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.