know how to handle that one. I have grown accustomed to folks in the building, who have said, "I don't remember you being pregnant", or distant friends who upon receiving their Christmas Card/Annoucement said, "wow, we have been out of touch... but someone who had remembered I was pregnant!!??? OK, I know I put on a little weight trying to get pregnant but seriously....THAT MUCH??? One of my partners said, that should be incentive to get out of bed and get on the treadmill. Thank you for that AB. I was pretty nonplussed by the comment and had a good laugh telling some of my friends about it.

The other side of the week, had me being knocked over by a feather; in a conversation with my bosses boss who could be a tough guy to communicate with.  I pretty much accosted him in the bar and demanded he see photos of my little girl...no I wasn't drinking. He asked where AM was from and I said Texas, where interestingly enough we were (1 mile from where we awaited our interstate compact), and then he asked if we were going to keep in touch with the birth family. I of course replied, "yes, we currently send photos and a letter each month through our agency, but we also speak to our BM and have long-term plans to stay in touch and have AM meet her, etc. etc. Well, it was my turn to be knocked over with a feather, when he responded that his sister had placed a child for adoption and said, "to this day she knows it was the best decision for her and her daughter because she would never have been able to care for her and raise her at that time." I have to tell you, it gave me such a good feeling to know that somewhere in the sorrow and grieving of placing a child into a chosen family to raise, this woman had found some sort of peace with her choice. I like that happy sounding ending.   

Funny, the things people will say and tell you when you have adopted your child. We could of course do another whole post on the things people ask, but we can save that for another day.

Finally, I have knit AM her first piece of mommy-knit.  It is something I have knitted  for everyone I really like who has had a baby.  I knit her a baby blanket from Vogue Baby Blankets, in a pretty butter yellow. She look so sweet and beautiful in yellow. It will be done this week and I have a cute little hoodie pullover from Artyarns I will start next week.

three months

I can't believe AM is three months already. In some way it feels like she was born just yesterday and yet I can't remember when she wasn't here, when I couldn't smell her and lift her from the bassinet. My friend was one of those amazingly organized Mom's who wrote each of her daughters a letter every month for their first year of life and kept them in a box for her. Well, I have missed that boat by two months, but I sure can strive for a letter every 3 months, for the first year. Maybe that is what I should do after this.

it's been a while

One of my favorite songs of all time is titled "it's been while"...really a song about dysfunction, whatever that means, but still one of those songs that I can listen to over and over again....really loud.  AM will be three months this coming week and she grows more beautiful and animated each day.  She smiles now and is just a scootch away from a full on giggle.   She loves her Daddy and will stop mid-feed at 3 AM to smile and coo at him, which makes the 3 AM wake up worth every minute.   

I practice tellling her the story of her birth everyday.  I tell her how we  spoke to her birthmother on the phone everyday for 6 weeks before she was born and went to her homestate to spend a weekend getting to know her.  I tell her how we picked out her name together and made the pact that would carry us three women through our lives.   In every story I tell her and there are varying versions I am sure to let her know, we were chosen for her, humanly chosen and in some way, depending on your belief systems, divinely chosen for one another.  I tell her T is a good woman, who is smart and lovely.  I tell her how  it was my greatest privilege to be there as she came into this world and how her first breath, followed by her first cry was  one of the greatest moments of my life.    I tell her I am honored that T chose her father and I and will always honor the trust she has placed in us.   I tell her I hope she has T's hands and how she definitely has her hair.    I tell her how much I love her and that no matter where she goes, what she does, and what choices she makes in this life I will love her with every pore and fiber in my body and I will always be her Mom.  

I would imagine every new mother goes through these emotions, but getting her birth story right for her is of utmost importance right now for me.  I know she won't be able to understand it for quite some time yet, but I want it to be right for when she does.

10 weeks

AM is 10 weeks today and sometimes I still can't believe she is our daughter.   She changes everyday and we become slightly more adept at being her parents each day.  The crying I talked about in my last post has abated a bit however, at least once a week I do find myself in tears.  It is the strangest thing, the twelve months before her birth were filled with so many changes and ups and downs in our lives, she is the culmination of that year and I guess sometimes I cry  tears of joy that she is hear and sometimes I cry tears for all the changes we had.  Now I know that sounds like a lot to place on one little soul, but I don't mean it in that way.  I mean that our family as it is right now is exactly how it was always supposed to be.   Easy to say now, eh?  Not so easy to believe those three previous years, that is for sure.

what I wasn't prepared for

I knew women who gave birth could potentially have degrees of postpartum depression and having gone through 5 IVF/Donor egg cycles I know a little bit about hormone highs and lows and the emotions that come along with.  I wasn't prepared for and nothing I read had even hinted out the emotions, not just joy, that I would have once AM was in our care.   

While still awaiting our interstate compact to travel back home with her, I cried, no sobbed pretty much daily.  It would start out as tears of joy watching her eat or sleep and then slowly become this trying to catch your breath between sobs cry about everything that had happened during the past 4 years and everything that was going to happen in the next  30.   I cried for all the babies we didn't have, and how AM, this one little amazing girl found her way to us and how she was always supposed to be the one, how she was who we had been waiting for all along.  I cried for the overwhelming responsibility that I now felt to make sure she was happy and loved and how scared I was that somewhere I would inevitably fall short and not be good enough.  

I cried for her birth mom and how much gratitude and affection I have for her and the choice she made not only in choosing adoption, but in choosing us to be the parents of this beautiful life she had created.  

Uh oh someone else crying...more later.