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 :)