6 Months and more

Well, once again I've slacked on posting. I think its going to be this way now. I just can't find the time and motivation to get to my computer to write on a regular basis. So I'll try and catch you up with what has happened since the last post.

Ellie is now 6 months old (actually she'll be 7 months old in just over a week). We started solid foods about a month ago. I was going to wait until she was 6 months old but one day, I was holding her and eating an apple. She kept watching me eat it and so I took a slice and held it to her mouth. She started sucking on it/gumming it and I could tell she liked it. I took it away from her then and she started to cry. So the next day we started her on some apple puree. She LOVED it. It's still one of her favorite foods. She's a fantastic eater and getting better by the day. Every thing we've given her so far she's like (apples, peas (both her top favorites), pear, sweet potato, butternut squash, avocado and banana). The only thing we tried that she didn't like is yellow squash. But we have enough of it so we'll keep giving it to her. We're going to start her on yogurt, meats and legumes in the next couple of weeks.

We had our first Thanksgiving as well. We went over to Matt's mom's house. Ellie loved seeing everyone and she even got a few new toys to play with. We gave her a little bit of mashed potatoes but she didn't really like them (we think it was the texture, she doesn't really like anything that isn't REALLY pureed yet).

She had her 6 month well visit with the doctor. We had a couple of questions and one of them was if she might be tongue-tied. Every time she sticks out her tongue, it looks like its being pulled in the center. So the doctor looked at it and sure enough, she is! She said it's actually pretty late to be realizing this, that it's usually caught within the first few days of life. I had thought there was a chance she was MONTHS ago but I looked it up and all of the symptoms and they didn't apply to her (like not being able to take a bottle well). So the doctor that we had that day actually said she's the only one in the practice to fix it. So she went and got her tools. Matt and the nurse held Ellie down and I just touched her belly (to help calm her as well as me) and I looked away. Then the doctor cut the little strip of cartilage that was holding her tongue down. I'm sure she cried like crazy (and Matt said she did) but I think I just blocked it out because I can't remember. Matt immediately fed her (per doctor's instructions). That helped her heal and stop the bleeding faster. Then about 15 min. after getting that done, they gave her 4 shots. Poor kid did NOT have a good day. :(  Other than the crying, she really was a trouper. She went to the babysitter's for the rest of the day and Carol said that she was a happy baby (as always) and that she kept sticking her tongue out and giggling. I just imagine her thinking "Hey!! This is cool! I can stick my tongue out further and it feels different!"

November 21st was one of the best days of my life! It was our finalization day!! We had my mom, Matt's mom and step dad, my brother and Carol there at the courthouse. We had a 9:40 court time. We went in and the lawyer told us what to expect. We were called to the stand to answer questions. I went first and the lawyer and then the judge asked us questions. Our social worker and the lawyer told us to just say yes to everything so they weren't hard questions. Just things like "Is this the correct amount you paid to the adoption agency?" "Do you plan to care for this child as if she were your own?"

After the court appearance we went to Rachel's Creperie with our families for breakfast. It was probably the best breakfast EVER!!! Then we went home and just enjoyed ourselves and relaxed for a bit. In the evening we went out to the Symposium for dinner with our friends and family. It truly was an amazing day and we will NEVER forget it. We plan on celebrating it every year as our Forever Family Day. We're not going to go crazy but just make sure we do something as a family. Go out to dinner, a movie, play a board game. Something fun and just to make sure we celebrate when we officially became a family.

About a week ago we went to the Agency's Christmas party in Harrisburg. We met up with S. & E. for the party and S. brought his mom along to meet Ellery. S's mom didn't know about E. being pregnant at all (he just told her that he had a daughter only a month or so ago).  We were very surprised at how well S's mom took the news and took to us and Ellery. She loved just watching her and she took probably 100 pictures. She also brought 7 bags FULL of gifts for Ellie. She got so many things! It was a nice visit and we had a great time hanging out with S. & E. Our next visit with them will be closer to her birthday. Probably at the Agency's summer picnic.

In just a few days it will be Christmas. I'm so very excited. We bought some things for Ellery but not too much. She's never really had presents before so I'm just so excited to see how she does. I'm sure she'll love the wrapping paper the most ;P

And I know I said I'd post pics last post but I obviously forgot. So here are all of the ones I haven't posted in a while.

3 month pictures




4 month pictures




5 month pictures (she just discovered her feet and all she wanted to do was play with them!)



6 month pictures




Halloween





Our Finalization day!


Ellery's first Thanksgiving

So much to talk about

Ok. I have a lot of things to talk about, lets see if I can remember them all.

First off. Our first meeting with E & S went really well! We spent about 4 hours with them at a local park. It was a fairly nice day (although a tad bit chilly). Ellie was not her normal self. She actually cried! She NEVER cries! I really think she was very tired but obviously didn't want to nap because of all that was going on. Once we did get her to sleep, when she woke up she was much better. It was a very good meeting and we look forward to seeing them again at our Agency's Christmas party in December!

Ellie turned five months old on Tuesday. I can't believe that she is five months already! The time is flying by! She's so amazing right now and it's so wonderful to watch her change and grow. Here's some info about her now:

-Weighs just over 15 lbs.
-Drinks about 25-27 oz of formula a day
-Can roll front to back and back to front
-LOVES tummy time
-Laughs a LOT!
-Loves being thrown up into the air
-Is ticklish
-Sleeps mostly on her stomach

We went pumpkin picking together a couple of weeks ago. We took a hayride out to a local pumpkin patch. Ellie was a bit sleepy but we could tell that she LOVED the hay ride. It was so cute to watch the wind in her hair and see her staring at the corn fields as we went by them. We got some great pictures of everything!

Today is Halloween and Ellie is coming in to work at the end of the day with her costume on. We can't wait to show her off. We put her in her costume the other day to take pictures and it looks SO cute on her! We were going to have her be a strawberry (it was the only thing Matt and I could agree on and in our price range), but then my mom saw this costume at TJ Maxx and we LOVE it so much more. If you are friends with us on Facebook then I'm sure you saw what this costume is. If you're not friend with us, then you'll have to wait until I post picture here! 

I'll try and post her 4 month, 5 month, pumpkin picking and Halloween pics sometime this weekend! 

Happy Halloween everyone!

Love And First Visitation

In just two days Ellery will be 4 months old. I can't believe how fast she is growing up. I know everyone always says that but it's not something you can understand until you're a parent yourself. Never in my wildest, most amazing dreams did I realize that motherhood could be this amazing. I love Ellery with all my heart and it literally HURTS when I think about her. I miss her so much during the days at work. I just sit at my desk and look at her picture, or I go through my phone and watch videos of her just to make myself as close to her as possible. I would do anything for that sweet little angel!

Ok, on to less sappy stuff. :D

Last Thursday was Matt's birthday and he took off work and spent the day with Ellie. I came home and it seemed odd that she was sneezing more than normal. I had a gut feeling that something was wrong. That night, she woke up in the middle of the night (which she never does) crying (which she never does) and I could hear right away that she was stuffed up. I knew she had her first cold. :( I know that you can't really do anything for a cold, especially for a baby but it's her first one and I'm a first time mother so I wanted to take her to the doctor. The next day my mom and I took her (Matt had to be at work). The doctor said that her lungs were clear and that it was just a cold, which I guessed. She said that she would get a little worse in the next day or two before she got better. She suggested saline drops, baby tylenol and a humidifier. We never got a humidifier for our shower and we didn't get one with our completion coupon so that night we went out and got one.

By the time we got home that night Ellie seemed a little better (not worse, as the dr. thought) so we didn't give her the saline drops. She did start coughing and I was worried about a fever so we gave hers some of the baby tylenol and put her to sleep in her rock n'play so that she was elevated with her new humidifier on. Over the next couple of days she got better and better but still kept that pesky cough.

Now, a week later she's much better and is almost over her cough. YAY! We made it through her first cold and she was a trouper! She didn't fuss or cry much and was still her happy self (most of the time).

Tomorrow is a big day for all of us. It's our first meeting with the birthparents since we left the hospital with Ellery. I'm nervous and excited at the same time. I'm nervous because I still get that possessive feeling over her and there are parts of me that don't want to share her. And then I'm excited because we really do like them and it will be nice to spend some quality time with them (alone, for the first time!) and also they can see how simply AMAZING she is.

We planned a whole picnic in a park. I'm bringing all of the food, snacks, sandwiches, salads, chips and dessert. All they have to bring is drinks for themselves. It also looks like it's going to be a very nice sunny day in the mid 70s. There are picnic tables and even swing sets for us to go on. I'm excited for Ellie to go on a swing with us since it will be the first time for her. AND she LOVES having the wind in her face! :D It will also be nice to share one of her firsts with her birthparents.

So, wish us luck tomorrow, although I'm sure we won't need it! I'll update sometime soon after (I hope).

2 months old

I can't believe that Ellery is already two months old. I understand now why people say that their kids grow up too fast!

I went back to work just a week ago. I started back on a Thursday so it helped that I only had two days to deal with before a weekend. It was a tough transition. I missed Ellie so much! It was so hard knowing someone else was feeding her, changing her and playing with her throughout the day. That's my job and I wished I was home with her. Now that I've been through a full work week, I can say that things have gotten a little easier. I still miss her like crazy and I look at her picture (I have about 30 up at my desk at work) throughout the day but it doesn't hurt as much when I leave her in the morning. I just cherish the time we get with her in the mornings before work and at night even more.

I'm adoring this stage she's in right now. She smiles at Matt and I all the time. When we come home from work, if she's sleeping she'll hear our voices and wake up. If she's awake, as soon as she sees our faces she lights up with the biggest smile! It's so sweet! Her smile is the cutest thing I've ever seen. She squints her eyes and wrinkles her nose. It just makes me grin when I think about it. She laughs and coos a lot too. She loves the ceiling fan in our bedroom and can lay there and just laugh at it. One of my favorite things is she puckers her lips and goes "ooooo". It's so adorable!

The first time she slept through the night, I woke up the next morning (without realizing I slept through the night) and quickly woke Matt to make sure she was still alive (she slept in the Rock N' Play on his side of the bed). That was when she was about a month old! Now she sleeps through the night every night!!

We transitioned her to her crib at the beginning of this week. I wasn't sure when to do it but I thought why not give it a try. On the weekend we put her in her crib for naps and she did just fine so we put her in it at night. The first night we kept her unswaddled. She wriggled and squirmed the whole night (at one point, she was sideways in the crib!). The next night we swaddled her and she does just fine now. Once in a while she'll wake up in the middle of the night and just grunt or groan. All we have to do is just go in and touch her for a little reassurance and she'll go right back to sleep.

I can't say enough how amazing she is. She really is the BEST baby we could have ever asked for and we're so desperately in love with her!

We took our first trip to our house at the beach a couple of weekends ago. I was still of work at the time so Matt took a half day off work on Thursday and we went down right after he came home and stayed through Sunday. On Friday morning, we got up extra early to go the beach. Its was the middle of July and we knew it would get hot FAST (plus we were in the middle of a 95+ degree heat wave) and busy fast so we wanted to get there while it was nearly empty (and parking spaces) and not too hot. We got there around 9:00. We went right to the beach. We weren't planning on staying long, just long enough to get some pics of Ellie her first time there. She was fast asleep when Matt held her and put her toes in the sand. She moved her toes to feel the sand but didn't wake up. Then the cold ocean water came around her ankles... and she STILL didn't wake up! She never once cared about the cold water! We got some adorable pictures of her in her sunglasses and hat (see below). After a bit on the beach we headed back to the boardwalk to walk around a bit. We strolled through some of the shops a bit and then headed home.

The next day we went shopping at the outlets (those are dangerous... especially with a baby, a carters store, great sales, no sales tax AND coupons!). In the afternoon before dinner we took her to the pool for her first time swimming. She had the CUTEST bathing suit ever. I took her in the pool (once again she was fast asleep) and slowly lowered her into the pool. At first she didn't stir. Then once the water hit her around the chest she woke up a bit. I think she thought "wait... this is way more water than there ever is in my bath, what IS this???" Then, a few seconds later, she fell asleep again. See what I'm saying? Best. Baby. EVER!!! We really had a great first trip with her! We can't wait to bring her back down again!

We've emailed with E. & S. a couple of times. They sent Matt a very nice email for his first Father's Day. We hadn't heard from them in a while and then we got one the other day. S. said that they've been trying to keep their distance because they don't want to crowd us. But they wanted to reassure us that they are here for us should we need anything from them and that we're in this ride together for the rest of our lives. They are so amazing and strong! I admire them! I'm not sure I would be handling everything as well as they are if I were in their shoes.

Well that's about it. Hopefully I'll be updating this a little more often but I can't promise anything.

I now leave you with a few adorable pictures from the last two months.

Introducing...

Our daughter, Ellery Claire
Born 5/29/13
7lbs. 10 oz.
19" long


















Wow. What a wirlwhind this has been. Ellery is now over a month old. You're probably wondering WHY we're just now telling you about her? Well, she was born in PA. Not far from where we live actually. And PA has a 30 day revocation period. The process is this: The birth mom gives birth. They have to wait at least 72 hours to sign TPR (termination of parental rights). Then they have 30 days AFTER TPR is signed to change their minds. Due to the weekend and whatnot, TPR in our situation was not signed until 5 days after the birth. Fortunately this provides us with a July 4th date for when Ellery is ours for keeps! (Talk about a new appreciation for Independence Day!)

We chose not to tell 90% of our friends and even some of our family until the revocation period was up. We were terrified about the birth parents deciding to take Ellie back and if they did chose that, we did not want to go through the pain of having to tell everyone what happened and going through 50,000 questions about why/how/what now.

But, that revocation period is now up and she is OURS!! So we are introducing her to the world!

Here's how the past month went (if you're a parent, you can probably understand). Sleep, wake, feed, change diaper, rock her to sleep, sleep ourselves, wake, feed, change diaper, rock her to sleep, sleep ourselves... you get the idea.

The first few days where HORRIBLE for me. Thank God for Matt because I don't know what I'd do if he wasn't the most amazing man and father ever. This is hard for me to put down in writing but I'm going to anyway. I regretted her. I really did. I missed my old, quiet life. I missed sitting on the couch with Teddy and relaxing. Watching the shows I wanted to watch when I wanted to watch them. I had severely bad anxiety trying to deal with both losing that and just adjusting to a newborn. Plus, there was a LOT of people coming and going from our house. It was a horrible first few days. I cried all the time and I barely wanted to hold her. Matt changed all of her diapers, feed her all the time and held her. I just cried.

Now, I know I'm not the only one to go through this, but I feel it's a bit different for adoptive parents. I feel that most people don't think I should go through this since I didn't give birth. But ya know what, just because I didn't give birth to her doesn't mean my emotions aren't going crazy and my world hasn't been turned upside down. And yes, I've been going through this and getting ready for this for at least two years but we only had THREE WEEKS to really emotionally prepare for this. That's a lot less time than most people who get 7-9 months to prepare.

Back to our story.... things are getting much better with me. I'm adjusting pretty well and I'm not as sad anymore. I still get a little bit of depression here and there but nothing like the first few days.

Ellie is pretty perfect. She's opening her eyes more and staying awake more often. She has the most beautiful eyes! She's a good eater and an amazing farter (like her father) and burper (like her mother). She has some amazing nights (only waking once and letting us get 7ish hours of sleep) and she has some rough nights (only wants to be held ALL. NIGHT. LONG. and we only get 3 hours of sleep) but we're getting through it. Some how, we're doing it.

Each day is something new. She's just started smiling intentionally, which is pretty magical. Stay tuned... Things are just getting started!

Meeting our daughter

We met Stephanie at the hospital. We were going to meet our daughter! Everything was so surreal!

We went up to E's room and waited outside while Stephanie went in to see how she was doing and if she was up to see us. She was and we went in to see E, her mother and S. And of course, to meet our daughter. We thought that E. looked amazing! She certainly didn't look like she just gave birth the night before!

Then we got a look at our daughter. She's perfect. Of course all parents say that but she really is! We sat holding our daughter and chatting with E, S and E's mom for two hours. Then it was time to go. Stephanie said that everyone was being discharged the next day so we'd have to obviously come back the next day to bring our daughter home.

That night, the two of us went out to dinner. Both to celebrate but also to commemorate our last night as a family of two.

I barely slept that night. I knew it was my last chance to get some REAL sleep but I just couldn't. I was too nervous.

The next day we met with Stephanie at the hospital. They had a little class that we had to go through that just showed you some feeding/bathing movies and some info on how to properly put a baby in a car seat. Pretty much everything we knew but you had to take the class before being discharged. After the class we sat down and signed MORE paperwork. Then we went to see E. and her mom. We chatted for a bit and got to change our daughter's diaper and feed her. Then it was time for E. to be discharged. She chose to be discharged before the baby was. So we stayed in the room while Stephanie and E left. Once Stephanie got back, she said that E said to her "She's home now" (meaning the baby is home with us). It really makes me tear up every time I think about it. She's such a strong woman!

Now, it was time to discharge us. And 4 hours later we left. Thankfully Stephanie warned us that the discharge rate at this particular hospital is one of the worst in the area, I was still not prepared for this. All in all, we finally got to leave and I have to say that the drive home was one of the most frightening of my life! It was so new to have a baby in the car! I was so scared for that first night and just what to do with a newborn!

Birth day!

So, the due date came and went. Our 6 year anniversary came and went. I thought, wouldn't it be odd if she had the baby on Wednesday. We were matched on Wednesday, met with Stephanie to get the info on the next Wednesday, met the birth parents on the Wednesday after that. So it wouldn't it be cool if she had her on Wednesday?

A good friend of our family texted me this morning and said that her daughter was going to have her baby that day and she hoped that we would have one too!

Well, I'm sitting at work trying to get through the day (on Wednesday) and I get a phone call at 12:30 from Stephanie. I go out into the hall and answer the phone. She said that E (the birth mom) was at the hospital and 8 centimeters dilated. HOLY CRAP! She also said that she'll give us any info as she gets it and that E would like it if we don't come that night but come the next day. Of course we're ok with that! So I hang up and go find Matt to tell him. We decide to leave work immediately. There were some things that we had to take care of before bringing the baby home. So, we said good bye to our bosses knowing that I wouldn't be back for two months and Matt wouldn't be back for one.

As soon as we got out to the car, I called my mom to let her know and Matt called his parents. They are all beyond excited and can't wait to hear more!

So, we went home and waited for the phone to ring (after we finished our errands). I kept texting our family friend about the progress of her daughter's delivery and the birth of her granddaughter. She kept asking if we knew anything and we didn't. The only thing we heard was around 8:00 Stephanie emailed us and told us that S. emailed her saying E. was still in labor but all was well.

We didn't hear anything until the next day. At 6am Stephanie called us with information. E. gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl at 7:39 the previous evening. Both birth mom and baby were doing well. She didn't have any other info at that time (weight/length etc.) but we were meeting her at the hospital at 1:00 that day so we'd get the info sometime.

The crazy thing was that our friend's daughter gave birth to her daughter exactly 40 minutes after our daughter was born!