matching process

We finally got to download the list of donor profiles on Friday. My husband is out of the country, so he spent the night pouring over them and I spent the morning. We finally shared our top choices with each other and 5 out of 10 of them were the same.

I just submitted our list of hopefuls to the NEDC. Now I guess they vet the choices and get back to us with further information.

I'm starting to get excited about our November transfer. I'm feeling like it's really going to happen. I started birth control last weekend and with it Lovenox injections to prevent blood clots. The birth control is high in estrogen and so are the estrogen supplements (obviously) that I will start to take in October as our transfer date starts to approach. Both are bad for women who have had blood clots.

My husband gets home on this Friday. He has been away for over three weeks and we are more than ready for him to be home. I can't believe we've been able to coordinate some of this with him being overseas. We've done webex meetings with our social worker.

I can't believe it's getting to the end of September. Time is moving too fast.

Logan will be 10 months old on Friday as well.

Praying for you all on this journey.

xo Jill

waiting and waiting

I'm reposting this image from Lauree's blog. It's very true for our situation right now. We're waiting to hear back on our review of our homestudy. I didn't realize that it would take so long or else I would have submitted it a few weeks before our appointment.

Infertility has really taught me patience. Well, maybe that's not true, but now when I feel myself starting to get impatient I remind myself to be patient and to wait for God's plan to unfold. There's a reason why the brakes are on now.

It may mean we will not be transferring in November. We may have to wait until January. If that's the case I just need to cool my jets and count my blessings. Every time I interact with my son I forget about this frustration and just dive in to his smiles and happy grunts.

Two years ago we were waiting for domestic infant adoption and I was so depressed because there seemed to be no end in sight to the waiting. I was desperate for a baby and I couldn't convince anyone to choose us to adopt their baby. It was heartbreaking. The fear and anxiety of  thinking "what if the birthmother doesn't like us..."

Now, I only have to wait for a few weeks to be given the opportunity to connect with families who want to donate their embryos. It's a huge blessing. I pray that we are blessed with another healthy baby.

It would be a miracle.

There are miracles waiting for us, but we have to wait.

Cooling my jets over here and immensely grateful for embryo donation and adoption (even if it takes a while.)

Prayers to all of you on this journey.

xo Jill

Appointment update

Our appointment went really great last week. Getting there was the hardest part. I'd forgotten how much I hate flying - and we had a layover on the way there and on the way back. But we made it :) :)

We got our rental car and then we drove from Atlanta to Knoxville, TN. It was nice to finally get in the car and relax. I pulled out my knitting as soon as we got out of Atlanta and we got to chat and relax for the entire drive - about three hours.

(I finished a sweater and a pair of socks last week, so I was very productive.)

I guess knitting's off topic.

I got medically cleared with a few minor caveats. There appeared to be a little bit of fluid in my uterus, which might signal there could be an infection. So I was given a prescription for some antibiotics and told to start that as soon as I get my next period. I also have to start my birth control at that time and then my lovonox.

So in a few weeks I'll be on:

• two types of antibiotics (for two weeks)
• birth control pills (just the active ones until I'm directed to stop)
• lovonox injections (I have to start that when I start the birth control pills)
• prenatal vitamins
• fish oil
• Vitamin D for 8 weeks (blood work done at the NEDC showed that my levels are low.)
• lots of kefir to counteract the antibiotics
• raspberry leaf tea

I can't remember if I'm supposed to be taking anything else?

The other thing that we're waiting on is for our homestudy to be reviewed so that we can start to be matched with another donor family. I'm getting anxious about that. My husband is going to be out of the country for three weeks starting Labor Day and even though we've set up our Skype accounts and that should work for our counseling/matching sessions I'm still hoping there aren't any hold ups that prevent us from making the November transfer group.

I just wish our social worker would get back to us so that I can start to emotionally process that it's going to happen in November, or that we're going to have to cool our jets until January - which would also be okay. I just want to know what to expect. I'll kinda be disappointed if we have to wait, just because I stopped breastfeeding to meet the November deadline, but that's the way it goes.

Feeling incredibly blessed though!!! We are so lucky to get medically cleared. We are so lucky that there are families out there who are willing to let us adopt their embryos.

I'm scared too. Scared to be sad, scared of the anxiety that these treatments bring.

But then there is my son. He's really crawling now and not just army crawling. He's started to say "dada." He gets super excited when he sees a bottle, a banana or a bowl of oatmeal cereal. He loves to eat and eat and eat. We have his 9 month appointment this Friday. He's such a ham! He smiles and engages everyone he sees. Yesterday at the grocery store he was totally "chatting up" the man in line behind us with his smiles and his eyes. He was trying to peek around me to smile at the man whenever I got in his way.

I'm also finished with breastfeeding him. He's 100% weaned, but we still have a supply of breast milk in the freezer. Right now he gets a combo of baby formula, breast milk and real food.

Well, that's all and that's a lot!

Prayers to all of you on this journey.

xo Jill

getting ready

August is here!

We've been busy chasing after our little one. He's been army crawling. He's been bear crawling. He's not doing the traditional crawl yet, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time.

As I write this he's about seven feet away from me on the floor crawling back and forth. He likes to turn, sit up wave his arms, laugh and then start off army crawling again.

Next week is our return trip to the NEDC. We're flying in, spending the night in a hotel and then visiting the clinic for our appointment and flying back the same day. We usually do a road trip, but our work schedules have us pretty booked this late summer.

My mom and dad are watching Logan for us.

I'm excited and a little scared. I hope things go the way I hope.

Sending prayers to all of you on this journey.

xo Jill

miracle wall

This photo is from our adoption agency - a wall of miracle adoptions and Logan is smack in the middle of it.

I can remember the first time that we visited this agency's office over two and a half years ago, I wondered it our family would be blessed enough to have a photo of our child on that wall and now we're on it.

It's a miracle!

In other news, Logan is almost crawling. Each day he gets closer and closer. Every afternoon I bring him home from daycare and sit him down on the floor to see how much his crawling skills have progressed. Now he spends a lot of time on all fours - rocking. He just has to figure out how to move forward and stay above the floor.

Our social worker is coming for a home tour next week, then we will have our completed homestudy in hand. That's a good feeling.

I'm trying to wean Logan from nursing, but it is so hard! I'm going to have to be more diligent. I've basically got about a month from today to complete the process - hopefully it isn't overly dramatic for either one of us. Right now he still really wants to nurse, especially when we get home from daycare and just before bed.

I'll just have to take this day by day and hopefully neither one of us is in too much pain. I have a good supply of frozen milk.

Sending prayers for all of you on this journey.

xo Jill

fingerprints

His tiny fingerprints are all over the house.

On the mirror in the hallway where we make goofy faces at the glass and say "Who is this? Who is this? Is that my little boy?"

On the glasses that he reaches for at the dinner table. (Last weekend he reached forward and grabbed a glass and tipped it over the both of us.)

On all of his toys.

Forever on my heart. His fingerprints.

We went to the city services building on Thursday night, down into the basement to their fingerprinting processing room to get our fingerprints done for what will be our third homestudy.

Two times before this we have completed all of the paperwork, filled out all of the forms. Jumped through hoop after hoop.

I did it this time with him in my arms.

A completely different experience.

He smiled at the police officer doing our prints. The cop said: "You have one happy baby."

And one happy and grateful mama.

Homestudy # 3 is almost complete.

Happy 4th of July weekend everyone!

xo Jill

letters from babyland

I typed in "Babyland" in my search browser and this is one of the images that came up. Too funny and kinda scary how consuming having a baby can be.

(I will never ever ever ever take it for granted. Not ever. If I didn't have a baby I wouldn't be able to reflect in this way. I wouldn't be able to relax and laugh a little about being a mom. But I can laugh, because God blessed us. 

I. Am. So. Lucky.

Logan is starting to sit up. He's babbling more and he's babbling louder. He's started this fake cry thing that he definitely picked up at daycare.

He is such a good mimic. Sometimes he sounds like a cross between a robot and a dolphin. A robotic dolphin.

I still get the chills when I look at Logan and I look at my husband and I realize we're a family. It's the sort of chills you feel when you stand at the edge of a cliff and then take a step back and realize you didn't fall.

Near misses with grief. It could have gone one way, but it went the other . . .

I'm so blessed to be in babyland.

We started the paperwork to renew our home study. They gave us a 20% reduction in fees because we're going embryo adoption and this is our third round with them. We were very grateful for that. We still have to answer a bunch of questions, get our physicals and have our doctors fill out the forms and then go to the sheriff's office to get our fingerprints done. Lots to do!

I talked to the NEDC today and they recommend that I stop breastfeeding 2 months before our transfer in November. That's the end of August - right around the time that we have our kick off appointment for trying for baby #2 with Dr. K. I should probably try to wean Logan at the beginning of August so my boobs don't feel like they're going to explode on our trip to Tennessee.

(It's great to have this problem. Being able to nurse was one of the things I mourned when it looked like I wasn't going to be able to get pregnant.)

August is coming fast!

Sending prayers to you all who are still on this journey and prayers to you all who are blessed to be in babyland.

xo Jill