Random

Sorry in advance for how choppy this is, but there is a lot going on right now at our house! Once I'm done grading papers I'll be a lot less stressed out. Tragic hero essays...argh! But, a lot has happened and I don't want to keep you in the dark.

Clio update: as of 4-25, when I went to M's Dr. appt., Clio's heartbeat is 148 and M is measuring at 30 cm, which the Dr. said is perfect. However, M found out a week ago that she has GD (gestational diabetes) and is now on a restricted diet. From reading I've done and advice from my Dad (an MD), GD shouldn't be a big deal as long as M follows her diet pretty well, but M might be induced to have Clio early if she starts becoming a big baby. No ultrasound at this appt. *pouting* But I loved hearing her heartbeat!

Breastfeeding update: I have now attended one meeting of BFing Addicts Anonymous, otherwise known as La Leche League (LLL). They are great! And, as a result, I am now the proud owner of a $350 Medela Lactina double electric pump (from ebay!) which I will endeavor to use every 3 hours, except I will NOT wake up in the middle of the night to pump. No way. I'll have enough of that when Clio is here! No milk yet, but I haven't been very aggressive with my manual Avent Isis pump up to this point, so I'm not surprised by that.

Cloth diapering update: I have acquired MANY cloth diapering items in the past couple of weeks (almost all from http://diaperswappers.com/). Here is a partial list:
36 cloth wipes
12 newborn prefolds
6 newborn covers
7 snappis (excessive, I know)
1 diaper wetbag and 1 wipe wetbag
1 NB AIO (all-in-one)
1 homemade fleece cover (made by me with a pattern found on DiaperSwappers)
and many prefolds, fitteds, pocket diapers, AIOs, covers, etc. in size small because she will probably be a big baby and be out of NB sizes fast!

OK, so I lied when I said I was going to do CD simply like Linda, with only prefolds and covers. DiaperSwappers is ADDICTIVE! I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. I'm loving getting all of the packages of cute little diapers in the mail all of the time.

Misc:
*my school friends are throwing me a shower on May 8...fun!
*my church friends are throwing me a shower at the end of May, and M is going to be a guest! That will be exciting.
*J and I will probably be vacationing in June to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary (which is actually July 18th when we'll be in the middle of full-on sleep deprivation). We are considering Europe but may end up just going to Chicago. :)
*Only 20 more school days!

Decorating

This past week, J picked up these Flor carpet tiles at Target, 75% off! We now have almost enough to cover the entire nursery floor (we have 6 boxes after "hitting" two Target stores and we would need 8 boxes for wall-to-wall). We're still debating how big or small we want the rug/carpet to be, but we love these tiles and I'm very excited about having them after reading this post by dooce awhile back.

This purchase confirms something that J and I have been discussing: the nursery walls need to be painted. We received a Classic Pooh crib bedding set from friends several years ago, when we were first discussing having a baby. When we moved into our current house, we immediately chose the nursery and while renovating the entire house (removing carpet and wallpaper from almost every surface, over a three year period) we painted the "nursery" a green that matches the Classic Pooh bedding. However, the green of the walls now clashes with the green in these Flor tiles, and I never really like the wall color anyhow, so it needs to go. You might be thinking that this means our bedding will clash with the carpet, but strangely this is not the case.

Anyhow, I had a brainstorm about the walls. Recently, we attended our monthly wine club meeting at a house where they had painted a basement room (their wine cellar) to look like a much larger, European-style wine cellar. The walls were painted meticulously to look like aged stone, and the artist in the family had used perspective to add doors and windows that appeared to look into adjoining rooms of wine barrels and out on rolling fields of grape vines. My description might sound a bit corny, but it was beautifully done. So, I thought it would be wonderful to have someone paint our nursery walls to look like the 100-Acre Wood!

I've asked one of my 17-year-old students, who is a fabulous artist, to do it for $8 an hour. She's very excited about it, and I'm sure she'll do a great job. Hey, her first commissioned work! :) I'll help her with the parts I can, and let her do the detail work. I don't think it will end up actually looking like this map (painted from above) but instead have, for example, Owl's tree from floor to ceiling in one corner of the room and Pooh's tree on another wall, etc. J thinks I'm being too optimistic that my student can handle the project, but hey, what's the worst that can happen? She won't make it happen and we'll just paint over her work a solid color. No biggie. I'm hopeful, however, that it will turn out great. Here's an example of what I'm looking for (image from a Google image search for "Pooh mural") :

Retainer

We have a lawyer! The only other time in my life I've had a lawyer was the time I got a speeding ticket and we hired someone to plead it down to a non-moving violation so that my insurance wouldn't go up. (And, by the way, I really didn't deserve a ticket for going 48 in a 35 because it was a highway for goodness sakes!) The speed limit should have been at least 50...a raised highway with no residential houses on it! OK, I'm calming down now.

Anyhow, J and I met our new lawyer (KR) this afternoon, which consisted of telling her about our adoption plans and then learning the size of her retainer. Wow. If anyone is thinking about adoption and wants to know how much we're paying, feel free to e-mail me. Our lawyer asked how we'd like to pay and we said by check. She then told us that some people like to pay with a credit card in order to get the frequent flier miles. That made me smile; you could practically go to the moon and back with the ff miles this bill would earn!

So, good news first: KR says that this is an "easy" adoption because there are no issues with different counties, states or countries. Also, T being involved and supportive removes some of the big legal concerns. M has Medicaid to cover her healthcare expenses, and she's not asking an unreasonable amount to cover her expenses (we'll reimburse her for prenatal vitamins, maternity clothes, counseling and time off work after Clio is born). So, our adoption should be fairly straight-forward and relatively inexpensive compared to some.

Bad news next: I didn't quite realize all of the legal hoops we have to jump through. Meeting with KR and paying her retainer is only the beginning. We'll have to hash out details with M and T about our birth plan, etc. We will have to get permission from M to see Clio in the hospital for the first 2 days after she's born (although I don't anticipate this will be a big problem). We will have to go to court 48 hours after she's born to get temporary custody, and at that time will have to answer questions from the judge about our fitness to be parents, including a potential pop quiz about transracial adoption. If Clio is born on July 2nd, then 48 hours later will be the 4th and a Friday, meaning in that case we wouldn't have custody until the 7th...5 days later! If that happened, M would have to take Clio home from the hospital and then turn her over to us later. That would stink because M is not going to be prepared to have a baby at home. But, the only other option would be to keep Clio in the hospital the whole time, and I doubt Medicare would pay for that. Our insurance will only cover Clio once she's officially ours. Please, everyone, pray she doesn't come on the 2nd! or any Thursday or Friday, for that matter. Thanks. KR also detailed all of the different social workers etc. who will be visiting our house during the first 6 months, after which the adoption will be finalized. However, M and T only have a right to change their minds during that initial 48 hour period, not for a full 6 months.

OK, deep breathing...I'm alright.

Lunch

Today was our lunch with M and T. It went very well! We met at a local pizza place and spent about an hour and a half over spinach and artichoke dip and thin crust pizzas. We talked much more freely about our histories and our jobs and M's 13-year-old daughter. We also talked about Clio somewhat, but not predominantly. I had some prints made of Clio's ultrasound pics, as well as some pics we took with M and T at our match meeting. I gave a set of prints to both M and T, and they were very happy to receive them.

All four of us were much more relaxed than at our office meeting, and we really enjoyed talking with them and getting to know each other better. I think the next time we'll see them is when I go to M's next dr. appt., but we did make casual invitations to get together perhaps for M and I to shop for baby clothes, or for T to come over and play Rock Band on PS3 with us (he's a video game fan). I'll post about it, of course, if either of those things happen.

In other news, I called my grandmother to tell her about Clio on Monday night and she was pleased for us, but didn't ask many questions. However, she called my mother on Thursday and asked about Clio's ancestry and my mother told her that Clio is biracial. My grandmother's response was simply that she thinks "life is hard for kids like that." Hopefully, this initial reaction bodes well for the future, but J and I will still need to be on guard and make sure she doesn't start making stereotypical or racist remarks around Clio.

I'm exhausted from being on a student retreat (for seniors at my school) from Tuesday through Friday, and I have papers to grade, so that is all for now.