Black and White Baby

I decided to break out my nice camera and take some black and white photos of Elizabeth. Out of three rolls, a couple of them even turned out kind of nice.

I really love photography and I miss doing more interesting and different stuff. Plus this camera takes much better quality photos than our digital, so I'll definitely be trying more in the future.

-- Lisa

Lizzie's Baby Shower

Yesterday was the big baby shower. Generally, a shower is done before a baby is born, but in the case of an adoption people tend to do it afterwards. My mom wanted to do one for us, but suggested we do it after Elizabeth was born and came home with us.

I can understand why people choose to do this. If we had done the shower beforehand and Elizabeth ended up going home with her birthfamily, it would have been pretty heartbreaking to come home to a house full of toys and clothes and supplies all perfect for a baby girl who wasn't ours. It also would have been difficult to inform everyone that placement hadn't happened and that we would be holding off on using the gifts until later (my mom also thought that we would be required to return them. I'm not sure what the point of etiquette is on this since we would eventually be using the items, just not for this child). On the other hand, it would have also been fun to indulge in some of that mom-to-be fun that all the pregnant ladies get to enjoy (though I did get to do a little of this as my work friends threw us an awesome shower two days before Lizzie was born).

As it happened, Elizabeth did come home with us. And, it also happened that it didn't really matter that we didn't have all kinds of goodies to welcome her the moment she came home. Her needs were simple and sweet and she got by with what we had bought ourselves or the items her very generous relatives showered on her upon realizing she was to become part of our family.

However, our friends and family were extremely generous and thoughtful to shower her with even more gifts and good wishes yesterday. I feel like she's hardly had a day where she hasn't been presented with some new, beautiful gift by an adoring visitor. Yesterday, she received many more beautiful items that I know she will love and cherish. I cannot thank everyone enough for how good they have been to us throughout this process and how generous they have been to us and our daughter.

In the end, I was also glad that Elizabeth got to be there. The day kind of became "hers" instead of mine or Shawn's, which is how it should be. After all, those pregnant moms aren't going home to relax in their new bouncer seats, their babies are! And as one of our guests said, "I've never been to a baby shower where the baby was there... it's kind of nice!"

My mom planned and threw the shower, with help from some of Shawn's sisters, but I wanted to provide the cake. I found a picture of my mom's baby shower cake from when she was pregnant with me and had a bakery make an exact copy of it. It reads, "Happiness Is Having a Baby Lisa," though the original, naturally, had my mom's name on it instead of mine...

One of our guests looked at the cake and remarked curiously, "happiness is having a baby?" "I have a baby," I said and pointed to Elizabeth, "she's right over there."

Here's me cutting the cake...

Me, my sister, Jennifer, and Elizabeth...

And Shawn and I opening gifts (this one is a frog* bank from our niece, Kara, who will also be Elizabeth's godmother)...

Thank you again to all our guests for coming, to Namma/Mom for the wonderful party, and to my sisters-in-law for their help with games and prizes. You guys prove over and over with your kindness and love that you are the best!

-- Lisa

* The frog is our official relationship mascot. For some odd reason we both have a kinship with frogs and it is the animal we use to represent our love.

Cutest Baby Ever

Here's me talking to my daughter as she hiccups (they sound like little pop-ups on the computer) and does other tricks.

-- Lisa

Look, Ma!

I'm bigger than a 2-liter of Dr. Pepper!

Thanks to Uncle Don for the photo idea!

-- Lisa

A Month with Lizzie

Elizabeth is one month old today. She's making the usual baby progress and is growing beautifully. She loves cuddles and eating and looking cute. She is an absolute joy to be around.

What else can be said on this milestone occasion except how incredibly and deeply Shawn and I both love her.

-- Lisa

Our Little Journey

I've been thinking a lot about how the three of us got to be a family and wanted to record a little bit of our experience.

Shawn and I have been married for almost five years now, and have been trying to conceive a child for about three and a half of those years. I know in the infertility world, three or four years is nothing. Some people wait five, ten, fifteen years or more to add to their family, so relatively speaking, we're not doing too horribly.

About a year into the “trying” stage, we found out it would be difficult for us to conceive. So, we had some options in front of us. Shawn could try a surgery which had a somewhat good chance of improving things, or we could opt to start infertility treatments. First, we tried the operation which didn't really change or improve anything. Next, we considered attempting a few rounds of IUI, though my doctor kindly informed me that the chance of that working was somewhere in the "miracle range." She recommended IVF, which we decided not to pursue for several reasons. First, being Catholic, it is against our religious beliefs (though there are ways to go about the procedure which might make it morally "okay" from our viewpoint). Also, the process is expensive and physically taxing and might not end in a pregnancy. So we decided to rule that one out.

We had two final options: we could leave everything up to Lady Luck and hope to magically conceive a child one day, or we could start the process of adoption. We had always considered adoption in the back of our minds, but talking to some people we know who had adopted helped us to make the decision. About a year ago, in April of 2007, we selected an agency and filled out the initial application to adopt within the state of Ohio.

Once we decided to adopt, we were extremely excited. It finally felt like we were moving forward and not wallowing in our tragic infertility anymore. Shawn and I both hate "looking back" and were glad bring a close to the monthly disappointment that had made up that chapter of our lives. As we shared our news with family and friends, we got mixed reactions. Some people seemed to pity us because adopting meant we would never be able to have children of "our own." Or some people made adoption seem like a second rate choice or a fall-back-plan. Yes, our first attempts at forming a family involved trying this the old-fashioned way, as 99% of people do, but when this failed we didn't want to keep clinging to the biological child who might never be. I don't mean to say people who hold to the hope of conceiving a biological child are somehow wrong, but this wasn't the path we decided to take. We didn't care how a child came to our family anymore; we were just ready to start our family. And we were happy damnit!

We got a lot of questions about the adoption, but I was surprised to find the thing people were most curious about is what race of child we would be adopting. I don't know why I was kind of offended by this. Maybe it was the intolerant undertone of the "you're adopting a white baby, right?" question that annoyed me. In any case, it was odd to me that everyone seemed to be so uniformly interested in this point.

As with every couple who has ever considered adoption, we had a lot of decisions to make about how we wanted to proceed with the adoption. The biggest question we had to answer was whether or not we wanted to opt for an open adoption. Our agency encourages open adoptions, but we were initially leery. As our helpful friends and relatives told us, "if the birthmom knows who you are, won't she come and try to steal the child back?" This seemed a little over the top for us, but still, we had some fears and concerns. Open adoption is relatively new and we weren't sure if we would be able to emotionally "share" our child with his or her birthfamily. However, we committed to learning and reading more about open adoption. We talked to a friend whose has a son through open adoption and read a lot of adoption stories, blogs, and forums to gain insight and calms our worries.

In the end, we set our sights on an open relationship. The rest of the story is on this blog, but you know how it goes: we had our home study, got approved, waited, were selected, met the expectant mom, were present at the birth, and our daughter was eventually placed with us. Now, we cannot imagine going about the adoption in any other way. We were both glad we got to know Elizabeth's birthmom, Jessica, and her family throughout the process and are happy that Elizabeth can continue to have a relationship with them. Right now, she is too little to understand what's going on, but in the future we hope:

* She will know that she is loved by her birthfamily.
* She will have access to all her important medical information.
* She will have pictures and information about many of her relatives and family members.
* She will be able to call or talk to Jessica at any time she wants to.
* She will know why Jessica chose to place her with us.
* She will be able to have a relationship with Jessica now and not wait until she is older.

In the end, choosing an open adoption was about doing what was best for our daughter. She has a right to information about herself and has a right to know about her adoption. We could have decided do the old "let her decide when she's older," but we figured we'd make the choice for her now and let her decide where she wants to take the relationship once she gets older. All the pieces will be there for her and she can take over when she is mature enough to do so.

Of course, an open relationship often helps to bring healing and reassurance to the birthfamily, and we hope this is true in our case too. But, our number one priority will always be doing what is best for Elizabeth and continuing on with an open adoption is what we believe will be best for her.

Shawn and I hope to adopt again in the future. Of course, we are also getting the "you'll probably get pregnant now" comments all over the place, so there's that chance also. However our family happens is fine with us.

-- Lisa

Baby Got Back

Elizabeth is completely in cloth diapers now. Daddy likes to make fun of her giant padded bottom, but she seems to enjoy the cottony softness on her tooshie. The laundry part also isn't bad. I run a load every other day and everything comes very clean. She also hasn't had any diaper rash yet (knock on wood... or knock on cloth?). My favorites so far are the Fuzzi Bunz and Kushies. I also like the Bummi covers. The Dappi covers are okay, but leak if they get a big load in them (which doesn't matter too much as I am changing her outfit nearly every feeding on account of it being soaked in formula and spit up).

I also still have a lot of size 1 disposables which we received as gifts. I would still like to use disposables for travel, but I don't think I can possibly go through all these before she grows out of them. My back up plan is to just donate the leftovers... or get rid of our litter box and start diapering the cats.

-- Lisa

The First Visit

Yesterday was our first post-placement visit with Jessica. She planned on coming to our house and spending a few hours with us, but unfortunately she got a flat tire on the way. Shawn drove out to get her and helped her put the spare tire on and take her to a tire repair place. She ended up being able to visit for about an hour or so before she had to drive home on the spare. Shawn and I were both disappointed that she wasn't able to visit with us and Elizabeth longer, though it was really just some bad luck.

Other than the tire mishap, everything went pretty well. I hope she enjoyed seeing Elizabeth and I that her daughter looked healthy and happy (she certainly looks chubbier!). We scheduled another visit for May, which I hope will go more smoothly (we're meeting halfway instead of having her drive out to our house). We agreed to have one visit a month for the first six months. After that, Jessica plans on taking a job out of the state, so we will not be able to see her as much, though we'll still keep up with our letter and pictures routine.

-- Lisa

Our Nightly Routine

In eight steps...

1) Drink a delicious bottle.

2) Burp.

3) Take a warm bath.

4) Dress for bed.

5) Say our prayers.

6) Swaddle.

7) Read a chapter or two from Pride and Prejudice.

8) Drift off to Dreamland.

-- Lisa