More pictures

Wow. Our last post was at four months and a picture post at that. Our baby girl is now 6 1/2 months old and developing quite the personality. I love her more everyday. We have lots of excitement in our lives. Our best friends will be having their baby girl any day now. And the girls we met on vacation, A Story of Two Moms, are having their babies today. I would post a link to their blog but I don't know how. Anyhoo, when time allows I will post some pics and update our girls progress.

4 months

We have a big girl! She is in the 97%+ for length and 90-97% for head circumference and weight.

Our blue eyed girl.

Poor girl.

It must be nice to be able to fall asleep during a run.

The day at the zoo

This was a great day for us in the morning we went to our first hearing for the second parent adoption and to terminate the right of our donor. Everything went great. I now have temporary custody for six months then they finalize it after the six months is up. We went to the zoo after to see the lions and tigers and bears oh my. Wait there are no bears . The polar bear exhibit is not done yet. Maybe next time.

1st minor league baseball game

C's work got a suite and Sizzle the mascot came by for a visit. Family photo time!

1st swim

She likes the water but I think it was still a little to cold for her. Her lip started quivering so it was out of the pool for mama in about five minutes if that.

Chapter Two

We have been letting her sleep in her own room for the last two days and so far so good. We are getting a little more sleep. Now if we could just not check in on her that would be great. Its so hard not being able to just look over from our bed and check on her. She is getting up once in the night and then again around 5 or 6 so I think we are very lucky. We are taking turns threw the night watching her so that way if she is up a lot one night at least the next night we can catch up on some sleep. She is not very hard to take care of though so I think this is more for peace of mind for C and I.

Short Stories

Chapter one

Spitting-up I think they should call it throwing-up because that is what it is. Our sweet little girl can make quite a mess. I see why they put all of those bibs with the outfits now. We even layer with a burp cloth so that way her bib doesn't need to be changes every hour. I would also like someone to make a bib for moms so they don't have to change there clothes every time they hold their baby. I am getting used to walking around with throw-up all over me now. The grossest thing about the vomiting is when it gets under one of those cute little rolls on her neck and you go to kiss her and this smell of sour milk wisps by you nose. You've got to love it.

10 week photos

I love being a mama!

First pair of jeans! What a big girl!

Someone is very jealous. She is not getting the attention she is used to. We try hard to give her her time.

I love those cheeks!

HI HO, HI HO

I am back to work. I hate leaving my baby with the sitter. The sitter is wonderful, but she isn't me, she isn't V. For right now V's mom is picking Dara up as soon as she gets off work, around 1. This has made the transition much easier on us. So we are getting back into the swing of things. Next on my agenda is starting a diet. The funny thing is, I gained 20 pounds during pregnancy. I lost that two weeks after Dara was born and now I am gaining it back. I was miserable during pregnancy with heartburn and indigestion and never had cravings so keeping weight off was somewhat easy. Now I can't turn off my appetite. Let's hope that the extra calories burnt with BF and some exercise can even out my food intake.
Today I work a half day so I am off in just a couple of hours to enjoy a beautiful afternoon with my beautiful girl.

C

Our sweet little girl even when she is crying she is too cute!

A Poem

V's boss enjoys writing poetry. She asked him to write one for Dara and I've decided to post and share. I have been trying to upload a pic to go with and encountering some problems. I will try to add later.

Dara
31210

You know it is coming.
The spark
struck as the sun scrapes the horizon.
"Shooting stars"
as we spin thru comet tails.
Quivering things
ready to burst forth
in the days before Spring.
The wonder in your mind
that this world would never be the same
as you held your baby.
And your sparkling eyes
reflecting the gentle carress
of red untamed wisps of hair.

T.M.

Time is Ticking...

Just 2 short weeks before I return to work. I love my job. But I really don't look forward to sending my child to a stranger. I don't want to be a stay at home mom. I like to interact and build relationships with my patients and coworkers. What would be ideal is if I could strap my girl on my back and take her to work with me. Wonder what the bosses would think about that?

Birth Story (Finally)

With my princess sleeping by my side rather than in my arms I finaly have a moment to type the birth story. I have always been a person of few words and this will be no different. I am not leaving anything out. It was just a relatively easy delivery.

On Thursday, March 11th I was shopping for work. As I was cruising the aisles of a local (plant) nursery I felt a trickle of fluid and knew for sure I had not peed my pants. Well, I was 95% sure. I made my purchases and headed out to my car. Once I sat I felt a small gush and was then 100% sure I had not peed my pants. I called V, told her she might want to wrap things up at work for the day as we would be heading to the hospital that afternoon. Then I made my way back to work, dropped off my purchases and announced that my water had broke. Once I made my rounds around the building, said my goodbyes and received well wishes from my coworkers I was off. I called the labor and delivery unit at our hospital. The nurse told me to walk around for awhile to see what happened. V and I had lunch, walked, and made arrangements for our 4 legged babies to be cared for. I spoke with my OB's nurse who instructed us to head to the hospital.

Once at the hospital they determined that yes, indeed my water had broken and induced labor. I had said all along that I wanted to try out the contractions, maybe go without the epidural. Well, once the contractions started rolling in one after the other I realized I am a girl who needs an epidural. I did try IV meds which were supposed to take the edge off. Ha! So I got the epidural around 8:30pm and promptly fell asleep untill it was time to push a few hours later. After around 10 rounds of pushing (about 45 minutes) our little girl was born 1:06 am on March the 12th. We left Saturday evening, the 2 proudest mommies.

Pictures to come!

Dara Carol is here!

I am going to keep this one short. I am home now only because I have to take care of the animals. She was born on Friday the 12th at 1:06am she is 8lbs 2oz and 21 inches long. Her name is Dara Carol and it's feels so amazing to be a mommy. I will post the story and pictures as soon as I can. Thank you C for making me a mommy you did an awesome job and I love soo much!

The Doctor told C that she is a loose 3 and 40-60% effaced and they stripped her membrane. Maybe this will get things moving. Every night for the past three night I say to C this is the night I feel it and nothing.

C called just know while I was blogging and said that she is having the braxton hicks contractions more often but still no pain. I hope this is a sign. I feel like tonight is the night.

When?

This is C at 39 weeks and 1 day!

We have six more days until that magical number comes. So far this has been the hardest part for me, not knowing. Every call that comes in, every ouch C lets out. I go into panic mode, my heart starts racing. Is today going to be the day? Are we going to have any warning? Are we going to have any false runs to the hospital? What am I going to do with the dogs if C is in labor for a long period of time?Hundreds of questions running through my head every minute of the day.

Wednesday C had her Doctors appointment with her regular doctor. They like to rotate you through the other doctors in the practice just incase your regular doctor isnt available to deliver the baby. She said that she is dailated to a tight 3 and 40% effaced and while she was in there she stretched her cervix witch releases something that helps with the delivery. I cant remember the terminology. I was suprised that she said only 40% effaced because the other two doctors said 50 and then 75% effaced but I guess Cs doctor said that they are more generous with thier numbers.

Yesterday after getting off early and feeling like a queen sitting at home drinking my coffee and eating a bag of tear 'n share M&Ms blogging about how things are going and how life was so simple I herd a knock at the door it was our babysitter that we found that lived two blocks from us. My first thought was she was seeing how things were going but no she was letting us know that one of the other mothers that she was sitting for was expecting and she was having twins. She said that she felt horrible but there was no way she could watch all of those kids. She gave us a few numbers of some other daycare providers. So a long story short I guess we got the cut. I knew C would be crushed I hated to have to tell her but what else would I do. So she came in and I had her dinner ready and had the hot foot spa ready. I let her soak her feet and eat before I gave her the news. She was so upset I hate to see her sad I assured her everything would be okay and that we still have 2 more months until we needed a sitter anyway. So this morning I called one of the ladies and she sounds very nice. She lives close but not as close as our other sitter was she was so close I was planning on walking our little one down there everyday and visiting on our lunch break but this one is still close and its on the way to Cs work. We plan on visiting her tomorrow and we will see how things feel then and try to make a decision. It is so hard knowing you will have to leave your baby with a complete stranger.

Another Dr. appiontment

So far so good. C went to the Doctors office yesterday and she is 75% effaced and 1cm dilated and the doctor said the babies head is way down. The way things are moving along I don't know if she will last until the 11th. The week before see was 50-75% effaced and no dilation. Ever time the phone rings I start to panic a little wondering if this is the time. I hope for my works sake that the baby will hold out just a little longer. For C sake I hope it comes a little early. She is starting to get really tired and she is having to monitor her blood pressure because it has been getting a little high but they said they weren't worried about it because there was no protein in her urine and she has had no swelling but other than that she has been doing awesome and she looks so cute pregnant. Like I said before she has only gained about 18 pounds and I have gained 25. I hope once the weather starts to warm up I will get my butt back to working out. It will be so nice when we can get out and run or walk with our little one. Maybe the next post will be photos of bumpkin. I cant wait to find out if its a boy or girl! We will keep you posted.

Just for fun

Well we have been getting more snow than we usually do. So instead of sitting inside and doing nothing I decided to get out and make C and I as snow people. I'm not sure if you can tell or not but C's has a prego belly.

Our social worker came by on Saturday and everything went very well. They asked us a million question. I wasn't expecting them to go into that much detail but the lady was very nice and I am happy we found this lawyer.

The longest nine months of my life

I think we are finally ready. C had a work baby shower last Friday and we got more goodies. The next day my mom and step dad went with us to pick up a mattress, changing pad mattress and a few little odds and ends. We only had to spend ten dollars which is nice since we had to pay our lawyer off for the adoption this week. I still cant believe how generous everyone is. We got everything we wanted. How rotten are we! We did have some of the big stuff already furniture, bedding, pack-n-play, bouncy, highchair, and swing but as you know there is a lot of stuff out there. We got our chicco travel system, Evenflo car seat 0-100 lbs, jeep walker, 2 diaper bags, a couple outfits (if you don't know what you are having no one buys clothes), lots of diapers and wipes, wooden gate, baby bath, towels and rags, home made blankets, lamb blankets, books, hygiene stuff, a few toys, and gift cards to the coolest baby store around Happybottomus ( I plan on getting a carrier from there).

Tomorrow the social worker comes out to our place for our first home study. I'm not nervous because our lawyer is pretty confident and the baby is our baby no matter what the have to say. I hope the judge sees it that way too. He will make things easier for our baby if he just goes along with it. If not oh well the baby is still ours ha ha suckers!

We had our last birthing class last night and we got to take a tour of the hospital. I am ready and I think C is too. She cant eat anything without getting heartburn and I guess it must be really bad because she is having to eat everything plain. She was worried about gaining wait when she was pregnant now she is worried about gaining weight after the baby is here because she hasn't had any good food in 9 months and she is ready for something spicy and gooood. She is still throwing up every once in a while and is still having some kidney trouble. I cant wait to have my old C back.

33 weeks

Our baby shower!

The baby shower was this past Sunday and everything went great. My mom did an excellent job decorating and planning. It went really smooth and it was so cute. We are so thankful to have such wonderful family and friends. Here are a few pictures of the shower.

Birthing classes +

Well I tried to post last weekend but for some reason my video would never load. So by the time I got everything down I was sick of it and just deleted it. I tried to post a video of C belly moving. It was a 45 second video and I waited 45 minutes for it to down load and nothing so I guess I wont be posting videos unless someone can tell me why it takes so long.

We have had three of our birthing classes and so far so good. I think its kind of funny because our teacher will say something about the Dads and then look at me and then say partner or support person. I guess they are trying. Everyone is very nice in our class. One of the reasons we chose this hospital is because we have had other lesbian families say they delivered there and they were very kind to them. It's a good 45 minute drive for us but it sound like the average delivery is 12 to 24 hours so I think we should be good. I wish it was a little closer for our families but we wanted to be sure we were comfortable with the doctors.

We are also having our baby shower this weekend. My mom is hosting it and she is a little OCD. She gets an idea in her head and if she cant find something she will make it. She won't tell us anything about it, she wants it to be a surprise. She has made a spread sheet of what shes bought and every time I call her she is cleaning. My moms house is never dirty so I have no idea what she is cleaning. Oh wait she said she wad cleaning the fake leaves on the tree and the blinds and shampooing the carpet and cleaning the windows, but she said she wasn't doing much. She even burned up her vacuum and had to buy a new one.

We also have a new nephew he was born on Tuesday the 18th. Cristpher James he is 20 1/2 inches and 8 lbs. 13 oz. We are going over to visit him tonight. Yeah!

Birthing class canceled due to snow

Well today was supposed to be our first birthing class. I was so excited about it because I feel like this is the part where I can be involved and it got canceled due to the weather. Since Christmas we have been blasted with snow. This is the most snow I have ever seen in this area. The people who live in Colorado would probably laugh at our snow amount. Its kind of funny because the schools close down because the snow and the below 0 temperature but what do they do in Colorado or anywhere else up north? Nobody would ever have to go to school. I guess their cities are more prepared to handle it. I feel like I am shoveling everyday I even have to shovel the back yard so the dogs can go potty. Kinser our Lhasa had a rough Monday he actually got his tongue stuck to the metal plate that goes across the bottom of the door and C had to get warm water to get it off. I guess he was pulling so hard trying to get it off she thought he was going to pull it off before she got back with the water. Blood was everywhere poor guy. His feet get cold too so he walks all funny and we have to put the babies socks on him. I guess we better put socks on our registry.

so bad at posting

Well Christmas and New Years has came and went. Now we can start focusing on what we are going to have to do before this baby gets here. We have 68 days until our due date but they say only five percent come on the due date. I hope we have our little bumpkin before and not after. I cant imagine what it will be like if we have to wait any longer. It would also mess up the time I requested off of work. We are going over to my moms tonight to start making the invitation list for the shower. We thought it would just be a small shower but C and I both have people asking us to send them an invite. I thought people hated going to these things so we were just going to invite mostly family but I was surprise at how many people want to come not even knowing us that well. We also start our first birthing class this Thursday. It always makes me nervous to go somewhere and not know if that one person that hates "gays" is going to be there to ruin our special time. I haven't ran across any but I know they are out there and I hope I can be strong and ignore them if and when it happens. Happy 2010!