I'm lactating!

Submitted by Adoption on Fri, 11/02/2007 - 10:15pm

I pumped for the first time today! After the first two pumping sessions I have almost 1/2 an ounce!!! Pretty exciting for someone who hasn't nursed a baby in over two years. Hopefully my supply will build up quickly. It's exciting!

Another exciting development today was our purchase of a minivan. Check out William's blog to find out all about it. Now we have enough seats in our second vehicle for Mom, William, AND baby - and even some friends! Anyone want a 1999 Ford Ranger in excellent condition with 46,000 miles?

We have a new van!

Submitted by William on Fri, 11/02/2007 - 10:08pm

Today we drove to the cities and bought a new green van. The company calls the color magnesium, but green is my favorite color. It was my idea to get that one. This picture isn't exactly our van, but it looks just like it. Mommy and I drove it the other day and I really liked it. Mommy wanted to bring it home right away, but Daddy had to wheel and deal. We ended up going to Hopkins and getting the van and then we went to Hallie and Paul's for dinner. After dinner Mommy drove me home in the van. I like that I can push the buttons to open and close doors by myself. But we have to get covers for the leather seats because I was worried about putting my feet on the seat.

Boring update

Submitted by Adoption on Thu, 11/01/2007 - 4:15pm

There hasn't been much happening lately. I'm down to four weeks of student teaching, so that's been keeping me busy. I have been very glad that we're on this timeline. If we'd had a baby back in October, I wouldn't have time to do anything well. As it is, I am keeping up despite my amazing procrastination skills.

We are soooo close to buying a car! The dealership Matt works for hasn't found the right vehicle for us yet, but Darren happened to see an ad in whatever paper always sits at the end of our driveway and eventually gets tossed right in the garbage. The fact that he looked at it this time must be a sign. The ad caught his eye because it said 2007 loaded Grand Caravans for $7,985. It was obviously a misprint - they forgot a 1 in front of it. But we drove one today and loved it. We'll see what kind of a deal we can get. And then we'll try to sell our truck. Anyone want a Ranger 4x4 for winter?

I start pumping tomorrow and I'm hoping that I'll be producing milk for the baby soon. I would love to have some stored and a milk supply ready for our baby in January! I'm excited to see how well my body responds. This is one thing it managed to do right before, so hopefully it will work again.

Some friends of mine who are adopting are at the hospital with their new baby boy who was born Tuesday and his birthmom. I'm hoping and praying that everything goes smoothly!

I forgot to add, Matt didn't make it to the Johnnie game last week, but hopefully we'll have some of the birth family over to our house soon.

Halloween!

Submitted by William on Thu, 11/01/2007 - 10:15am

Last night I got to go trick-or-treating around my cul-de-sac. There were some scary monsters out there! I almost decided to go home halfway through. But then mommy made me go to one last house - it was my friend Emily's house - and after I got pixie sticks there, I decided to keep going. I got so much candy! I was happy to share with Mommy and Daddy.

My costume was a chinese dragon. I've wanted to be a chinese dragon for Halloween for so long that we can't even remember where I got the idea. But Mommy says you can't just go out and buy a chinese dragon costume, so we had to make it. Mostly Mommy did the paper mache and tissue paper all by herself, but I helped a little. My favorite part was putting on the eyes and the sequins. Grandma Barb picked out the orange fabric that we used for the cape. Thanks Grandma Barb!

I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween! I'll have my daddy put some pictures on here when he gets a chance.

Dinner with Dad

Submitted by Adoption on Sat, 10/20/2007 - 10:28pm

We went car shopping yesterday. Birthdad works for a car dealership here in town, so we thought we'd stop in (finally) and see what they could do for us. We want to replace our pickup with a van before the baby comes. Luckily Matt (the birthdad) came out to talk to us before we even had to ask about him. He told the salesman that we were adopting his baby girl. What a warm fuzzy! We basically set a date to go out to dinner tonight and got back to business. We didn't buy a van yet, but they're going to look for one for us.

Tonight we met at Old Country Buffet for dinner. Matt is a friendly, talkative guy. He knew the hostess and introduced us, again, saying that we are adopting his baby girl. He's spent his whole life in the St. Cloud area and, as he says, he knows too many people. It's a good thing he's comfortable talking about the adoption. We had great conversation over dinner. We learned more about Matt, his work, and his plans for the future. Again, we talked about names. He liked everything on our list but had a couple favorites. Sorry folks, we're not going to officially name her until she's born.

Hopefully the weather will be nice next Saturday and we will all go to the Johnnies football game together. It feels good to finally have some bonding time with birthdad.

Doctor's appt update

Submitted by Adoption on Wed, 10/17/2007 - 8:34pm

I got to go to the doctor's appointment today!!! I heard our baby's heartbeat and recorded it on my cellphone to bring home for Darren. It was so cool to be a part of the pregnancy experience. Yesterday shopping for maternity clothes, today glucose tolerance test! The appointment was up in St. Cloud again even though she's planning to switch to North Memorial. Her mom drove her up, so I got to talk with her some more and we all chatted about names. They feel more like family every day. Hopefully the guys aren't feeling too left out.

Shopping Trip

Submitted by Adoption on Tue, 10/16/2007 - 8:43pm

The girls took a trip to the mall tonight. D was in town with her mom to talk to her counselor, so after the meeting we got some food and did a little maternity clothes shopping. It was a good time. I enjoyed seeing her cute belly that's now starting to pop out. She finally needed some new jeans! And I talked her into a couple new shirts while we were shopping. Her old ones aren't going to stretch forever. I passed on the few fall maternity things that I had, but William was born in August, so there wasn't much.

We've had some nice conversations she and I. Last week we talked on the phone for an hour and a half about anything and everything. We get along very well. In a lot of ways I see myself in her at that time in my life.

I'm feeling bad that birthdad's been left out so far. His work schedule didn't work out last time and this time we didn't figure he wanted to shop for maternity clothes. But we really like him and intend to set up a time to go out one of these days. It seems like it should be so easy since he's in town here, but I think that's part of the problem.

D is coming back to town tomorrow for a doctor's appt. I think I'll have to meet up with her for a few minutes. I don't know if it's okay to come to the doctor's appt or not. I haven't gotten the sense that she's real comfortable with that. But I left something in one of the shopping bags that I need to get from her (it really was an accident!) and she also mentioned lending me one of her favorite movies. So it's nice that I'm only five minutes from the clinic!

The Dinner Date

Submitted by Adoption on Thu, 10/04/2007 - 3:04pm

We had dinner last night with our birthmom (who I will refer to as D since I don't know how she'd feel about my using her name online). We considered leaving William with a friend but decided to bring him along if he had a good nap. Well, he took his first good nap in days, so it must have been meant to be. Aside from forgetting that nice little bag of stuff I packed to keep him occupied and having to make a pit stop along the way to pick up a few things so that dinner wouldn't be a distaster which made us 15 minutes late, it was wonderful to have him along! He's a really good sport, and so was Darren who sat next to him and kept him entertained. Every so often he would crawl under the table and I would know it was time to pull something else out of my purse. He was actually pretty quiet considering what a chatterbox he's been lately. The cutest thing he said all night was to me as we were leaving, "D is growing our baby in her tummy." I had to have him tell D, too. I was impressed that he made the connection because it had been so long since I'd told him her name. But I guess after all the baby talk during dinner, it would be difficult not to make the connection, even for a three-year-old.

It was great to talk with D. She's been feeling much better. It seems the morning sickness is finally gone. I'm so thankful that I have been pregnant because I can relate to her on that level. Otherwise she's definitely in a very different place than we are in life, especially now that she's taking this year off of school. I may have to get Grey's Anatomy on DVD so I can talk to her about that :) But overall dinner was great! We all enjoyed the food at Buca and were able to bring home leftovers. Yum! Her birthday was the same day she asked us to parent, so we gave her a belated birthday card and a certificate for Barnes & Noble. It turns out that she just finished the book she was reading - good timing! We talked about names. Darren and I had made a list of five and her opinions closely matched ours, so that was nice. We also all felt the same about not officially naming the baby until after she's born. It's nice that we all agree.

We invited D to Darren's birthday party. We'll see if she takes us up on it. It may be a little soon for her to feel comfortable meeting our families. But we are hoping for a lot of openness, so it would be nice to start right away rather than have it be more awkward after the baby is born.

For our next meeting we're going to try and find a time that works for the birthdad, M. He couldn't get off of work, so he wasn't able to make it to this dinner.

She called!

Submitted by Adoption on Sun, 09/30/2007 - 12:05am

I did call on Friday and left her a message suggesting a couple days to get together. She called back Saturday night and we're going out on Wednesday! I feel better now :) Time to start making my list of things I don't want to forget to talk about.

School days

Submitted by William on Thu, 09/27/2007 - 2:11pm

I'm a big boy now. I've started preschool! My teacher's name is Miss Julie and I see her on Mondays and Wednesdays. Mommy and Daddy "drop me off and drive away" just like Grandma and I used to drop Tabby off at school. I always tell them about my day after school is done. The first day I drew a picture of a soccer field and played in the gym. The second day I glued red pieces of paper to make an apple and we sang "Way Up High in the Apple Tree." Yesterday we did finger painting and playdough! I have my very own locker at school with my name on it where I put my red backpack. I like school! Tomorrow Mommy will go with me to school. We will be in a different room and Janie will be my teacher. She was Mommy's kindergarten teacher, isn't that crazy?!? At snack time Mommy goes to talk with Angie and the other grown-ups and I get more time to play!

If we don't have school in the morning, I'm always asking to go someplace. Mommy said that after my nap today we'll go to the Harvest Festival at the Farmer's Market and then I get to play at Grandma Lanz's house for a while. That will be fun!