Here’s my post about some of those beginning thoughts and feelings at Grown In My Heart.

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My biggest fear is that if she does have second thoughts, will she go through with it anyway because she doesn’t want to disappoint us? She’s expressed how grateful she is that we are willing and able to do this. She has said she wants the best thing for this baby. But still.

Thank you for your encouraging comments on “It’s Weird”–you are truly wonderful, my friends (virtually and in real life).

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You see, MAM’s birth family lives 20 minutes away. They actually live closer than any of our relatives. Currently, I am most in touch with J, MAM’s bmom. We talk on the phone weekly, and text sporadically. We visit about every other month at this point. I still can’t imagine doing that with whole other set of people connected to another baby.

Which makes this current situation ideal, right? Here we are, potentially expanding our family, without having to navigate another open adoption relationship. Which is true. But it also leads me to the weirdness.

The weirdness is that now J and I are friends, of sorts. I know more about her now, obviously, than I did three years ago. I know the stress she is under. I know how her mom reacted when she told her that McBaby had an adoption plan in the works. I know the crap the bdad is pulling.

I know that she will have very few visitors at the hospital, and that there are time where she will be totally alone. And that some people in her life who tell her that they will be there, won’t be there. Which will leave her with us. And while we’re great and all, it’s not quite right. And that’s where it gets weird.

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In the near future, I will have seven BUM Genius 3.0 diapers to use on MAM at night and naptime, and to get the hang of it before I really need to know what I’m doing.

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Today MAM’s new bed was assembled. She’s had a bed all along–she started on a twin sized futon floor bed, moved to a double bed mattress, then we added the box spring (but kept the whole thing directly on the floor), and today she moved to a twin bed on a frame. A super-cool “storage frame”, so under her bed she can store her treasures (and over her bed is a hutch).

The bedding I won on EBay should be here by the end of the week, and then she will be all set. Til then, she’s happy with some purple sheets. Tonight, as she was going to bed she at first refused her beloved soft blanket, little pillow and rabbit–to be exact, she threw them on the floor, threw herself on the full sized pillow and said, “I want to sleep like a girl now!”

After some tossing and turning, she decided not to abandon her three favorite things on earth just yet, and snuggled in for the night. *SIGH*

Next up on Operation Share Her Space: assemble the matching dresser. Then we’ll clear out two dressers that are in her room (reclaiming the one I donated to her cause three years ago), making room for the nursery furniture we’ll be adding at the end of June.

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Tonight I took advantage of my first “second chance” offer….a seller offered me the BUM Genius diapers I have been furiously bidding on for the price I wanted, and I said yes! Am I crazy? Is there no going back now?

What will probably save me is that I am a bargain shopper at heart. Said diapers retail for $17.95 each. Since I would obviously only order them from a store with free shipping, my price limit was a few bucks below $17.95 per diaper. I stayed within my budget on the purchase. Honest.

Are you still carefully re-reading the words “BUM Genius diapers”? Have I lost my ever-loving mind? Maybe. But I’m going to give this cloth diaper thing a shot. MAM is down to just a diaper at nap and one at night–if they could be washable, I’d have a whole month before going back on the wheel of 24/7 diapers.

When MAM came along, the idea of the laundry and the bodily functions in the diapers grossed me out. I even threw out the occasional onesie that was victim to a blow out diaper. Now, afte having weathered nearly the first three years, daily laundry and bodily functions no longer overwhelm me. So I’m going to give it the old college try. I promise to keep you posted.

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MAM was incredibly friendly and cute–she shared her snack, and showed her her latest favorite issue of National Geographic when we went upstairs. There was no peeking in closets, or a white glove test, or really even testing of the required smoke detectors.

So that’s it on our end–everything’s submitted, now “all” we have to do is hurry up and wait til June 25th!

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Speaking of MAM (I can really only go about 5 minutes without bringing her up, have you noticed?), today I had to explain the concept of “dirty” underwear. See, she actually managed to keep the same pair of Snow White panties (thanks, Grandma) dry for 24 hours (she wears them over her pull-up at nap and bedtime), and so this morning she took them off, tossed her pull up and was ready to put them back on again.

“Honey, those are dirty. Put them in the hamper.”

“They not dirty! They not wet! They dry!”

“When you wake up in the morning, you put your panties in the hamper and put on clean ones.”

“They clean! See? They dry!”

“MAM, after you wear them all day, and then sleep in them, even though they are dry, they go in the wash.”

“Oh. Ok. I get Ariel?”

Could I make this up????

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The highlights, that would have all been separate posts had I had the wherewithall:

MAM is really potty training now. Didn’t I say that in the fall? Yes, I did, but then the faux scabies hit and she lost all momentum, and she spent the winter, and part of the spring just doing her business in pull ups (dumb and a waste of money, but I was holding out hope). So two weeks ago I asked her the question, “do you want to go potty before mama or after?” and she said, “after”, and so commenced round two of toilet learning. Throw in a little candy, a LOT of stickers, and panties in the mail from Grandma, and we have a dry, dry girl who practically prances to the potty with delight. I think this is the real thing.

Friday night we started deep cleaning all of our carpets. We spent the entire weekend spring cleaning and removing invisible sludge from our carpets. Seriously, SO GROSS. But things are lovely now.

We went on a family bike ride this weekend, totaling 16 miles. It was a lovely day and a lot of fun.

Hopefully we’ll be going on many more rides…until June 25th. That’s the anticipated delivery date of McBaby. There will be no more ultrasounds, so we’ll just have to be patient to discover if it will be pink or blue. J and I have been having some really good conversations lately. More on that soon–that really does warrant it’s own post.

Since we won’t be knowing gender, any room-theme makeovers will have to be put on hold. The room is pretty simple–just a few girly accents at the moment. I’m thinking some matching dressers, a crib (!), a twin bed….and the kiddos will be all set.

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Last week we started updating our home study. I filled out the paperwork while watching The Office. I don’t know if they will actually have to come out to the house again or not.

A lot of it is information that’s exactly the same–our employers, listing references, brief family history…and information like a recent physical. We have to resubmit our birth certificates (and MAM’s) and marriage license. A new thing this time around is fingerprinting.

Last Friday afternoon we journeyed downtown as a family of three to the “background check office” to get our prints done. Guess what? There was no ink involved! It was all done on a scanner type machine with a few squirts of water. $56.50 later, and we were on our way (it was a really fancy machine–I suppose they have to pay for it some how). Apparently, our prints will be sent to the FBI of all places. Since I’ve never been fingerprinted before, I don’t think anything will turn up.

This week BgK was scheduled for a physical anyway (how’s that for timing?) and I just needed to get a TB test. Phew. No TB for me. There was even a form for MAM-basically asking if she was in good health, and if she’d be OK with a sibling in the home. While I’m sure it will rock her world, medically speaking, I think she’ll be fine.

We’ve been asking her if she’d like a brother or a sister–her consistent answer has been, “A brudda”. The other night BgK asked her what we should name a brother. Her answer? “Baby Mc–” Clever girl!

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