Hi dudes, hope y'all are doing well. I'm happy to report that M's adoption was finalized in April and now we can get down to the business of being family forever.

M's bio-mom gave birth to a little girl in May. We haven't heard anything from her, but we're staying certified in case that little one needs a safe space. I'm a little baby-crazy these days (our bio-daughter turned two last month so it's right on schedule!) so I find myself daydreaming about a third. Andy thinks I'm crazy.

If you want to switch to following me on Tumblr (I post pretty regularly), email me at makingitawkward AT gmail DOT com. I'd be happy to have ya!

An update and a blog hiatus

M's mom surrendered in September. We signed an Intent to Adopt, which is legally binding and prevents the county from searching for a different placement for M. We've had one visit with each of her parents and they both went as well as we could have hoped.

The baby is working hard on teething and it keeps us up a lot at night and I'm back to newborn levels of exhaustion but without those newborn hormones to help.

We finally got assigned an adoption worker and the word on the street is that she is a cantankerous stickler who looks for problems where there are none and will generally act like we're trying to pull a fast one on her by adopting our beloved daughter. Should be fun.

I'm starting a tumblr to document more of the day to day stuff. If you're interested, contact me and I'll shoot you the link. I will probably come back to this joint eventually but there's just so much happening all the time that the longer entries here are a chore to compose because I want to be thorough. Thanks for reading!

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.

Less than no progress

We had court last week. We expected nothing to happen: the first hearing in the termination process is basically the county saying, "hey judge, we plan to proceed with this petition. Everything is filed correctly and all of the necessary parties have been served." Then the judge says, "oh okay, cool. See you in a few weeks."

Well, instead of that, we were adjourned for three weeks. The mom didn't show up, and the dad didn't know he had a new attorney despite having been properly notified (and the new attorney didn't know either, somehow, and hadn't seen any of the paperwork on the case). So we sat in the waiting room from 8:50 until 11:15, and then we spent four minutes in the courtroom setting a new date.

The only positive thing is that the judge didn't want to wait until the next permanency hearing we have scheduled for the end of June, which indicates that he's not feeling patient with the case. He scheduled us for a new date in the middle of June - in the same week that we have Nora's birthday and Andy's birthday and checkups for both girls and my sister coming into town for kids' birthday parties. PERFECT.

Really looking forward to some sort of progress happening before M is a teenager.

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.

Hello, hello

Hello, internet friends! We are all alive and well. It turns out it's really, really exhausting to have two little kids and a new house and a full-time job, so the blog was an easy thing to cut.

The paperwork to terminate M's parents' rights still haven't been filed. The worker told me last week the writing portion is finally done, so now they're making copies of all the relevant documentation (two full years' worth of letters and emails and notices and stuff), then it'll to go an administrator for review, then it'll be filed. No idea how long that'll take. We had court in January and her dad's attorney tried to suggest we look towards moving visits to the dad's house, and the county attorney and M's attorney advised against it. The judge denied the request and set our next hearing at the standard six months, which is significant - he could have told the worker to increase visits, or set a date a month out, or all sorts of other things, and the fact that he didn't might mean he's not interested in playing around. Maybe. Who knows.

The new baby isn't quite as new - Nora is now a fun happy seven-month-old who has three teeth and another ready to break through any second. We moved her to her own room a few weeks ago and we're all doing okay with it - she only woke up once last night! I'm still really struggling with being away from the girls during the day, even though I know full well that there is nothing wrong with daycare and that if anything it's actively good for M. Still sucks every day. Still want to quit my job and just hang out with these two. Still have no way to make that work financially. Blarg.

My laptop battery is about to die, so this will be brief. See you soon, maybe!

It's the holdiay season!

Y'all. We have a real Christmas tree, and M helped decorate it. Having a toddler is fucking cool, so much of the time. Her language skills are fantastic and she's funny and I love her. There's not much new with her case - her dad only had one visit in November due to a medical thing, and because it was medical stuff the missed visits don't count against him, which pisses me off because when she finally visited again, it freaked her out and made her cry. I've spoken with her attorney and with the pediatrician and with the worker, and we're just waiting for the stupid papers to be filed STILL.

M's birthday is coming up, then we have Christmas, then we have the anniversary of her arrival in early January, so lots of busy craziness in the coming weeks. Nora is down to one or two feedings a night, so I'm hoping to get to one consistently so I don't collapse from exhaustion.

Hello, hello

1. M had a visit with her biological mom this week. It was the first time M had seen her mom in 18 months. I requested to be allowed to attend, so M could have someone she was familiar with, and the worker reported that the mom said she wasn't trying to be a bitch or anything but she didn't want me there. I'm choosing to look at it this way: The mom knows the termination is coming. She will almost certainly wait until the last minute and then surrender her rights, because if she surrenders she can request visits. She's comfortable with the worker (they've known each other for about five years) and it's scary as hell to start visiting a child you haven't seen in over a year, but a lot more scary to do so when it's at the whim of the strangers who have been raising that child. I'm trying to be positive about this, because of course it would be better for M to have a relationship with her mom, but damn does it suck to see her wrecked by visits over and over again. The night of a visit she cycles between being super clingy, and naughty on purpose, and silly and manic. It's rough. And now that she's able to communicate, she tells us she doesn't want to go on visits, and it really sucks that that doesn't matter to anyone but us.

2. Other than visits, nothing is new with her case. The worker reported that the termination paperwork was "half done" but I have no idea what that means in terms of time. Our next court date is scheduled for January, but the worker remains optimistic we'll be in before then to have the first hearing about termination. Oh, and the dad attended every single visit for a whole month (all of October) for the first time ever, and then canceled his first visit in November. And they're changing the visit times AGAIN because of the dad's bullshit, so that's pretty cool for M.

3. We're in the new house and it's starting to feel like home. The stuff we need for daily living is all unpacked, so now we have to decide where we're keeping stuff like outgrown baby clothes or Christmas decorations or whatever. We are making slow progress, because by the time both girls are in bed we're both just ready to collapse, and it's hard to make ourselves do stuff like paint all of the ugly celery-green trim in the upstairs hall when there's a new season of Parks and Recreation on Netflix.

4. Nora is still awesome and funny and huge - she'll be five months old this week, and she's wearing six-to-nine-month clothes. She discovered on Thursday that she can get her foot to her mouth, which is pretty funny to watch. She laughs when she sees me and my heart just about explodes every time.

5. This past week has capital-S Sucked. Being at work and away from the girls was harder than it's been in a month. Work has been annoying and I've been tense and grumpy just about every minute I'm there. I cried when M's mom showed up for the visit and there was no call from the worker that the mom had changed her mind and I could come. And then I got my period for the first time in over a year and it all made sense. I don't really know how to have a period anymore. I got super indignant that this shit happens every goddamn month, too. What is that about?

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.

Blogging break over!

Hello, internet friends. Here is what is happening around here:

1. Our baby is still the greatest. She's eleven weeks old and so happy and laid back and she just wants to hang out all the time.

2. It's awesome that she's so awesome, but it makes it way harder to be back at work. I went back three weeks ago and I hate being away from her so, so much. We talked about me going part-time, but our benefits are through my job so if I dropped my hours we'd have to get them through Andy's work, for more money and less coverage. So mostly I just get really teary a lot, and Andy does drop-off so I'm not a weepy mess. I rush to pick the girls up every afternoon and spend as much time in the evening holding Nora as is possible.

3. M is still a funny sweet lovely kid, and she still adores Nora. Today she walked by me and smooched the top of Nora's head, absentmindedly almost, as I was holding the baby. Our usual worker is still out on leave, and the new worker is in no rush to do anything at all with M's case. This is good in that her dad's visits haven't been extended (which the judge ordered in July), and really really shitty in that she hasn't done anything to get the paperwork filed to terminate M's parents' rights. Our usual worker is back next month so I'm trying to not freak too much.

4. We're still waiting for a closing date on our house. It is frustrating to have to wait on banks and mortgage dudes and appraisers and who even knows who else. But I'm daydreaming about autumn in our new-old house, with pumpkins on the front porch and pretty leaves changing color on our street!

I'm fucking tired a lot still so I've been keeping up with reading the internets while I'm pumping at work (p.s. I HATE pumping at work) but can't be bothered to post here much. I'll try not to be away for a month again though!

Quick court and house updates

1. Court. Nothing changed, really. The dad's new lawyer argued for extending the dad's visits, which the judge approved. So now instead of the very bare minimum (one-hour supervised visits two times a week), he's got one step up (two-hour supervised visits two times a week). The worker is switching the time back to mornings to make it easier on M. They haven't filed the termination paperwork yet and probably won't for another month or so (UGH). M's mom was delighted to see pictures of M and says she's back on track and trying to start visits and wants to really try to get M back. I told her that we are so happy to hear she's doing well and hope she continues to do so, and that if she doesn't feel that it's successful we want her to be part of M's life if she stays with us. I worded it more nicely, though. Oh, and according to the dad he only sees his new baby when the mom's in town, which I'm guessing means that he doesn't see her at all. Why can't he go after that kid instead of M??

2. The seller of our house didn't agree to give us any money for the garage issues but we're buying it anyway. We'll be closing in early September. Which is great, because it's been two and a half weeks with my folks and we're starting to feel that friction that comes with too much time in close proximity - nothing serious, just little annoyances. It's a big relief to me to have a finish line in sight. Also I've been watching a lot of HGTV while I'm nursing or pumping, to get ideas and because I haven't had cable in years and holy shit, there's a lot of garbage on tv.

Oops, forgot I had a blog.

Hello, hello! I forgot I had a blog for a minute there. We've been happily learning how to be a family of four, plus also we sold our house and moved in with my parents. You know. No big deal. Life as usual.

This baby is still awesome and I'm still loving every second with her. She has outgrown her newborn-sized clothes and it amazes me that my body is responsible not just for growing her but also for every single ounce and inch she's gained since birth. That's some primal mammalian shit right there. Breastfeeding is not bad for me, praise Yeezus, except when she decides to eat every hour on the hour all day and then it's RIP, nipples, for a day or two. I'm off work this week and two more weeks and I pretty much want to hold her every minute of those weeks. She's five weeks old and grins delightedly when you talk to her, so you'd be doing the same thing if you were me.

Fun housing thing: back at the beginning of June we put in a low offer on a house that hit pretty much everything on our "YES!" list but that had a few quirks. Well, to be brief, after a lot of back-and-forth where they tried to get us to give them more money and we kept saying "No, really, that's our best offer. You can say no it it, but we don't have more money than that.", they finally got desperate and accepted the offer as it was originally written. WHAT? But then we had the inspection yesterday, and it uncovered some structural issues in the detached garage, plus confirmed that yeah, buying a house that was built in 1850 will mean we'll eventually be putting out money for upgrading shit like plumbing. So we're waiting to see if the seller will give us money for the garage and then deciding if we buy the house with the 100% perfect location and a bunch of weird small-to-large issues, or if we walk away and start the search all over. Because you all know how much I love uncertainty! It's so much fun!

Speaking of uncertainty! We have court for M tomorrow. I'm pretty sure the paperwork for termination of parental rights hasn't been filed yet, so nothing will happen. Just kidding, even if that's been filed, I'm pretty sure nothing will happen tomorrow. I'll be bringing Nora with me to court, so the classy people being served by our county's Family Court will possibly be getting a glimpse of my nipples. So for once maybe I'll be the spectacle in that waiting room, instead of the yokels yelling about felonies or the teenage girl in a tiara and sweatpants and socks but no shoes. (I love the Family Court waiting room a real lot, you guys. No joke.)

M is still dealing with all the changes in her life pretty well. In the space of a month and a half, she got a new sister, moved in with her grandparents, and moved from the baby room to the toddler room at daycare. She is coping so much better than we could have hoped. Slightly more meltdowns than normal, but nothing too crazy. The only thing that has surprised me is that she's decided she is scared of the bathtubs here. We've tried the big whirlpool tub (she loved the one at my sister's), but even with me in there with her it was a no. We also tried the super-fancy light blue tub in the bathroom with the matching light blue toilet, sinks, and wall and floor tiles (thanks, 1960s!) and that was also deemed too scary. So she's been getting a lot of scrubdowns with soapy washcloths while we work on getting more comfortable with the tubs. It makes me sad to see my confident brave girl so scared, but I know it's mostly just a reaction to so much change. Poor sweet kid.

I'll try to update soon with results from court!

Oh hello, hormones!

Watching The Jeff Probst Show - I didn't know that was a thing until yesterday, and I don't actually know who Jeff Probst is except that he has a talk show (is he famous?) - and some dude just proposed to his girlfriend in a totally cheesy way and I still teared up. THANKS, 'MONES!

We're all still doing well over here. Hormones are fun, because they seem to basically amplify whatever I'm feeling. Tuesday was my first day with just me and the baby (Andy back to work, M to daycare), and I missed Andy and M so much all day. I actually had to drop something off at daycare for M and she cried for me when I left and I sat in my car crying for about five minutes before I could pull it together enough to drive home (she had a visit that afternoon and she gets picked up from daycare and I couldn't deal with the logistics of switching that, so bringing her home with me wasn't a great option). I'm having a much harder time not knowing what's going on with her future, and I want her around a lot. I mean, not enough to keep her home from daycare, because girl is ENERGETIC and I'm still exhausted and recovering from shooting a human out of me, but I miss her more and stuff, and I find myself wanting to snuggle her out of every little toddler freakout. She doesn't think that's a great idea, because she's only ever been interested in snuggling when it's on her terms, but it doesn't keep me from trying.

Oh, I talked to our new worker yesterday and she told me they've finally started the paperwork to terminate M's parents' rights, but that she thinks it's very likely that the dad will get a suspended judgment (basically, an extra year to get his shit together, subject to specific conditions). Her dad's been very consistent with his visits for May and June, but two months out of 17 isn't enough to convince me that he is really invested in M. Plus, you know, hormones, so I'm freaking about losing her and all. We have a service plan review next week and then a court hearing in three weeks, so I have LOTS OF FEELINGS.

Nora is still awesome and is growing fast. M was formula-fed, of course, so it's weird to not know exactly how much Nora's eating at a time. She gained almost a pound in a week, so it looks like we're doing fine!

I had a baby!

Internet! I HAVE A NEW BABY!

She finally arrived on Father's Day after 36-ish hours of labor. Andy was born on Father's Day, incidentally, and she shares a birthday with our goddaughter, her cousin. She's so fucking cool.

Labor and delivery did not go exactly as planned, as you might have guessed when I mentioned THIRTY-SIX-PLUS HOURS. It started with regular contractions on Friday night and lasted through Sunday at noon. We found out about two hours before the baby was born that she was face-up, which explains the very slow progression and the seriously painful back labor that I didn't identify as back labor until afterwards. I'm sure you all know that with my hippie leanings I was planning to go med-free if I could, but I ended up getting an epidural at about 8 centimeters so I could try to rest before I needed to push, and I'm really glad I did, because while I was dozing my body relaxed enough that the baby started to turn, so she could come out the right way. She was 7 pounds, 15 ounces and is perfectly healthy. Her name is Eleanor Jane, and we call her Nora.

I'm feeling incredibly lucky to be one of those moms who just can't stop staring at the baby, all blissed out and amazed that she came out of me and that she's totally perfect. I've struggled with depression in the past and know that having a history with depression makes postpartum depression more likely, so Andy and I are both keeping an eye out for symptoms, but so far I just couldn't be happier. I'm so amazed by her eyelashes and her little toes and her skinny chicken legs and that I made all of them with my own body.

M is adjusting very well and is incredibly sweet to the baby. She is still very much a toddler, so she happily kisses the baby and loves to snuggle her, but hollers for attention when we're absorbed with Nora. We've been working on giving her lots of extra love and snuggles and attention, while still being consistent with rules and boundaries. I think, all things considered, she is doing incredibly well.

I am currently sitting in my living room in my period underwear, doing some skin-to-skin time with the baby, with a spare swaddle blanket handy to catch spare drips of breastmilk, because it turns out that shit can just leak out on its own. I imagine Kim Kardashian is doing the same thing right now. Pretty glamorous!

Let's hear it for maternity leave!

No, I haven't had this kid yet. I just am so fucking tired all the time that instead of working till my due date, as I originally planned, I'll be starting my maternity leave on Wednesday of this coming week. It makes no sense for me to start a new project at work and then mostly just sit and stare at stuff and wish I were napping, and then be exhausted when labor finally hits. I am REALLY PUMPED about getting to nap. Depending on how I'm feeling, I also have exciting plans to clean the bathrooms and bake some stuff, like oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and granola bars and the like, to have on hand after the baby arrives.

We went to a wedding last night and despite my best efforts I was unable to dance her out. I did plenty of my classic wedding dance move - pelvic thrusts - and got a whole lot of people to join in. I considered, but ultimately decided against, walking off the dance floor, spilling a cup of water, and then standing over it looking panicked, just to fuck with people.

Have I mentioned that M's worker, the one we like so much, is pregnant as well, and due twelve days after I am? She'll be out for FOUR MONTHS so we'll have a new worker for that time. M's worker really likes the new one and says she's on her game, so maybe, just maybe, the paperwork for termination of parental rights will be started and/or filed by the time the regular worker is back. (Yes, that's the paperwork that could have been filed in April. You can guess how optimistic I am about it happening any time soon.)

Oh, things are moving along with our house. We accepted an offer (the first one we got) and have a "sale pending" sign in the yard now. We put in an offer on one we liked but knew it was very low, so we don't expect anything to come of it. It's looking certain at this point that we'll sell our house and then move in with my parents for a few months while we finish the buying process. Because nothing screams "SUCCESS!" like moving in with your parents at the age of 28 with your husband and a toddler and a newborn and two dogs! (In fact, my parents have plenty of room and are thrilled with the idea and will be delighted to chase M around while I deal with the newborn, so it will be as okay as it could be.)

Maybe one of these days I'll get back to posting interesting stuff! Maybe!

Nothing new.

Dudes, I have been too tired to remember to blog. Also, because we've been keeping the house super clean, my computer has been actually put away, and getting it out and turning it on seems pretty complicated some nights.

I'm 36 and a half weeks along now, and feeling kind of huge and very tired. I had an appointment with my midwife today wirh my first internal exam, where she stuck her hand up in my bizzzz to find out if my cervix is up to anything. Turns out I'm one centimeter dilated and about 50% effaced. For those of you playing along at home, this means exactly nothing about when or how I'll go into labor. It does indicate that my cervix knows something is going on and that it plans to get involved, which is good news. The baby is also sitting much lower, which means she  occasionally headbutts my cervix, resulting in a phenomenon I like to call Vagina Lightning. FUN.

M's case is exactly where it was last time I blogged. They still haven't even started the terminaton paperwork. Oh, the worker did finally confirm that the dad's girlfriend
is pregnant. Apparently she was due this week with a little girl. And the worker saw the dad's house and said there was no crib, despite the dad telling us at court in  February that he had a room all set up for M with a four-hundred-dollar crib* and all. So it looks like he's not planning on this new kid living there? Who knows.

So things are moving along slowly all over, and this has been a boring and perfunctory blog post typed from my phone. To be frank, I'm not even going to bother correcting typos and shit. Sorry.

If I can be bothered to get my shit together, I'm planning to do a post about pregnancy products and my hopes for nursery space for the new kid, if we ever find a new house.

*No, I don't believe this, but also I really, really don't care. Her crib at our house is from Wal-Mart. When we get a crib for the new baby (she'll be in a bassinet in our room at first, plus with moving we didn't want to keep extra furniture on hand), it will likely be the same one. I just feel kind of uncomfortable with the dad trying to impress us with shit like that.

Being pregnant is weird.

I'm almost 34 weeks pregnant now. I'm getting big enough that I'm often uncomfortable and rolling over in bed is now a three-point turn. Or a five-point turn.

I'm short (5'1) so my abdomen is completely full of baby. It's hard to take a full breath, it's hard to sit comfortably, it's impossible to eat a full meal. Getting settled on the couch is an ordeal that often leaves me out of breath. My back and hips are usually at least somewhat sore, so I occasionally do that delightful pregnant lady waddle, particularly right after I get up and start walking. My belly is so big that it pushes any bra I wear right up into my ribcage, guaranteeing discomfort by 10:00 a.m. I was trying on bras at Target the other day (note: all nursing bras are fucking ugly) and caught sight of myself in the mirror and couldn't stop picturing a gorilla, with the way my boobs now rest directly on my giant belly.

It's really, really weird how totally normal and, simultaneously, how completely fucked up it feels to be pregnant. The baby rolls around and kicks my guts and gets the hiccups and I'm so totally used to it, but it also regularly blows my mind that there's a human being living in my abdomen. I've been pregnant, with one short break, for almost a year, so it's really hard to imagine our life with a newborn instead of life with me just pregnant forever.

We've been taking our childbirth classes at the hospital where I'll deliver, and I asked a good friend who's a labor and delivery nurse for a recommendation for a doula. After discussion with her, I'm calling tomorrow to look into switching from my regular obstetrician to a midwife practice nearby. My pregnancy is low-risk, and they offer many of the same services that a doula would, except they're covered by insurance. Really, my main reason for wanting a doula was to have someone there throughout the labor to support Andy in supporting me, but we think we could be okay with the support of a midwife instead. So we'll see how that goes.

We just watched the movie Seven Psycopaths and it was so nuts that it took the length of the whole freaking movie for me to finish writing this. Have you all seen that shit??

Pregnancy thing I never realized

Here's a minor thing that makes a lot more sense to me now: You know how tv likes to show pregnant women always touching or rubbing their bellies? I do that all the time now. I don't even always notice I'm doing it, although I try to avoid it when I'm talking to my boss or whatever. Turns out a baby pushing hard against your guts with her foot is pretty uncomfortable, so pressing back, at least gently, provides some counter-pressure and makes it a little less uncomfortable. How about that shit.

We have a "for sale" sign in our yard.

First, an update on my last post: Our friends found out that their foster son didn't die from SIDS, as was originally assumed. The poor thing had an undetected hole in his stomach that let formula and stomach acid into his abdomen, and the resulting infection is what led to his death. Obviously this doesn't make the situation any easier, and it's especially shitty that our county assured them that they were in no way at fault but still removed the other twin from their care. Please continue sending positive thoughts their way.

Second, an update on selling our house: We have the "for sale" sign, but the house isn't going to actually be listed until Saturday. It is a lot of work to get a house ready for sale, if you have any interest at all in getting a good price for it. Andy is shampooing carpets while I type this, no joke. We're having an open house next Sunday so we're living in this weird limbo of "where are the tissues?" and "is the blender already packed up?" and "is it worth the effort to fetch the coffeemaker from the garage to make a pot then bring it back out there?" (Answers: top shelf of the linen closet; yes, and at my mom's; nope.)

Third, an update on my pregnancy. I'm seven months pregnant now, which seems kind of nuts. Besides the exhaustion and occasional OH THE FIRE heartburn, I've been feeling fine, so it's been easy to float along like this isn't a huge deal. I just signed us up for childbirth classes through the hospital, and this weekend we're doing a tour of the birthing center therein, and now all of a sudden it's a lot more real that in short order I will be producing an actual human baby. In the last three days, four different people have commented on how much bigger my belly suddenly seems (THANKS GUYS) and I do have to say that things like settling in on the couch or even sitting in the driver's seat comfortably are a big production now. My weight gain is still on the low end of the scale* (get it?) (but not in a concerning way) so I guess I just forgot that all of a sudden I wouldn't be able to do things like tie my high-tops easily or shave my goddamn legs. Oh, and I passed my gestational diabetes test (which was as disgusting as they all say it is) and they found out I'm slightly anemic, so now I'm on an iron supplement that contains a stool softener and life has gotten more interesting re: bathroom time.

*This is not deliberate. I had two donuts and a huge glass of whole milk for breakfast. I think it's mostly attributable to the fact that I don't ever really feel that hungry, since my abdomen isn't large enough to contain my basketball-sized uterus and also a full stomach. I don't snack much, and when I do it's usually fruit or a handful of peanut m&ms.

Fourth, an update on M's case. Her dad got a new job a few weeks ago, which meant moving her visits until late in the afternoon, in a way that was guaranteed to disrupt evenings. The timing also meant he wouldn't be out of work early enough to be in the building early like they had been requiring, so they decided to give him a shot without that. Well, as of today he'd missed three out of six visits at the new time, so they're telling him he has to be there early again. In the short term, that means there won't be visits for a while; I don't know if he'll try to change his schedule or what, but they won't be bringing M from daycare to hang out with the worker without the dad there anymore. I fully expected the dad to be on his best behavior this month because tomorrow marks M's 15 months in care (!!) and I know he has been told this. The worker told me today that they haven't even pulled her files to write the termination paperwork, but they could file any time after tomorrow, legally. In reality it's likely we won't know a thing more about where this is heading until after this new baby arrives.

I sure hope y'all like hearing about foster care and me being knocked up and selling my house, because I do not have the energy for pretty much anything else. These are the makings of an exciting blog.

If you pray

...would you please direct some prayers towards friends of ours who are foster parents?

They accepted a new foster placement last night: newborn twin boys.

Then this afternoon, one of the twins died of SIDS while he was napping in the same room where the rest of the family was hanging out. The county has placed the surviving twin in another foster home at the request of the bio-family (the county does not suspect that our friends did anything wrong; this is just to simplify the situation).

Obviously our friends are devastated and I have no words to express how incredibly awful this must be. If you believe in a god, please ask him or her to be with our friends. If you don't, maybe just send them some healing thoughts.

Fuck, man.