Lilly reloaded

Last night I let husband sleep a couple of hours and fed her at 2:30 and 5:00 a.m. She was really nice because after every feeding she went straight back to sleep. This morning she slept really long. We had to wake her up to get her ready for her visit.

Today we went to the agency to meet with some people. Lilly behaved like a little angel. She slept nearly the whole time, woke up to take her bottle, went back to sleep after a little while. She also made that funny snoring noise when she is hungry and everybody was laughing about it. When this little girl is hungry she gets so excited, she makes these cute snoring kind of noises. And she can scream. Loud!

The nurses in the hospital had told us to burp her in between a feeding. Sometimes it is not possible, she gets really mad if you take her bottle away. We can already see that she has a strong personality.

Tonight we had a little diaper explosion. Lilly was so thirsty all day and drank every 1,5 to 2 hours. She even had 4 ounces of milk in an hour... Later I heard a noise that sounded like a little explosion. And it was. It took us numerous wet wipes, two people, and one towel to clean up that mess. 15 minutes later Lilly reloaded. Same story. But she started peeing while we were cleaning her this time. We are slowly running out of clothing...

I love Lillian so much. It has been just a couple of days, but it feels like she just belongs to our family. We love to take care of her and really enjoy getting to know her... And I love to see my husband in his new role as a father. He is doing amazing...

Another sleepless night later

As I am writing this my wonderful husband is carrying around our beautiful daughter. She finally pooped last night at 11:30 p.m. What a relief. Her system is working...

We even took a little tour with her yesterday. A nice drive in the car, lunch in the mountains, a stroll through the market. She had eaten at 11:00 a.m. and we wanted to wait in the restaurant for her to wake up.... Of course she didn't. She slept the whole time until we were back in the car on the way home when she decided to wake up and eat.

Just as I was writing this Lillian decided that her Mommy shouldn't have any reason to be concerned about her poop - and loaded another diaper. And drank another 2 ounces of formula. She basically has been hungry nearly every hour. We are operating on minimal sleep here, but I treasure every single second with her. Thanks for the comment on the sign. I hadn't even thought about her sign before. She is a leo and we can already see her strong personality...

When we first got her, I didn't automatically feel like a Mommy. It felt a little like babysitting first. In the meantime we have realized that we have never babysitted anyone for that long and that we get to keep her. We are bonding great and I can't even describe how much I love her already. She didn't grow in my belly, she grew in our hearts.

I realize how my posts changed in a single week. From crazy infertile to discussions on poopy diapers. I am now beginning to understand how the infertility wound can heal. The times when I thought about infertility all day long are gone. It is all about Lillian now.

First night home

As I am writing this the rest of my family is still asleep. Mommy didn't get a lot of sleep last night. Lillian drank a bottle at half past eight and then she was basically asleep until 1 am. But she sometimes made funny little noises like she was about to cry and then she went back to sleep until about 2:30 a.m. Then she was awake and wanted Mommy to take care of her and carry her around for an hour.

She had another bottle (from Daddy this time) around 3:40 a.m., but didn't really like to go back to sleep for a longer time after that. So I ended up sleeping with her in my arms for a while on the second bed. Lilly loves her pacifier and likes to spit it out all the time - it is a fun game, because when she starts crying I am putting it right back in.

She then had another bottle at 7:00 a.m. and has been asleep since then. I had hope to catch up on some sleep, but my Dad (who is fortunately back from the hospital) called at 7:30 a.m this morning. He knows about the time difference, but he probably thought we were going to be awake anyway. He is such a proud grandfather now and is telling everybody about Lillian.

He reminded me of something I nearly had forgotten. On July 25, the day after she was born, was my grandfather's birthday. He died when I was just eleven years old, so I never got to experience him a lot. And today is my grandmother's birthday. She died in 1991. It is like between those birthdays they have sent Lillian from heaven.

Now I have a question for all the experienced Mommies out there. How often do babies poop a day? Lilli has pooped only once so far and a lot of the times when we wanted to change her diaper there was nothing in there, not even pee. I am wondering whether that means she will have an explosion in her diaper later today. Any advice?

Gotcha day

Lillian is finally with us. As I am writing this she is sucking her pacifier and making little noises here and there.

We picked her up from the hospital and gave her our first bottle and my DH changed her first poopy diaper (that was an easy one, the second of course, for me, had a little surprise in it). We then drove to the supermarket to get some formula.

We are trying to get her on an EASY (Eating, Activity, Sleeping, You) schedule and so far it seems to work. Her wonderful Daddy did a great job quieting her down and to get her to sleep. Our life here is now centered all around Lilli. I can't describe how I feel. It is amazing to be a Mommy. We are still getting used to each other, but so far it has been wonderful. Courtney left a comment about my scar being able to heal. And it will.

All of you that are still waiting for your little miracle. It is well worth the wait.

And here is finally the picture you all have been waiting for.



Isn't she cute?

We are family!!!!

Thank you all so much for all your supportive comments, prayers, and good thoughts. In midst of all the mixed emotions they always put a smile on my face when I read them on my Crackberry. It has been wonderful to know that so many of you have been thinking about and praying for us.

After the birthmother has signed relinquishments yesterday our daugther belongs forever to us. LILLIAN ALEXIS AUDRY is now officially part of our family. We are going to pick her up in a couple of hours at the hospital. And then we will try to be the best parents we can be for her. On a little detour to Babies R us we stocked up on diapers yesterday to be prepared. We couldn't find the formula that the hospital recommended so we have to ask them where we can get it.

I will try to post a picture later today.

But while we are overjoyed, I know that the joy of our family comes with a high price - the pain of the birthmother. I can't imagine what she must be going through. It would be wonderful if you could continue uplift her in your prayers.

She is so cute!!!

We saw our daughter this morning. She is absolutely cute and adorable. We were holding her. She was so tired, she didn't even open her eyes for us, yet.

We met with the birthmother. She is so nice and wonderful and I can't imagine what she must be going through right now. She is giving us the greatest present of our lives and it is linked with so much sadness for her. After meeting the birthmother I feel a little more at peace, but we will need to wait a couple of hours until our daughter really belongs to our family.

We do have a name picked out, but I will wait to share it here for a little while until she is really ours.

We will drive back to the hospital this afternoon. Tomorrow they will be discharged from the hospital and then our little one will be with us.

She is here...

Thank you all so much for your good wishes. I am updating from the airport in Houston while we are waiting to board our next flight (late- of course).

The baby was born in the afternoon. 21 Inches and a whopping 8 pounds 4 ounces. She scored great on the Apgar. We won't be able to see her when we arrive. Hopefully the birthmother is signing relinquishment tomorrow afternoon... We are torn between joy, excitement, and fear.

Water Broke

I had a feeling it could happen today, but was not really expecting it yet. We are heading out this afternoon and arrive late at night. I am very excited and nervous, but also completely stressed out right now. I am terrified that she might change her mind. I will keep you updated. Oh, and it is a girl this time. Please pray for the mother, the baby, and us.

Big Baby

The agency called us. Our birthmother had an ultrasound yesterday. The baby can come any day now and it will be a big baby... 8 to 9 pounds they think. Maybe I need more of the bigger clothes and we should leave the small clothes at home. They will call us as soon as she is in labor. I pray that she is at peace with her decision.

It is starting to sink in. We might have a baby soon!!! I am so excited.

Yesterday our neighbors and friends came over to congratulate us. The offered to help us with anything we would need. I feel so blessed by everybody around us. Everybody has offered help in some form or another.

I can't wait for this baby to come. I'd rather be on an airplane right now. But I have a test on Friday, my final language exam. Hopefully I will be able to master that. Then I am ready for this baby to come. How about Saturday? Sunday would be fine, too. Just soon. PLEASE!!!

We have been waiting for more than three years to add to our family. Now I feel like a child waiting for Christmas and birthday together. And I remember how long the times between those dates were. Now I am amazed every year that Christmas is around the corner. Tomorrow in 5 months is Christmas Eve, guys....

The good news keep on coming!

Thank you for all your comments and congratulation wishes. I really hope this time it is for real. I don't know what do to if we have to endure another loss.

My Dad had to go back to the hospital today, because he was coughing up more blood from his lung. I was very scared and thought that this might mean that the tumor has increased in size. Guess what. I haven't talked to my Mom yet, but she left me a message telling me that the tumor has shrunk in size - substantially. I can't tell you how relieved I am. Thank you for including him in your thoughts and prayers.

On Saturday after church our friend assembled some people to pray for us and the adoption. I asked them to include my Dad in their prayers as well. I first didn't want it because I didn't even know the people that prayed for us. I don't really like to be exposed as an infertile in front of people that I don't know. When you tell people you are adopting there is always this elephant in the room - the infertile one. Nobody wants to ask you, but you can understand that people are wondering why you would choose that path instead of having biological children first. It might just be my personal impression, but while people react excited about adoption there still is this unspoken question I can see forming in their minds. But the lady spoke wonderfully. She did an amazing job and it made me ease up. I feel so blessed by the Lord right now.

Yesterday we went out to look for a car. We ended up buying a brand-new car. A couple of weeks ago when we had first looked at cars we found the same model from 2005 with 40.000 miles for $18.000. We ended up walking away from the deal because they didn't offer us enough for our car. I am so glad we did. It felt like loosing at the time, but I didn't like the car dealership in the first place. Needless to say that we went to a different dealer this time. I love living here with all the choices you have... We actually ended up getting a new car for only about $2.000 more.

I also just got off the phone with our new pediatrician. He was recommended to me by a friend. The practice administrator is an adoptive Mom herself and was very excited to hear more about our adoption and is looking forward to meeting our family. All the doctors have experience with adopted children. We will call them once the baby is born and schedule an appointment.

In addition I talked to a travel agency. It sounds like the emergency flight rule applies only in case of death of a family member. So we will just wait for the agency to call us once the birthmother is in labor.

Picked

We received another call yesterday. A birthmother we were presented to thinks that we should be the parents of her baby. She is due next week-end. Holy ****!!! We are thrilled! This time I feel for several reasons saver with the situation.

Now I need the advice of those of you who have already adopted. When you had to fly to another state for the birth, how did you book your flights? Did you book them in advance and then just change the date? Or do short notice flights from adoptive parents fall under the emergency flight rule? What did you do? Hubby thought we should drive to save some money, but I think with a little support from my MIL I convinced him that a 2.000 mile car ride with a newborn might not be as much fun as he thought...

College friends

This week I received an email from a college friend of mine. We lived together for a year, then she headed to the U.S. and I headed to Italy and we kind of lost track of each other. Remember, it was the pre-email and pre-blog time. Wow, what a difference a couple of years make...

I found her again on an internet network three years ago. We emailed once back and forth and she sent me a picture when she had just had her first child, a daughter. After that I didn't really hear from her any more. She probably had her hands full. I didn't imagine how full.

I sent her an email a couple of weeks ago just to see how she was doing. I was a little disappointed that I didn't hear from her, but sometimes it just takes a while to get back to people - and I understand that completely. But two days ago I received an email from her. She not only has two children in the meantime, she is expecting her third. I am sure she is a wonderful mom!

But there it was again, this little sting in my heart. Why her? Why not me? In college we were best friends, we spend so much time together. I am amazed how our paths crossed at that time, how they went parallel for a while and how they diverged again... Now she is living a completely different life than I do. I wonder how it would be to walk in her shoes for a day. I would love to do it and see how it is to be a mom. We can see it with our friends, but it is not the same like experiencing it personally.

In addition, I am in a new class at school and there is a pregnant woman in my class. At first I was scared by the idea, but I have to admit she is really nice. I sometimes catch myself staring at her belly wondering whether I can see her baby move and hope she hasn't noticed it yet. I am so amazed by the miracle of non-fertility treatment human reproduction.

God's will

Check out this article.. It is written very nicely. But look at the comments. The paper has deleted one comment from McNasty already. I remember it said something along the lines that it probably is God's will that those people are infertile and they shouldn't even try to get pregnant.

I am struggling very much if I read something like that. Should we just leave everything to God? Infertility is a disease. When we have any other disease we go see a doctor to cure it, if it is possible. How is it God's will, when mothers or fathers kill their children? Is it God's will that drug-addicted mothers never seem to have any infertility issues? How dare these people that wrote this nasty comment tell other people how they should live their life? They have never experienced infertility and the pain that comes with it. How can they judge other people for the ways they choose to build their families?

I am personally offended and struggling especially because I am wondering if it is God's will that we won't have children. How could he put such a strong longing and desire to be a mommy in my heart if he wants me to live child-free?

It would be great if you all could leave a comment on the newspapers page to show that there is a huge support out there for a family's decision to pursue fertility treatments.

On black and white...

We were presented again to another birth mother. Together with 14 other adoptive families. 14? Yes, that many. We didn't really think we had a chance there. The baby had been born on June 22. It was white. While for a black baby you have probably between 3 and 4 adoptive families, for white babies the ratio is 1 to 15.

I don't critic anybody that has decided to adopt a baby that has the same color as the adoptive parents. I am sure it will make life a little easier as the color is not a factor that sticks out so much that people will ask you about it. They might just assume this is your biological child. It is a decision that every family has to take by themselves.

Our family will very likely have many different colors. I am white, my husband is half Asian, our child will were likely be at least partially black. But we would welcome a baby of any color into our family. But I am sure that it will raise additional questions and it will require additional empowerment for our child. We have to give him/her the tools to respond to intrusive questions in a way that will protect him or her. But there are things I won't be able to explain to the child. I don't know what it means to be black. Therefore we will need role models of the same color in our child's life.

We were presented to that particular situation, but the mother decided to parent the little boy.

A couple of weeks ago we went to a BBQ. We met an adoptive family there with two beautiful girls. The parents were white, one girl was black and the other girl was asian. Immediately when I saw them, I just assumed that they were an adoptive family and I really wanted to talk to them. The mother was very friendly. She told me that she had lost two babies during the pregnancy and that is when they decided to move on to adoption. They were matched with a little boy and had him for a couple of days. Then the birthmother decided to parent and they had to give him back. But a day later they were matched with their daughter. When their daughter asked them why she was black and her mother white, her mother told her that she couldn't grow babies in her tummy. That is why they had asked the birthmother whether they could raise the baby that she couldn't take care of. And as a present to the baby, the birthmother has given her this beautiful color. The daughter seemed happy with that explanation...

Jealous instead of joyous

Our friends just had two wonderful perfect baby twins in addition to their adorable two year old. I congratulated them, but I found it so hard to be joyous, because deep inside I was just jealous. Of course I don't want them to see this bitter side of me which I don't like at all.

I am jealous that they can have so easily what seems so difficult, far, and unreachable for us right now. And then double the luck!

I don't even know how it is possible that people conceive naturally. Well in theory I know, but it seems to be such a difficult thing to happen. Everything has to be perfect with the timing. The right sperm has to find the right egg. It seems like such a big miracle and wonder to me how it actually happens to people. In the infertility community natural conception seems like such a rare thing to happen. We take drugs, time intercourse, have tubes inserted in us, have surgeries to have our eggs taken out and put back in after they were united in a petri dish with the sperm.

I sometimes catch myself looking at pregnant women (they are all over the place these days) and wondering how they got so lucky to conceive without going through all this struggle. I am personally surprised that humankind has survived so far.

The agency presented us to another birthmother last week. The baby is already born and she was trying to make a decision. She was looking at 15 profiles, so I didn't really think our chances were very high. But this week we found out that they have not been able to contact her any more...

And as we are counting down the days until our departure date in September, I am very concerned that this adoption will happen before we leave. I am terrified we will never be parents. That fear is leaving me very restless recently.

A fellow blogger, Karen, had the worst thing for an adoptive family happen to her. The birthparents decided to keep the baby after they already had the baby for a couple of days. I can't imagine how much she must be hurting. I am really glad that it happened to us before the baby was born. At least we hadn't met him yet, Even if we had started to love him the day we had learned about his existence.

Adoption as a pregnancy enhancement?

Remember how when you first started telling people that you adopt? Remember all those stories of all those people they knew that that once they had adopted got pregnant on their own. Remember how it sounded like the children you would adopt were only second best choice? Remember how you told those people that this was not the reason why you decided to adopt? Remember that you read somewhere that it only happens for 5% of all people that have adopted? Remember how often you heard that story? Can it only be 5%?

Well, it does happen indeed. Dave and his wife are pregnant. Congratulations!!! It is amazing!

Dave is actually not the only one it happened to. There is a really nice couple I know that have adopted because they had tried for four years to have a baby. The woman was already 42(!) when she got pregnant.

So my question is: what is wrong, what is right? Only 5% or does it happen all the time? Or do the people it happens to just talk about it a lot while people it doesn't happen to just don't talk about it. Or does caring for a newborn change the composition of the hormones in you body which leads to greater probability of becoming pregnant? I don't know. But I know that nobody I know adopts as a pregnancy enhancement. We adopt because we want kids...

What a difference a couple of years make

Today is our 3 year church wedding anniversary. I can't believe it has been that long. Three years ago I was full of joy, hope, and expectations of becoming a mother soon. I had my whole life been on the sunny side, why should that change any time. I always viewed the glass as half full, not half empty. It could be only a matter of months until we would hold our baby in our arms, right? Little did we know.

36 months later. 40 periods ended every hope I was harbouring about being pregnant. Every single months another disappointment. The last three years have been so hard. We had a stroke (my dad), endometriosis, 2 surgeries, 3 IVFs, 1 IUI, 2 miscarriages, breast cancer (my MIL), lung cancer (my dad) and two failed adoptions, even if my hubby might dispute latter.

In all this time I had my best friend on my side. He has cared for me like a nurse when I had my medical procedures. He always has to listen to all my crap. He supported me through the whole time and was just the best husband anyone could ever imagine. He has suffered, but he has never, not even once doubted our love. And even when I feel like the worst wife, like a failure as a woman, he has been there. I had never dreamed of finding anyone like him. I couldn't have picked a better husband.

Happy Anniversary, Honey!!! Now it is time for the good times to start. We had enough bad things happen. Hopefully next year we will be able to celebrate with our daughter/son in CCS as a family. And celebrate we will!

Tomorrow will be the one year anniversary of my last pregnancy. One year ago I was hoping for a positive test. I prayed and hoped. I didn't think the HCG level would be only 9 and that I would loose it before it even had time to implant properly...

While I write this, I had a hard time, remembering the right name. Was it HCG, FSH, HSG? There are so many abbreviations with fertility treatments. A year ago, I didn't even have to think about it. I knew them all. This year I can barely remember what the pregnancy hormone's name is... What a difference a year makes.

Last year after the miscarriage we decided to pursue adoption. Here are, nearly a year later. Still no baby, but at least we are moving in the right direction. We have a completed home study and we are waiting for it to happen. And it will. The question is not if, but when.

But I know one thing for sure. Infertility has changed me. Infertility has robbed me of my innocence. My focus and my outlook on life have shifted. What a difference a couple of years make.

Better

Thank you for your comments, your prayers, and good thoughts. My brother called around 5 a.m. this morning. My Dad is doing much better today. It sounds like the fever went down and he is out of the woods for now.I even got to talk to him. He sounded a little tired and couldn't understand me well, but that might have been just a bad connection. I at least got to tell him how much I love him and that we were all very worried about him.

I have decided not to fly there right now. He will have more health crisis in the future as the cancer is getting worse and I won't be able to be there all the time. But I am very grateful and thankful today.

LJ, we are still on for coffee. I am looking forward to seeing you.

NOOOOOO!!!

I just talked to my family. My dad has an infection in his lung. The doctor said we have to consider the worst. I am considering to fly there asap. I can't take it any more!!!