March 27, 2015- Worked on getting all other info needed for the adoption agency scanned and emailed. This included birth certificates, marriage license, 2013 taxes, and letters from Drs. offices saying we are in good health as of our last physicals. We also had to get in contact with our social worker so that the agency could get all of our home study clearances. Our social worker also had to write a letter to the agency that she will be working with us for our post placement meeting after the adoption is finalized.
April 10, 2015- We received some of our birth moms medical records but nothing related to the 20 week sonogram. Hopefully we will know more about how everything is going with the pregnancy soon. Our agency called and said that our birth mom was supposed to have an appt. today but she had to miss it due to a family emergency. She did however tell me that she had good news in that the papers were delivered and already back from the biological dad saying that he agreed to an adoption and wanted no part in the babies life. He still has just as long as our birth mom to change his mind but at least so far he is saying he is good with signing his parental rights away.
April 14, 2015-bought out plane tickets to go meet our birth mom and her daughter. Eeeek!
April 17, 2015- had a mock birth mom talk with a lady that gave her baby up for a daughter last year. It was nice hearing what she had to say about her experience and knowing in the end it truly was the right decision.
April 20, 2015- spoke with the adoption consultant about our travels to meet our birth mom. Discussed things like never answer any questions about how much this is costing us or how much we make and that we should probably never bring up anything related to her ex, which is her daughters dad, or this baby's dad.
April 23, 2015- Met with Max's pediatrician today to tell him about the adoption. We asked him about what he would like us to do once the baby is born and also to ask him if he will help me again with inducing lactation so that I can breastfeed this baby as well. We will most likely do things, for the most part, exactly the same as we did with Max in terms of getting all medical records and then following up with pediatrician as soon as we arrive home. I don't know what I am going to do about the breastfeeding though. I really want to do it again, but I won't be able to use domperidone like I did to induce it for Max. The FDA officially banned it for who really knows why. I am going to go with the formula makers paid them off because they know it works so well and they'd rather have you buy formula. I have that about buying it from China or India, but not sure how much I can trust that. I could take Reglan but that can have horrible long term side effects. My milk still seems to be here a tiny bit, so I am thinking of doing some good old fashion hand expressing, making lactation cookies, and whatever else I can do to get it to come back more and more on its own. I honestly think that since I never had issues in the past with my milk coming in that once the baby is here it'll just pick up on its own.
April 27, 2015- Spoke with adoption agency about birth moms recent Dr appt. Things are still good there. Also discussed our coming visit.
May 7, 2015- Got on our flight to meet our birth mom. So nervous and afraid I would saw the wrong thing.
May 8, 2015- Spent the day with our birth mom, her mom, her daughter, and lady from the adoption agency. We started with lunch but didn't get to talk too much since the kids were bouncing all over the place. After lunch we headed to an indoor park so the kids could play and we could have time to chat. They did ask if we had the nursery set up yet. We felt kind of bad because we don't really. Max is still in there and the baby will most likely sleep in our room for quite a few months. Then, I think we need to decide when Max is going to a toddler bed so baby can have the crib. The adoption lady asked our birth mom if she was planning to name the baby first or not. She has the choice of giving her a name for the birth certificate, just have the birth certificate say baby girl, or give the baby our name right off the bat. Our birth mom said she didn't want to leave it just as baby girl but also didn't want to name the baby herself because she is afraid of growing more of an attachment. She did ask us what names we were considering, which her and her mom said they liked them all, and said that she would prefer to give the baby our name. I loved that she said that "after all the baby is ours". We briefly talked about a birth plan. She isn't too sure how she wants to go about it yet. She did say though that she didn't want her mom in the room. At her next Ob appt the adoption lady wants to go along so that they can start to discuss with the Dr the possibility of doing an induction so that we can try to have a plan. We also told her that I am hoping to breastfeed, like I did with Max, and she seemed like she really liked that, especially to help with the bonding. I wish I would've asked her more questions but wasn't really to sure on what all too ask about. I asked her if she had any specific questions for us but she said "no" and that we did such a good job on our profile book that she felt she knew us so well already. She also said that now after meeting us she feels even more confident that she did make the right decision.
May 9-11, 2015. Spent the day weekend with a friend who lived in the area who also lost a baby and then when on to adopt. She is actually the one who referred me to the consulting agency we went through. From her I ended up learning about this thing called ICPE, which I didn't know a thing about. I ended up asking our adoption lady and she briefly went over it with me. Pretty much it sounds like once the baby is born and the paperwork is signed it has to get sent to the state, then get sent to my state so that they are aware we are bringing this adopted baby into it, then sent back to her state all before we can go. I guess this can take up to a week. We also can't leave the state with that baby at any point with the baby until this is all finished, which is kind of a bummer since my friend literally lives right on the border of the state, but on the other side. I guess that means we will be staying there for at least a week before we can go home with her.
For now I am just happy things are going well and that she still seems really happy with her decision to let us adopt her baby. Saturday marks 28 weeks which puts us in the 3rd trimester and less than 3 months to go!
Thursday, May 14, 2015
Saturday, May 9, 2015
Her 3rd Birthday- a little late
April 22nd. I wish I could say the day was better than it was, but who would I be kidding. The. Day. Sucked. How is it that I can still have days where I deal with every aspect of the grief cycle, except acceptance? We still aren't there. I know I've been told a thousand times there isn't a right or wrong way to grieve, but I still feel like I am failing at it, badly. It didn't exactly help that it started out by Max vomiting all over me and later followed by a massive diaper explosion while out trying to do an errand. Then I just needed a moment to curse the world for never letting it be easy for me, which then makes me feel like a horrible mom. From there the horrible grief spiral progressed into lots of crying for my girl and wishing I could've just died instead. I had already started my week deciding I needed to move and start over. A new life. New everything. Where no one knows me. You know, because running from your issues is always the answer.
I had wanted to get a cake for Evelynn and talk to Max about his sisters birthday. Not sure how much he would understand about it yet, but I'm sure he'd love to eat the cake, and I really want to start celebrating ALL my kids birthdays. I should've known better, but of course I couldn't find anything at the places I checked that I thought would be Max friendly. In case I've never mentioned this before but he has issue with dairy, eggs, wheat, rye, and soy. With the morning I already had I didn't want to drive all over town searching for something that would work for him, so I was pretty upset when the few places I went seemed to not have anything he could eat dessert wise. So, I just cried some more and then never did anything the rest of the day for her. Utter fail.
In the past, I have always posted something on Facebook in regards to Liam and Evelynn's birthday. This year I did not, and not sure I will again. Lately, I have been having a very love hate relationship with Facebook. I love it for the important stuff like pictures of family and friends I don't get to see much. Absolutely disgusted by it for the amount of people that use it to whine and get attention on it. Since losing Liam and then Evelynn I have lost a lot of faith, religion/God wise. I believe in heaven and that I will see my babies again, but as far as prayer goes and people talking about how God granted them a miracle and thanks everyone who prayed, I think its just kind of a joke. And seriously, what is with everyone these days posting to get prayed for on facebook? I swear its like every 5th post I see. Then all the comments are "praying". I am sure I am going to piss a few really religious people off here, but all I want to know is how many people will actually sit and pray when they write that and how many people only comment that they are praying because they feel it is the right thing to do to leave a comment like that. I guess what I was getting at is that the last thing I want is for people to leave comments on a post about Evelynn's birthday, not even asking for prayers, that they are A) praying for her. Ummmm, last time I checked she is in Heaven and if not with me in the next best place. So, what are you praying for again? B) praying for me. Why are you praying for me? Are you worried I might still go crazy and off myself??? or praying that I'll finally "get over it" in terms of her dying. or C) you only leave a comment because you feel guilty if you don't, even though you don't really give a rats ass about the post, but hey, at least you'll feel better knowing you wrote something? I guess I'm just a big ol' biotch when it comes to protecting my heart and my daughter, as well as Liam. None of those comments mean anything to me. What means the most to me are the people that actually remember her birthday and go out of there way to actually contact me by other means than by social media. Sadly, there are very few that did.
Dereck was gone for work but did send flowers to her to our house. He is such a great dad and I know he misses his baby girl so much. Dereck's mom did visit Evelynn and let me know, and sent a picture, that she bought her a few things for her grave. I love so, so, so much that she did that.
Not saving her will always be my biggest regret in life. Suppose that's why I am so often still stuck in April 2012. I found this on her birthday looking for a picture of Max. She was perfect. Ugh.
I had wanted to get a cake for Evelynn and talk to Max about his sisters birthday. Not sure how much he would understand about it yet, but I'm sure he'd love to eat the cake, and I really want to start celebrating ALL my kids birthdays. I should've known better, but of course I couldn't find anything at the places I checked that I thought would be Max friendly. In case I've never mentioned this before but he has issue with dairy, eggs, wheat, rye, and soy. With the morning I already had I didn't want to drive all over town searching for something that would work for him, so I was pretty upset when the few places I went seemed to not have anything he could eat dessert wise. So, I just cried some more and then never did anything the rest of the day for her. Utter fail.
In the past, I have always posted something on Facebook in regards to Liam and Evelynn's birthday. This year I did not, and not sure I will again. Lately, I have been having a very love hate relationship with Facebook. I love it for the important stuff like pictures of family and friends I don't get to see much. Absolutely disgusted by it for the amount of people that use it to whine and get attention on it. Since losing Liam and then Evelynn I have lost a lot of faith, religion/God wise. I believe in heaven and that I will see my babies again, but as far as prayer goes and people talking about how God granted them a miracle and thanks everyone who prayed, I think its just kind of a joke. And seriously, what is with everyone these days posting to get prayed for on facebook? I swear its like every 5th post I see. Then all the comments are "praying". I am sure I am going to piss a few really religious people off here, but all I want to know is how many people will actually sit and pray when they write that and how many people only comment that they are praying because they feel it is the right thing to do to leave a comment like that. I guess what I was getting at is that the last thing I want is for people to leave comments on a post about Evelynn's birthday, not even asking for prayers, that they are A) praying for her. Ummmm, last time I checked she is in Heaven and if not with me in the next best place. So, what are you praying for again? B) praying for me. Why are you praying for me? Are you worried I might still go crazy and off myself??? or praying that I'll finally "get over it" in terms of her dying. or C) you only leave a comment because you feel guilty if you don't, even though you don't really give a rats ass about the post, but hey, at least you'll feel better knowing you wrote something? I guess I'm just a big ol' biotch when it comes to protecting my heart and my daughter, as well as Liam. None of those comments mean anything to me. What means the most to me are the people that actually remember her birthday and go out of there way to actually contact me by other means than by social media. Sadly, there are very few that did.
Dereck was gone for work but did send flowers to her to our house. He is such a great dad and I know he misses his baby girl so much. Dereck's mom did visit Evelynn and let me know, and sent a picture, that she bought her a few things for her grave. I love so, so, so much that she did that.
Not saving her will always be my biggest regret in life. Suppose that's why I am so often still stuck in April 2012. I found this on her birthday looking for a picture of Max. She was perfect. Ugh.
April 23rd. This email came at just the right moment between Evelynn's birthday and passing day. I really, really needed it. Its crazy how someone you have never met can be the one person who makes a hard time better.
I came across your blog while looking for an appropriate quote to cherish my friends baby Abby who passed away 8 years ago. We are doing a walk for TEARS and I wanted something thoughtful to put on my dedication. I don't ever randomly email strangers but I found your website so touching. How could I not? Thank you for sharing your story.
I have one biological son, have suffered three miscarriages, and have adopted two beautiful children from the State. Everyone tells me that I am a wonderful person to have saved my two younger children.....but I always tell everyone that the truth is...they have saved me.
You are an amazing women. A Hero. You are Life after Loss. You are Hope. I am glad you have found happiness in your child (and future children). Adoption is a wonderful thing. I wish you all the best in your journey.
Bless you on your adoption journey. All the best.
This post is not about our adoption journey but she touched on something there with the they have saved me. There is just so much that people don't understand until they are in your shoes.
April 24th. Her passing day started out no different than any other day. I went about my day as usual. Playdate with Max, naptime, and also went to the health club. That night though, was another one of those unexpected moments that helped heal my heart. I was going to Prom 3.0 with some friends the next night and one of my friends had messaged me to let know that she had a few dresses that I could try on if I still needed a dress. I did, because trying to shop for a dress with a toddler is impossible. So, I got there and tried on the dresses, which didn't work, but that's besides the point. Anyways, they asked me to stay for dinner and then one of the girls brought up Evelynn. That's what we talked about for about the next 2 hours, and it was everything I needed and more that night. I thanked them so much for that. It's exactly what I needed.
So here I am finally finishing Evelynn's birthday post. Over 2 weeks since her birthday and now mother's day is here. I'm a bit bitter still about the mothers day after Liam and Evelynn passed but love having Max here with me. I'll leave it at that though. A friend did however post this on facebook and it speaks to me.
Love you forever baby girl. I think about you every day. I miss you so incredibly much and the little girl you'd be today.
This post is not about our adoption journey but she touched on something there with the they have saved me. There is just so much that people don't understand until they are in your shoes.
April 24th. Her passing day started out no different than any other day. I went about my day as usual. Playdate with Max, naptime, and also went to the health club. That night though, was another one of those unexpected moments that helped heal my heart. I was going to Prom 3.0 with some friends the next night and one of my friends had messaged me to let know that she had a few dresses that I could try on if I still needed a dress. I did, because trying to shop for a dress with a toddler is impossible. So, I got there and tried on the dresses, which didn't work, but that's besides the point. Anyways, they asked me to stay for dinner and then one of the girls brought up Evelynn. That's what we talked about for about the next 2 hours, and it was everything I needed and more that night. I thanked them so much for that. It's exactly what I needed.
So here I am finally finishing Evelynn's birthday post. Over 2 weeks since her birthday and now mother's day is here. I'm a bit bitter still about the mothers day after Liam and Evelynn passed but love having Max here with me. I'll leave it at that though. A friend did however post this on facebook and it speaks to me.
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