a baby room

We decided to go ahead and start putting the baby room together. It's far from finished, but it was driving me nuts having a crib and mattress sitting in boxes and having the closet not organized.

 

We were mildly worried that the crib would be a nightmare to put together so we kind of joked about needing to grab a beer and glass of wine before we got started. We opened up the box, grabbed the directions out, and saw that there were only 5 steps. Could it really be that easy? Yes. It took us longer to unpack and wipe the crib pieces down that it took us to put it together...and we love it!

 

 

I looked at hundreds of cribs. I finally found this one online and read about the company finding out they are hand made by a small company in Wisconsin; just a few hours away from where my parents grew up. 

 

It really was easy to put together. Side note - Jake cracks me up. When I started taking pictures he said something like, 'Wait, you are taking pictures? If I knew you were going to do that I would have changed my clothes.' Apparently he felt his outfit was dorky and thought his future children would look at the pictures and laugh at it. He should have known better. I always take pictures.



 

 The baby room is the second largest bedroom in the house (being just one foot narrower than the master). It's a great room, but we realized not so great for crib placement. There is only one wall that doesn't have windows, heating vents, or doors. So, the crib ended up under a window. We plan to replace all the windows in the house in the next year or so and hopefully that will help with any drafts.

 





There is still tons to do in the baby room, but it is at least started and there are more projects for it in the works!

Back to Normal :)

I'm thankfully back to being my normal self. Talk about being in a funk. However, my momentary loss of optimism is behind me. I still think adoption can be hard. I still think it is hard to maintain perspective while going through this adoption journey, but it sure is nice when that perspective gets back in check. It's against my nature to not be in control of things, have things organized, or have a deadline. I have none of these things in this process and it kind of drives me nuts.

So, what does someone do when they're a control freak with no control?

Organize.

Make lists.

Clean.

Prepare.

Shop.

Okay, maybe the last one is unrelated.

Some pending-parenthood realizations I've had over the past few weeks:

1. How much control do I have really? And what little I might have will be gone anyway as baby becomes the controller of all. And I'm excited about that.

2. Moby wraps are flipping huge! Seriously. How long are they anyway? My guess is 16 feet. Or maybe only half that, but it is a serious strip of fabric (I'd measure it, but it is neatly packed in baby's go bag). Maybe Jake and I can both be strapped to baby at the same time. I'm pretty sure we'd both fit. It would be a relationship building exercise, much like riding a tandem bike.

3. I hope I like pampers. I stocked up on a few. I got a great deal on them and couldn't pass up getting some. Not such a great deal if I end up not liking them...

4. I want travel and exploration to be important to my kids. I wonder how they'll do when they are little? This has been a VERY interesting subject. We've been putting off a vacation (a much needed vacation) while waiting for baby. I want to take a vacation sooner rather than later i.e. I hope to take a family vacation before baby turns one. I'm talking warm weather, sandy beach vacation. As I've talked about this with friends there has been such a wide range of opinions. Some say leave them with grandma. Some say take them with. Some say don't take a trip and stay close to home instead. So, what's the realization here? I'm going to remain naive and leave the sugar coating on my future children. They will be perfect. They will sleep on airplanes. They will love going everywhere we go and we'll still be able to make  it to places on time. See...denial sugar coating...very healthy for all pending-parents.

three months

Three down, who knows how many more to go! October 1st marked three months of being on the wait list for us. Time seems to go by so quickly I don't really know how to feel about this waiting. On one hand I can't believe it has been three months already, and on the other it's been ages!!!

This last month, more than any other to-date, has been the hardest. Hands down, no contest, the hardest. Adoption is hard.

We spent a good portion of September thinking we might be parents soon. We made the prayerful decision to be considered for a baby with an October 8th due date. We were asked questions by the birthmom through our caseworker and up until the week before the due date we were being considered. Then we weren't. The birthmother chose a different couple.

It is such a conundrum to be considered by a birthmom. Most expectant parents get excited thinking about the prospect of their baby. We did. But there in lies the conundrum...we aren't technically expecting. We got to such a point of anticipation that it felt irresponsible to not prepare to some extent. We have what is necessary to bring a baby home, but as I walk through my home it seems somewhat pathetic to have a mostly empty room set aside in anticipation of a baby. I want to be hopeful, optimistic, positive, and graceful in this wait for our family to grow. For the most part I am. However, this week, I don't want to pretend that doing so is easy.