We are leaving tomorrow morning!!!!!!! :)
I am out of words to describe how excited and happy we are. We packed all the bags up a couple of days ago. Baby Wyatt's bag is heavy! We tried to pack the car seat base (the part that stays in the car) but it is way too big and we couldn't fit much else besides that in the bag so we decided to not bring it with us. If we get out there and can't just buckle the car seat itself into the car, we will just buy another one and fed ex it home when we leave. Outside of that we have clothes, diapers, formula, bottles, bottle liners, blankets and burp cloths for 7 days, pacifiers for the plane ride, a travel bassinet for use in the hotel, 1st aid kit, a&d ointment and I am sure I am missing some things. It takes up and entire large size suitcase :) Oh! and we have the diaper bag full that I will use as my purse.
Dusty has just a carry on for his clothes. I have a medium size suitcase for me. All we have left to pack is toiletries, phone and camera charges and travel boredom relievers (books and playing cards).
My last concern is how the airport will take to use travelling with all this baby stuff but no baby. We will see how that goes.
We will be dropping the pups off at our wonderful friends, the Shaws, farm for the time we are away. Our neighbors across the street from us will be stopping in to check on the cats. I think all systems are a go and we are as ready as we ever will be.
My next post will be after we leave the hospital and get to the hotel. Keep us in your thoughts that it goes well and that I will have happy news and pictures to post!!
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Saturday, November 24, 2012
5 days to go :)
I really and truly can not believe that it all comes down to just 5 more days. I am sooo excited that I am having difficulty concentrating and thinking about anything else. I have this weekend then Monday and Tuesday at work (how useful will I be??) and then we are off to California on Wednesday morning!
I got a call from the birthmother last week after she talked to her OB and she has a last appointment with her Wednesday at 10 am then has to meet with the pre-op team at 2 pm. We will be landing in California around 2ish and it is a 2 hour drive from the airport to her, so we should get to her around dinner time. She wants to go to Outback as her last pregnant meal so we will take her there and talk about the plan for the next day. I offered to take her to the hospital in the morning, but she declined.
She is slated to have her c-section begin at 7:30am Thursday so he should be born by 8am!!!!!!!!
5 days until I am finally a mom :) These are going to be some looooooong days.
Dusty called and talked with her for a while yesterday. He hadn't spoken with her since we visited her in October. All communication has basically gone through me, so I thought it would be nice if he touched base with her too. He said she sounded a little confused at first, but Dusty is sooooo much better at small talk and such than I am so they settled into it pretty quickly. She told him that she really wants to have him on Monday or Tuesday and have us come on Wednesday to take him home. If only it were that simple :) She reassured him that she won't be changing her mind which is great. I am still trying to remind myself that she could just so that it isn't so shocking if she does.
I will probably post one more time before we head out and then we will be gone. I will not be posting any photos or information until we are safely in our hotel with Wyatt, so hang in there if you don't hear from me. I really, really, really appreciate everyone's support and love through all of this. It has made it much easier to get through all the stressful parts. Here is to hoping I won't need you all again to help me through the emergency list happenings.
I got a call from the birthmother last week after she talked to her OB and she has a last appointment with her Wednesday at 10 am then has to meet with the pre-op team at 2 pm. We will be landing in California around 2ish and it is a 2 hour drive from the airport to her, so we should get to her around dinner time. She wants to go to Outback as her last pregnant meal so we will take her there and talk about the plan for the next day. I offered to take her to the hospital in the morning, but she declined.
She is slated to have her c-section begin at 7:30am Thursday so he should be born by 8am!!!!!!!!
5 days until I am finally a mom :) These are going to be some looooooong days.
Dusty called and talked with her for a while yesterday. He hadn't spoken with her since we visited her in October. All communication has basically gone through me, so I thought it would be nice if he touched base with her too. He said she sounded a little confused at first, but Dusty is sooooo much better at small talk and such than I am so they settled into it pretty quickly. She told him that she really wants to have him on Monday or Tuesday and have us come on Wednesday to take him home. If only it were that simple :) She reassured him that she won't be changing her mind which is great. I am still trying to remind myself that she could just so that it isn't so shocking if she does.
I will probably post one more time before we head out and then we will be gone. I will not be posting any photos or information until we are safely in our hotel with Wyatt, so hang in there if you don't hear from me. I really, really, really appreciate everyone's support and love through all of this. It has made it much easier to get through all the stressful parts. Here is to hoping I won't need you all again to help me through the emergency list happenings.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
A lot has been going on behind the scenes. Our independent social worker met with the birth mother to go over all the forms with her. She has agreed to sign the waiver so that the adoption becomes irrevocable at 5pm the day after discharge instead of 30 days later. That is a big relief. She really didn't have much to report to us.
Since the birth mother has a past history of depression she needed a competency evaluation by a psychologist. That has also occurred and we received a hefty bill and a 2 sentence letter saying that she is competent to make this decision. One more step done.
I have been in a lot of contact via text and email with her as well to make sure things are going well. She actually called me on Wednesday and we got to talk for about an hour about things. She had finalized her hospital birth plan with our adoption agent the day before and wanted to go over things with me again. I knew most of it already. I also spoke with our agent about a couple things that were a little concerning to me and got them cleared up. Here is the low down:
1.) She fills out the birth certificate and then once the adoption becomes finalized in 6 months we fill out a new one. It really doesn't matter much what she puts on the original one, but our birth mother really wants the name we chose to be on the first one so that there are not any real changes. She does not want to name him and also doesn't want to leave it generic with "baby boy" or something of that nature. She will be putting Wyatt Duane on the birth certificate. She also wants to put our last name on it which I am fine with, but then I was wondering what would happen if she did change her mind. Would there be a guy out there with our last name? I thought that would be odd. It didn't end up being something I needed to be worried about though because our agent said they won't allow her to put our last name on the certificate. It has to have her name on it.
2.) I will be in the room with her and will receive the baby after the c-section. Dusty isn't allowed in the room per her OB (well not him specifically, but only 1 of us is allowed in there) and so she asked if he would be in charge of making sure the birthing plan is followed. That may be hard form the waiting room, but he can do it once he is allowed in. If I am understanding it right, once the baby is born we will be moved to a different room with him to clean him up. She will be undergoing another procedure right after the c-section so she will be out for a little while.
3.) This is where we need A LOT of happy thoughts coming our way. If the hospital has the room, Dusty and I will get our own private suit with the baby where we will stay and take care of him until discharge. the birth mother will be recovering in her own room and waiting for her discharge. She is saying at this time that she doesn't want to see him at all, but that may change and our agent has told us to expect it to since most birth mothers end up wanting to see the baby. Anyway. Our birth mother said that she does not under any circumstance want the baby in the nursery. She thinks it is too impersonal (although I think she just has a misperception picturing him behind glass with 100 other babies and not being able to be held or touched) and so in the instance that we can not get our own room she has it listed that he is to be brought to her room with her. She told me that if that happens then we are to also stay in her room with her and take care of the baby. How awkward is that going to be???? All 4 of us all snug together??? And she won't be at a higher risk to change her mind in this case???????? Aaaaahhh! Ok...deep breath. I just have to tell myself that I have zero control over this and will have to deal with it as it happens. My plan if they don;t have a birthing suite for us is to see if they can move us to a regular inpatient room or not. If that is a no, I plan to see if they could move her to a regular room since she doesn't technically need a whole birthing suit and give us her room, but this might be seen as kicking her out so I don't know how good that would look. I am just hoping they give us a room!!!!
Outside of all of that we are just living along and waiting for the next 1 1/2 weeks to go by. 2 years of hoping, trying, planning and dreaming all comes down to just 1 1/2 weeks. I seem to be vacillating between pure excitement and joy and confidence that we will be bringing him home and then the next day being certain she will keep him and we will come home broken hearted. If that does happen we will be spending that week in California visiting some friends, tasting some wine and horseback riding on the beach.
Since the birth mother has a past history of depression she needed a competency evaluation by a psychologist. That has also occurred and we received a hefty bill and a 2 sentence letter saying that she is competent to make this decision. One more step done.
I have been in a lot of contact via text and email with her as well to make sure things are going well. She actually called me on Wednesday and we got to talk for about an hour about things. She had finalized her hospital birth plan with our adoption agent the day before and wanted to go over things with me again. I knew most of it already. I also spoke with our agent about a couple things that were a little concerning to me and got them cleared up. Here is the low down:
1.) She fills out the birth certificate and then once the adoption becomes finalized in 6 months we fill out a new one. It really doesn't matter much what she puts on the original one, but our birth mother really wants the name we chose to be on the first one so that there are not any real changes. She does not want to name him and also doesn't want to leave it generic with "baby boy" or something of that nature. She will be putting Wyatt Duane on the birth certificate. She also wants to put our last name on it which I am fine with, but then I was wondering what would happen if she did change her mind. Would there be a guy out there with our last name? I thought that would be odd. It didn't end up being something I needed to be worried about though because our agent said they won't allow her to put our last name on the certificate. It has to have her name on it.
2.) I will be in the room with her and will receive the baby after the c-section. Dusty isn't allowed in the room per her OB (well not him specifically, but only 1 of us is allowed in there) and so she asked if he would be in charge of making sure the birthing plan is followed. That may be hard form the waiting room, but he can do it once he is allowed in. If I am understanding it right, once the baby is born we will be moved to a different room with him to clean him up. She will be undergoing another procedure right after the c-section so she will be out for a little while.
3.) This is where we need A LOT of happy thoughts coming our way. If the hospital has the room, Dusty and I will get our own private suit with the baby where we will stay and take care of him until discharge. the birth mother will be recovering in her own room and waiting for her discharge. She is saying at this time that she doesn't want to see him at all, but that may change and our agent has told us to expect it to since most birth mothers end up wanting to see the baby. Anyway. Our birth mother said that she does not under any circumstance want the baby in the nursery. She thinks it is too impersonal (although I think she just has a misperception picturing him behind glass with 100 other babies and not being able to be held or touched) and so in the instance that we can not get our own room she has it listed that he is to be brought to her room with her. She told me that if that happens then we are to also stay in her room with her and take care of the baby. How awkward is that going to be???? All 4 of us all snug together??? And she won't be at a higher risk to change her mind in this case???????? Aaaaahhh! Ok...deep breath. I just have to tell myself that I have zero control over this and will have to deal with it as it happens. My plan if they don;t have a birthing suite for us is to see if they can move us to a regular inpatient room or not. If that is a no, I plan to see if they could move her to a regular room since she doesn't technically need a whole birthing suit and give us her room, but this might be seen as kicking her out so I don't know how good that would look. I am just hoping they give us a room!!!!
Outside of all of that we are just living along and waiting for the next 1 1/2 weeks to go by. 2 years of hoping, trying, planning and dreaming all comes down to just 1 1/2 weeks. I seem to be vacillating between pure excitement and joy and confidence that we will be bringing him home and then the next day being certain she will keep him and we will come home broken hearted. If that does happen we will be spending that week in California visiting some friends, tasting some wine and horseback riding on the beach.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Surprise Party
I actually have some real information to share because I talked to the birthmother today for about an hour and have a lot to share, but this is something that I want to share as well so the phone call will have to wait until the next post.
Some back information to make this make some sense. I am in residency (most of you know that already) and up until October I saw a lot of patients and did a ton of surgery, but it was always under an attending doctor. In October my program decided to start a resident clinic where the other 3rd year resident and I would have our own schedule every other Wednesday in the afternoon and see patients as if we were out in practice. The attending is still around and at the end of the day we talk through everything to make sure we didn't miss anything, but we are basically on our own. Ok...well yesterday my director paged me telling me that they wanted to have a meeting today at 12pm to discuss what things I would want for surgery if I book one through this clinic. I thought it was odd, but whatever. I then remembered that I had a medical education meeting at 12 today and told him it would need to be rescheduled. He said that this new meeting took priority. Ok. I have no problems with that. I got a page from the lady in the operating room asking if I could come at 11 instead so I said sure.
I went over to the outpatient surgery center and she met me in the hall outside of the lounge where we were going to meet. I said hello and sorry that I didn't know we were supposed ot go over this information. She then said it was no big deal and asked how the baby planning was coming and then said that you can't possibly be only 2 weeks away and not have had a baby shower yet and opened the door and there was the ENTIRE operating room staff with presents, a cake and lunch!!!! :)
I was sooo surprised and overwhelmed that I was in tears and sooooo happy. I never expected anything like this at all. The gifts were amazing and they didn't need to do that. It was my first baby shower and it was great!!!!!!!! What an amazing way to spend an afternoon at work :)
We leave for California 2 weeks from today :)
Some back information to make this make some sense. I am in residency (most of you know that already) and up until October I saw a lot of patients and did a ton of surgery, but it was always under an attending doctor. In October my program decided to start a resident clinic where the other 3rd year resident and I would have our own schedule every other Wednesday in the afternoon and see patients as if we were out in practice. The attending is still around and at the end of the day we talk through everything to make sure we didn't miss anything, but we are basically on our own. Ok...well yesterday my director paged me telling me that they wanted to have a meeting today at 12pm to discuss what things I would want for surgery if I book one through this clinic. I thought it was odd, but whatever. I then remembered that I had a medical education meeting at 12 today and told him it would need to be rescheduled. He said that this new meeting took priority. Ok. I have no problems with that. I got a page from the lady in the operating room asking if I could come at 11 instead so I said sure.
I went over to the outpatient surgery center and she met me in the hall outside of the lounge where we were going to meet. I said hello and sorry that I didn't know we were supposed ot go over this information. She then said it was no big deal and asked how the baby planning was coming and then said that you can't possibly be only 2 weeks away and not have had a baby shower yet and opened the door and there was the ENTIRE operating room staff with presents, a cake and lunch!!!! :)
I was sooo surprised and overwhelmed that I was in tears and sooooo happy. I never expected anything like this at all. The gifts were amazing and they didn't need to do that. It was my first baby shower and it was great!!!!!!!! What an amazing way to spend an afternoon at work :)
We leave for California 2 weeks from today :)
Thursday, November 8, 2012
3 weeks to go!!
The c-section is scheduled for exactly 3 weeks from today :) As with most things, while it seemed like a long time when we accepted the match back in September, it has flown by.
We still have some things to do like actually book the flight which we are still debating on the best course for that. We don't want to lock ourselves into leaving from our tiny airport in case she goes early and gives us a 24 hours heads up and no flights are leaving from here that will get us there in time. We will sort it out this weekend. We also need to figure out the car seat situation. While car rental companies offer car seats at an extra cost, I don't want to put him in a used car seat if I can help it. Unfortunately, we bought a not as popular brand of stroller (Encore from Target) because it happened to be one of the few we actually liked all the features of, but that means that the car seat base isn't so popular. Most have the Graco snug ride base as an option and Hertz also offer a Costco base. I really want to avoid lugging our car seat base all the way there. I am going to look up Encore and see if the car seat is compatible with any other base or not.
The 3rd party, independent social worker finally got in contact with us. we had been playing phone tag with her for about 2 weeks. California state law states that we have to provide a non-biased social worker that we hire, but doesn't really work for us. Her role is to get all the paperwork signed and to try not to persuade anyone to do anything. She seems really nice and met with our birthmother back on the 30th. She went over all of the forms (including that terrible 30 day to change her mind waiver) and explained what it all means and what to expect. She told us that she got good vibes at this point. A couple things are different from what we had previously heard which of course gets me all in a panic that she will change her mind. Dusty had to calm me down a lot yesterday. First, she does want to see the baby before he leaves the hospital. I am really thankful to our case worker at the adoption agency because she did actually warn us about this. She told us that a lot of people say they don't want to see the baby but then ask at the hospital and not not worry at all about it. Second, she said that she would like us to let her know if we ever get a divorce or become disabled or anything major like that changes in the future. What concerns me about that statement is that all along she has told us to not even tell him he is adopted. how does that play into it then? Does she want an "open" adoption now when she had all our information from the beginning saying that we do not want that? AAAHHH! But....deep breath...and maybe it just came up in conversation with the social worker or maybe the social worker specifically asked that and so she said "yeah that would be ok" I don;t really know because 1.) I wasn't there and 2.) Dusty actually talked to the social worker and he never really ask many questions about anything. Time will tell if she changes her mind on us or not.
I have been in a ton of contact through email and text messaging with the birthmother this week. It is getting close and I want her to know we are ready and waiting for the call. She thinks she will go early, so we will have to just keep on waiting. We have gotten pretty darn good at waiting over the last couple of years with this entire process, so a few more weeks aren't so bad. I am planning on calling her middle of next week to chat and make sure everything is going well. She did tell me in her last email that she has written a form to give us the right to make all medical decisions for Wyatt after he is born and is in the hospital and that she doesn't think there will be any surprises. I think that was her way of letting me know she won't change her mind, but again you just never know. I do not know what all the adoption case worker tells her, so I don't know if she is aware of our concerns over her changing her mind or not. Keep us in your happy thoughts!!
Off to work .....
We still have some things to do like actually book the flight which we are still debating on the best course for that. We don't want to lock ourselves into leaving from our tiny airport in case she goes early and gives us a 24 hours heads up and no flights are leaving from here that will get us there in time. We will sort it out this weekend. We also need to figure out the car seat situation. While car rental companies offer car seats at an extra cost, I don't want to put him in a used car seat if I can help it. Unfortunately, we bought a not as popular brand of stroller (Encore from Target) because it happened to be one of the few we actually liked all the features of, but that means that the car seat base isn't so popular. Most have the Graco snug ride base as an option and Hertz also offer a Costco base. I really want to avoid lugging our car seat base all the way there. I am going to look up Encore and see if the car seat is compatible with any other base or not.
The 3rd party, independent social worker finally got in contact with us. we had been playing phone tag with her for about 2 weeks. California state law states that we have to provide a non-biased social worker that we hire, but doesn't really work for us. Her role is to get all the paperwork signed and to try not to persuade anyone to do anything. She seems really nice and met with our birthmother back on the 30th. She went over all of the forms (including that terrible 30 day to change her mind waiver) and explained what it all means and what to expect. She told us that she got good vibes at this point. A couple things are different from what we had previously heard which of course gets me all in a panic that she will change her mind. Dusty had to calm me down a lot yesterday. First, she does want to see the baby before he leaves the hospital. I am really thankful to our case worker at the adoption agency because she did actually warn us about this. She told us that a lot of people say they don't want to see the baby but then ask at the hospital and not not worry at all about it. Second, she said that she would like us to let her know if we ever get a divorce or become disabled or anything major like that changes in the future. What concerns me about that statement is that all along she has told us to not even tell him he is adopted. how does that play into it then? Does she want an "open" adoption now when she had all our information from the beginning saying that we do not want that? AAAHHH! But....deep breath...and maybe it just came up in conversation with the social worker or maybe the social worker specifically asked that and so she said "yeah that would be ok" I don;t really know because 1.) I wasn't there and 2.) Dusty actually talked to the social worker and he never really ask many questions about anything. Time will tell if she changes her mind on us or not.
I have been in a ton of contact through email and text messaging with the birthmother this week. It is getting close and I want her to know we are ready and waiting for the call. She thinks she will go early, so we will have to just keep on waiting. We have gotten pretty darn good at waiting over the last couple of years with this entire process, so a few more weeks aren't so bad. I am planning on calling her middle of next week to chat and make sure everything is going well. She did tell me in her last email that she has written a form to give us the right to make all medical decisions for Wyatt after he is born and is in the hospital and that she doesn't think there will be any surprises. I think that was her way of letting me know she won't change her mind, but again you just never know. I do not know what all the adoption case worker tells her, so I don't know if she is aware of our concerns over her changing her mind or not. Keep us in your happy thoughts!!
Off to work .....
Saturday, November 3, 2012
It is November!!! :)
Why is that important you ask?? By the end of this month little baby Wyatt will be a part of the world :) His scheduled c-section is the 29th, but that is week 40 and normally the scheduled c-section is a week before the real due date, so she may end up going early which is just fine by me. I can't wait!!
Life has been exceedingly busy on the non-baby front and the baby front has been a little low key. I realized yesterday that this weekend is that first weekend that I have been at home and not on call since Labor Day. No wonder I feel like I'm getting behind with things! The good news is that I think I have a good job secured which is a MASSIVE stress that's gone. I don't have a contract yet because some things needed adjusting and a few added. Hopefully that comes soon and it is all locked in.
On the baby front we have all our shopping done, or at least I think we have all our shopping done. I went out this morning with a great friend of mine and got what I call the "boring stuff". Diaper (494 of them!), wipes (700!!), bottles, a bottle cleaning brush, formula, and a travel bassinet. The travelling bassinet is our solution to my concerns over where he will sleep once we take him to the hotel from the hospital. I don't want to lug our bassinet in case it got broken or lost, plus it is big and would cost a lot. I also don't want to use a used crib from the hotel. I had seen a little sleeper box that is used to allow the baby to sleep on the bed between the hubby and wife without the rick of getting rolled on. I didn't want to use that at home because the risk is too high that the dog or a cat might not care and lay on him. The ones I saw at Toys R Us were $70 and I didn't really want to spend that on something we will use for a week. At Wal-Mart they had a travelling bassinet that can be used on the floor or on the bed and is made to the safety standards of regular size bassinets. This way he can sleep in that on the bed in the hotel and be nice and safe :)
I do have a problem though that I need some advice on and will post to facebook as well. I have the bottles (went with the drop in playtex ones so that I don't have to worry about sanitation as much at day care and know they have a brand new liner each time) and formula that I will take with me of course. While at the hospital or in the hotel it won't be much of a concern because we will use distilled water and be able to warm it up. My concern is what on earth to do at the airport when we need a new bottle to feed him and all we have is bathroom water (ick!!) or bottled water that will be nice and refreshingly cold for anyone but a baby?? What water supply could we use?? Suggestions please!!!!!
Life has been exceedingly busy on the non-baby front and the baby front has been a little low key. I realized yesterday that this weekend is that first weekend that I have been at home and not on call since Labor Day. No wonder I feel like I'm getting behind with things! The good news is that I think I have a good job secured which is a MASSIVE stress that's gone. I don't have a contract yet because some things needed adjusting and a few added. Hopefully that comes soon and it is all locked in.
On the baby front we have all our shopping done, or at least I think we have all our shopping done. I went out this morning with a great friend of mine and got what I call the "boring stuff". Diaper (494 of them!), wipes (700!!), bottles, a bottle cleaning brush, formula, and a travel bassinet. The travelling bassinet is our solution to my concerns over where he will sleep once we take him to the hotel from the hospital. I don't want to lug our bassinet in case it got broken or lost, plus it is big and would cost a lot. I also don't want to use a used crib from the hotel. I had seen a little sleeper box that is used to allow the baby to sleep on the bed between the hubby and wife without the rick of getting rolled on. I didn't want to use that at home because the risk is too high that the dog or a cat might not care and lay on him. The ones I saw at Toys R Us were $70 and I didn't really want to spend that on something we will use for a week. At Wal-Mart they had a travelling bassinet that can be used on the floor or on the bed and is made to the safety standards of regular size bassinets. This way he can sleep in that on the bed in the hotel and be nice and safe :)
I do have a problem though that I need some advice on and will post to facebook as well. I have the bottles (went with the drop in playtex ones so that I don't have to worry about sanitation as much at day care and know they have a brand new liner each time) and formula that I will take with me of course. While at the hospital or in the hotel it won't be much of a concern because we will use distilled water and be able to warm it up. My concern is what on earth to do at the airport when we need a new bottle to feed him and all we have is bathroom water (ick!!) or bottled water that will be nice and refreshingly cold for anyone but a baby?? What water supply could we use?? Suggestions please!!!!!
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