What I Have Learned So Far

What I have learned about breastfeeding:

1. It takes a lot of time. and I do mean a LOT. the first few weeks all I did was breastfeed.

2. wearing a bra is pretty pointless...at least at first

3. I tend to obsess about my breasts all the time

4. engorgment hurts

5. the first five weeks were hell. painful, burning, hell

6. it is an amazing feeling to know that my body provides everything my little girl needs

7. the first time Kennedy was nursing and looked up at me and laughed (about a week ago) I cried. it was amazing. it made everything worth it.

7. I definitely get much less sleep nursing than I did bottle feeding porkchop.

8. Still, those late night snuggly nursing sessions are precious experiences

9. Bonus: thanks to breastfeeding, I was back to my pre-pregnancy weight six weeks after giving birth

10. Downside: my body, even at pre-pregnacy weight, does not look the same. I am...shall we say...a bit "floppy" in the middle.

11. it is true what is said about breastfeeding and bonding.....I know I am going to be sad when it is time to wean

12. stretch marks on breasts are ugly. no way around that truth.

13. I feel like a human pacifier. I have tried every pacifier on the market, but Kennedy prefers me. or at least, my "girls."

Baby Pictures

Welcome Baby!

Kennedy Marie

born Febuary 1st, 2009

9:06 a.m.

8 pds 3 ozs

19 1/2 inches long

Random Thoughts from a Very Pregnant Woman

1. how is it possible to crave grapefruit and popcorn...at the same time?
2. what if the ultrasound is wrong, and the baby is a BOY....will he grow up with gender identity disorder because his bedroom is pink? come to think of it, most of the clothes are pink or purple. I'm probably not going to sleep tonight thinking about this one.
3. Why is pink a girl color anyway?
4. What if the name we picked out doesn't fit? or worse, it fits, but it magically becomes the number one baby name of 2009...which defeats the purpose of why we picked it in the first place. we wanted different, but not too way out there. So far its been a largely popular pick among people we ask...but then maybe they are just being polite? maybe everyone hates the name and no one will tell us.
5. Related thought to #4- everyone has oohed and ahhed over the ultrasound pictures. what if everyone is really thinking "thank God that kid is not mine..that is one UGLY baby"
6. why do I keep checking the weather channel and moaning over how cold it is outside (some-teen below freaking zero, in case you were wondering) when I dont have any energy to go anywhere anyway?
7. Am I ever going to have any energy ever again?
8. Am I the only one who thinks it is ironic that the one "proven" DIY method of inducing labor is the very same activity that got me pregnant in the first place? I have read countless pregnancy and labor websites and messageboards and it is the consensus that one must DTD (do the deed) to both get pregnant and to kick off labor.
9. OTH, one of those websites had a poster who swore up and down that her OBGYN supported her choice to smoke marijuana in order to deal with her morning sickness and be able to eat food. And other posters chimed in to support the original poster. So maybe its not the most reliable source of information.
10. Its all a mute point anyway, since I have no energy to DTD.
11. Someone said eating pineapple helps. Maybe I will try that.
12. Why do random strangers feel it is ok to touch my belly?
13. Related to #12, what made this one person that I know think it was ok to touch both my belly and my BOOBS? as in, pull my shirt up and say "ooh let me see if your milk is about to come in...." and put cold hands on my stomach and say "ooh let me see if she is moving around...have you dropped anymore?"
14. Why is it my only response to the event reported in #13 was to stand there in shock and be speechless?
15. I wonder if my child will be forever warped because I have been watching Dexter and Big Love. If not warped, at least morally confused. I probably should be watching something mild and soothing, like Little House on the Prarie. Instead I am watching a series about a serial killer with a moral code and a family that lives a polygamist lifestyle. Hmm..maybe I should be more worried about my own Warped-ness.
16. Cloth or Disposables? Breast or Formula? Why is going green and going healthy so blasted time consuming and expensive and complicated? Is the world really going to go to hell if I buy a pack of Pampers?
17. Delivery Fear: I will go into labor in the middle of a ferocious snowstorm. DH will have to put me on a sled and drag me to the main road. and then hope like hell a dog sled team comes by to mush us on to the hospital.
18. Another Delivery Fear: DH will spend more time in the birthing suite checking the stockmarket and reading his email on his blackberry than he will paying attention to my ranting and raving about how this is all his fault. And when the baby is born, he will be more engrossed in emailing the good news to everyone that he will forget to remember that I JUST GAVE BIRTH and NEED HIM. Not because he is callous and cold and unloving, but because he is..well, let's face it, he is a guy. and he is ADD. and giving birth is a largely woman thing to do. and it probably scares him. Still, I might really kill him if this scenario comes true.

The Baby's Room

Preggo Pics

37 weeks pregnant..a beluga whale!

or, as I joked to DH..I look like a pregnant lesbian! Where did all my long hair go, you ask? We accepted an emergency placement of two toddlers a few months back (they were moved at the same time as Porkchop..back in November) who, unbeknownst to us, were crawling with headlice and had been that way for months prior to their removal. Trust me, it was a horrific experience...weeks of treatment on the kids and still the bugs kept coming...finally resolved it with buzz cuts for the kids. Only to discover that I had acquired the nasty things also! So, I opted for a buzz cut myself. There were only a few treatments we could do on me since i was pregnant, so it seemed wise to do a treatment and do the dramatic buzz job. Trust me, I actually have a TON of hair in this photo in comparison to what i looked like in the early summer.....

Still, when I went to vote this election season, baby bump belly and all, the volunteer at the townhall said to me (I kid you not) "Well young man, is this your first time voting?"

37 week ultrasound pictures!

psst...is anyone still out there?

if anyone is, here are the 37 week ultrasound pictures of our baby girl (a girl!!! how ironic after trying to adopt a boy for so long and failing!)

Baby Kennedy Marie is due on the 31st of this month..but I am hoping sooner, as I look and feel like a beluga whale....

according to the handy dandy pregnancy calendar, I should be nesting big time..but I did a lot of that after our foster baby moved on (long story, big heartbreak) and our household was reduced to just us and the two dogs again. But I will talk more about our foster care journey another time..right now it is still too raw and painful to talk about (our little guy has been gone two months and I still cry at the drop of a hat for him. after having him one year and expecting to adopt him...well, you can imagine)

anyway, the funky 3D ultrasound pics! I dunno guys, the kid looks a little sqaushed and goofy looking to me....LOL

hmm....I have a few more ultrasound pics and some pregnant me pics (shudder) but I will save those for another post.....I hope to post again tonight, as I do need some advice from you all...(those of you that are left, anyway!)

Ta for now, the one lone reader who is left out there! thanks for your patience..I know its been far too long between blog postings!

Surprise!

For those of you who have been following this blog from its inception (not sure anyone is left, what with my woefully inadeqaute blogging skills this past year), the expectation was that our first child would be adopted from Vietnam.

As we know, that is not going to happen.

When we fell into the crazy world of foster care, the thought was that we would adopt through the foster care system....

then we had to make the very difficult decision to not adopt Hoss and Little Joe. Hoss and Little Joe were with us for almost seven months. They were moved to a tribal foster home in January.

Porkchop came into our care in November at two and a half months of age. We accepted his placement as the expectation was that his parental rights would be terminated and we would be able to adopt him.

Long story that I can't get into (and makes me sick to my stomach, truthfully), but Porkchop's biomom has found a new boyfriend (21 years her senior) who has moved in with her along with his daugther and biomom is doing everything that she has been asked to do to have Porkchop returned to her. The expectation is that Porkchop will reunify with biomom within the next few months. It's a nightmare for a number of reasons I can't talk about, but the system is the system and it doesn't matter what I or the caseworker or the other service providers personally believe about her ability to parent him, what matters is she is meeting the laws requirements to have him returned to her.

As we have struggled to come to grips with the reality that Porkchop (barring anything major happening with his case) will be reunified with his biomom, we had a completely shocking turn of events in our own private lives.

Is everyone sitting down? Take a deep breath now, my friends....

I AM PREGNANT!!!!!!!

(Trust me, I took four pregnancy tests and even insisted on a blood test---- I am most certainly pregnant)

So now we are in a quandry as to what to do about Porkchop (I am soo exhausted, morning sickness is kicking my ass, and we financially can't afford to continue buying his formula and taking him every other week to the children's hospital for testing, not to mention he does not sleep through the night yet...let's just say we love that little boy with all our heart but he has a lot of needs and I am struggling to meet them at this point and still take care of myself) and what to do about our adoptive homestudy (which is, save for the physicals, all set to mail out to various caseworkers across the country who are trying to place children that we are interested in) ......

We are truly floored (and thrilled) to be having a baby biologically......but I am having a hard time letting go of our adoption plans and with taking care of a baby I love dearly who I know is going home to his biomom.......its really making it almost impossible to "enjoy" this unexpected pregnancy........

how does one balance all of this and make the right decisions? How in the world do I figure out what is most important to take care of and figure out what to let go of and what to keep trying to do?

Now I know that many women become pregnant while parenting young infants and toddlers and manage it just fine. And if Porkchop was ours, we would figure it all out. But he isn't our child, he is a foster child, and dealing with the system is difficult and exhausting...we have visitation schedules, home visits, service providers, we have to pay for a lot of things out of our own pocket that we are not reimbursed for or only partly reimbursed for......biomom only has to show up and play with him for a few hours, but we have to buy his formula (after WIC it still costs us 250 dollars a month) take him to see the GI specialist at a hospital that is ten hours a way and requires a three day trip (which we pay for out of pocket)...we have had two such trips in the last three weeks and another one coming up soon and more to follow......we hold him up at night so he can breathe easier and so his reflux problems are minimized.....

we love him and we want to do these things for him. we really do.

But can we keep doing it?

I want to enjoy this pregnancy. I want to enjoy getting ready for this baby we are having. I want to SLEEP......

I am at this point unable to do that as I am wrapped up in Porkchop's care and all those things that are involved in his "case." I deal with a sick crying baby for hours after every visit. A baby who doesnt' sleep well, who doesn't sleep for long when he does sleep, a baby that I would do anthing for and really have no right to make any decisions whatsover about his needs and his care because I am JUST A FOSTER MOM.

We have the option of having Porkchop moved to a new foster home while the courts work out his reunification.

There is a part of me that really wants to take that option, grieve the loss of our little porkchop, and then focus my time,energy, and attention on the pregnancy and our baby to be.

There is another part of me that can't bear the idea of having him moved for any reason and who wants to cling to the slim possibility that maybe something will fall apart for biomom and he will get to stay forever.....

The truth is he can be in foster care for up to 22 months before they have to make a definite move towards termination.

The truth is his biomom really is doing all that they ask of her (never mind that what they are asking is so ridiculously little it would make you sick) .

The truth is no matter what we do, he is going back to a horrible situation where he is going to get at best minimal care.

So, what do we do?

Maybe I am just so freaking exhausted right now and can't think straight and once this first trimester is over I will be more clear headed.

But, selfishly, I really do not want to have the memory of our first (and probably only) pregnancy and birth child to be one overwhelmed with the grief and loss of Porkchop.

BUT..how selfish is it to put Porkchop through another move?

Then again, how horrible is it that this system is not able to protect him and give him a good life?

I keep reminding myself that I didnt' put this darling baby in this situation..his biomom did..and it is the broken messed up system that is going to send him back to a horrible situation.

I hate that I can't protect him.

So, what do I DO????

IM PREGNANT!!!! .its great wonderful terrific news.....why doesn't it FEEL like it?

on a lighter note

"porkchop" our delightfully chubby foster son, is now 8 months old and is cruising around on all fours faster than the speed of light (well at least faster than I can keep up with him!) and, having figured out how to pull him up to a standing position the same day he decided to crawl, happily rearanging all of the books on our bookshelves, grabbing the remote off of the coffee table, and plotting to scale the sides of his exer yard/play pen contraption!

he has been pretty sick this month- we spent three days in the hospital thanks to dehydration and rotovirus- and continues to struggle with severe reflux, wheezing, and a never ending battle since the day he came to us with oral thrush, yeast infection in the diaper area, and ringworm. Still, he is such a trooper and has a smile that could cheer up even oscar the grouch!

Sleep continues to elude all of us, but we have managed to stretch sleep periods to four hours at night before he wakes up with a belly ache (rumbly tummy, as pooh bear would say!) and the crying that goes with such discomfort in the tummy region. He sleeps best propped up a bit in our arms (either we take shifts in the recliner or in the bed propping ourselves up in pillows and holding him propped in the crook of our arms) - the crib being nothing more than a nice piece of furniture in an equally nice nursery that is never visited by porkchop except for diaper changes and outfit changes. On the plus side, we all may be sleep deprived, but Porkchop is definitely a less anxious, more attached baby than he was five months ago!

Naps are starting to stretch out from 10 minutes to about 30- again, if he is held in my arms, he sleeps longer and better. lay him down in a crib and it is tears, reflux, and wheezing within ten minutes- if we make it that long.

We have an appointment with a pediatric GI in a couple of weeks at a well known children's hospital. here's hoping that we can get some answers to help little pork chop feel better. Luckily he is gaining weight, so at least that is not a worry at this time. Still, he can't eat solid foods yet (it all comes back up) and I am not sure how long a baby can exist on formula alone (expensive, stinky formula I might add. that stains everything. I have a real love/hate relationship going on with Nutramigen). I am anxious for the appointment time to be upon us, but dreading the ten hour trip to the specialist.

hey, maybe by then the snow will all be melted!

I wish I could post pictures, but since Porkchop is not our child, I simply can't. There is so much I would love to share with you all about Porkchop and our lifes as foster parents- but I am silenced by confidentiality and legal issues. I wish I knew what was ok to blog and what wasn't...hopefully I can figure that out soon so that I can come back to blogger land. I have missed all of you and hope that I can touch base with everyone of you via the net very soon!

I seriously need to update more often!

I can't believe I haven't updated this blog since Feb!!! Of course, I never expected life with a baby to be so emanding and exhausting.....still, I must try harder to get in blogging time.

This will be a short post, but I did want to let everyone know that we received a phone call from our international agency today. The situation in Vietnam does not look good, and they were checking to see what we wanted to do (given that we inquired a few months ago about a partial refund as it looked like we would adopt Hoss and Little Joe). R told the worker that, given the situation in vietnam and our current situation as foster parents that we might as well go ahead and pull our app and ask for a partial refund.

So, I guess that door, that dream, is now closed.

I am not sure how I feel about that. I guess I still had a lingering hope that it would all work out and we would adopt from Vietnam after all.

Now I am wondering where we go from here. If we will ever have a family. If I have the hutzpah necessary to keep fostering and deal with falling in love with a child that is not mine and very likely going to be reunified with his/her birthparent.

How in the world did we end up here? Doing the one thing we swore we had no interest in doing- foster care?

And now it looks like foster care adoption is the only viable option left to us.

I really do not know how I feel about any of it.