Since becoming a “working mom,” my life certainly has changed. I have a mentor at work, M., with whom I go to lunch 1 a month to talk about work and home life things. She is in a good place to mentor me because she is the main breadwinner of her family as well and she’s worked on balancing home and life.
Since Joshua, work isn’t as consuming for me as it was. I think I threw myself into work a lot more to keep my mind off of the infertility battle. It actually turned out to be a good thing, because I worked my way up to make enough so we could afford to adopt and raise our family. My life used to be either 1) Working, 2) Studying for some exam for work 3) Doing some type of extra activity for work to add to my resume. Now, I am trying to get things back into balance, and put more home into my life. Having a baby and having to pay for babysitting doesn’t lend itself well to working lots of extra hours. I’ve had to really prioritize what is important and I’ve said “no” to a lot of activities and committees that I normally would have jumped on. I am just focusing on the Bilingual Committee and Toastmasters at work, in addition to getting my team to where they need to be.
I’ve started a new routine. Mornings are so hectic trying to get Joshua up and ready to go to his uncle’s (or just get him ready for the day), so I’ve started showering every night rather than in the morning. We are not eating out as much (due to cost and it’s actually more inconvenient sometimes with a little one) so I am doing a lot of the cooking. Every weekend I pick a meal (last week it was dirty rice, this week it was meatloaf and mashed taters) and I put it into individual containers and freeze. It’s something I did occasionally before Joshua, but now it is a must. I don’t have time to cook during the week. I come home (sometimes carrying a baby, diaper bag, purse, & laptop bag), tired already from a long day, trying to get Joshua fed, there is just no way that I have time to cook dinner.
Additionally, Donald and I each take turns being a “single parent” it feels like. The one time I usually have Donald here to help watch Josh while I cook is Saturday mornings, so I have Donald watch Joshua while I get up early Saturday and get things cooked and the kitchen cleaned afterwards. I’ve done this for about a month, and it’s working well. I understand now why parents of young children really crave schedules and don’t want to go out of town as much. If my only time to prep food is Saturday morning, it’s such a pain to reschedule that to do something else! Isn’t that strange?
If I have to do something different one weekend, it can throw the whole schedule off.
Things are good, overall. Donald and I have to redo our budget and figure out what to do about the leaky basement. We think we’ve pinned it down to being from the sink. I think we forgot how much work a house is - we had done so much work on our old house (painting, windows, remodeling) that we got it in tip top shape, and now we’re starting over with all the remodeling and revamping! I think Donald and I have decided we aren’t going to move again….we’ll just add on.
Joshua is starting to pick his head up while being on his tummy! It’s so nuts….it was like he couldn’t do it one day, then all of a sudden he started doing it! He’s a fun baby.
Donald did some honey-do’s today - he fixed our fence (yeah!) so hopefully Luna can frolick in the yard again without running away!
Sunday Joshua gets baptized at our new church, which is really exciting. I didn’t realize all the family that is coming into town; my aunt and uncle MIGHT be able to come, but they won’t know until the last minute. I’m putting together a brunch for everyone to have after the baptism (an idea I stole from Heather and Gretchen - they did brunches after their kids’ baptisms, I thought it was a cool idea…) It’s just been rough getting unpacked and getting the house clean. My mother in law is going to stay with us one day this week and she offered to watch Joshua so Donald can do some unpacking. Everything we do in the house needs to be scheduled!
Donald had a “date” to watch Joshua on Saturday so I could get up early and scrub the basement floor! I thought the stains were from our cats that had been making messes, so I scrubbed the whole floor, on my hands and knees, with a brush. Well, after I got it scrubbed, I realized the spots aren’t from the cats (as they’ve been out of our house about 5 days) but the basement is leaking! It’s a slow leak that I think is coming from the outdoor faucet and pooling through the wall. It’s gross looking, and I’m very upset about it. It was just the last straw. When we moved into our new house it was filthy, so we’ve been slowly trying to get it all cleaned up. The previous owners left TONS of junk that we had to pay to have hauled away, and the lawn was about 3 foot tall, so we had to hire someone to mow it for $60. We paid the prior owners rent until our mortgage closed, and we overpaid them for 2 days, and now they won’t return our realtor’s calls to repay us the 2 days rent! It was very nice of the prior owners to let us move in while we were dealing with our mortgage fiasco, but this whole experience has been so upsetting. I’ve had to pray a lot because I feel like I am just so mad about the whole house situation instead of being grateful, which is something I need to work on. It is a great house, and we have a great kid and a great marriage, but all these dumb house things with the old owners hit me this week when I realized the basement was leaking. And, it’s a slow leak, which typically isn’t covered by insurance - insurance typically covers pipe bursting and the like. So, that’s where I am. A house full of boxes that I never seem to have time to unpack, a leaky basement, and a lot of family coming into town this weekend. Wish me luck !
That reminds me….What in the world did I DO all day before being a parent? I am barely able to keep up on the dishes and laundry, but I feel MORE productive than I did before Joshua. I just think I was in a daze of depression from infertility or I just didn’t have very good time management skills because we had a lot of free time. I remember doing nothing when I got home from work but play video games. Now every night I’m feeding, changing, playing with Joshua, trying to take care of Luna, work on bills, put in some dishes or some laundry, and fit in some blogging on the side. I am running all day long, and I am so worn out! What did I DO all the time before we had him?!?!
So often Donald and I would see a movie spontaneously, or go out to eat, or just decide to shop for something (mostly some gadget at Best Buy). We had a lot of extra money and could do as we pleased without really planning anything. I loved just being with Donald, but after a while it got boring and kind of sad to be the only couple without kids.
You end up feeling alone and out of it, because everyone else you know has kids, and talks about their kids and what is going on with them. You grow apart from people because it just hurts to much to put yourself in situations with people with kids, so you lose friends. So, being childless had its good points and bad points, and it just hit me today how we’re in a new era in our lives. We had to redo our will and pick guardians for Joshua if something happens to us. We also need to redo our budget to save money for our next adoption. We’re thinking of ways to get coupons and save money for diapers and formula, and we’ve practically BEGGED everyone we know at work for hand-me-downs! We are those annoying people that won’t stop talking about their child and have 500 photos of him up at work. If I would have talked to myself a couple years ago, I would have driven myself nuts!
**We still haven’t gotten Joshua’s birth certificate! That is the final piece of the puzzle, to finally have it with Donald and mine’s names on it!
STOP ASKING ME IF WE’RE PREGNANT. STOP TELLING ME STORIES ABOUT YOUR FRIENDS/FAMILY/COUSIN/DOG/CHICKEN/ROOTABEGA PIE THAT GOT PREGNANT AFTER THEY ADOPTED. I DON’T CARE. I DON’T WANT TO GET PREGNANT. I WANT TO BE A MOM TO MY SON JOSHUA.
I DIDN’T ADOPT JOSHUA TO GET PREGNANT. –>
Work has been a little frustrating lately. It’s a pretty competitive place, and my team isn’t doing as well as they should. So, I need to determine what the issues are and fix them. It’s strange when you supervisor people and their results: you can’t DO the work for them, but if you have to teach them, coach them, and mentor them to do the work. Quite a different experience.
Tomorrow I’m going out to lunch with my mentor, someone who is a working mom whose supervised longer than I have. It will be nice to pick her brain on how she manages her family and work life. Tomorrow is FRIDAY! I can’t believe how fast this week has gone.
Went to Illinois this past weekend…Joshua met his Aunt Julie, his Uncle John, his Great Aunt Joann and Great Uncle Skip, and my cousins. It’s all on the Flickr pages….of course, they all thought he was adorable! Joshua did great for such a long car ride there and back. It was kinda rough on mom, though. I don’t think I’m going to drive that far with a baby by myself!
In the Lutheran Church we’ve been attending the small group coordinator called me to see if I’d like to arrange a small group of parents of young children…I agreed to do it. I think it will be good for us to be involved in a group again. We had to bow out of the small group at Grace just because the Infertility trial was so difficult…I think it’s time we got back into a small group!
I cannot believe how much I love Joshua. Donald and I both will sometimes just look at him and start crying out of happiness; we are both a mess! He is the cutest, most wonderful baby in the whole world, and we tell everyone about him. It’s so fun how much our co-workers want us to bring him to work to visit - (seriously, they do, we are not just forcing him on them!) I just look at him while he’s sleeping, and Donald told me that he does the same thing - we just remind ourselves that we really DO have a baby in the house and he is OUR baby.
Donald and I were talking about how we can’t imagine loving a baby more, and how we didn’t realize how MUCH we would love him. We both love looking at pictures of him, watching the videos we take, just enjoying him so much! We both kiss him all he time, hug him, tell him how much we love him, sing to him, and talk to him. We are obsessed with this little guy! He is going to be so spoiled.
When time comes for discipline, give me strength, because I KNOW I’m going to need it. He just melts my heart, but I’ve got to be strong!
Update on Cowboy: it’s going to be easier to fly cowboy solo on an early morning flight rather than having him fly with Staci’s friend on a mid-day flight (airlines have temperature limits on when they’ll let pets fly in the cargo hold, which makes sense.) So, we’re working on finding what flight will work to get him sent out to Washington! Hopefully, we can get this done soon. I can tell he’s lonely without India, so the sooner he gets to live with Staci, Jeffrey, and Jules the Cat, the better!
Yesterday Joshua’s adoption was finalized!
We were at the courthouse at 1pm. When we got there, one of the attorney’s mentioned that the judge was gone because his wife was in the hospital, and they were trying to find another judge to do the adoption finalization. Well, the other judge was busy. Around 2pm, our attorney found out that the original judge was going to come back to do some work and then go back to the hospital. The judge was back about 3:30pm, and we were done by 4pm. Our party was supposed to start at 4pm, but luckily we got a hold of the only person that was coming by early to let him know it wasn’t starting until later.
When we finally got into the courtroom, Joshua was hungry so I was finishing up a feeding. He decided to spit up, projectile style, all over my glasses, face, and hair. (you can’t make this stuff up) Donald was trying his best to keep from cracking up, but he graciously cleaned off my glasses. The attorney and the judge swore me in and asked me questions confirming my willingness to adopt Joshua. I started BAWLING and couldn’t answer the questions in a coherent manner, but we got through it. It was a great feeling when the judge said “The court concurs that they should adopt this child.” It’s FOREVER!!!!
Check out the photos on our flickr page!!!
While Joshua has been napping, I’ve been trying to unpack. Our adoption finalization party/open house is Wednesday from 4pm - 9pm. Email me at watermelonjessie at yahoo dot com if you didn’t get an evite.
I warned people that our house was still going to be a disaster for the open house, but I really wanted to do a little something to celebrate his finalization on the DAY his adoption was finalized. It is going to be awesome! I am so happy that we’ve had him with us since he was an HOUR old…definitely a big blessing! Some adoptive parents don’t get their kids until they are much older.
I have been a little nervous taking a full week off work unpaid, but it had to be done. There was no other way to get out of our old house and into our new house without taking off work. Donald has been working this weekend and will work tomorrow. He’s also going to work on 4th of July, so those hours should give us some good holiday pay. I’m on a bilingual committee at work so I have some things to do for that, but after that I will work on a proposal to make our company more friendly to adoptive families. I will keep you all updated as I work on that.
Still no word from the biological father, so we are all hopeful that everything will go ahead without a hitch on Wednesday!
Tuesday is the first day Uncle Drew is going to watch Joshua, and his own son Jaxon, at the same time! I watched them both on Friday and it was a challenge. Jaxon was great; he was in a good mood and laid down right away and took a GREAT nap. My son, however, just started becoming “clingy” with me. He wanted me to hold him the whole day. Well, when Jaxon needed something Joshua was just really unhappy, so for a couple hours there I was trying my best to fit two crying babies on my lap. It’s been fun, though, that Joshua knows I am mommy and the only thing that settles him down is me holding him, so that was a nice feeling. I just really wanted to do some laundry and get the kitchen unpacked.
Oh well, holding a baby is more fun than laundry or unpacking, wouldn’t you agree?
This will be quick as I am tired….yesterday we got EVERYTHING out of our house and we moved into our house in Gardner. It was a huge blessing to have hired movers and Donald’s brother Drew helped us a lot with last minute items. Tomorrow the boys (Donald, Drew, and a friend of ours, Dave) are going to clear out the storage unit and put the stuff in the garage. Awesome!
It’s been tough being so tired and then basically being up all night with a baby…I wouldn’t trade it for anything, but today I hit my cracking point. We have made 4 trips to the cable place to get the cable put in our name. They kept stating that we needed various documentation to show we owned the house and/or the prior owners had to cancel the account. In the middle of FINALLY getting them to give us cable, Joshua was crying. I went out to the car to change his diaper; I laid him on the seat with the back door open. Some man was super impatient and was sarcastically saying “Oh, no, take your time, I don’t have anywhere to go.” What a jerk!
So, I scooped Joshua up quickly to take him to the other side of the car, a diaper loosely around his waist. Well, Joshua decided right then would be a good time to soak me, himself, the blanket, and then the seat of the car. I got him cleaned up as best I could and sat down to give him a bottle because he was hungry. In the middle of taking the cap off to put the nipple on, Joshua’s legs flailed and he dumped the formula all over me. So, I was sitting in the back seat of my Impala, covered in pee and formula, I had just been yelled at, and I burst into tears. I just kept thinking “I just want to take a shower, I haven’t showered since Monday….”
When Donald came out to the car after taking care of the cable business, he was sympathetic but I could tell he thought it was funny. I thought “Well, it will BE funny in the future, but it’s not funny now.” My hubby took care of Joshua so I could change and take a good shower, and then we met with our social worker Susan for the last time. After this coming Wednesday, he is officially ours FOREVER!
We wrote the birthmom a letter…I’m not sure if she’ll read it, but I wanted to let her know how much we love Joshua and what a brave decision she made. It was good for us to write it.
Well, it’s 8:18 and the baby is sleeping…I’m going to bed!!!
Joshua is doing better; no more explosive spit ups. We did soy formula for a day, then switched back to regular, he seems okay. Last night was a fussy night so I didn’t get hardly any sleep, going to crash here in a minute.
We got our hospital bill for Joshua for the two days he was there…guess what our out of pocket was?
$38.00! Awesome!
The OBGYN that delivered Joshua and gave his Birthmom her prenatal care charged us only $1500 for ALL the prenatal care AND the delivery, which is just awesome! I guess that’s a pretty sizable discount, I had in my mind that it should have cost around $3000. I guess this OBGYN does a lot of adoption deliveries and we feel so blessed he gave a discount like that - some things work out!
The appraisal on our house is getting closer, they’ve worked the guy up to a more reasonable amount, so we may be able to get the ends to meet and get our loan to go through. Our realtor and the seller’s realtor have been working their tails off presenting more information to the lender to advise why his appraisal is unreasonable. What a crazy situation! I am glad I don’t buy or sell houses very often, I think it’s given me an ulcer.
I was sitting at work today and my hair was driving me nuts. All last night when Joshua was fussy he would GRAB and yank on my hair. I decided, on a whim, to get my hair cut over lunch.
It is VERY short, but I think it’s cute. Actually, it could look crappy and I really wouldn’t care, I was tired of my son yanking on my hair and trying to stick it into his mouth. I took some photos, need to have help from the hubby to get them on here so you can see.
I showed my hair off to Jennie at work and she said, “Yep, it’s a new mommy haircut, you just had to get one.” Fun!
Oh Lord, I of little faith. What good news has been coming in lately.
1 week till we move!
2 weeks till the adoption is finalized! We haven’t heard anything about a biological dad coming forward from the newspaper advertisements….please pray with me that it stays that way!
We sent the birthmom’s best friend another set of photos and a quick update, that way, she’ll have them to look at whenever she’s ready. I want to write her a letter to tell her how blessed we feel to be Joshua’s parents, but I haven’t been able to come up with the right words…hopefully, they will come to me when the time is right.
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