Amazing Surprise

A couple of days ago we received mail from our adoption agency. The first letter was just an additional bill to take care of. But the second letter was a great surprise. We received a letter from Lilli's birthmom. What an amazing present to make us. She also added some pictures from Lilli immediately after birth and an ultrasound picture. And the footprints that they took in the hospital. We were thrilled to receive this. The whole time we had been wondering how she was doing. How she liked the pictures we had sent her. How she liked the name that we had given our daughter. I secretly wondered whether she would hate that we changed the name that she had given her. But she wrote that she loves the name Lillian.

She also wrote a letter for Lillian for when she is older. This is truly what I had hoped for in a semi-open adoption. That Lillian would one day be able to understand how much love went into the decision from her birthmother. That Lilli will be able to understand what a difficult choice her birthmother made to give her the live she envisioned for her, but couldn't give to her by herself.

I can't wait to write her and thank her for these amazing gifts. We had just finished the three month letter and are just waiting for the pictures to send it to her. But I will answer her in the four month letter.

One more question to those of you who have adopted. Are you getting the birthmothers anything for Christmas? If yes, what are you getting for them? I would like to send her something, but am not sure what.

Our first three months with Lilli

Lillian Alexis Audry 07/24/08

Lilli is three months old today. I know I am repeating myself, but I can't believe how fast the time is passing. Yesterday one year ago we filled out the application for adoption and today I have a sleeping beautiful baby next to me. God truly works in miraculous ways. I feel so blessed and grateful.

We had a great night out yesterday. Hubby had asked some friends to babysit. We went to the Melting Pot I love that restaurant! Of course I told everyone that we had our anniversary. I thought they would at least get us a glass of champagne or something (in Europe that is very common). But they just said "Congratulations!" and that was that. I was a little disappointed I have to admit. We each ordered a bottle of Framboise which is a nice beer (my BIL and his wife had that at their wedding instead of champagne). One bottle (beer size) turned out to be $15, but we didn't know. I hate it when the drink menus don't have prizes...

We spend a great time out. It was nice to just talk about our wedding and remember that wonderful day together. I missed Lilli a lot and wanted to call our friends to see how she was doing. But dh wouldn't let me. He gave me another wonderful card. He is such a great writer. I will share with you what he wrote: The card read: To my best friend and true love Happy Anniversary. He wrote: You are the joy of my life. Lilli is an incredible addition to our family, but you will always be my #1! I love you so much and cannot believe that it has been 4 years already. It seems like yesterday that you were my beautiful bride and we were celebrating our wedding. With much love, dh.

I never imagined that

a. I could stay with someone in a relationship for that long (my longest relationship before I met my husband had been about 18 month)
b. I could still be in love with someone after such a long time
c. love could still grow after such a long time.

Now all my dreams have come true. I have a loving husband and a wonderful daughter. And I have survived infertility.

4 years of marriage

Four years ago on a beautiful October day I got married to my best friend. I couldn't imagine my life with someone else. He has a great sense of humor and is the most honest person I know. He loves me more than I could have ever dreamed of. He is my everything.

Last year on our anniversary we were celebrating by filling out our adoption application. We were wondering when we were finally going to be parents. This year our dream has become true. Happy Anniversary, Honey!

I received beautiful golden earrings from my husband this morning as an anniversary present. They are gorgeous!!!

Still hanging around...

Update on my Dad: he seems to be doing fine. I managed to talk to him on Sunday when he was back from the hospital for one day before they start the chemotherapy. My Mom and I have discussed a possible visit and she doesn't think it is a good idea. She wouldn't want Lilli in the hospital. She thinks we should wait until he is back home. I am doing this right now. Yesterday I picked up my new US passport. Very proud of it. At least I could fly now, if I needed to.

No news otherwise. We are still waiting for our visas and are hanging out here. Lilli and I have been sick during the weekend. I had a cold and Lilli has been spitting up a lot recently. She was completely out of sync on Friday night and Saturday, but seems to be doing much better in the last couple of days. It is such a joy hear her talk to herself in the morning. She just babbles away in her crib and it makes me smile. Lilli has accidentally rolled over twice yesterday when she was sitting with a pillow in her back on our bed. But I don't think she intended to do that. Because she still hates being on her tummy. I try to get her to stay on it, but after about 1-2 minutes she screams... Any tips from the experienced parents?

Infertility Insurance Coverage for Virginia Residents

Action Alert: Virginia
Infertility Insurance Coverage for Virginia Residents:
Take Action Now!
Senator Patsy Ticer (D-30) has introduced Virginia Senate Bill 631, important legislation that would require health insurers, health maintenance organizations, and corporations providing accident and sickness subscription contracts to provide coverage for the treatment of infertility.
On October 27, 2008, there will be a hearing on this bill before a Governor-appointed committee of legislators and citizen representatives. We need your voice! Please email the committee members and ask them to support SB 631. If you are a constituent of one of the committee members, it is especially important that you make sure that he or she knows.
To send an email letter to the Committee members, please click here.
If you can attend the hearing, even better! The Special Advisory Commission meeting will be held on:
Monday, October 27th at 1:00 pm
House Room D
General Assembly Building
Richmond, VA.
Thank you for supporting insurance coverage for infertility treatment!

Sincerely yours,
Barbara Collura
Executive Director, RESOLVE

A shock!

I just talked to my mom and found out that my dad's lung cancer has spread to his pelvis area. I am waiting for her conversation with the doctor tomorrow and will then decide whether I am flying with Lilli or whether we have more time. I always wanted hubby to be there when we fly there to introduce Lilli to her grandparents, but we might not have that time.

It's hubby's birthday today. Happy birthday, love of my life!!!

Blogoversary!!!

Today marks one year since I started documenting our struggles with infertility and our road to adopt. What can I say? We went through a lot in the past year. 1 IUI, my Dad's lung cancer, three birthmothers that either didn't pick us or picked us and then changed their mind. But after all those disappointments and bad news we feel so blessed to be Lilli's parents. She is the best thing that ever happened to us (apart from finding each other and getting married).

You guys have supported me on this long and difficult road with your advice. Thank you very much!!!! I need to pick your brain once again. My hubby has is birthday this week and I don't have a present for him yet. Any ideas? I asked him what he wanted and he has not been particularly helpful either. I also would like to bake him a cake, but that will be a whole other undertaking since all my cooking and baking tools are just traveling to Latin America.

I sometimes catch myself already checking out adoption sites again. We can't wait to adopt again... But I guess we will have to wait until this adoption is finalized. And then do another home study. I don't understand why you have to do a whole new home study and submit all the paperwork again? Why can't they just do a home study update and you submit the paperwork that has changed and do another interview?

Still no news on the visas, but we are staying hopeful. Our new apartment is a little smaller, but right next to a shopping mall...

Homeless...

Of course we are not really homeless in the sense that we have to sleep under a bridge. But we are not in our home any more and not yet in our new home. And we have to move again today. We were supposed to be in Latin America since Friday, but we are still waiting for our visas.

Last week we packed out our house and moved into a furnished apartment. We have been staying there for a week now and they rented it today to someone else. Therefore they moved us to another place. It is not a lot of fun to move every week with a baby. But while we are waiting there is not much else we can do. Living out of our suitcases is not so much fun either... We are trying to make it sound like an adventure to get Lilli used to sleeping in different places every couple of days. Fortunately she is able to go to sleep wherever we are. She is such a joy and has started to talk to us a lot. We can't really understand what she is saying, but it is very funny. And she smiles a lot and coos.

Hubby managed to squeeze most of our 6 suitcases and 3 carry-ons in our car (which we fortunately haven't sold yet) and is on his way to our "new" temporary home. I am waiting here with Lilli until he returns. We are supposed to be out here in twenty minutes, but I doubt we will make it. We probably have to make three trips as they asked us to transport the crib as well.

I am very excited about moving to a different country and can't wait to arrive and take it all in. The new language, the new culture, food, etc. I am concerned about Lilli's adjustment, but confident that she will transition well.

I am such a dork!!!

Just a quick update as I won't have a lot of time to write in the next week.

I had turned on comment moderation recently and thought I would receive an email to moderate comments. Turns out blogger expects me to do this by myself. Therefore I turned it off again.. Sorry about that.

Thank you for your comments on the sleep regression post. It is not like we don't get any sleep. Lilli is a great sleeper. She just doesn't want to drink more than 2-4 ounces per feeding. We can't get more in her (we tried that, but she projectile-vomited it right back at us. :-))...

We had our second post placement visit with the social worker last week and it was nearly business as usual. We handed over our progress report and she asked us how it was going. We told her that everything was fine and that we love to be parents. That was it. She arrived late and had to leave early. The third and fourth post placement visits will be done via the phone because we are out of the country.

I also managed to meet with D. and Payton last week. He is so cute and tiny. He is about half the size of Lilli. It was a short, but wonderful encounter and I am looking forward to staying connected and see our kids grow up.

We are pretty busy getting everything ready for our big move. Tomorrow and on Tuesdays the movers will pack us out. Tomorrow we are moving into corporate housing and on Friday we are supposed to fly - if we get our visas in time. We will see...

Lilli feels that something is going on. She has barely slept today during the day. The house is a mess and she probably know that something is happening and can't figure out what.

I went to my colleague's babyshower today for a short while to drop off some presents. My infertile soul always dreads babyshowers, but with Lilli in tow I imagined I was going to be fine. And I was. It was a nice gathering and I handed Lilli off to a friend and ate something. Then came a couple with two kids. I went back to be with Lilli. The mother of that couple said to me that I look fantastic for having given birth two months ago. I told her that I hadn't and that Lilli was adopted. Then she said something like: "Oh, you are so lucky that you didn't have to give birth!!!" I know that she didn't mean to hurt me, but at that moment I had enough. So I replied: "I think I have been through enough. Thank you very much!" I don't know whether she understood my message and I might have been a little rude, but at that moment I couldn't help it. She hit my infertile wound.

Sleep regression

At the doctor's appointment we found out that our little Cutie has grown another inch and is now 23 inches long. Lilli has also gained some weight and is now at 12 pounds 10 ounces. The vaccinations were not too bad. She screamed really loud for a couple of minutes, but then calmed down. She was very sleepy afterwards. I also had my vaccinations this week. Typhoid and Tetanus - I am telling you that is no fun. Both of my shoulders have been hurting since so I feel with Lilli.

But today I wanted to post about something else and ask for your advice. I seem to have lost my readership recently, at least I haven't received any comments. Maybe my posts are just too boring now that we have a baby...

I recently read this post and have experienced similar problems the last couple of days. Lilli had slept up to 6,5 hours at a time without waking up. But recently she seemed to have gone backwards. She now goes to bed around 10:30 p.m. and wakes up at 2:30 a.m. and at 5:00 a.m. It usually takes her a long time to settle down and she doesn't want to go to sleep in her crib. She fell asleep several times on our bed. Yesterday night I decided that she needed to fall asleep by herself in her Moses basket. I put her down around 10:30 p.m. (as soon as I saw her rubbing her eyes) and she fussed for a while. I went back in to calm her down and put her back down. She fussed again for a while, but eventually fell asleep - by herself!!! I am very proud of this achievement. But at 2:30 a.m. she screamed for food. She usually only drinks a maximum of 3-4 ounces per feeding. And at 5:00 a.m. she screamed again. I decided to wait and see whether she would fall back asleep by herself. But she didn't. I told dh not to get her, because I wanted to wait. For a while it sounded like she was going to fall back asleep, but then she screamed again. After 20 minutes I finally gave in and fed her. She was awake again at 6:45 and wanted to eat. Is this normal? Do you have any tricks how I can get her to sleep longer? I consider myself fortunate enough not to be too sleep deprived. But it would be wonderful if she could learn to sleep longer amounts of time.

We are one week and two days away from our move. As you can imagine we are quite busy. Every day I have a long list of errands that I need to run and chores that need to be done. After I just had a little lunch break I have to get back to work. Have a great day!