My Little Cocoon

I am loving my little recovery cocoon that we have created! I bought J an electric recliner with cup holders for his birthday/Father’s day. Unfortunately for him, I have swiped it for my recovery bed, lol. This thing is truly fantastic though. We moved the bed over a bit so we could fit it in on my side. I have the bed on one side to put things on and the window ledge on the other. The only I don’t have is a secure place for my coffee cup. Right now I have it sitting on a magazine on the bed.  

So, how’s the recovery going? Pretty well, I think. The incisions are sore and having drains in is uncomfortable, but the pain isn’t unbearable. The day of the surgery, I took the oxycodone every 4 hours as directed. Yesterday, I did Tylenol, then oxycodone in the evening and then Tylenol PM around 11:30pm. I slept great! My neck is getting a little sore, but I just rolled some deep relief on so hopefully that will have with the stiffness.  
J’s becoming a pro at taking care of the drains and I had my first shower last night. I thought it would be painful but it wasn’t at all. I can’t wait to go back to the Dr. on Monday though and get the stupid drains out. They’re extremely annoying and I can’t really go anywhere because I have to wear a button up pj top and any other button ups I have will totally show that I have the drains.
Now, on to the more important news! Right after I got back to the discharge room after surgery was over, J decided to check my email to see if anything had been sent from the adoption agency. I was thinking, “I highly doubt it”, but lo and behold, there was an email from BM’s social worker giving us BM’s number and saying that she’s looking forward to hearing from us! If I could have done a happy dance at that moment, I totally would’ve.
We waited til Friday morning to call her because the social worker said mornings are the best time to get a hold of her. We had a good conversation and she reiterated to us again the peace that she has felt about this since we met. That was soooo good to hear! She also invited us to her ultrasound appt on Tuesday so we will be going to her city for that. Then I think we’re going to take her for lunch and then go back to her house so J can hang some blinds for her.  
Ladies, I’m so excited about this but totally nervous at the same time. Oh, and we did the FB announcement yesterday as we finally felt safe enough to let everyone know. We figure if it doesn’t end up going though, we’re going to need all the prayers and support we can get. For those of you that aren’t FB friends with me, I put before/after pics on there of our kitchen and living room and then the last photo was this:

I hope you all had a great week and your enjoying your weekend!  Thank you again for all the love and support you have sent me!  L came over for about an hour Thursday night and is right back to her sassy attitude so those 7 months of hard work went right down the drain!

Surgery Update

Hi all!  First off, thank you so much for all the comments, love and support you sent after my last post.  You ladies have gotten me through these last couple days!

Surgery went well.  I bought J an electric recliner for his birthday/Father’s day so we have that all set up in our room for me to sleep in.  I’ve already taken a nice long nap in it and I’m about yo do another one.

I will update more when I’m a little more coherent!  Love you all!

Dawn 

And Just Like That…

Our hearts have broken into a million pieces.
It began 2 Mondays ago now with a court date for Baby R. We didn’t need to be at this but apparently we should have been because not only was Mom there, but also the Dad (who wasn’t even at R’s birth even though it was a scheduled cesarean), Grandma, H, and an Aunt, I think. BM didn’t want baby to be placed with us. She wanted to take her home, or to be placed with both her and Dad or if she couldn’t have that, she wanted Grandma to have her. The judge ordered the social worker to look into the Dad and Grandma for possible placement and our nightmare started.  
Thursday was the next hearing and this time J went to advocate for us. The SW had already told me that both her and the guardian ad litem felt that R should stay with us. Well, apparently these things are normally pretty cut and dry and last 15 minutes so instead of being at the hearing, the SW and her supervisor were at a training and a different SW (that apparently did nothing during the hearing to answer the judge’s questions) went in their place. Yeah, not good! After an almost 3 hour hearing, the judge ordered that Baby R be placed with Grandma (where BM is living right now for at least her 6 weeks of healing).
Needless to say, when J called me after the hearing was done, I burst into tears. We were/are devastated. When J got home, we sat down and had a talk with L about what was going to happen. She, of course, was very upset that her Sister was leaving. We asked L if she had a choice, would she want to go with her Sister to Grandma’s and she said yes. We were already thinking that although we absolutely don’t want her to leave, that emotionally, being completely separated from her family that is pretty much all living at Grandma’s now, would not be good for her. We didn’t want her to think that she was the one that did something wrong and that’s why she’s the only one not with them.  
We all cried together that day and we told her how much we love her and always will and that we are so proud of her and all she’s learned while she’s been with us. That night, we sent an email to the SW letting her know what we were thinking. She called the next morning to check on us before she even got our email. She was upset about this too. We told her what we were thinking and she agreed with our thought process on it. We then called BM and talked to her about it. Of course, she was ecstatic and said her Mom definitely would want L too. She told us that she still wants us in the girls lives and that L can call/visit us whenever she wants. She also said she’d like us to be R’s Godparents when the girls get baptized. Hopefully, she holds to all of this.
So, this past Monday, BM and Grandma came and picked up Baby R at noon. L stayed with us for the afternoon because she’d been invited to a birthday party at our neighbor’s house. After the party was over, we drove her out to her Grandma’s. The house is decent, but her room there is tiny. There’s no way all her stuff from our house is going to fit there so if you look in her room here, it pretty much looks like she still lives here. We did okay all day until we pulled out of that driveway and then we were both in tears. This last week has been the hardest of my life. Yes, J and I have gotten a ton done just in the last day they’ve been gone, but I miss them. I even miss getting up in the middle of the night to feed R. The house is very quiet now (well, as quiet as it can be with 2 dogs). I will do another blog post soon about how I truly feel about all of this and how broken this system is.
In adoption news, I’ve got nothing. BM’s caseworker said she’d be in touch early last week and we heard nothing from her. Even after I emailed to check in. I finally emailed our caseworker and she said that BM hadn’t been in touch with her caseworker at all and she had nothing new to report so that’s why she hadn’t been in touch. They said to try not to worry and all of this is normal and she may just need some space after making such a big decision. Apparently her caseworker thinks she may not hear from her again until she’s at the hospital. I hope not. I hate not having any updates or contact. Especially when the words, I want you to raise my baby, were not actually spoken. It was implied, but she didn’t just come out and say it so it’s really hard not to feel uneasy right now. I’m trying to just keep faith.
Other news…my BR surgery is TOMORROW!!! Holy crap, I am so not ready. As in, we’ve been painting the house like crazy since Friday and it’s not put back together or clean yet. I have a list a mile long of things I need to get done today.  
I hope you all are doing well. With everything that happened, I’m totally behind on what’s happening with you guys but I will have plenty of time to get caught up starting tomorrow. Love to you all!
Dawn

Daddy….

And all his babies!!! 😀

We picked Little Miss R up at 2:45pm.  She slept from the time we left the hospital until after 7pm when I went and changed her so she would wake up to eat. J’s parents and L, her half brothers and their Mom came for dinner.  She was held and loved on all evening.  She drank her bottle great.  She also blessed me with a poopy diaper that kept on coming right after I got her all wiped up, lol.

L is having a bit of a hard time.  She’s gotten super sassy and not wanting to listen to well in the last couple weeks.  I thought it was just because J was away but apparently not.  It’s a fine line of cutting her some slack because we know it’s a confusing time for her and letting her know it’s not acceptable.  She did end up in bed with no story tonight after she through a fit because I wouldn’t let her have her Gatorade by her bed and told her to get her water bottle instead.  I am soooo mean!!!

Hopefully L will settle into her role of big sister soon.

When It Rains, It Pours

Things are about to crazy up in here!  We found out this afternoon that L’s baby sister (born yesterday) will be discharged to us on Saturday.  🙂  Wish us luck!

All the Happenings

First off, Thank you for all the prayers and positive vibes that were sent our way!  They are so appreciated.

The meeting went better than we had even hoped.  We got up around 5:30am to get ready to go.  Our meeting was scheduled for 11am and was only about 2 1/2 hours away, but it’s summer in WI and that means construction.  Right by my town, there is no direction that you can go where you don’t hit it and I was worried it would be the same way trying to get there.  Luckily it wasn’t.  We left the house about 6:30am and got there by 9:30.  Since we had extra time, we found the DMV there and J took care of some stuff he had to do there.  We got to the library we were meeting at about 15 minutes early.  Let me tell you, for about the last hour before the meeting, I seriously thought I was going to throw up.  I was so nervous and was rubbing peppermint oil on my tummy like crazy hoping it would calm the butterflies down!  Just after 11am, they arrived and we went into the meeting room.  We talked for almost 2 hours.  We told her our story, she told us hers.  There were tears on both sides.  Guys, this woman is amazing.  Like, seriously.  She is definitely not the stereotype people think of when they think about a Mom giving her baby up for adoption.  And there were so many little coincidences.  Her name is my middle name.  Her son and J have the same birthday.  She loves basketball and played for 12 years and basketball is J’s first love.  She’s really into toxin and chemical free as much as possible just like I am and loved that I use essential oils and make my own soap and stuff.  We thanked her for giving us this opportunity to meet with her, for considering us for this huge gift she will be giving.  We told her we think she’s brave and courageous and a hero in our eyes.  She told us that she really likes us and that we’re perfect.  Our Faith was a huge thing for her and the reason why she connected with our letter so much.  She very adamantly wants her child to grow up knowing God and Jesus and that there’s something much bigger out there than what’s happening in this earthly life.  We love that and totally agree.  You could tell that she has thought about this a lot and from all angles and is really trying to put her emotions to the side to do what’s healthiest for all of them, herself, her son and the baby.  In short, it was amazing!

So, we left the meeting with her caseworker saying that they were going to discuss hospital plan more and she would be in touch early next week.  At that point, we weren’t really sure what was going to happen.  It seemed like we were moving forward, but it wasn’t said point blank.  After we left, we quickly got a text from the caseworker saying that it was nice to meet us and that BM felt really at ease with us and she would be in touch.  Shortly after that, we got an email from our caseworker saying that she had her from BM’s and that the meeting had gone really well and that she was happy for us and to enjoy the next month of getting know BM.  So that made it seem like everything was indeed moving forward.  It kind of sucked because we weren’t sure if we should be jumping up and down screaming or just being cautiously optimistic.

I sent  our caseworker and email this morning with a couple of questions and told her that we felt that it was moving forward after yesterday but that we weren’t sure and was wondering if/when we should/can start getting ready for baby because she’s due in just over a month!  She emailed back and said from the sounds of it we are all the same page of moving forward and we could at least start buying the necessities but maybe hold off on the big/fun things.  So, I would like to formally announce that it seems like we will indeed be bringing home a Baby Girl next month!!!!  I hope I didn’t just jinx it and obviously, this is adoption, until we go to court at least 30 days after she’s born, could be longer and BM signs her rights away, she or BD can change their minds at anytime.  I’m trying not to let that fear take hold right now though.

In other news (because you know, that’s not enough), my BR surgery is now going to be on June 23rd so exactly 2 weeks from today!!!  It was originally supposed to be July 11th, but baby girl is due July 15th so then I got it moved up to June 27th, well, when I called to confirm it, apparently something had come up and I could do it that day and it got pushed back to July 21st.  This morning I got a call from the nurse saying she had good news and someone had cancelled and I could get in on the 23rd now.  As long as baby R doesn’t come more than a week early, I should have plenty of healing time before she arrives.  🙂

Please, please, please continue to keep us in your prayers that this adoption goes through without a hitch and that I recover from surgery quickly with no complications.

There is so, so much to get done around the house in the next couple weeks and of course, after, but J’s going to have to take over after I have the surgery.  I’m sure he’ll be thrilled about that! 😉

Lots of Love~Dawn

Match Meeting

Match meeting is scheduled for Wednesday at 11am.  Prayers and positive vibes that it goes well and she ultimately says “yes, you’re who I want to raise my baby”, would be appreciated!  🙂

What If…..

She meets is and decides she doesn’t like and says never mind?  For that matter, what if BD doesn’t like us? 

 These are the thoughts flowing through my head now that the initial excitement has settled.

Give it to me….

Your must haves for a newborn that is!

If our match meeting goes well and and everything goes smoothly from here on out, this is going to be happening quickly and we don’t have a lot of time to get ready which means I don’t have a lot of time to do research.

We have a crib and doing day care, I already have a swing, bouncy seat, etc.  But what else am I going to need ladies, especially for a newborn?  I don’t usually get them until they’re a couple months old and I’m not bathing them or doing around the clock care.  Also a good carrier that would work for 5’1 me and 6’J?  I know y’all will have some fantastic suggestions.

Oh, and suggestions for infant carseat also, please!  We will definitely need to get 2 bases.

Ready, Set, Go!!!!

OMG, OMG, OMG….

We’ve been picked by a Birth Mom!!!!! 

We will meet BM within the next couple of weeks but that’s all I have for now.  

I can’t believe this is really happening…seriously, pinch me!   And I also can’t believe I got the call while J’s in DC and I can’t jump up and down and scream and cry with him!!!!!!