FAQ: Who Does She Look Like?

Getting our crew out the door is hilarious or panic inducing, depends on how I look at it. I have barely been out but Little Miss and I did get out (just the two of us) for her two-week check up. Afterwards, I decided to run by a quick portrait studio, thinking we could be in and out. 

Little Miss T joins her siblings in a legacy of being amazing kids but not great or deep sleepers and this day was no exception. The photographer was bored as there was no one else and she spent 1.5 hours trying to get me to put her to sleep, but there was absolutely no way Little Miss T was going to participate in that silly activity. Ha! The photographer would say, “Maybe try nursing her one more time?” and so we tried on four separate occasions, which really only made her spit up on the props. People who get their babies on a schedule astound me.

Because it was a studio, she also was continually annoyed by the flash. 

This sweet little bundle seems to favor her daddy’s side. We have heard multiple times that she reminds people of Jon’s dad, even from people who have only seen him in pictures. :)

When we heard at her 18 week ultrasound it was a girl, I was shocked as I was really hoping for a boy to keep things even, now I can’t imagine anything but a bit of girlie sweetness!

We love the little dear so much! She loves to be held and has started to stare deeply into our eyes, studying our faces for chunks of time, so glad for this gift of God.

FAQ: What Do Your First Three Think of the New Addition?

What do your first three kiddos think of the new addition?

Five days after Little Miss T’s birth, as we ate dinner, my arms full of baby and Jon’s arms full as well, A lamented, “Do you remember our family before? We used to do so many things we can’t do right now.” as A talked, I clarified, “Do you mean before Tiger joined our family, just the four of us?” “No,” she replied, “I can’t remember life without Tiger.” A few minutes after this, she commented “I can’t remember life without Little Miss T either. Ha! It had been a rough five days apparently.

Tiger is a lover. True to his nature, he loves his baby sis. He is empathetic about getting to her and any chance he gets, he rolls/inches himself towards her to give her pats or open mouth kisses on her head. (this is all heavily supervised). Teaching a seven-month-old full contact child the concept of “gentle” proves difficult. Ha!    

Our second set of “twins”

Trying to keep them separate on the couch. 

The “bigs” are definitely feeling transition with another new baby but also loving on her . They are amazing kids and we have seen them adapt, adapt, adapt to so many things and they are adjusting to being a family of six. A mentioned she prefers babies, not “first born” which is her way of saying newborn and they can’t wait for her to be interactive and have a stronger neck so they can move her around a bit more.   They are so happy for a sister and say the best part is “holding her and we have two babies so we can each have one.” 

Our first (and so far only) family of six photo. :)

FAQ 1: How Does Adoption Compare to Biological Birth?

On the way to the hospital for the delivery of Little Miss T, Jon and I were laughing how, though our fourth child, we were totally new to the labor and delivery game. We haven’t had the same process for our kids and we did discuss how it would be nice to do a process and then feel competent in it and do it again. 

Many times, the way the above question is phrased is something like this, “How does it feel to have your own?” I smile as I can answer this question, “This is my fourth.” or “I already have three of my own.” My response isn’t meant to be snarky but in complete thankfulness of how God grows families. Just as Jon and I are not blood relatives but God has knit us together as family, the same applies to our kids. I know growing up as an adopted child, I was never made to feel less a part of any family because we didn’t share bloodlines. 

Regardless, we rejoice how God has grown our family through international adoption, domestic US adoption and, most recently, biological childbirth. Here’s my disclaimer before I go further, this is only from my experience and we haven’t had “difficult” adoption experiences in that our wait times have not been long, we have not had placements that were changed, birthmothers who changed their mind, court dates that continually bump back, etc.

All the processes are beautiful and hard and each one, God ordained. 

Adoption is worth it. It is a challenge. Adoption can feel like fighting the universe to have a child who is not birthed from your body to join your family. But how God can use that time, when, through stacks of paperwork, training, interviews, background checks, home studies and continually trying to prove you will be a competent parent, it sometimes feels like two steps forward, three steps back. Your marriage, childrearing, finances and upbringing are all under scrutiny.

And then, there's the wait. This is different depending on type of adoption and how God writes the story but as we waited, overdue with Little Miss T, the emotional agony was so much less as she was already with us, hanging out in the womb, and when she was born, she was, without question, ours in the eyes of every court, every social worker. When we waited in adoption, part of our hearts were alive across the ocean and we could do nothing in their care until we were invited and passed court. With domestic, we met Little Tiger, fell in love with his birthmother and walked deep roads of uncertainty as we spent days, rejoicing and grieving with her. Until those papers were signed, he wasn’t ours and though fully ours in heart, our agency reminded us that we still had many hoops to jump through until we could finalize, more proving ourselves. When Little Miss T was born, we filled out one paper and that was enough to get a birth certificate. Jon looked at me and said, “That’s it?” And it was, no lawyers, just check a box and she gets a social security number. No long lines at multiple offices, trying to prove we are parents through multiple documents, all needing to be certified. Then, they just sent the sweet little girl home with us. No questions, no triple checks on our abilities to parent, just a small wheelchair ride out to our van and she was allowed to go with us. 

Now, let’s talk about the hormones that come with childbirth. This has been, hands down, the most difficult and unanticipated part for me. OH, THE HORMONES. Ahh! How did I miss this?!, I had heard from enough women that the hormones makes you a bit crazy, I couldn’t understand until I am walking it and fighting not to be held hostage by them. (Don’t worry about me, I am keeping close tabs on my emotional health. :)) I know there are many benefits to them as well and God’s plans are perfect, even in the hormones. While adoption is an emotional wearying process, once the child is in our arms, the next parts of the journey seem to be with less drama because my hormones were not a rollercoaster. There is also an incredible blessing in carrying a child and receiving her into our arms immediately.

And each time we hold a new child in our arms, we feel the weight and magnitude of God entrusting us with another life and it’s a miracle.

And Then We Were Six

I’ve written many blog posts in my head while I nurse in the wee hours of the morning. Being a multitasked with four kids, nursing is a bit of a shock to the system in that it hasn’t been an easy process for me or Little Miss T to learn and we have to focus all our energy on making it work. She is two weeks old today and I would say the two of us are in a better swing with her eating, praise God. 

I have now worked out a small series of FAQs I can answer but will go in small chunks because, well, I am in a life stage where finding a window to shower feels like an accomplishment. I know many of you can relate. 

Here is a brief birth story, not too many details, but it is still a birth story. :) If you don’t want to know details, just look at the pics and move along. 

My due date came and went without so much as a contraction. Depressingly, even with all the birthing ball and natural gravity positions I would try to bring on labor, I started to feel better and better, less achy, more like my body had decided to hold off on getting this baby into the world. 

Our doctor’s comfort level with overdue moms was that the baby needed to make a debut on day 12. On day 11, as my body was still showing no signs of labor, I was sent in to the hospital for an induction. I had never been admitted to a hospital and was kind of dreading the whole process. I checked in on Sunday evening and I was hooked up to monitors and given Ceravil which was supposed to help my cervix prepare. Jon and I got some sleep during the night as we knew it was a big day ahead.

About 6:00 am, I was started on Pitocin, a drug to bring on labor. Again, not my favorite idea and it really limited how much I could move but we agreed as we also wanted the baby to come into the world on day 12. Once I was in the hospital, it couldn’t go fast enough for me. Contractions started hard and fast, when they started, they came about 3 minutes apart. I don’t know why but I imagined a break where I could feel totally normal during contractions but because of severe back pain, I didn’t get much relief between contractions. Probably the funniest part of the morning happened when Jon got a phone call from WBCL to do an interview for a radio station about the BAM Symposium happening and he answered the call and I moaned/yelled, “Tell them your wife is in labor!” Needless to say, Jon didn’t do the interview. :)

Around 11:30, I was offered an epidural or I needed to wait until mid-afternoon. Don’t hate me for all you strong natural woman but I happily received an epidural. :) I still wasn’t dilating much and was still feeling enough pain with the epidural that I couldn’t rest and was not dilating. A few hours later after very little progress, they gave me some kind of amazing booster and I was able to sleep for 30 minutes. I woke up from the nap and had gone from a 3 to an 8 dilated. As I was being considered a c-section risk, the nurses and doctor were so happy with this…And then I stalled and stayed between an 8-9 for a few hours. The epidural was wearing thin and no one wanted to give me more as the staff wanted me to feel pain to push against when it was time. It was what we wanted to and I kept Tiger in my mind as motivation as I knew the c-section recovery would bar me from holding an 18 pound wiggle bug. I finally moved to a 10 and the nurses were delighted; however, I also stayed at a 10 with no desire to push for several hours. Finally, it was concluded I should start pushing, regardless of how I was feeling. 

I pushed for about an hour before I asked for another bit of a booster to the epidural as I was bordering on despair. I know, so dramatic but I was having little progress. After about another 30 minutes, the doctor came in, announced, “We are doing this! She will come!” And praise to God, more pushing later, her little head of dark hair came into the world and the doctor wiggled the rest of her body out. I had my eyes shut and felt her come out but didn’t want to think I was done if I wasn’t when I felt her on my chest. 

Because we were doing skin-to-skin time, they didn’t take her away for over 2 hours. We didn’t know weights and measures and we also changed her mind about her name, so she was nameless but we didn’t care, we were overwhelmed with thankfulness.

Poor little girl was so beat up from her entrance into the world but she seems like an overcomer. :)

Thank you for all your prayers. We are overwhelmed by God’s goodness to our family. 

 

 Coming up: “How does this experience compare with adoption experiences?”