ILX Parenting 5: I'm a big kid now

yeah my theory is that around 2 years old is when you start to forget how hard it was in the beginning and think it's somehow a good idea to have another one

Man this outsourced pregnancy thing is really weird. Went to a doctor visit with the birth mom a couple weeks ago, which was kind of hilarious - birth mom and I are both pretty heavily tattooed, she's a pretty scrappy butchy lesbian who used to love getting into fights, my wife and I are liberal academic heathens, all hanging out in the maternity ward of a Catholic hospital named after a combo doctor / priest. Afterwards we bought her and her girlfriend dinner at Qdoba because they are young and only eat fried shit, pizza, and burritos. We're going to another tomorrow for an ultrasound because her amniotic fluid level was kind of low and they want to see if it's leaking or problematic in any way.

We text with her a lot when she freaks out about stretch marks or had to go to the hospital for kidney stones, so I don't have an emotional spouse to deal with but this remote presence instead. Her mom and grandmother have come around to her giving up the kid which is good - they were both like 17 or 18 when they had kids so being 20 seems super mature to them, so why NOT have a baby you aren't ready for? I also realized recently that I am actually older than birth mom's mom.

She's due in 5 weeks now and in theory all is going well and will work out. Birth dad signed the papers giving up his rights which is good. We've started to tell people about it a bit which is really weird because nobody has any context for this. I got the "so, do you have kids...?" thing at a party the other day and sort of explained this all to a couple people who had no idea that open adoption was even a thing or how it worked. It's going to be weird go to to our usual stores and restaurants and suddenly have an infant without my wife ever having looked pregnant, and I'm getting ready for all the "oh, he has your eyes" comments that people will inevitably make.

Again sorry for dumping all this here but we're keeping it off facebook until it happens so I have no where else I really feel I can dump random outbursts about this.

^^^ all of this is why I basically said nothing on social media anywhere until after the kids were born and we were in control of their medical decisions

So how long was it after the birth and you legally getting custody? From my understand and in our state, birth mom has 48 hours afterwards to make her decision, and at that point the baby becomes a ward of the agency though we get to take him home. There is a second hearing that grants us full custody a month or two later but it's basically a formality after the mom relinquishes her rights in that 48 hour window.

We've had to start telling some people - coworkers, my wife's grad students, people who will have to deal with us when we have to take off for a couple of days during the birth - but are strictly keeping it offline otherwise. It feels like a pretty sure thing, birth mom is very adamant about it being our baby, uses language carefully to that effect, how she's not at all ready to be a parent yet, how she wants to have fun in her 20s, how she's going to deal with it emotionally, but it's still so hard to think that she might back out and want to keep it.

Because we adopted in Maine, the birth mother had to go to court to relinquish her rights, after which she had 72 hours to change her mind. Maine only heard these cases on Wednesdays and, due to backup from the horrible weather, we ended up waiting 2 and a half weeks before her court date, at which point the boys became legal wards of the placement agency placed in our care as foster-to-adopt parents. We effectively have legal custody of them now but they aren't fully "ours" until our court date, which is still pending.

I'm in Washington state, and as far as I know she doesn't explicitly need to go to court to do so but it's easier if she does. The other stuff sounds similar, with a second hearing later on but no real urgency to do so as we will effectively be the parents. It's when a new birth certificate is issued with our names on it and such.

Dan, when is your final court date? (Unless you can't/don't want to say.)

It sounds so harrowing. I mean, pregnancy through medical intervention after infertility/miscarriage is harrowing, too, of course, but different. I don't know, if positive thoughts and good vibes and atheist prayers mean anything, you've got all of mine.

I'd prefer not to say but we have it set. All we have to do now is keep feeding the boys and write about a bazillion more checks.

<3

Wow Dan, good luck!

yikes

and i thought immigrating was a paperwork/time/$$$ suck

hats off to you folks

ah Dan that must be terrifying. thinking good thoughts for you + mrs p

Kid illness sucks soooo hard, especially when one of your kids is making breathing sounds that are reminiscent of a cat fucking up some wax paper.

On the plus side, one of our ER doctors was former ilxor marianna lcl, which was awesome and unexpected.

(Both boys are home and breathing well after some home hits off our spanking new nebulizer btw)

Oh bummer. Sorry you had a trip to the ER. We went through a phase where we ended up going there a few times.

Oh that's so scary. I'm glad they are okay.

Ivy's got some major congestion today (no fever). Apparently she had a little nose bleed from it last night and she was too stuffy to eat today. No amount of saline and Nosefrida-ing could remedy it so we spent about 15 minutes in the latch, pull off, breathe and cry, latch cycle of congested breast feeding which was not fun for anybody. Although she's napping on my lap now and appears to be breathing freely through her nose so maybe we're past the worst of it.

Time to scrub up the humidifier.

I'm the one with the cold in our house. Hope if F gets it, it'll be after I've recovered a bit because dealing with a healthy baby is enough effort for me at the moment. Hope all your babbies feel better soon .

btw we have spent something like 13 hours in the ER over the past two days FUN

My 4 year old came home from school yesterday asking me to download Minecraft.

On the plus side, one of our ER doctors was former ilxor marianna lcl, which was awesome and unexpected.

how on earth did you even figure this out?!

The "FUCK WASHING A HAT" onesies probably gave it away.

lol

haaaa

During the whole visit she was super friendly and we both felt kind of a weird ease; on my end it was a subconscious "I feel like we've interacted before" that I didn't even notice until after the reveal and on her end she was thinking "I feel like I know him, why would I know him?" Near the end of the visit I started singing to on of the boys to calm him down and after she heard me, something clicked and she ran back in the room and asked "are you the DP from ILX?????????" and re-introduced herself and I boggled.

tiny, tiny world

That's crazy. I love that she figured out it was you by the singing.

woah

please print "Fuck Washing a Hat" onesies, will pre-order

I sat my kid down recently and had a heart-to-heart with him about the life cycle of hats, as his prized Domo flatbrim got to looking a little too sweatstained around the edges. I didn't tell him "fuck washing a hat" outright but it informed the spirit of the convo.

http://images.cpcache.com/merchandise/362_460x460_Front_Color-SkyBlue.png?region=%7B%22name%22:%22FrontCenter%22,%22width%22:5,%22height%22:1,%22alignment%22:%22TopCenter%22,%22template%22:%7B%22id%22:84803831,%22params%22:%7B%22yourtexthere%22:%22Fuck%20Washing%20a%20Hat%22%7D%7D%7D

lol

The class hamster is crashing at our place

So I think I posted before about how K is physically behind, has low muscle tone, and gets some light physical therapy. She's 2 and 8 months now and seems to have had a breakthrough. I got home tonight and she was at the playground with her mom -- she actually asked to go, which she never does, and when I got there she was running around like a fireball, climbing, jumping, and even hanging/swinging from bars. Totally confident going up to the tall slide and going down herself too. And completely happy. I'm always extra concerned about that stuff because I had a tough time physically as a little kid, so it made me really happy to see.

Good news!

That's great! Go K!

K called our doorman tonight (apparently the intercom phone is live if you pick it up, didn't realize) and asked if he wanted to come to sesame street

omg <3

K is winning at awesome right now.

Oh man! lol

So adorable!

<3

Hooray to growing independence, boo to this whole "when i get frustrated i smack myself over and over in the head" deal.

"C'mon dad, can't a guy just tear the cable jack out of the wall in peace" *smack smack scream smack*

Oh good it's not just our son. Also he's started hitting us now. We have taught him that we use nice hands.

Ivy is into hitting and eye-gouging. I've found myself using one of my mom's old standby phrases a lot: People are not for hitting. People are for loving.

also virginia

According to the infallible Internet it's super common, particularly in boy children. So another reason that dudes suck, basically

At this rate due to his advanced size and violent tendencies, I am v concerned my son will grow up to play sports.

My kid shows more proclivity towards sports than I ever did. He's often wandering out to the park with a baseball or football, whereas when I was his age it was always bikes and skateboards. We enrolled him in kung fu when he was 4 and that's been the closest thing to an organized sport that he does. However, I could totally see him getting reeled into baseball or lacrosse or something in middle school.

I could deal with baseball or football (though I would greatly prefer skateboarding) but my son getting really into hockey would be my great fear and major test of being a supportive parent

I'm hoping for tennis or basketball since those are two sports I like to watch. Girls ice hockey is very popular around here though so who knows. Or she may end up like me and give up after multiple unsuccessful sports team tryouts and go on to letter in band and drama.

Really whatever she wants except no football because that shit is way too dangerous.