22 Weeks

Ultrasound pictures from 18 weeks (taken about 4 weeks ago).



Belly picture from week 21, last week.



I am really enjoying this now that I have a little more energy. I am also enjoying feeling her little bumps and rumbles. :)
I am still wearing my own pants...well, make that I can wear my own pants. I have learned that pregnant pants rock. I might never wear regular pants again.

-Melissa

Milestones (Week 21)

Everyone said that after the first trimester I would begin to enjoy this pregnancy thing more...turns out they were right. This is not to say I'm suddenly going to begin actually listening to the excessive amounts of advice people bestow upon pregnant women, but I am glad this turned out to be true.

I loved seeing our little girl bounce around inside me during our 18 week ultrasound, and while we watched Harry Potter on July 16th I felt her kick me for the first time. That was around week 17, for those who are keeping track. I wasn't SURE that's what I was feeling, but it certainly felt different than anything I'd felt before...so I hoped. Since then I've felt that same sensation increasingly often, and am pretty convinced that's my little one in their wiggling and moving about.

Last week Joe actually felt her for the first time. This was especially cool since he'd just expressed that he felt sad I had all the fun of feeling her move and he couldn't have that experience. As we were laying there in bed waiting and hoping she'd give a big kick suddenly she did. Both our eyes popped open. "Did you feel that?" I asked. "I did!" he exclaimed. It was very very cool.

My belly is starting to almost, sorta, barely outgrow my regular pants. Most still fit, but are a little snug when I sit down, and those that were already snug are out of the question. I'm not really in need of true maternity clothes, but I'm not going to lie, those things are COMFORTABLE. So, I wear them sometimes anyway. :)

-Melissa

A Consolation Prize

To make up for my horrible lack of posting I have an offering.
A video of today's ultrasound, complete with the reveal of our little one's gender.

Beans, spilled

Finally, finally, finally we are able to tell everyone WHY we have put off the adoption. The family has known since right about the same time we did, but we're pregnant!

As of today I am 10 weeks along. Things couldn't be going better.

I will post more later, but I just wanted to finally get this out there, in the open. Yay!

Of course, I did post it to Facebook the other day, so the world kind of already knows I guess. :)

-Melissa

Open Vs. Not

One of the biggest eyebrow raisers among our adoption choices is the choice to have an open adoption.

Initially we were not overly interested in this particular option oursleves. It certainly seemed less complicated to just have a baby magically appear out of thin air without strings, baggage, and biological ties. From what I've read most people initially feel this way. Perhaps that's in part because of our culture and the information we've received about adoption. More often than not when you think of birthmothers I think the negative images dominate. The loudly unhappy woman who starts a website opposing adoption in all forms. The Lifetime movie about the teenager forced to give up her child who lurks behind trees and stalks the unexpecting adoptive couple.

Could these things happen, absolutely. Would we want a bitter and angry person involved in our lives, of course not.

But the truth is this, that woman (and man, assuming the birth father is involved) are a part of our adopted child's life. They just are. I think any person with a biological connection to another person (hello, everyone) knows that blood is important. Like it or not, it matters. For reasons emotional and otherwise, that connection is an important one, and a valid one, and one that won't just "go away" because we choose not to acknowledge it.

Emotionally I am glad that when our child has questions about why he or she was given up for adoption, we'll know the answer. Because we'll know his/her birthmother we'll know what her situation was. Who she was, how old, and why she felt that adoption was the best choice for her child. And, hopefully, we'll have an ongoing relationship with her that allows us either in person, by phone, by letter or email to let her tell the child these things herself. There's no worry that she'll be built up into some amazing "BIRTHMOTHER" that is better than us, or preferable to us, because she'll be human, just like us, and our child will see that.
On a more practical level, we'll be able to have access to our child's medical background. And those change...so when our son or daughter's birthgrandparent develops heart disease, we can be told, and our child will have as complete a medical history as possible.

Will it be complicated? Yes. But, hell, life's complicated. And the second you think it's not, that you've got it figured out, that's when the lightning bolt comes out of the sky to remind you otherwise (hello, experience speaking...). And the fact is, adoption is complicated anyway. Birth parents, real parents, biological parents, first parents, adoptive parents, mom, dad....there's a lot happening there. There are a lot of emotions involved. Fear, love, excitement, anxiety, eagerness, dread. Everyone involved has layers of things to "deal" with.

I almost feel like having an "open" adoption is a little akin to just being "open" in general. Instead of keeping things quiet, or putting them away, they're out there. They exist. They ARE. That's a lot more in line with my personality than secrets and closeted skeletons. So why not just face these things. Will it always be an easy road, of course not...but since when was parenting easy anyway? Will I want to eat these optimistic and rosey-glassed words later, no doubt...but when have non-parents not said stupid things that just display their ametuer perspectives? :)

For those wanting more perspecitive, here are some websites I have found insitghtful:
The agency's information on open adoption: http://www.adoptionhelp.org/open_adoption/

This one talks more to birth mothers, but gives a good perspective and helps me understand her expectations: http://www.openadoption.org/bbetzen/parent.htm#parent

Of course a simple google search will provide plenty of other informational site, testimonials, and other resources.

-Melissa

A non-update about the lack of updating...

I'm sorry it has taken me so long to update here. I could give you some excuses...but who needs those?

The long and short of it is this...Joe and I are putting the adoption on hold for a while. Everything is OK, but things have gotten a little crazy around here lately. I'll elaborate more when they work themselves out some.

I will continue to update here regarding our adoption choices in order to elaborate on some of the aspects of it (like choosing an open adoption, or domestic, etc), but the updates will be less frequent (ha! since they were so speedy anyway?) and won't be "real-time" updates of our progess, since, obviously, there won't be any.

Thanks again for everyone's support. I'm sorry to put such an abrupt stop to things....and everything is OK, so don't worry or anything, and I'll update you on what's going on just as soon as I can.

-Melissa

Updaterific

We have made our first financial commitment to the agency we've chosen. We've paid the $250 dollar registration fee for their weekend intensive workshop, and an approximately $900 deposit toward our overall fees. Ultimately our agency fees will be $16,000. Beyond that we may have to pay some birth mother expenses, as well as finalization and attorney fees, and some other odds and ends.

The agency we're going with is the Independent Adoption Center. We really like them for a lot of reasons.

First, they are very inclusive. While we were searching we found that a lot of agencies were rather exclusive, helping only families of a certain religion for example. That's quite a turn off. This agency, though, is quite the opposite. They actively market their services to non-traditional families and singles. I like that.

They also do "open adoptions." This means that we will know our birth parents, and they'll know us. Even after the baby is born and the adoption is complete we will still have a relationship with our child's birth parents. This route is one that it took a while for us to learn about and to prefer. Initially we, like most prospective adoptive parents, wanted a closed adoption. It seems "safer" and less complicated. And in a situation that is bound to have many complications, that was attractive. As we researched this particular option more, though, we realized that "out of sight, out of mind" doesn't really apply in this case. Ultimately I believe that some level of openness is in the best interest of the child, the birth parents, and the adoptive parents. How "open" is open is something we'll determine with the birth parents once we've made a match. The agency encourages at least one post-placement visit though. Joe is on board with this too, which is a change from his original opinion. In fact, the other day he told me he hopes that our birth mother lives in the area so that we can know her during the pregnancy and not just talk to her on the phone.

I also like that they have an office right up the road in Raleigh. It's nice to know we'll be getting face time with this agency and that they are so accessible. Some of the other agencies we were looking at didn't even have offices on the east coast. Blech.

So anyway, we'll be spending our Friday and Saturday there. Friday we'll go over the contract, begin our home study process with some interviews, and begin writing our Dear Birth mother letter...which is really more like a brochure (HI, WE'RE GREAT PICK US! WE LOVE KIDS, EVEN STINKY ONES!... or something like that). Saturday we'll be in a couple classes that address parenting issues unique to adoptive families. (AKA, What to do when your teenager yells that you're "not her real mom".)

All in all it should be most informative and exciting. Even Joe agrees. Which is cute. And makes me feel less nuts...cause, if Joe's on board then it's not too bad of an idea.*

-Melissa

*Unless of course it's a REALLY bad idea. But those are obvious because they could result in a visit to the hospital or jail.