Perspective

An acquaintance of mine brought a bit closer through a mutual understanding of the grief of infertility is dealing with a huge heartbreak right now. She gave birth to her son, baby "L" conceived via invitro last week. He was full term, but he was born with very serious complications. She is fine, but he is being transferred to a leading research hospital. They believe this is the only possibility for his recovery. I'm vague, I know, but I want to be careful to protect their privacy.
It puts everything in perspective. Motherhood can be so difficult, but it's the best difficult there is. And if you have a healthy baby, regardless of what it took to get him or her here, then you have everything in the world. My heart truly breaks for her tonight, and I'd love it if you'd send some prayers or thoughts or hope for healing baby "L's" way. I'll be saying a special prayer of gratitude and praise for all of our beautiful babies either here or still on their way.

Bad, bad mommy!!

So, we're all sick again. It's like the three of us are just passing the same cold around and around. It's nuts and I am so sick of sick! I had a terrible bad mommy moment yesterday. I was laying on the floor in Lily's room trying to maintain semi-consciousness while Lily played with her blocks and climbed all over me. Well, I had my eyes shut and she crawled over to her dresser, pulled the drawer open and then slammed it WITH her little thumb inside. I felt so terrible. It pinched the skin on her thumb, but not the nail, and she cried but only for a second. Our trick to stopping her crying is to show her herself in the mirror. She smiles and giggles immediately. I swear, this girl can pick herself out of a picture of fifty people. She LOVES to look at herself. Anyway, her thumb is fine - there's barely a mark today, but man, I still feel bad. It's so hard to keep up with her when all I want to do is crawl into bed and be sick. Where's Mary Poppins when you need her?

Hospital Woes

You may recall way back when after Lily's birth how difficult our experience was with the hospital where she was born. We were treated very badly by the hospital staff (they wouldn't let us see her because we weren't her "parents" even though the papers had been signed, they didn't give us any of the freebies they give other moms, they wouldn't dismiss Lily from the hospital until all of their "mothers" had been checked out...so many things happened that I don't even want to get started again because it makes me crazy to even think of it again) and a month or two after her birth, we were double charged for her birth. Now, our agency requires that you pay every single bit of the medical bills before you leave the state. I have receipts. Everything was paid for. Our insurance company was also billed and they ended up picking up Lily's portion of the hospital bill, so EIGHT months ago, we should've gotten nearly $450 back from the hospital. We weren't told that. Instead, in November, the hospital called us telling us we were about to be turned over to a collection agency because we hadn't paid our bill. WHAT? Um...you mean all the receipts I have in my possession appeared out of thin air? So, we've been in touch with the agency and with the hospital. The hospital emailed me in Jan. telling me they had everything figured out and that our check would be arriving. It's now mid March. I've emailed and called until I'm blue in the face and our contact says her hands are tied. As a credit to our fantastic agency, they are furious and are doing all they can to help us. How can this happen? If they have admitted, in writing, that they owe us money, how do we not have the check yet? We're considering contacting a lawyer, but that would probably cost nearly what we're owed. And it's really not about the money. Heaven knows, that's a drop in the bucket after what the adoption ended up costing, but it's the principle of the thing. We had to pay every single cent before we were cleared to return home. We were treated horribly and this is just the icing on the cake. Truly there's a part of me that wants to sue the pants off of them for this. Maybe they could pick up the entire tab for our next adoption. :) Excuse the vent, but after speaking yet again to our agency contact, I'm beyond frustrated with this. THIS is why our health care system needs overhauled!!! ***stepping off soap box now***

Daylight Savings wears me out

Man, just when we get back to our regularly scheduled events in our household...it comes. Daylight Savings Time!!! So, what's the policy here? Do we still put Lily down at the "regular" times? Or will her bedtime be 8 now since it was 7 before? I've read that babies' schedules are based on circadian rhythms because obviously they don't understand clock time, so that makes me think I stick to the physical time and ignore the clock. Or is that making it harder? What are you doing to cope with DST?

Also, I have so loved hearing about all of your trips! I think I might add a section here for travel blog links. I love living vicariously through everyone else's photos, and like I said, the planning is half the fun for me. We still have no clue what we'll do, when we'll do it, and if we can even swing it financially, but we have so many great ideas now. AND, I have the most fantastic link for you. If you're having a bad day for any reason at all: dealing with treatments, struggling with decisions, dealing with stinky people at work, fighting with your husband, sister, friends, whatever, well, then take a visit HERE. Click through some photos of people's trips to Tahiti, my dream vacation and run away spot. How gorgeous!! I just love those over water bungalows...and maybe someday when we're financially caught up and we don't owe anyone anything and we aren't saving for a child or paying off an adoption and when hell freezes over:), we'll put money aside and GO :)

I can't believe I've forgotten to blog about this until now, but Miss Lil is saying WORDS. Only like three, but it's the best! She says, "HI!!" in a very excited voice whenever she sees someone come in the room. Literally, I'll step out for two seconds, but that two seconds is long enough to warrant another HI when I come back. :) And she says something like "dee dee" whenever she sees our cat. We take that to mean "kitty" in our house. :) And as of this morning, the ducks says, "gak gak" and the lion says, "grrrrrr." The lion sound is more of a grunt, but we'll take it! It's so cute; she has always been a really verbal baby, and it's funny to see her really try to mimic what we say. It never fails to blow me away how much they learn and how quickly! She's a little sponge! I told my husband SOME of us need to watch what they say around the house a bit more carefully:) Not me, of course! :)

Calling All Travelers!!

(This is my 150th post - that's exciting! :)

So, our 5th wedding anniversary is this Oct. I know that is months and months away, but for me, part of the fun of travel is the planning. I love to go on trip advisor's website and read hotel reviews and check out travelers' photos. Here's where I'm stumped: Where in the world should we go? We honeymooned and have vacationed in Mexico and absolutely LOVED it and aren't necessarily opposed to going back. But, I'm not sure we can swing the cost. If we could find a great deal -maybe. Do you have a favorite vacation spot you can recommend? Somewhere relaxing where we can celebrate 5 years of wedded bliss :) I'm seriously open to ANYTHING: cities, beaches, international locales - anything. We can't spend a ridiculous amount of money or believe me, we'd be in Tahiti!!

So, suggest away!!! And if you have a blog with travel photos or a snapfish account or something with travel photos that you'd let me peek at, you'd be my best friend for life. :)

Divine Intervention

Truly, God must have known I was hitting a serious breaking point because yesterday, it was 70 degrees here. It's back in the high 30s today, but yesterday was like a bit of heaven. So, we got the heck out of the house and took Lily to the zoo for the first time. It was so renewing just to be outside and to be enjoying something new with my daughter. She loved it so much! She was more interested in watching the other kids than checking out the animals, but it was so exciting to see her get to excited:) It sounds so cheesy, but feeling the warm sunshine was so theraputic!

And speaking of therapy, I can't thank you enough for your support. I was SURE I'd get at least one or two scoldings about the way I was feeling. And I had no doubt at all that there was something wrong with me because of how I felt. Reading that so many of you said you could've written that exact post at any point in motherhood made me feel so great. Just not feeling alone makes all the difference. And I love what many of you said about these being REAL mom feelings. Because I'm a real mom. Not an adoptive mom only - but a real mom. One who loves with a fierce love but who also needs time for herself before she goes totally nuts-o. :) Truly, thank you with all that I have for being so awesome and so supportive. I got very teary eyed every time a new comment came to my inbox. Thank you. :)

I'm going to leave you with the sunshine that I got to experience yesterday. Just look at this girl. What a face! :) I love her big cheesy smile in the third one and her little, ladylike crossed feet in the last one. Silly Lil.:)

The Joys of Parenting

I have been very MIA lately. To be honest, I'm having a bit of a tough time lately. I don't know if it's Lily's quickly approaching 1st birthday or what, but mommyhood is seriously stressing me out. To be fair, she's been sick for nearly two weeks now, which leads (in her case) to very little sleep and all-around crankiness. She goes days without napping and is turning into a chronically tired girl. I'm having some really tough days. And I feel like I'm not allowed to have tough days because of what we went through to finally have her. I feel like because I prayed for her so hard and wanted her so badly that I'm held to a higher standard of parenting than other moms. Maybe I'm the only one holding myself to those standards, but I feel the pressure of them nevertheless. I feel like it's okay for some of my friends to complain about how hard it is to be a stay at home mom some days, but that it's not okay for me to do it because of how hard it was to get here. I feel like I'm supposed to be happy 100% of the time, and honestly, I resent it. I love staying home with Lily, but my husband works as an adjunct professor which means he works constantly and some days from 9:00am to 10:00pm with only a few hours break in between classes. Starting now, he's teaching classes every night of the week but Friday. He is amazingly helpful when he's home, but when he works so much, I'm doing all of this on my own. And I'm exhausted. But, the catch is that to be able to have me home, he has to work as much as he can. And full time university positions, especially in this economy, are few and far between though believe me, we're looking.

Part of the problem, too, I know is my fault. I feel so much pressure to constantly be a super mom. I feel like if she's awake, I have to be playing with her or teaching her something. And heaven knows, you can only read "Goodnight Moon" and play with the stackable blocks for so long until you're ready to pull your hair out. If I'm completely honest, I have days where I long to sleep late and go out for dinner and have adult conversation. That doesn't mean I want to go back to life before her, of course. I really hope nobody rips me for this because I know how lucky I am to have Lily. And I love her with my whole heart. This is, again, the sort of "survivors guilt" problem of parenting after infertility. We aren't allowed to be unhappy or struggle with any aspect of parenting because it was so hard to get here. And because we know there are women who would do anything to be where we are. But, for the love, I'm human. And being a mom is really hard work sometimes. And I feel how I feel, and I need to be able to talk about it somewhere - so this is my chosen outlet. I hate that I feel like I have to qualify this yet again by saying how much I love my daughter. I feel like anyone who didn't struggle with infertility wouldn't have to do that. They could just vent and it would be understood how much they love their child.

Sorry for this crazy, bummer of a post, but like I said, I'm having a hard time right now, and I needed to vent. I'm not even going to go back and reread what I've typed because I typed it as it was coming to me, and it's been a sort of therapy, so I'm just going to hit publish and move the heck on. :)

Facebook - my new addiction

It's ridiculous! I should never, ever have gotten started. I thought My Space was bad -it's nothing compared to how addictive facebook is. My silly sister got me started on it. However, it's gotten me through some rough night hours with Miss Lil being sick. She's still fighting the worst cold, but she keeps on smiling right through it. What a little trooper!

I also caved and finally bought some stuff for her first birthday party. I am so in denial that she's almost a year old already. I found some super cute princess stuff, so I'm looking forward to the decorating if not looking forward to the fact that my baby is growing up so fast! Sorry for the super short post, but I wanted to at least check in and say hi and report that while Lily isn't tons better, she's not any worse! :) Is it summer yet?

Sick baby / sleepy mommy!

I hate being sick myself, but Lily being sick is a million times worse. She woke up two nights ago with a fever and the worst congestion. It came totally out of nowhere! The fever is now low grade and sort of comes and goes with Motrin, but now in addition to the cold, she's having very messy diapers, if you get my drift. We just got back from our pediatrician (whom I love!!! They always make me feel important and like my questions are valid), and she's just got a nasty virus. But, I tell you what, not once has she been a terrible grump. She is the best natured girl! The worst part is the lack of sleep at night. I've been in this phase lately where I've been really missing the tiny baby stages. I miss being able to hold and rock her. BUT, after the past two nights of little sleep, what in the world was I thinking? :) I was terrible at the newborn stuff. The lack of sleep really impacted me in a way I wasn't at all ready for. :) And there's nothing better than the fact that she gives affection now because she wants to. When they're tiny, they'll let you hold and snuggle them, but mostly because they don't do anything else. Now, when she crawls to me and lays her head on my shoulder, it's her choice. I love that!

And thanks so much for some of the tax pointers below. I had totally forgotten we can claim the rest of the amount over the next five years. That makes a huge difference! And I'm so glad you all enjoyed the pictures of my baby enjoying a Miller High Life. :) Happy weekend!

Where, oh where, have I been?

Doing my taxes, that's where. And it sure did stink. I was under the oh-so-wrong impression that the adoption tax credit was fantastic. HA!! You have to make a certain amount of money in the first place in order to get back even close to the 11K the govn. promises. We only qualified for about 2500, which I will take gladly. But, I can't help think that those of us who make FAR less than the 150K or so needed to get the entire refund back, YET paid the same 25K to adopt that the 150K folks did should maybe get that entire amount back - like the 150K -ers might. But who am I to criticize the government, right? :) Here's what Lily thinks of taxes:

She can't take it, either. :)

This girl is all of the sudden a ball of energy. Remember how she wasn't napping at all? Well, now that's she's crawling like a mad woman, she seems to be sleeping all the time! She wears herself out! It's so true that just when you get used to them doing one thing or being on a certain schedule, they go and change on you. :) Her two front top teeth are slowly coming in, too, and it's hilarious how much their looks change when they get teeth. Someone said to me over the weekend how she's losing her little baby looks, and it's so true. It makes me want to cry on one hand that the time goes so quickly and on the other hand, I'm so proud of this little person I'm raising. She is the biggest ham in the entire world. I will not be surprised if she's a performer of some sort. Here is the face she likes to give the camera:

What a goof ball!!! She squints up her eyes and that little nose and gives the biggest cheese smile ever. It's so funny how quickly they learn how to play the camera. She's babbling up a storm, too. And nothing in the entire world has ever made me feel as good as walking into the room, having her little face light up, and watching her crawl as quickly as she can to me and reach up for me with the biggest smile. That's love, my friends. :)

And finally, let me show you what passes for humor in our house:

Yes, that's beer. Yes, my husband thinks that's hilarious. And yes, I did giggle a little bit. She's just reaching for it with such gusto!! Please don't call Child Protective Services on us - we didn't let her drink it or anything. :)