33 Weeks

Almost there!!! Just 7 more weeks until Emily is due (4 weeks until full term)! This week Emily is almost 18 inches long and weighs more than 4 lbs. In theory... :) I spoke to Lori on the phone today, and it sounds like they're predicting Emily to be pretty small...not unexpected! Kylie and Amy were both under 6lbs, so we're expecting around the same for Emily. Guess she'll get to wear those newborn clothes! :) Right now fetal development is focusing on growing, mostly in weight. Emily can potentially gain as much as half a pound each week from here on out. That's pretty amazing when you consider it took almost 14 weeks just to reach half a pound total!!! Emily's lungs are continuing to develop, however there is a chance that if she were born now that she'd require no oxygen support (we still hope to make it to at least 37 weeks though!). Her nervous system and brain are continuing to develop and get ready for life on the outside! Currently Emily can do everything any other newborn can do...except cry :)

Lori sent me a couple of videos of Emily moving around and I had happy tears in my eyes watching them! I'm feel so blessed that both Lori and Emily are so healthy and that in 7 short weeks we'll be holding our first baby. A year ago, I was beginning to think I'd never be in this place, so I'm savoring the moment(s).

Eric and I are riding out our first big snow storm of the year. We've had snow off and on since the end of September, but today is some serious stuff. At 5pm we already had almost 10 inches of snow on the back deck...and the snow is supposed to continue falling until tomorrow evening. Luckily, right now there's a small break in the snow, but the wind has kept up. The snow is beautiful, but I hate driving in it. Since last summer, after taking out the pole on the highway in a thunderstorm, I get nervous driving in bad weather. I do ok until the car slips a little bit and then I get this feeling that I'm going to spin out of control again. I have to try, with a lot of effort, to calm myself and realize that the car isn't sliding and I'm ok. What I like best about the snow is sitting inside by the fire, Champ resting on my lap, reading a book (or watching TV), eating some banana bread (which I made for the first time this weekend) and sipping a warm drink. I do love the various seasons we get here in Colorado (except we apparently skipped over Fall this year). All of the greenery and the thunderstorms in the summer, the trees changing colors in the fall, the snow covered mountains in the winter, and the blooming flowers in the spring. A lot of things you just don't see in California. If I could get my whole family to move here to Colorado with me, it'd be just perfect!!!

Well, I think that's about it. Eric and I are preparing for our trip to CA next week. I work Saturday, Sunday and Monday night and we leave Tuesday morning. I think I'm going to see if I can be put on call on Monday night...otherwise we'll just leave when I get home from work that morning! I took Champ to the vet yesterday to get him checked out and got his health certificate and his "permission slip" to fly. He's a whooping 21 lbs now!!! We were told he'd be 8-9 lbs when we got him, lol. They were just a little off ;) He's doing well with his crate. We parked it in front of the fireplace, threw treats in there, fed him in there, put his bed in there...and now he'll just go and lie down in it. I think he'll do well on the plane!

Well, I'm writing a novel this week, so I think I'll end things here. Not much else going on anyway :) Here are some pictures of the snow today!

32 Weeks

This week Emily is around 17 inches long and weighs in around 4lbs. She could still grow another 2-4 inches and possibly double her weight in the next 8 weeks! She's currently about the size of a honeydew! Only 55 more days!!!
Today I'm going to do my first load of baby laundry :) (yes, I'm so excited now...but I'm sure after the 110th load it'll lose it's novelty, lol). Eric ran out to get a haircut, so I asked him to pick up some Dreft. I'll wash Emily's blankets and a few of the outfits we'll be bringing to CA with us. Only just over a week left until we leave for our first trip out to CA. I'm looking forward to the trip, even though it'll be extremely short. Once we return home I only have 8 shifts left at work (10 if I get called in on my two call shifts) before we return to CA for Emily's birth.

It's already starting to feel a bit like Christmas here in Colorado!! We got about 6 inches of snow in Aurora yesterday! There were a couple of inches on my car when I left work yesterday morning at 5:30am and it just continued to snow all day up until about midnight. Some of the snow is already melting off, but our backyard faces north and is in shadow most of the time...so all of the snow is still sitting on our deck. We shoveled a path so Champ can go out. I guess he's decided he likes the snow again because yesterday when Eric was out shaking the snow off the trees Champ was running around like crazy, plowing through the snow drifts. It's such a funny thing to watch a miniature pinscher plow through snow drifts!

Well, that's pretty much all that's going on this week. Just getting ready for the trip to CA and trying to survive the snow, lol. Should make for a pretty and interesting road trip!

31 Weeks

Single digits!!!! I can't believe Emily will be here in 9 weeks!! This week Emily is about 17 inches long and weighs nearly 4 lbs. She's continuing to put on"white" fat that'll give her that cute little chubby baby look. This is different from the Brown fat that is developed and stored mostly between the shoulder blades and on the neck (you can't see it and it doesn't make the baby look any different). Brown fat is essential because since babies are notoriously bad at regulating their own temperature, brown fat can be burned off and turned into heat...keeping the baby warm. This week Emily's lungs are nearly mature, but will continue to grow stronger every week until birth. In fact, all of her organs though fully developed will only continue to grow stronger with each passing day!! These last few weeks of pregnancy are very important and vital to brain development. They have actually found significant differences in brain function between babies born at 37 weeks and babies born at 40-41 weeks. So, the longer Emily stays in, the more her brain will continue to develop...and hopefully she'll get to the point where only Eric can help her with her math homework, lol!!!

Eric and I met with our lawyer again this week to sign more papers. He said right now we stand to have all of the paperwork that we can have done before Emily is born finished and submitted by the end of November. After Emily is born, he will request a court date here in Colorado for sometime in January when they will finalize the adoption. Once that is done, we can get birth certificates with our names on them. So, right now we're just waiting for our background checks to clear, which will take another few weeks. I feel a huge sense of relief knowing the paperwork is under way!!

I took an adoption class yesterday for work. It was centered on how health care providers can better assist birth families and adoptive families while they're with us. It was interesting and I learned a few things. I definitely walked out of there relieved to know that a lawyer facilitated adoption (in the case of kinship adoptions) is 100% legal. It is the only type of adoption in Colorado that doesn't have to be facilitated by an Agency. (WHEW). There was a tiny little part of me that was still nervous that someday somehow we'd find out that we DID need an agency. So, my fears are laid to rest!!

I've been thinking about what things Eric and I will need to bring to CA with us when we drive out there in a few weeks. I've decided to only pull tags off and wash a couple of outfits, That way, if she's miraculously born over 8lbs and skips right over all of the NB stuff, I can still take it back and get some bigger sizes. Both of Lori's other girls were so tiny at birth! Both were under 6 lbs! I'm kind of expecting Emily to be on the smaller side too...but you just never know!!!

Well, that's about it for now. I'm posting some of the pictures from my baby shower my friend Bre from work threw. She did a BEAUTIFUL job!!!

Me and Bre

Diaper Cake Yummy Food

Airplane Cookies

Cakes and FavorsThe favors: little suitcases filled with chocolatesThe cake Bre Made!Flowers made of onesies, pants, socks...

30 Weeks

This week Emily is just around 16 inches long (she'll add another 4 or 5 inches before she's born). She weighs in just around 3 lbs, but she's still got a lot of weight to put on and will more than double her weight in the next 10 weeks.

This weekend is my first baby shower. My wonderful friends from work have put a lot of time and energy into things, and I'm really looking forward to it!! I can't believe it's already here!!! The shower will be held at my house, so I've been busy cleaning and organizing so I can have everyone over.

We got more information from our Lawyer today and have a few more forms to fill out and submit to the court. It looks like everything is on track though. What a relief that is!!!

To our surprise, we got a good amount of snow today!! Yep...SNOW! It snowed lightly back on Sept. 21 and then again earlier this week, but neither of those times was enough to stick. That changed today!! It snowed most of the afternoon, and even got heavy at times. Our deck is covered in a fresh layer of snow and the ground is covered in patches. I have to admit I wasn't quite ready for snow yet! I had just found all of my sweaters!! It seems like Colorado has completely skipped fall and went straight from summer into winter! Haha! It is supposed to snow more this weekend, and I've heard it could be up to a few inches!

The time is nearing for our trips to CA. The first during the first week of November when we'll be driving to CA to leave my car. During that trip Mema, Bonnie, and Patti have graciously offered to throw me another baby shower for all of my friends and family back home in CA. I feel so blessed to have so many people in my life who put time and energy into doing these wonderful things for us! Just a few short weeks after that trip we'll be returning to CA to get ready for Emily's arrival (if she doesn't decide to show up a little early). I can't believe she's due in just 10 short weeks. These past few months have flown by!! It's hard to believe we first learned of Emily when she was just 9 weeks along!! It won't be long now until I'm finally a mommy!!!! :)

29 Weeks

Wow, already 29 weeks!! This week Emily is just over 16 inches long and weighs almost 3 lbs. She's about the size of a squash :)

She'll have more energy thanks to the fat depositing on her body, and her brain continues to develop so she can eventually earn that full ride to an Ivy league school, lol. She can open and close her eyes, and can even react to changes in light. Her lungs continue to develop and get ready for all the work they're going to do in just 11 short weeks! Only 76 days until her expected arrival!

Yesterday Eric and I met with our lawyer. We learned that we are, luckily, not as far behind in the process as we may have thought. Today I'll be sending off our TRAILS background check forms which look into any history of child abuse or neglect...luckily neither of which apply to either of us! I'll also be sending off our finger print cards to have our Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) criminal background checks done. Luckily, we're both squeaky clean there too, lol. Getting finger printed was interesting! I had been fingerprinted back in CA to get my RN license, but it was done on a computer pad and was very clean, lol. This time, it was the old sticky black ink stuff! Even though we were there to be fingerprinted for adoption...it still feels weird! You want to look at the other people sitting there and say "ohhhh, I'm not in trouble...I'm adopting a baby." LOL. We talked to the lawyer about what still needs to be done, and he said he'd be meeting with the Judge on Tuesday to talk to him/her about what other documentation they would like, and to see if he can submit our petition for kinship adoption in the hopes we can ammend it later when we have Emily's birth information. That way, we can get the clock ticking. Our background checks will take 3-5 weeks to come back to us, and then we pretty much just wait.

I called San Ramon Regional Medical Center yesterday to talk to their L&D unit about what they would require from us in order to stay at the hospital when Emily is born and what they need in order for us to walk out of the door with her. The person I spoke with, I'm guessing the charge RN, said that they always try to accomodate adoptive parents with a room, and most of the time are able to do so. Pretty much the same as at my hospital. At birth they'll band the baby and then give one band to the birth mom and one band to one of the adoptive parents. In order to leave the hospital with Emily they only require a letter showing us as the legal guardians. If for some reason we don't have that letter and worst comes to worst, then Lori will have to hand her over once we walk out of the hospital doors. That sounds bad, lol. "Where should we meet to make the exchange?" Oh well.

I have to say God bless the internet! Throughout this whole process so far, being able to do research online has helped make this process a little easier. Definitely not easy, but easier! Apparently if you want to adopt a child you'd better have a computer, lawyer, and an IQ of 150, lol! (No, my IQ is not 150). ;)

The weather has dropped here in Denver. Fall is definitely in the air. I love fall. All the pretty colors, the leaves all changing on the trees (though I admit I HATE raking up all of the leaves from the 2 billion aspen trees in our yard!). I'm "fall cleaning" today and getting ready for my baby shower next weekend. Two great friends from work, Bre and KJ, are throwing my shower and it'll be held at my house. I've been cleaning, dusting, vacuuming, and shampooing. Eric is working on finishing the deck. Only a little left to paint and we're good. I hope it lasts at least a few years...and then even Eric said we should go for the Trex Deck! :)

Well, I think that's pretty much it for the past week. More to come soon :)