baby stats

Our little man was just barely under 17 pounds and 25.5 inches long at his 4 month exam today. Doc commented on how beautiful his skin is and of course everyone is charmed by his ever present smile and cheery disposition.
I'm cheery too because he sleeps all night and rarely fusses! He's probably just born that way, but I will take full credit :o).

Oh and I asked birth mother how the hearing went yesterday . . . . .

drum roll please . . . . .

Awww damn it - continued again! Fuck me

Times they are a changin'

So today was supposed to be the continued hearing once again - I'm taking bets - who thinks it was continued again for some new BS reason? Who thinks we now have a completed Juris & Disposition and now the 6 month clock for services begins??  Truly I do not know. I am not sure I even dare to ask.

Next Monday life changes drastically for all of us. Yep I go back to "work." I tell you I am hooked on the money, but I feel largely useless working in the governmental swamp that is my current job. I continue to look for a better work experience. Lucky me I have a friend on the "inside" at another employer trying to help out.

Little Man goes to daycare next week. I found a very homey home in our neighborhood. I am going to try to get myself out of bed at 5:30 am to get him ready and me off to work by 7:30, wish me luck. Hubby is on pick up duty. Monday he will go to daycare and then be picked up by a Social Worker he has never met to be driven 60 miles each way for a visit with his mother and then be returned to daycare. Tuesdays & Thursdays he gets to just hang at daycare. Wednesday Hubby takes him out of county for the Mommy & Me class then sends him back to daycare for a few hours. Fridays I take him for a morning visit then back to daycare so I can work half a day and hopefully not get fired for excessive time off.

4 month old baby shots happen tommorrow - I'll check in with the stats for ya'll after our appointment.

Myth Busters for RESOLVE

Okay now - sorry to be misleading, but you won't find Jamie and Adam here, try the Discovery Channel. This post is to bust one of the many myths surrounding family building after the diagnosis of infertility.

"You can always adopt a baby!"
Nope really you can't. There are many qualifications expected of adoptive families. Type of adoption doesn't really matter.

International adoption comes with the most specifics. My hubby and I have been married before to other people. Some countries would want us to then wait to apply until we have been married 10 years, by then we would be out of their age range.

Money is an issue of course. Maybe you already shot your wad on IVF - oops no cash for that domestic adoption. And crazy as it sounds domestic adoptions are cheaper for browner children. Makes me sick to think this country still doesn't value all children equally.

Foster/adoption - not for the faint of heart. Yes you may get a baby placed in your home, but can you tolerate the limbo of the court system for months or years? How will you eventually explain the family formation to your child? Can you stand to have your heart broken once again? Are you ready to take on the traumatized child's pain? If you stick with it (and pass the background check, etc.) this is a sure fire way to become a parent, but at what emotional cost for everyone involved?

see more myths here

good luck all wanna bee mommies and daddies - fingers crossed for all of us

Nothing is promised

Things change oh so quickly. I was feeling confident last week and just about to buy more furniture for LM's room. Yesterday that changed. My SW New Stork came for a visit - we have been ordered by the court to have 3 visits per week. Starting right now. Okay I am off for 2 more weeks before the return to work so I will work it out. Plan has been I will do friday visits, hubby will do wednesday visits and the agency will do the third. Well - New Stork is leaving town for another job. Both agencies are complaining about being short stafffed, so supervision is difficult.

This part pisses me off - a lack of visits therefore not following court orders makes the court pissy. I hear not everyone is pleased that Little Man is placed so far away, so we need to have visits be a non issue. So the systems BS could get this boy taken from the only home he has known so he can be closer.

Another bomb dropped, grandmother is now requesting placement. I have no idea if this is a real threat to us or not. I know the court favors relatives and not much weight is given to the child's bonding in foster care.

I've been a very good mother to LM, better than I thought. I don't know how to handle this new turn.

who's your mama?

I get a big thrill every time Little Man is held by someone else and looks for me. People instinctively say "Where's mommy?" It's heart melting.
Yesterday I was picking LM up from the visit with his birth mom. She was talking and cuddling him. LM saw me and smiled and leaned my way. I don't think the birthmom took it poorly. She kept talking to him and me, she said "ah-goo." This is a common sound from LM. Then she told me she has written down "ah-goo" in his baby book as his first word.
Back out in the car driving away with my baby I wanted to cry. What kind of mom am I? I have no baby book for him. What will happen to her if she can't get this boy back? What is Mother's Day like for us?

This week I also had a visit with the county social worker. It answered a lot of questions and gave me hope that LM will be staying with us for along time and likely forever. There are plenty of hoops to jump through and a long drawn out legal process for the birth mother to go through, bless her heart. And starting asap we will have to take him to 3 visits per week. He's part of our family and we will work it out.

Broken record

Yep you guessed it the, disposition hearing was continued again. Now until 4/7/11. I did find out the reason is related to something the birthmom doesn't want to do and CPS is asking for. Well hummm we'll all just ponder how that is going to play out. I don't know why I bother my pretty little head about these things. I have no way of knowing the decision making process in these types of situations. I can guess that safety of the child is the primary goal, not really quality of life.

When I think about how it is to be the birth mom I get sick. I hate to have such joy at the cost of someone else's pain. My ideal now would be to adopt little man with her blessing and be able to keep in touch with her and her family. Am I dreaming? We'll see. New Stork is going to attend the court hearing this week and report back to us. We also discussed filing for de facto parent status. It is something I need to research, but would give us a stronger legal standing.

On little man news - he is 3 months old! Over 16 pounds now, cooing, drooling and smiling like crazy. This weekend we had our first cold together, but he is much better already. I found a home daycare to begin in May when I have to return to the job I don't much care for anymore. I know daycare is a fact of life for many of the children in the USA, but wouldn't it be nice to have a government that supported a parent at home with the child for at least the first year of life? I am lucky that FMLA laws exsist and that I can afford to take off those 12 weeks. My work has made it clear that I must return when that time is up. No extended leave for me. I hope the transition and life in daycare is not too traumatic for him.