I am so very sorry for delay in updates since I announced rather shortly that we were chosen to parent the newborn girl!
First, I can't even begin to describe how wonderful this little girl is. She is very self-structured and has slept through the night since the 4th day home as well as taking regular naps in the morning and afternoon. According to her pediatrician, we should be prepared to parent a very intelligent child because she is far ahead of the curve on all of her milestones. She loves being passed around at family functions, but when she's feeling sleepy, she wants her parents (that's US!). She will be 4 months old in a couple of days & is just a joy.
All of that being said, the first couple of months were tough. I got to spend every day with this amazing newborn who was practically the dream child of everyone who has ever had a newborn. And I could barely get off the couch. It started just a few weeks after she came home & began to really worry about myself- was I experiencing post-adoption depression? was I much less fit than I thought and a newborn, even a magically easy newborn, was just wiping me out? I cried a lot and slept as much as she did. I hated eating anything and woke up in the middle of the night with a terrible nauseous headache that usually resulted in my throwing up or collapsed on the bathroom floor for an hour.
Finally, on the advice of my mother, I called the doctor and scheduled an appointment... which they lost due to a 'new system' error... twice. I asked them if they could just order a blood test, since I assumed that would be the result of the appointment anyway. I was particularly interested in a thyroid screening since those sorts of issues run in my family and Dr. Google seemed to point me in that direction. They did, and did a general panel as well.
A few days later, I got an after hours call from the doctor himself (not an assistant or nurse!), which of course I missed. His voicemail message asked me to call first thing in the morning if I didn't hear from the assistant first. Naturally I assumed the worst about the results and started wondering if we could keep on with the adoption if, say, I had to go through chemo... or whatever. The next morning, the phone rang at 7:45. The assistant said: Everything looks good- you are very healthy! But... well, you know you are pregnant right?
UM... NO!??!
So, that is also going on now. The adoption should be finalized, according to our lawyers, by the end of October, if all goes smoothly with some other dates coming up. Then, in late February, we will have our second child. It's ok, you can laugh. That's what we did for the first week after finding out!
Lots more to update, of course, but for now, the baby is sleeping and I would like to join her.
