One Day More!

Kudos to the person who recognizes the movie reference I made in my post title. Anyway, tomorrow is Baby Girl's due date and she appears to be content staying put. We heard from M' social worker yesterday and she said that M is more than ready to have this baby but she's not in labor yet.  So we wait some more.  In the meantime, there's a post up on the private blog for you to read.  Brandon and I are trying to stay busy but it gets harder by the day.  We've been to the movies and out to eat twice in the past few weeks and you can only go shopping so many times before your wallet protests.  So I think we're going to spend the next few days going crazy at home.  I seriously hope this baby comes soon!

Updates

I suppose I should provide an update of sorts but the truth is that nothing much is happening.  We've got 15 days till Baby Girl's due date and according to our birthmom's last appointment it appears she's content staying put.  Baby Girl is measuring right on target, healthy as a horse.  Nothing out of the ordinary about this pregnancy.

But I've been feeling a little poopie lately.  I've got this dull constant ache near my right ovary that's been going on for almost a month (so no, it's not ovulation).  I'm thinking it could be a cyst from my PCOS flaring up but sometimes the pain moves to the middle or the left of my abdomen so I can't be sure.  It's annoying but not something I think the doctors would do anything about. Right now I'm just playing the wait-and-see approach.

I'm starting to get a little nervous about placement.  There's a 60 day window in which the birthparents could change their mind after placement.  After placement, which would occur at the hospital when Baby Girl is discharged, there will be a hearing scheduled within 30 days to terminate parental rights.  During the 30 day window before the hearing the birth parents can change their mind for any reason whatsoever.  After the hearing they'll then have another 30 days to appeal it though at that point it becomes much harder to regain custody.  They would have to prove they signed under duress or that their situations change dramatically enough to warrant the ability to parent.  Still, I'm putting our full faith in our birthmom's unwavering decision to place Baby Girl for adoption.  I know it will be hard and my heart breaks for her but Brandon and I called the social worker today and let her know that whatever our birthmom needs afterward to help her through this time, we're willing to do it.  If she wants to call or visit or even just email back and forth we're okay with that.  If she wants distance then our feelings won't be hurt and we'll give her the space she needs.  As the days tick closer to Baby Girl's due date I find myself thinking more and more about our birthmom and what she must be going through.  Because despite the happiness that will come from adoption there will also be loss, for all parties involved but mostly for the birth parents.  I can only hope that their hearts will heal and they will be able to achieve the dreams that they're looking forward to accomplishing.

Still Here. Still Waiting

Last week we were told it could be "any day now".  But there's no baby yet.  I'm starting to get the feeling that doctors just say that to send you into a tailspin and panic about all the stuff that hasn't been completed around the house.

I'm trying not to worry.  I'm trying not to be impatient when I don't hear anything.  But it's really really hard.

Private Blog

There's a couple of new posts up on the private blog!

www.fearlesslyinfertile.blogspot.com

Prayers Please

My dear friend from high school, Lindsay, and her family were in the process of adopting a boy from Eastern Europe.  However on Sunday their beautiful baby boy succumbed to his medical conditions and passed away.  My heart is breaking for her and I cannot imagine the pain she must be going through.  Please stop by her blog and offer some words of encouragement.

 Psalm 34:18- The Lord is close to the broken-hearted and those who are crushed in spirit.

Harry Potter Brought Us Together

We met the birthmom and her mother today.  I couldn't have imagined a more perfect meeting.  It was like talking with an old friend.  We went on and on about random topics for an hour and a half.  Every 15 minutes or so, when the social workers could get a word in edgewise, they would bring us back to the real topics that needed to be discussed such as birth plans and legal issues.  But in the end we'd always skirt off topic and start talking about something else so eventually they just gave up trying :)  But it was such a natural conversation to have with them and something that I'll cherish forever.

Many curious friends and family members have asked us what the birthmom's "situation" is.  Brandon and I decided long ago that this isn't something we will share at all.  After all, it's not our story to tell, it's our daughter's and we don't want her hearing about it for the first time from anybody but the two of us.  When she's old enough to hear it, we'll tell her everything she wants to know and at that point she can decide who to share that information with.  We just don't feel right doing it any other way. 

But there are a few things I will share, like why she picked us.  After we had been talking for about an hour I asked what it was about us and our profile that she liked.  She mentioned that she liked Brandon's connection to Utah (many of her family members live there too) and the fact that our profile was short and sweet.  But she also said she picked us because I was a Harry Potter fan. 

So there you have it.  Harry Potter brought us together.  It was a match made in Hogwarts :)

We Crossed Over to the Dark Side

And got iPhones.  Brandon has been wanting one for MONTHS and we had been planning on getting rid of our Blackberries and getting iPhones a few weeks ago when we got The Call.  Though we worried about money I knew that we still needed new phones and Brandon was really looking forward to getting an iPhone so we decided to go that weekend and get them anyway.

But they were sold out!

Oh, darn.  Looks like we'll just have to put that purchase off for another day, I said.  Weeks went by and I convinced Brandon to come shopping with my on Black Friday with the empty promise that he could get his iPhone then.  Really I just thought they'd still be sold out and he'd have to keep waiting.  Unfortunately I was wrong and it turned out that they had plenty in stock.  Brandon was completely ecstatic but to me it was just another phone.  I opted to get the older model, the 4S, while Brandon of course got the newer one.  Our cell phone contracts had long since expired so it was fairly cheap to buy new phones.

He hasn't stopped playing with the damn thing ever since.

Meanwhile I still miss my Blackberry keyboard.

Random Thoughts

It's been an extremely busy week in our household. I'm trying to work on my blog design for my travel blog (I already paid for the design so I might as well continue to keep up with the blog!) and that's been a big work in progress. I'm also working on a list of things to complete before the baby arrives, like steam cleaning the carpets and getting the carseat installed and inspected.  We've got a meeting with the birthmom and a few members of her family scheduled and I'm really looking forward to that.  Brandon and I narrowed down the list of names to 6 (which isn't narrowed down much at all!) and we're hoping to present 4 of the names to the birthmom for her to pick...if she wants.  If not then Brandon and I will argue about the name until we finally flip a coin and be done with it :)  But I jest.  Actually, I'm not jesting, I'm really hoping the birthmom becomes the tie-breaker in the Name Game!  Picking out names isn't as easy as I thought it would be.

This Thanksgiving Brandon and I have awesome plans.  We're headed to Plymouth, MA for a traditional 17th century Thanksgiving dinner, in celebration of the Pilgrim's feast and all that jazz.  It may sound a bit hokey but apparently this feast is pretty popular.  Brandon and I bought our tickets in July and just a few weeks later they were sold out!  People come from all over the world to partake in the Plymouth Thanksgiving dinner.  Then we'll come back home, do a bit of shopping on Black Friday and then head to Boston for the rest of the weekend!  We'll be bringing Oso with us and staying in a nice pet-friendly hotel in downtown Boston where we'll catch an evening performance of the Nutcracker at the Boston Ballet.  On Saturday we have reservations for brunch at Cafe Fleuri, known for their Chocolate Bar and the rest of the day will be spent doing random sightseeing around Boston.  Then it's back home on Sunday where we start to focus our attention on cleaning this mess of a house and getting ready for Baby Girl's arrival.  The next 6 weeks will be super busy but the reward in the end will be worth it!!

Opening Up an Old Wound

I'm healed. I've moved on. I closed the door to the possibility of being a parent, and I'm perfectly okay with that.   In fact, I'm really enjoying being childless and having the freedom to do anything I want.

So why am I back in this space you ask?

Because we got The Call.

I'll let that sink in for a minute because trust me, I needed more than a minute myself today.   In fact my hands are shaking as I type this.

We are no longer active with our adoption agency because they are a national agency and our homestudy was only good for one year with them.  But our homestudy was actually completed by a local agency in CT where it's valid for two years.  So while we went inactive with the national agency the homestudy agency continued to show our profiles.  And we were chosen by a birthmom.

Words cannot begin to describe the range of emotions I felt when I got The Call.  We never expected to get a call from our local agency.  They do only 3 or 4 placements a year while the national agency completes over 300.  We were completely shocked when we found out that a birthmom had picked us.

I had a meltdown at work.  I couldn't get ahold of Brandon for over an hour.  When I did get in touch with him we both decided to take off work early to come home and talk things over.  I was a basketcase but still unsure of whether we'd accept this match.  It was just so difficult for us to make peace with a decision, close a door and then have it fly open again out of nowhere.  So many thoughts were rolling around in my head, the biggest one being "What if we say yes and she changes her mind?".

We spent the entire afternoon talking, reasoning through this new turn of events.  Brandon was concerned that he'd miss out on major milestones when he starts deploying next fall.  We worried over money because we had taken all our adoption savings and put it towards paying off my car so now we'd have to take out another loan to cover the adoption.  We discussed our current lifestyle and how we're genuinely happy, baby or no baby.  It was just so easy to make a decision to quit adoption when the idea of adopting was just a nameless, faceless dream.  Now there is a unborn baby out there with an identity, a race and a gender and suddenly it becomes so very very real.

In the end we decided to take this opportunity, to stop in the middle of the path that our lives were currently headed and completely switch directions back to parenthood.  We called our social worker to tell her the news.

Our daughter is due in late December.

Saying Goodbye

Well, guys, this is it. It's time to say goodbye to Fearlessly Infertile. I've been debating what to do with this space now that we're no longer pursuing parenthood and honestly I can't think of any reason to keep it around. Most of the blogs I follow have moved on to parenthood and I don't really stay up-to-date in the world of infertility or adoption.  So in a few days (maybe even weeks) I'll be shutting down this blog forever.

I'm not sure if we'll continue down the path to parenthood again.  Last week I had a tarot reading (yes I do believe in those things) and my cards showed that we would be parents, most likely through adoption or surrogacy (my child card was sitting next to a queen card, therefore it appeared my child would be coming to us through another woman.  That was our interpretation anyway).  But until then Brandon and I are going to focus on us.  We're going to travel, I'm going to focus on my career and Brandon's going to finish his degree.  Then we'll see whether we feel our lives are still missing something or whether we feel whole.

But I don't want to give up writing completely so I've started a new blog.  A travel blog.  A blog where I can write about our adventures and sometimes just our everyday lives.  I'm not going to link the blog website back to this one because I really want to start over, start fresh.  I did take one piece of this blog, though, and carried it over to the new one: the theme. It's not a private blog so some of you may even stumble across it one day and realize it's me.  If anyone is interested in keeping in touch, my email is cvpis4me@yahoo.com.

It has been wonderful getting to know each and every one of you.  No matter where you are on this journey, I wish you all the very best and I hope that you're able to find happiness in your life, even if that happiness comes from a place you weren't originally seeking.