Oh bittersweet Mother's Day...

I’m a day late and a dollar short on the Mother’s Day train, but hey- what’s new?

Yesterday I celebrated what was probably one of the most awesome days ever- Mother’s Day!  It was also a sad day for me. It was my first mother’s day and it was (probably) my Grandmother’s last as she is diagnosed with terminal cancer. I did get a (not so great) picture of her, my mom, Wes, and I, but it is still probably one of the most cherished photos I will ever have. 

Wes was also dedicated at church Saturday night in front of family, friends, and of course his awesome Godparents Maureen and Al. Overall, it was an amazing weekend and I was definitely spoiled and celebrated and it felt AWESOME!

However, it hasn’t always been that way, not by far. For the past 4 years, Mother’s Day was just a big smack in the face. To people who suffer from infertility, have lost a child, or who are waiting to adopt- Mother’s Day is awful, dreadful, terrible…. Need I continue? I avoided going to church Mother’s Day weekend. Literally could not handle it. I remember 4 years ago when I went and they had an entire talk about how wonderful mother’s are (yes, yes I know they are fabulous), but the entire time all I could think about was how badly I wanted to be one of them. It was sad and depressing and I remember finally getting up and going to the bathroom to ugly cry because I couldn’t sit through that anymore. I wouldn’t wish that upon anyone.

So to my friends who are reading this who are waiting… waiting to adopt, waiting to conceive, waiting for your baby to be born, or missing a child that is gone- my heart goes out to you on Mother’s Day especially as I know how hard it is to sit there and wish other’s a Happy Mother’s Day. I hope that those of you waiting will soon know the joy of being a mother.

Lots of love,

Amanda

Catching up

So I admit… I haven’t done the best job of keeping up on my blog and so much has happened! I can’t believe I haven’t blogged since January! Yikes!

The rest of January was great, we were having contact with Wesley’s Birthmom K every week, sometimes just photos- other times a mini conversation.

Flash forward towards the mid-end of February when we were waiting for our petition to adopt from our attorney. This document is something our attorney filed with the court to get a finalization court date. Well I was stalking him to get this done… you know- annoying phone calls, emails, etc…  He wouldn’t get back with me (which made me really not want to use him when we adopt again, but the agency stresses we should use him… so we shall see!) Well I didn’t hear from him before our March visit with our social worker so I let her know.

On top of that, K had fallen off the face of the planet. We hadn’t heard from her since Valentine’s Day. A lot of people still don’t understand the point of open adoption and why that would bother us. I’ve had people ask if “that isn’t a good thing?” To us, K is family. We LOVE her. She gave us the biggest blessing anyone could ever give. So no contact is devastating… imagine a family member you were close with cutting off contact? I want Wes to grow up knowing where he came from and knowing that she made an adoption plan because she loved him so very much. (To the other extent, some birth parents make many poor choices and use drugs, steal, etc… but K isn’t like that. She took care of herself through her entire pregnancy.)

So later the first week in March I get an email from our adoption agency stating that there is a bill at UC hospital and it needs to be paid prior to us being able to file our petition to adopt. UM HELLO??? How come we didn’t know about this?? YIKES!!! *Side note because I don’t know if I mentioned this, K had private insurance and since she isn’t a citizen she couldn’t get Medicaid. So I call the UC hospital to get the bill paid… and almost roll over and die when they tell me it was $3,000. I had talked to someone previously who told me there was only a $45 balance. So needless to say, on top of all of the other costs associated with adoption we got a surprise extra that was holding up our finalization. Needless to say, we paid it (and I had no idea if you paid in full at a hospital you should ask for a discount… so I found that out after I paid the bill in full! Ugg… sorry I digress)

A few days later- low and behold we receive our petition to adopt and then quickly received our court date for finalization- April 14^th! That is exactly 6 months from when TPR was signed which is the very quickest it could have happened. 

So unfortunately, from February we have had very little contact with K. I hope and pray that she is just taking sometime to heal… That this isn’t what it will be like. I have only received 1 text from her since February, stating that her father was sick and she had to travel home to Africa to visit, she loved and missed us. So please, add K and her father to your prayer list.

During the course of March we also chose Godparents- Al and Maureen. Of course I had to find some cute pintersty way to ask them (seriously, what did we do before pinterest? Oh yeah… not stress about everything in life being cute and perfect! Lol) Anyway, I made them a little card that highlighted the “responsibilities” of Godparents. I know sometimes it becomes a special title, but for Phil and I we knew we wanted it to be people that Wes will look up to, trust, and that he can go to for guidance. We are so very lucky to have so many of those people in our life.

     

April arrived quickly and it was finalization day before we knew it! We went down the night before and spent the night at the Ramada in Xenia, Ohio. Our adoption agency is located in Greene County so we had court there. My mom and Jon went with us. Unfortunately, we were only allowed 4 people so we invited just a few family members- but due to it being on a Tuesday no one else was able to attend. Court went really well. It was more of a “formality” than anything because all rights were terminated and we had an “easy” situation. (Sometimes, family members contest adoptions, birth fathers, etc). The judge was really nice. He asked us a few questions and then signed the paperwork and took some pictures. He had Wesley help him smack the gavel, which was cute. Our adoption agency was there also and they were trying to convince us to go ahead and start working on our book for our next adoption. We need to give ourselves a little more time… but don’t think that isn’t on my mind (and now that we have a boy… we will need a girl- so if you know anyone looking to create an adoption plan, I might be convinced to adopt quicker… lol!)

Which takes us to now! May 2^nd- today is Wes’s big finalization party! We are having a Superman was Adopted too themed party… and have decided since everything is red, yellow, and blue that he is going to need to have a circus themed birthday party and I’ll just leave all the decorations up… lol! I’ll post some pictures after the party. Next weekend it Wesley’s dedication at church and I’m super excited for that also J. Our church dedicates children so that when they are old enough they can choose baptism.

So that’s it. Everything is final. Wesley is our son. (The judge actually said, you shouldn’t use the term adopted son- just say he is your son.)  Thank you to those of you who have been such an amazing support for us during our journey. We couldn’t be any luckier.

Love you all 

*Here are a few other fun pictures

Enjoying sometime outside!

FIrst Haircut!

First Easter! 

First Walk outside!

A month flown by...

Wow, December was here and gone before I could even jump on here to update. December was an eventful month!

Wesley was having a great sleeping streak (sleeping from 9-2, 2-6). Then he got his 2 month shots in the middle of the month and it was a disaster for the rest of the month. He was back to screaming all night and only wanting to sleep if he was snuggled up to you which meant many nights with him in the baby bjorn on the couch. Hopefully we will get back to normal soon, we took him to get adjusted which usually helps.

We had our first visit with Wesley’s birthmother. It was so amazing to see her. We were a little nervous and didn’t quite know what to expect, but it went great. We went to Cincinnati and hung out at her apartment for awhile and then went out to lunch. It was just perfect. And she gave Wesley his first pair of real shoes- some Lebron’s. (Not spoiled at all…)

We also had the chance to celebrate our first Christmas as a family. Oh my- there are no words for how special that was! We are so blessed that our family loves him to death and there was no shortage of people who wanted their turn for snuggles. We were very blessed to get most of the rest of the items on our registries. Phil has been loving assembling all the new baby stuff! Our living room looks like baby central. I did well though, I only purchased some puzzles (for the future because they were an amazing deal), some 6 month clothes because he is too tall for 3 month stuff these days, some books, a duplicate of his favorite blanket, and a flannel sheet for his bed. (Now if I can only convince him it is okay to sleep laying down!!)

I also got to celebrate my first birthday as a Momma which was fun. We went out to lunch and had cake and presents with my Mom and Jon.

We spent New Years at home- we did make it until after midnight! We had some old friends and new friends over and it was a blast. The girls decided we need monthly girls nights! Wesley was enjoying snuggling up with everyone.

I have also been busy trying to get his baby scrapbook up to date. I have 5 pages done, I had to stop to get some more paper though. I’m hoping to finish it over the next few days.

I have a few more days until I’m back to work… (yes, I would much rather stay home forever!!) I know, I know- we are all surprised! I love my school babies, but Wes has my heart and I have to say I am lacking my normal motivation to create new things for my room.

So that's about it. Thank you to everyone for putting up with my facebook picture explosion. Thank you to everyone for your continued well wishes and prayers. I can't believe I scheduled his 3 month pictures for January... it seems like yesterday we were rushing off to Cincinnati because K was in labor! Craziness. But thanks for sticking around for this crazy ride. Love you all!