A bit of an update

Well hello, you good-looking readers. It's been a while but you haven't aged a bit.

Things have been pretty nonstop for us for the last several months. June alone has five birthdays, plus we had a million appointments and some court stuff and work and life. Here's a brief rundown of the major events, before I disappear back into the crowd:

• The baby had chronic ear infections for months and it super sucked. We finally got her scheduled for ear tube surgery. We even got on a waiting list and had it moved up several weeks, but the day before the surgery both kids came down with hand, foot, and mouth disease, which is majorly gross, so we had to postpone back to the original date of July 30. She recovered well from the surgery and hasn't had any more ear infections, but immediately after the surgery she started cutting her eye teeth several months ahead of schedule, in order to keep up with her nighttime waking schedule.
• Things are moving forward with M's case. They scheduled a trial for her dad, but he surprised us by surrendering at the pretrial hearing last week. We agreed to four visits a year and really hope he chooses to remain in M's life. We had a court date for the mom to surrender yesterday and we had a really good talk with her about our joint wish for M to get to know her, but unfortunately she chose to leave before we saw the judge. It's a horrible and heartbreaking thing, to sign away your rights to your kid, and we understand, even while we're disappointed. They scheduled a"default date " for October. If the mom shows up and surrenders that day, cool, she gets a legal obligation from us to allow her two visits a year. If she doesn't surrender or doesn't show up, they'll start a trial that day to terminate her rights. I am still having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that it is now just a matter of time until she's freed for adoption. The dad was always the wild card, and his surrender eliminates any possibility of M going with him. After things happen in October, we'll be switched to an adoption worker and start the long, paperwork-heavy process of finally adopting our daughter.
• In a few weeks we are going on our first actual family vacation. We are going to the Jersey Shore and hoping for good weather. I tried to watch Jersey Shore as a research project, but it's not on Netflix anymore so I guess we'll just have to wing it.

I miss blogging, but not as much as I miss sleep. See you soon, lovelies.

A little bit of progress

So the paperwork to file M's parents' rights was filed a week and a half ago.

In the three months since I last posted, M's mom has decided she'd rather M stay with us than go with her dad. This is awesome, but only if M's mom sticks to this statement in court and doesn't let M's dad intimidate her into staying quiet about it.

M's dad is not happy about being served with the termination papers. He says she shouldn't be adopted and that he's going to file for custody. He's had two and a half years in which he could have done that, so I'm sure the judge will see right through it. It does indicate that things aren't going to be as easy as we could have hoped, though.

Our first hearing is on May 22. Nothing will happen that day, and then we'll come back for our permanency hearing (those are the ones that happen every six months) in June. We'll eventually hire a lawyer, but the one we're going to hire is (rightfully) very expensive and it doesn't make financial sense to hire her until we're closer to knowing where this is all heading.

It is a lot of fun to have the girls old enough to interact. The baby is ten months and is getting really close to walking. It's exhausting and so fun and I wouldn't change a second of it. Besides M not being ours [yet?] - I'd change that in a heartbeat.

Pants party.

Things are still progressing around here. I don't have the energy to devote to regular blogging, but that means that any time I pop in, I feel like I'm just doing the same update every time:
1. Nora is still the fucking coolest. She just wants to hang out and I desperately wish our finances made it possible for me to stay home with her and M, but I know that going into debt to do so is a bad idea in the long run.
2. Nothing really to report with M's case. Her dad has been so inconsistent that the new worker (who is still doing as little with the case as she can while our worker's on maternity leave) decided to only extend one of his visits instead of both, so now she has up to three hours of visits a week. They had to change the visits to the morning so now Andy and I can't pick her up, which makes me sad. The termination paperwork still hasn't been filed. I also had to make a few phone calls today because we haven't been paid in two months - we've been having our mail forwarded and it turns out they won't forward checks from the county. Would've been fucking cool for M's temporary worker, her regular worker, or our worker to have mentioned that, since they all knew we were moving. We're not desperate for the money or anything, but I'm certain the county wouldn't have ever tried to make up those two months if I hadn't called.
3. The hardwoods are being done in the house this week, and we're going to start painting on Sunday. There's a lot of painting that we want to do and we're trying to figure out the logistics of painting with two little kids. Any suggestions there would be welcome.

And now, something a little more interesting. Here are words and phrases that I've heard in the rhythmic noises produced by my breast pump:
- Rachael (I hear this a lot, and it's kind of creepy)
- Apple
- Westeros (why yes, I had been watching a lot of Game of Thrones)
- Bob Ross
- Wacko
- Cello
- Let's go

If you have experience with pumping, please reassure me that this isn't just me.

I still hate titling these.

Hello, hello!

We spent last weekend in Maryland hanging out with my sister and her family. Her new baby is so lovely and snuggly and perfect, and my twenty-month-old goddaughter is spunky and so freaking smart and very awesome indeed. It was a very nice visit, if way too short, except that a cousin we saw while we were there managed to spread his cold to me and M and the new two-week-old baby. Being pregnant suppresses the immune system, so a cold I used to be able to shake in three days now hangs on for two weeks, and M is also cutting some molars, so she and I are not at our very best right now.

Nothing new to report with M's case, other than that her dad has attended two out of six visits since court. Oh, and the worker told us she was chatting with the law guardian, who reported that she loves working with us and wishes she could clone us (which was nice to hear). Our worker gets my sense of humor, so I told her it was nice of her to say that, but we've actually been working on a plan to flee to Canada with M really soon, and in the meantime we're just really good at getting the white people in charge to trust us. The worker yelled, "I knew it!"

We're starting to look at houses again. I don't know if I've mentioned this, but we live in a Cape Cod, and our upstairs is two huge bedrooms and one very small bathroom, and the downstairs has a whole bunch of cramped rooms, including two very small bedrooms and a narrow living room. When we moved in it was just fine, but it's hard to entertain since everyone wants to hang out in our (small, eat-in) kitchen, and if we continue to foster it will be weird because opposite-sex kids can't share a room after age three in our county. So we're starting to look at houses that would suit our needs a little better. We've narrowed our search to two towns not far from us. I have to admit that I have no visual/spatial intelligence, so it's hard for me to look at bad paint or really outdated decor and see past it to the bones. Luckily Andy's good at that, so I'm confident we'll find something that works!

I'm pretending that the idea of doing the minor things we need to do to our house to make it more marketable (almost entirely cosmetic) and then packing and moving while pregnant or with a new baby isn't freaking my shit out. Was it convincing?

Big day!

First, the biggest deal: My sister and Brian had their baby! Her name is River and she's perfect. She was born around 4:30 in the morning, when I happened to be lying there awake feeling my own new baby kicking and wiggling. My sister is doing well, which is really awesome because the last time she gave birth it did NOT go smoothly - but this new little girl made a nice gentle entrance into the world. I can't wait to meet her.

And second, court! The summary is that nothing changed. The weird part is that this sort of feels like a victory.

M's mom didn't show up, which wasn't unexpected. They adjourned her part of the case for two weeks, to give her another chance to show up. They surprised me by not adjourning the full case, and having the hearing for the dad's side.

There was a different lawyer there for the dad; I don't know if his usual guy couldn't make it (they changed our court date, so our worker couldn't be there either) or if he now has a different lawyer, but this guy actually said the dad's name correctly in the courtroom, so he's definitely more on the ball than the last one. This lawyer asked for increased visits, and suggested to the judge that they have the county inspect the dad's new home and then come back for another hearing in a few weeks to discuss having visits at said home. The judge pretty much shot that down cold. He (the judge) pointed out that the worker could and would increase visits and change location when that was warranted by the dad's involvement, so no, he didn't see a reason to do that.

The lawyer then asked if we could still have another hearing in a few weeks, so the court could hear about the dad's house being inspected by the county. The judge just stared at him for a minute, and said that even if the house is fine and the dad makes all his visits for a few weeks, they're not just going to move the baby in with him in a month. I loved the judge so much right then, you guys.

The lawyer understood that, but still thought maybe we could "evaluate the situation" again in a few weeks or a month. The judge again just stared at him for a minute, then said, "I'm not going to micromanage this case. I don't do that." And then he set our next hearing for JULY. I assume the judge realized that the lawyer was banking on the dad's habit of trying really hard in the few weeks before court to keep the dad moving forward, and the judge wasn't cool with it.

We'll actually be in court before July, because they'll be filing the paperwork to terminate parental rights in April. Apparently when they finish and file the paperwork on the termination of parental rights, it generates a court date or something, but we don't know when that will be until after the paperwork is filed, and we don't know how far behind the county is on writing those. I'm just hoping they don't schedule it for while I'm in labor.

And now, I have a sincere question for you all: Do you like these blow-by-blow recaps, or would you prefer a shorter summary?

I ask because I know I like to read as much detail as I can about how the court stuff works in other jurisdictions, but if most of you just skim this to get the basic gist, I'd happily cut it way down and give you an overview.  

Obligatory holiday post

Merry Christmas, y'all! Hope your day was full of loveliness and delightful surprises.

I have been dealing with some hormones the last few days, so my holidays have been about 93% delightful and 7% feeling overwhemed/crying/did you seriously just say that to me? So that's been pretty cool.

This crying shit is new, by the way. Made it to almost 15 weeks without crying overtaking me (besides relieved tears at the ultrasound), and then twice in the last two days, I seriously felt unable to stop myself from crying. Yesterday, Andy had to work so I had to do all of the last-minute Christmas stuff with the baby, while exhausted, and even when he got out of work he was only home for about half an hour before he had to leave to get ready for music at church. Usually this would have been "less than ideal, but nothing I can't handle!" but the hormones had me convinced it was ALL TOO MUCH and the poor guy walked in to find me wrapping presents and crying. I even was lucid enough to explain that really, I understood that my face was doing ridiculous things and that it was fine and the baby and I would be at church in our fancy clothes and all the last-minute stuff was seconds away from completion, but my face just would not quit with the tears.

Of course everything worked out fine, and we were there in our fanciest clothes, and his drumming and singing were awesome, as always. I actually love that he drums at church for Christmas Eve, since we don't even attend except Christmas and Easter. I think it's sweet, and I love that he has a real reason to drum for a while, since he was in a band when we met and our life right now wouldn't make that a great idea.

Today we had a really awesome slow morning, and the baby had a great time. Her favorite things to play with, in order: the box I used to wrap a belt for for Andy; the gum from Andy's stocking; the fancy-ass handmade wooden train set we got her; a jingling dog toy we've had longer than we've had her.

We spent the early afternoon with my family, and the late afternoon with Andy's. There was some nonsense from Andy's mom and sister, directed at me, that made it pretty clear that I'm still considered an outsider. I know the hormones are making it into a bigger deal than it might otherwise be, but I also know that in the past year I've worked hard at refusing to let people treat me poorly, so I'm trying hard to decide how to deal with this. (This was responsible for today's crying. Andy backs me up when he knows what's going on, but it's not always easy to relate a particular tone of voice or attitude, so it often seems like I'm making a fuss over nothing, I'm sure. He will support me fully in however I decide to handle this, which is very reassuring.)

So! I suppose NewBaby wanted to make itself known for the holidays as well. I've really enjoyed that other 93%, though, and I hope you all had less crying and more eggnog. I've got to work tomorrow so my version of unwinding right now will be some hot chocolate and a Christmas movie. If it weren't for NewBaby, the hot chocolate would have a serious dollop of Bailey's in there.

Obligatory holiday post

We had her up late last night, so the baby is still asleep right now, and Andy and I just enjoyed a leisurely piece of breakfast pie together. In a few minutes, I'm going to start working on the next round of pies - pecan, made without corn syrup - and Andy's going to start working on his fancy-pants sweet potatoes. Then we'll head over to my folks' to spend some extra time with my sister and her family. Today is not too shabby, you guys.

This is the traditional time for us to reflect on what we're grateful for, and I have to say, there's a whole lot on my list. My life is pretty spectacular, really. I'll try to keep this somewhat brief and also not too sappy, but here's a sampling of what I'm giving thanks for this year:

• My awesome husband and our wonderful marriage. Honestly, I'm legitimately thrilled that I get to hang out with this guy every day. He does little things all the time to make sure I feel loved and cared about. He has volunteered to take on SO MUCH lately so I can sit on the couch and feel queasy. He never tells me to stop being silly when I worry nonstop. He had a dream last night in which we had our baby, she was a healthy girl, and we had given her a really awesome name.

• Our life as parents. This baby is really awesome, and parenting her has been mostly a lot of fun. She is funny and charming and she likes to snuggle my face with hers, which she doesn't do with anyone else in the world. We call her Baby Girl a lot, and she has started calling herself Baba Gull. She also sometimes calls herself Baba Yaya, where "Yaya" is a hilariously mangled version of part of her name. We are so lucky to get to be her parents, even if it's not forever.

• The people we choose to surround ourselves with. Really, the only drama in our life comes from the foster care system and the baby's bio-family. We have many solid friendships with people who are genuinely awesome and sincere.

• Related to the above post, I'm really grateful for how kind everyone was to us after the miscarriage. It was the hardest thing I have ever gone through, and I learned that our friends immediately step up in situations like that. My parents, too, were amazing, and made sure we had food in the house, and took the baby to play and snuggle and hang out so we could just be alone together. The behavior of people close to us in a really shitty time made me okay with telling (some) people about this pregnancy, because I know I will need them again if anything goes wrong.

• This is going to sound weird, but I'm thankful for feeling shitty. I felt totally fine throughout the last pregnancy, so feeling crappy this time makes me feel like things are different. Don't get me wrong, I'm still totally a whiny baby about feeling queasy, but I am supremely grateful that there are indications this time that things are going okay in there. Also, for the first time, Andy and I can feel a bump now. We didn't feel one last time at all, and okay maybe I'm crying a little now.

I can hear the baby starting to wiggle around and it's Pie-Making Time, but I also want to say that I'm thankful for having this platform to work through stuff. I know many of my readers aren't foster parents, so thanks for asking questions and reading even when it's not relevant to your life. I have never had a single trolling comment on here (because I have like 12 readers and you're all awesome) so my little corner of the internet feels like a pretty cool place. I hope you are having a really awesome holiday and that you get breakfast pie as often as you want.

Three our-family things and three bio-family things

Our family!

1. Today is a lovely warm fall day, so while Andy does yardwork, the little girl and I are going to have an adventure to get the best apple fritters in the world (shout out to Zarpentine's Farm!) and also to get her some long-sleeved onesies, because girl is growing fast.

2. Before we can do that, the girl needs to take a nap. She has been fighting going to sleep for over an hour at this point. She has the funniest ways to keep herself awake, like sticking one arm in the air and banging the other foot repeatedly. I think while we're out we'll stop at Barnes and Noble to try to find a decent short board book about naps - the baby loves Time For Bed and she actually pulls it out at bedtime if we forget to grab it. Whatever we get, I'll get a copy for daycare too, so we can have the same routine in both places. Any nap-book recommendations?

3. My sister and her family are coming home for Thanksgiving instead of Christmas this year, and I am so excited to see them! For what might be the first time since we all left home, we're having a full dinner at my parents' house with both of my siblings and their families. It's going to be lovely. Andy's making sweet potatoes with pecan-marshmallow streusel topping. We actually still don't know what the plan is with Andy's side, except that neither of his sisters can make it and that both of the houses we might end up invited to have residents who smoke indoors. Urk.

The baby's bio-family!

I talked to the worker for a long while on Wednesday and found out the following things:
1. The baby's grandma told the worker on Monday that she feels like the baby is where she needs to be, and that she (the grandma) is not planning to file for custody again. WHAT. This is the exact opposite of what she's been saying all along, so even if she changes her mind tomorrow (totally possible and even likely), it's a huge step. The grandma thinking the baby is fine where she is doesn't have any legal bearing or any impact on where she'll end up, except that it might mean she won't file for custody at the last minute and drag out the whole process.

2. The baby's mom had been doing really well and had been taking care of herself in a way that made it look likely that she was actually trying to improve her life. Well, turns out she had been working so hard because she thought that she might be pregnant, and now that she knows she isn't, she isn't making such awesome choices. This is sad because dang, her life could be so much better than it is, but it also gives me hope that she chose to be pretty healthy for the benefit of the unborn baby.

3. The baby's dad left me a note a few weeks ago in the notebook we send to visits that he had been approved for a three-bedroom place and would be moving soon. I called the worker to let her know and she called the dad and then called me to report that actually, he had been approved for a one-bedroom place IN OUR TOWN, not in the very small town 45 minutes away he kept saying he was planning to move to. Now, our town isn't tiny (it's actually in our state's top ten by population), but we like the idea of the dad being close by because it feels like maybe it'll be more likely that we'll be able to see our girl if she goes to her dad. Also, per the worker on Wednesday, the dad was planning to move into the one-bedroom to try to get custody of our girl but the worker discouraged that because it would mean leaving his other two kids with his mom indefinitely, which, you know, the county doesn't really think is a great plan. So the process to correct the paperwork to try to get a three-bedroom place is annoyingly slow and complicated, which works out great for us because the dad has said all along that he's not planning to file for custody until after he moves. For the first time, I actually feel like I can plan to have the baby here for her birthday (in mid-December) and Christmas.

The worker also told me that she's planning to start the paperwork process for writing the termination of parental rights after the baby's been with us for a year (in January) because it's a lot of stuff to compile. She is always pretty up-front that the baby's case could still end up with her back with bio-family, but she said that as it stands there would still need to be significant improvement for them to agree the baby should be moved. So, in summation, time keeps ticking on this case and no one is making big strides to get her back.

What is the thing you're most excited about making for Thanksgiving? Or, if you've been following this baby's saga, what do you think of these new developments?

What it's like so far

We've told our families and close friends, so now I can talk about being pregnant on the internet without fear, right? Isn't that how that works?

So far, here's how it's going:
1. No morning sickness yet - but I fully expect it to knock me out, because I'm a sissy.
2. All I want to eat is fruit. All the time. I ate TWO QUARTS of cherries in three days. And twice now I've managed to eat an entire (large) watermelon by myself in three or four days. Other food sounds okay until it's in front of me, and then I don't really want it. This is especially true for protein.
3. I have to pee all the time. On average, I pee about five times during an eight-hour work day. This is directly related to:
4. I'm always really thirsty. I drink water with lime constantly. Soda is not as appealing as it usually is. (This will not stop me from drinking the twelve-pack of caffeine-free Coke Andy bought me.)
5. My boobs hurt. A lot. Like they're giant bruises. The baby headbutted me the other day and it made my eyes water it hurt so bad.
6. Minor things become a huge irritation. My WIC appointment last week was so frustrating I wanted to cry. Yesterday Andy's sister and her boyfriend (who are in town for the 4th) dropped by unannounced during what should have been naptime, and I tried hinting that yes, the baby would go down better if they headed out, and when hinting didn't work I was ... less than polite. Which then caused an argument with Andy, who had stopped on his way home to get me roses and a watermelon (See No. 2) and the caffeine-free Coke and some ice cream, just to be awesome. So then I felt like a dick, which made me cry. Often, for like an hour at a time, I feel like I'm having the worst PMS of my life. And knowing I'm being unreasonable, which used to help me snap out of it, is not helpful at all.
7. I get these weird little flashes of anxiety, like I just remembered that I have to be the person to tell someone terrible news. Then I remember that the news is actually really awesome and the moment passes.

So that's what's up in my uterus this week.

Fun day!

Andy's birthday was a few weeks ago. I finally figured out what to do for his birthday this year, and I have to say it was a huge success! We had a date day!

We both took the day off today, and the baby still went to daycare. Andy and I started with breakfast at a diner around the corner (the garden omelet, no peppers, for me; steak and eggs for Andy). Then we played a round of mini-golf. Andy was WAY better than I am, but I laughed until I cried two different times and also I got two holes-in-one (to Andy's zero, I might add), so all told I call that a success.

Then we went to see The Avengers! It's the first time we've gone to the movies in about six months. I didn't know much about the movie before we arrived, but it turns out I'm enough of a dork that I've seen most of the necessary backstory movies so I followed it pretty easily. We used to go to the movies all the time (we usually went to our awesome second-run theater) so it was nice to get a chance to do that again.

After the movie, since we were right near the fancy mall anyway, we went shopping for a bit. We lucked into bonus-forty-percent-off-sale-price-day at the Gap! Then we finished up with some mocha-coconut frappucinos before we picked the baby up from daycare.

It was really nice to have a day just enjoying each other's company without worrying about leaving the baby with a sitter or taking her with us and having both of us spend more energy on her than ourselves. I think this might become a regular occurrence!

On wanting certainty

So Mary over at Noah Baby Blog wrote a really interesting post yesterday, about how she's always been pro-fostering and pro-adoption but that it hasn't stopped her from wanting to get pregnant and give birth. And I commented, because I totally get that.

When we started this whole foster care thing last year, I didn't know if I ever wanted to get pregnant. But I can tell you that in the last five months, since this perfect baby girl arrived, I've realized I want to get knocked up and have a baby. I've realized part of why this is: I WANT THE CERTAINTY. I don't want to have that heart-wrenching up-and-down mess that comes with fostering and, often, with adoptive placements falling through. I don't want to have to wonder where my baby will be in a year.

We had court on Wednesday, and there's still no certainty about where this baby will be growing up. The grandma has filed for custody, but the county and the dad don't support that. The dad told the worker that he doesn't want the baby to be adopted (but didn't say why), so it looks like they'll have to eventually terminate his rights or place the baby with him - and the longer this gets dragged out, the more likely placement looks, because he currently has two older kids living with him and the biggest argument keeping this baby out of there is her age. I hate that I can only plan our lives together in little tiny chunks. And I know that giving birth to a child doesn't come with any guarantees of certainty, of course, but at least I won't have to run everything by a social worker and other, "real" parents.

I want to parent this baby forever. But that can't be certain, and I want something certain. And here's the cool thing: There's a very not-zero chance that I might be pregnant. (Either it's a yes, or I'll be seeing a doctor about whatever the hell is going on! I'll be testing tomorrow.)

This current baby is obviously my heart's first child. She will always be my daughter. But I'm pretty psyched about making her a big sister. (Re: possible pregnancy: Yeah, I just teared up writing that while the baby's sleeping in my arms. Hormones! Yeah!)

Rainy weekend

How is it that a four-day week feels like it took forever? Andy and I both woke up yesterday thinking it was Friday, for some reason, so today just felt like a punishment.

It was 92°here on Monday, and today it's 56° and rainy. (For the record, I prefer 56°and rainy.) 


We have shit planned for tomorrow: Andy's doing a work thing in the morning while I hang out with my mom and help her with her resume, since she found out this week she's getting laid off, which blows, and then in the evening we're doing dinner with Andy's aunt and uncle because they haven't met the baby yet due to living in Florida for half the year. Then Sunday I think we're having my friend's husband, who's a plumber, come take a look at our backyard spigot, which is insisting on spitting water into our basement. (I will pay him in baked goods, as per his request.)


I really like weekends, you guys! 


This has been a boring, pointless post. You're welcome.

Off-routine

We got back into town yesterday evening from being out of state for three days for my great-aunt's funeral. The baby did incredibly well, all things considered, and slept about 90% of the time we were in the car (eight hours each way) and still slept through the night, so the few minor freak-outs are totally fine by me.

She did well with the bizillion people she met this weekend. (For background, my mom is one of 23 first cousins, and I'm one of 114 descendants from my grandmother and her four siblings.) The baby did well with people wanting to be all up in her five-month-old face and grinned adorably pretty much on cue. She even let a few people hold her for more than two minutes, which is awesome. Every once in a while she'd get overwhelmed and need some extra love, but really, the trip was pretty smooth. The funeral was lovely, as these things go, and the one time I came close to really losing it (during Amazing Grace, natch) the baby grinned up at me and farted quietly, which made me laugh instead of sob and which I'm certain my great-aunt would have appreciated. And events with that side of the family are a lot like family reunions and it was very nice to see some people I haven't seen in a while and love dearly. 

So we got in around 8 last night and did our best to get back into routine right away, but this morning, for the first time ever, she freaked out at daycare and they had to call me to see what they should do or if I should come get her since she had been crying FOR AN HOUR. I told them to call me sooner next time and to try swaddling her, which worked in about four minutes. The poor thing. I'm pretty sure she's just trying to get back on track and needed some extra love in the form of a nice tight blanket. She was fine after she woke up from her nap and is grinning gummily at a dog right now.

The baby has a visit scheduled with her mom tomorrow. The worker is meeting the mom before the visit to go through the letter from the dermatologist and do her best to ascertain whether or not the mom has completed everything she needs to do. The worker is pretty no-nonsense about these things and the mom's not a great liar, so I'm not-so-secretly hoping the worker doesn't let her have the visit. If she does have the visit and the baby gets infected AGAIN, it looks really bad for the mom in court, so hopefully the worker can get that through to her.

What did I miss on the internets while I was gone?

On parenting

It has surprised me how natural parenting has been for me and Andy. I'm not sure if that's human nature or the fact that we're both very nurturing people or what, but there hasn't been too much of a learning curve - even for Andy, who had a lot less experience with babies than I did.

I posted early on in the placement that any time the baby fussed at night, I woke up immediately and completely. I still wake up whenever she makes a noise, but sort of doze while I wait to hear if she actually needs something or if she'll go back to sleep on her own (which is most of the time). (This baby is very awesome and has been sleeping through the night since she was about two months old. She does occasionally need her pacifier stuck back in, but we haven't fed her in the middle of the night in months.) I do have to occasionally remind myself (and Andy) that even if picking her up is enough to get her to stop fussing, it's a good idea to check her diaper anyway, but other than that things are pretty smooth.

I still get a little defensive about people's opinions of how we should handle the baby's attachment issues. She is okay with being held by me and by Andy and by two out of five ladies at daycare, and that's pretty much the end of the list. If she were a "normal" baby who hadn't spent a month learning that adults couldn't be counted on, I would let her fuss more with other people, but she needs to know that Andy and I will take care of her, so we take her when she starts to cry. The funeral we'll be attending soon will mean introducing the baby to dozens of family members, many of whom will want to hold her, which will mean a crying baby, and me taking her back from confused people who want to tell me what I should do instead. I'm working on repeating "This is what's working for our family" (via k8t in this metafilter thread) often enough that it comes naturally.

In the past three-plus months, I have also developed WAY more respect for single parents, who I already thought were pretty awesome. Seriously, I don't get how single parents with infants manage to keep themselves clothed and showered without someone to tag-team with. And yes, I am saying this as someone who has recently had to poop while holding a baby who decided that sleeping in her carseat was a totally unacceptable situation. (Fun story to tell her prom date?)

What awesome parenting tips do you have with your kids or remember your parents using?

Reflections on two deaths

Cheerful title, huh?

Andy's grandma died about three years ago. Decades of smoking had robbed her of her health and, interestingly, her voice, so that the last few years of her life she spoke in a whisper. (She also had always pronounced my name "Racial" instead of "Rachael," which I thought was funny, and I can do a spot-on impression of her whispering my name, to the general amusement of Andy's sisters.) She went into the hospital with some sort of lump, was operated on and sent to a nursing home to recover, and moved from there to a hospice. We were there a lot in her last few days, and Andy's younger sister was there with us one afternoon. His grandma had been mostly unresponsive, and occasionally would do this terrifying gurgling breath that the hospice workers assured us was normal and much worse for us hearing it than for his grandma. At one point, Andy's sister went over, sat on the side of the bed, took their grandma's hand, and said, loudly, "Grandma? I love you."

And their grandma whispered, "Love you too."

I'm almost certain those were the last words she said.

My great-aunt died on Saturday. She was 92 and was spry enough to have been driving until about a year ago. She was my family's matriarch, the great queenly lady who delighted everyone and held court wherever she was (and there was always a court around her - she had 12 kids). She went into the hospital with "a minor heart attack" three weeks ago and went downhill, then bounced back, then went downhill, then bounced back, then moved into home hospice care. Said great-aunt lives not too far from the Kid, who went to see her last week. Our aunt was slipping in and out of responsiveness, but wasn't reacting to much. But whenever the Kid's daughter, my perfect little niece, yelled or babbled or made noises, our aunt would struggle to sit up and turn towards her.

I don't really have a nice tidy reflection on this. My sister told me about our aunt trying so hard to respond to the little great-great-nice she adored, and it made me think of Andy's grandma talking to his sister. Life and death are interesting things, and love is pretty powerful.

The county said it won't be a problem for us to bring the baby with us to the funeral, even though it's out of state, so I'm grateful for that.

Home visit

So Sunday my niece was born, Monday we had court and I started a new position at work, Tuesday I had a WIC appointment (always THE WORST), and yesterday we had a home visit with the baby's worker and also we brought dinner to my bro and his wife and the new baby twenty minutes away. Oh, and tonight we have dinner with my parents. Because of course we do. I am so, so glad that tomorrow is Friday.

So the home visits are scheduled for half an hour and are basically for the worker to confirm that the child is alive and the home is still standing. The old worker would stop in, say hello, ask if we had any questions, answer them if I did, usually check the baby's sleeping area, and then bounce. Yesterday the worker was here for an hour and a half.

This worker is pretty great. She answers all of my million questions and is way more forthcoming about information that might not be considered crucial for our case - like she'll share pieces of history about the brother's case or tell us about the dad's other kids' mom's situation - in a way that our first worker didn't. She also is really good at answering my questions about the process, so that's helpful in me seeing what possibilities are ahead of us.

She confirmed for me yesterday that there is very, very little chance that the baby will go anywhere between now and the scheduled court case in July. For her to go anywhere, the grandma's lawyer would have to petition the court to place the baby with the grandma, and I think there would have to be a hearing. The worker also reassured me that the county still wouldn't support that, even if her lawyer did petition the court (which is itself incredibly unlikely - it's just that I asked the worker exactly what would have to happen for her to go somewhere before July). The worker also told me that sometime in the next few months she'll talk to the mom about surrendering her rights. That isn't a likely outcome, but the worker says that the mom is doing very little to show any progress and might be persuaded to stop dragging it out. I asked what that would mean about the grandma wanting custody, and the worker said that if the mom voluntarily surrenders her rights, that removes the grandma from the equation. I did confirm that the dad would have to surrender his rights too (he's the adjudicated father, which means he has attested in court that he is her dad) and he might fight it because he's a pretty proud dude (and also because it gives him some power over the mom).

This is by far the longest we will have gone without a court date, which is really cool. We know we'll have the baby for my first niece's first birthday party. I can buy even more summery outfits for her. (Also, and this isn't a minor thing, I am going two months before my next WIC appointment instead of the every-month bullshit I had to do until now.) It is nice to think about our time together as a family doubling by July!

Do you guys have any questions about any of this shit, like the process or how it all works or anything? I'll answer if I can!

Two big days

So I started a new position at work today. I haven't even really freaked out about it. Much.

I think it will be a good move. I'm still editing, but what I'm working on and the process is pretty different now. It's a much more complicated and involved job, which I think I'll like. And the trainer and the boss for the new department seem a lot more in line with my communication style than my old boss, who basically just presented numbers and let you draw your own conclusions.

I also had two secret weapons to keep me from bugging about work today:

1. My brother and his wife had their daughter yesterday morning! She is perfect and chubby and squeaks like a mouse in her sleep. She was not expected for another week but my sister-in-law had an easy labor (SHE SLEPT THROUGH CENTIMETERS FOUR THROUGH TEN) and both the baby and the mama are doing wonderfully. In fact, Andy and I brought them Mexican food for dinner last night! We are so excited to finally have her around.

2. We had court today! The baby's mom is still contesting the allegations that brought the baby into care, so they set a pretrial conference and then the actual trial date today. So it's looking like we'll have the baby at least through June 12 (the date of the pretrial conference, at which they will give the mom yet another chance to consent to the allegations) and we'll likely have her through July 9, the first date scheduled for the trial. We also learned something from the worker this week that makes it sound like the grandma thinks that if she doesn't have physical custody of the child then she'll be out of her life completely, so we asked the worker to have a conversation with the grandma to the effect that if the baby stays with us (whether by county order or by the grandma realizing that it's too much for her to take an infant on top of everything in her own life) that we would like the baby's family to still be in her life - particularly the grandma, who is the most stable of the adults involved, and the baby's brother who is in the grandma's care. We brought a few pictures today for both the mom and the grandma (doubles, so they didn't have to share) and they were both very grateful. So it's super awesome that we'll have this baby at least another two months, but we know the longer we keep her the harder it will be if the judge orders her elsewhere.

She's snoozing in my arms right now, and I'm so happy to be holding her.

Andy and I are planning to celebrate my new position, our new niece, and the continued presence of our precious baby girl with some steaks on the grill and the the first Pimm's Cup of the season!

Obligatory holiday post

We had a busy day today. It was our first holiday with a kid, and it wasn't easy.

First, we went to church for the first time since the kid got here. We sat in the church's Crying Room, because we didn't know how the baby would do in a new setting, and she was markedly the best kid in there. Because apparently "crying room" is now code for "loud rambunctious toddler room". There were about five two-year-olds running around screeching. The baby should have napped for most of the service, but was frequently startled out of almost-sleep by noisy kids.

Then we went to my folks' house for brunch. The baby does pretty well with my parents but it's still a change of pace, and my brother and his wife were there so it was extra stimulation and change. She napped about half as much as she usually does. We finally got her into a decent nap, and after she woke up we headed to Andy's parents' house.

We haven't brought the baby there at all. Andy's mom is a smoker and she smokes in the house, so when the baby first arrived, we had a very difficult conversation with her and told her we wouldn't bring the baby there if she still smokes inside. Andy's mom wasn't thrilled with our choice, but we think it's important for the baby's health and have stuck by it for three months. However, holidays are a little extra complicated. We didn't want to not celebrate Easter with his family, but we also didn't want to host a huge group at our house with a tired, overwhelmed baby. Andy's sisters were both in town, both with new romantic interests, and Andy's uncle and his girlfriend were there too.

I also had forgotten that FUCKING EVERYONE HAS AN OPINION ABOUT FOSTER CARE and we're expected to listen politely to all of those opinions. I got a little sassy at one point, because I am not interested in being lectured about this, but overall it could have been worse.

Now we're all fucking tired and going to bed early. Hope your Easter was restful and full of joy!

Just to make things more interesting...

We're considering getting involved with the interstate fostering/adoption of my cousin's half-sister's as-yet-unborn child.

I think it's pretty unlikely that anything will happen with this, but here's the situation: My favorite cousin is AC. She lives in Virginia. So does AC's half-sister, AG, who is not a blood relative to me. AG had a pretty tumultuous childhood and doesn't have the drive and determination that allowed AC to rise above that same childhood and become a successful adult. AG is pregnant, due in August, and woefully unprepared to be a parent. AC has brought up the subject of adoption, and AG was very resistant. However, AC and the sisters' mom think AG is simply not capable of being a parent, and think the child will likely end up in foster care.

That's where we come in. We have offered ourselves as an adoptive placement, if they think AG will be more receptive to an open adoption with someone she has at least met (she knew me when we were kids, but has never met Andy). If she is still adamant that it won't happen, we can have AC and their mom list me and Andy as a possible kinship placement if/when the child enters foster care in their Virginia county.

I talked to AC yesterday and officially offered our home as a placement for the baby. AC told me that she has envisioned that exact scenario as the perfect solution at least a hundred times since she found out her sister is pregnant. The family supports me and Andy adopting the baby, and with the distance (geographically and in our relationship) I'd be able to set better boundaries with AG than either AC or their mom might. Also, Andy and I are already signed up to parent children born to other people. We're prepared for this. Now that it's all out on the table, we'll work on a plan for this idea to be presented to AG (by AC or by me - we're not sure if she'd respond better to hearing about what foster care/parenting is actually like from me).

I also called the foster care office in their county today. I talked to a lady about how their county defines kinship placements (as in, are we close enough to be considered family?) and she reassured me that if the family names us as a kinship placement, they'll go with it. We also discussed how we could be involved if/when the child enters foster care several hours away. Apparently their county holds "family planning" meetings after a child enters care, and AC and the sisters' mom would have the opportunity to speak and to invite us as an already-certified possible placement.

So in addition to dealing with the current placement's super-complicated case, we're getting involved in another no-way-to-know-how-this-will-go crazy scenario. Totally a reasonable idea.

In real life, not knowing what's going to happen DRIVES ME NUTS. I hate not being able to plan. I think out nine million different scenarios and outcomes and can't fall asleep because I can't turn off my brain. But hey, another kid is being born into an unsafe situation, and this time we might be able to prevent a kid being dumped on AC by her unstable half-sister. So I'll call AC next week and we'll start planning.

Do you know of anyone doing a family placement? Or an interstate thing? Are we just plain nuts?

Grandma and doctor and rolling and baby shower

1. On Friday the baby had her first visit with her grandma, who will likely be the person the baby ends up with. We were very glad that they had a visit, as the grandma hasn't seen the baby in two months and we want the baby to be comfortable with her if she has to live there! We wrote the grandma a note telling her we were so happy about the visit and how awesome the baby was, and not to be offended if the baby fussed a lot because she's very used to be being held mostly by me and Andy, and that we'd love to hear how the visit went if she wanted to write back. And she did write back! She started by thanking us for taking such good care of the baby (which is very gratifying to hear, for real), and that the baby "wasn't feeling well" and had spit up most of the bottle so she was probably hungry. I'm assuming that meant that the baby did indeed fuss a lot and was worked up when they fed her and then spit it up. The Friday visit with the grandma (and the baby's brother) should become a regular thing, so we're hopeful that the baby gets used to her after a while.

2. We took the baby to the doctor today because she has a cold. If she were my kid, I wouldn't have called about a cold, because seriously, babies get colds, but we want to err on the side of overly cautious. Her cold also coincided with her discovering her ears, so she started pulling on slash holding her ears when she was falling asleep, so I wanted to make sure it wasn't an ear infection. Because she's not my kid, I want to make sure we've always done our due diligence in making sure she's in great shape. The pediatrician reported that she does just have a cold with a mild fever, but her ears look fine, and prescribed Baby Tylenol. She's been fussier at night, which is not fun for me. Andy sleeps through it, but I'm TIRED today.

3. The baby rolled over this weekend! Twice! Like it was no big deal! She's three and a half months old now, so rolling over from front to back is developmentally right on target. I cheered like she had spontaneously started speaking in French. Being a parent is weird.

4. This weekend we had a baby shower for my brother and sister-in-law, who are expecting a baby girl next month. I managed to finish a sweater for the girlie, and wove in the ends at eleven o'clock the night before the shower. By the time my fat baby goddaughter arrived, I had knitted her a blanket and sweater with a matching dress - and I invented the pattern for the dress because I couldn't one that was just right. Turns out having a kid around makes it sort of hard to get knitting done. Oops.