Quotes and gdiapers

On quotes.... The yoga magazine that I subscribe to has some pearls of wisdom written on the back page of the issue this month that I wanted to share with everyone in hopes that they give you a good laugh or inspiration as they have for me.

"Children are the orgasms of life. Just like you did not know what an orgasm was before you had one, nature does not let you know how great children are until you actually have them."

Now I can't speak from experience as to whether or not that is true but I thought the shear cheek of comparing kids to orgasms was too funny to not share :)

"The pursuit of happiness is the source of all unhappiness."

So that is what I have been doing wrong!

"Stress is related to 99% of all illness."

And is it related to 99% of all infertility issues as well? If so, how do you get rid of the stress in your life? Unfortunately, I must report that I searched through all of the quotes on the back of the magazine for the answer to this question and all I got was a pitch for yoga, vitamins, and "going green." I guess yoga magazines don't have ALL the answers... ;)

On gdiapers... As I mentioned in previous posts I have purchased what are called gdiapers. They are a combination of cloth and disposable diapers with disposable inserts that go inside cloth covers. The inserts are flushable or throw away-able and when thrown away take only 90 days to decompose as opposed to something ridiculous like 500 years for regular disposable diapers. My mom and dad will be rolling their eyes at this point as they always have when I get on my little environmental soap box. If "going green" isn't for you, feel free to roll your eyes right now, too :)

I'm definitely unsure how well they will work with a newborn so I have a stock of disposable diapers just in case. However, one of the ladies on my adoption discussion board recently posted a review of the diapers on her blog (click here to see review) and gave them very high marks. So I really hope they work. They are also "green" in that the cost is comparable to disposables, if not a little cheaper. Mostly they are so cute that whenever I look at them I can't wait to see how much cuter they look on a beautiful little baby boy!

Here are pictures of the diapers that I have purchased so far. They recommend you have 4 on hand and in my friend's review she whole heartedly agrees.





This is a shot of what the diapers look on the inside. The disposable inside fits into the plastic thingy you can see.



Well, thanks for letting me share my random thoughts with you this evening! I hope everyone had a great weekend!

The cat is officially out of the bag!

I must admit that I was very nervous to make the announcement to my coworkers that my husband and I are adopting. Several women that I work with are either expecting or are new mothers. After each announcement the office seemed to erupt in excitement and celebration. This excitement was unfortunately quite painful when I miscarried because I was mourning silently trying not to let my "girl emotions" get in my way while trying to work in the male dominated field of engineering. And it didn't get any easier when we were blessed with the opportunity to adopt because I was afraid no one would celebrate the same with me since I wasn't taking the "normal" path to motherhood. The one that most people can relate to. Side note: For those who know me, isn't it weird that I would be afraid of that? Even from a young age I preferred NOT to be normal!

I assumed that people would give me strained, knowing looks and say things like, "Isn't that nice!" all while secretly looking down on me for taking what they considered a "lesser" road to motherhood. I know that I shouldn't let the opinions of others effect me. I never let it bother me when people made fun of my (purposefully) mismatched clothes in high school and college. I considered them my own personal art form and instead focused on the people that complemented my unique fashion style including some of my teachers, random people I met at the mall or movie theatre, my friends and peers, etc. But for some reason I have really been sensitive about people looking down on me for adopting. I was irate when someone told me, "How kind of you to give this poor child a good home." Excuse me? That is exactly what the vet said (except switch the word child with dog) when we first brought our rescue dog Lukin in to see her. Adopting Lukin and adopting River are very different situations and I resent it when people treat the two similarly. Perhaps I'm just extra sensitive because of my own insecurities, but I also get very defensive because I don't want anyone to treat River any differently.

Last week I finally buckled down and told my boss. For work reasons alone, I could tell he wasn't very happy. We are pretty swamped right now at work and I'm the third person to take time off and then to drop to part time this year and a fourth will be doing the same at the end of the year. However, thanks to the FMLA he can't do anything about it and so we discussed the amount of time I planned on taking off for maternity leave and the part time schedule I plan on working once I come back. Once I got that out of the way, the Human Resources rep at my work sent out an announcement email to the office. Again I was very nervous because that was when the potential for strained comments and looks would reach its peak. Immediately, however, several comments came in that were very positive! Not only were people celebrating with me they seemed genuinely excited for me and had lots of questions about the adoption process including why I hadn't mentioned anything earlier. The coolest experience came when a coworker I had never met (because she was part of a recent business acquisition and still works from home) emailed me to tell me congratulations and thanks for the inspiration as she and her husband are in the process of adopting. By exchanging emails we learned that we had lots more than just adoption in common including troubles getting pregnant, miscarriages at 6 weeks, and using acupuncture to treat infertility. For me that meant so much because I love talking to adopting parents. It is such a fun community to be a part of and now I have someone else from that community who is conveniently also in my work community.

Daily I am amazed at the way the Lord tailors our experiences us to fit us perfectly so that we can learn and grow the way we need to. I have learned so much over the past 25 weeks and even though it hasn't always been easy, every second has been worth it! I just love what a beautiful story my son already has and I can't wait to share it with him as often as he is interested in listening.

Thank you for listening, too!

Nursery "Before" Pictures

DH and I have made many changes to the house we purchased just over 4 years ago including a completely remodeled master bathroom (which is still in progress 3 years later ;), removal of old ugly wallpaper, new paint on the walls to match our taste, and new carpet on the main level. Each time I wish we would have taken "Before" and "After" pictures to document our hard work. But now that we are working on the nursery for River, I figured I would document the before and after pictures for everyone to enjoy. Basically we need to ditch the old ugly 70's wallpaper and repaint with our nursery theme colors which are baby blue, baby green and brown, get furniture to put the clothes and toys we have in, pull out all of the items that we have been storing in the closet, get a mattress for the crib, get a crib set, put up decorations and all sorts of fun stuff. So here are pictures documenting the current state of the nursery.

I will preface these photos with a warning... Prepare to be launched back into the 1970's... If you are not prepared to relive whatever memories you may have of the 70's you may want to cover your eyes. We've got baby blue AND brown shag carpet along with some seriously dated wallpaper in our basement. We even have a wall of the scenic picture wallpaper that was so popular during the 70's. What scenic scene do we have on our wallpaper you may be wondering? Why what else would you expect.... A River! And I'm completely serious.











We've already got the crib set up and all of the clothes organized by age range into totes. I guess that is better than nothing, but I'm just so anxious for his arrival I want it all done NOW! I can't wait to see how it all turns out! It is going to be a big task but I think it will also be a very fun one. Hopefully it will help the time fly by over these last weeks because I'm already growing impatient for his arrival!

And let me say thanks to Aunt Kristen (my sister) for the cute sign and even cuter frog prince, to Uncle Aaron for the crib and clothes, and Aunt Jami for clothes, toys and a back pack for us to take River out hiking in. And of course I want to thank Angie for the sweet little baby boy that will soon call this home :)

i am a dream come true

Dear River,

Just a quick note to you from your mom as you finish up your last 10 weeks of "cooking in the oven." Your father and I are over the moon and are anxiously preparing for your arrival. We've got your crib, lots of cute clothes and hopefully a dresser to put them in soon. FYI, I'm a hippy and am environmentally conscious so I bought you gDiapers which are a combination of cloth and disposable diapers so that you can be stylish and so your carbon footprint will be as small as possible. But don't worry, that will be the only small footprint you will leave on the world because you will accomplish many great things during your life time, I already know this! Grandma and Grandpa have bought you a stroller/car seat combo, and Grandma and Gigi H. have been busy making you lots of cute blankets. I love them so much I sleep with them at night so you may have to fight me for them ;) Your first mom Angie has bought you some pretty darn cute clothes and has been helping me pick out the items that we need to complete your nursery. Aunt Kristen has bought you the perfect sign to hang above your crib. Simply and beautifully it states, "i am a dream come true." If that statement ain't true, I don't know what is :)



We will continue each day to prepare for you to join our family. I hope that you are as happy to be our son as we are to have you as our son. I can't promise we won't embarrass you. Actually, I can promise you that we WILL embarrass you. I should probably warn you that we like to make up silly songs and dance around to music. I hope you won't mind our sense of humor and that you'll have a good one, too. I know that your name isn't typical and many of our family members have taken a while to warm up to it, but I promise we put lots of thought and love into choosing your name. It is a very strong, meaningful name and hopefully you will agree.

Your dad is my best friend and we love to spend time together so I hope you don't mind hanging out with us. We promise to take you to concerts and help you develop good musical taste. You already have a full band's worth of instruments ready for you to play and you have a dad who is really excited to teach you to play the drums as well as he does. We aren't really into sports but we promise to support you in any sport you want to play. We'll cheer you on and talk with other parents as if we understand the rules of the game. Your dad is pretty creative and I'm kind of smart so we will help you with your homework when you need us to.

But most importantly if you ever need reassurance that you are special and that you are loved, you have not only 2 parents, but 4 that consider you very special and who truly love you. I'm sorry if this letter is a little (okay, actually REALLY) cheesy but I'm so excited for your arrival that I just can't help myself. I know that since you are a boy you will spend your life shunning all things emotional but I hope you enjoy this letter one day when you are old enough to read. You might as well get used to indulging the women who love you (trust me, your wife will thank me one day) because while you shun all that emotional stuff, we spend our lives thriving off of it.

Only 2 months, 5 days left until you are due and I can't wait!

I love you River!

Tired of hearing the same song every time you visit?

I was just checking my blog this evening when I realized that even though "River's Soundtrack" has several songs on it, I was moving around on the site so much that all I heard of the soundtrack was the first few seconds of Death Cab for Cutie's song "Different Names for the Same Thing" and as much as I like that song, it was really starting to drive me crazy! So since it may be driving everyone else crazy as well I just thought I would mention that there are more than just that one song on the player and if you just hit the forward button (the farthest button to the right before the boom box cuts off) you can scroll through them.

Also, I added another link to a family that recently adopted from Haiti under "Haitian Adoption" and guess what? They are from none other than Parker, CO. For those who don't know, I spent my formative years in Parker from 1st grade until I moved up to Fort Collins to go to CSU. So, it was cool to see a family adopting from Haiti living in what I guess could be called "my home town." I wonder if their kids (adopted and bio) go to my alma madders Mountain View and North East elementary? Alright, I better not get into reminiscing or this will be a long night :)

Well, it is late and I am getting tired and this is a pretty uneventful blog so I will keep it short. However, before I go I just wanted everyone to know that soon (once I track down our camera) I will be posting pictures of the wonderful gifts that River has already received from his Aunt Kristen, Grandma, and his honorary Uncle Aaron. Oh and pictures of the gift that I got him on Friday with more information on the product for all of you "green mommies" out there (whether that be environmentally or money conscious). I am so excited about this product and I can't wait to try them out!!!

*** Happy 4th everyone***

(*** those are supposed to be fireworks but they don't look as cool as I'd hoped)

New Link...

I added a new link under the "Stories of Inspirational Families" headline called "Our Losses..." It is a slide show that was put together by one of my friends on a trying to conceive website. She lost 5 pregnancies before finally conceiving a "sticky bean" as we refer to them... otherwise known as a baby that sticks it out for 9 months :)

The slide show does the most AMAZING job of capturing the depth to which the pain/frustration/hopelessness can reach with infertility and pregnancy loss. I encourage all to check it out. It is an educational experience for those who haven't experienced it (and hopefully never will) and is a beautiful tribute to those who have!

Enjoy!

P.S. I think my poll is officially DOA! I haven't received a single comment!

OFFICIAL POLL

To get everyone in the commenting mood I thought I would start a poll. I would love to hear what everyone thinks of my blog so far! Let me know if there is any subject in particular you would like me to address, or if you would like me to post more/less often, or if you don't like the music I have on the blog and want to request another song, or if you don't like my background and want to see something new, or if you'd like to see more pictures, etc. You get the point.

If you have questions on how to post a comment, I have included instructions in the post below. Don't hold back! As a new blogger I'm anxious to find out how I'm doing.

How to post comments.

For those interested (and I hope you all are because I love to get comments since they are my only way of knowing if anyone else is reading this blog or if I'm just writing it for myself) I am including the following information on how to add comments to the blog.

When you click on the comment link for the blog you'd like to respond to you should get a page showing all previously posted comments on the right and a text box on the left under the heading "Leave your comment." Before typing in your comment scroll down the page and type in the word verification directly under the comment box. Next go to the "Choose an identity" section just below the word verification. If you have a gmail account, login and it will help you set up a screen name with that gmail account.

If you don't have a gmail account click on the "Sign up here" link after the words "No Google Account?" This will take you to a page where you can assign a display name to whatever email account you currently use. Once you've filled out all of the blanks on that page click the orange "Continue" arrow and it will take you back to the comments page were you can now type your comment and post it. Once you have done that you have created a Google/Blogger identity that you can sign into when posting so you don't have to worry about going through that process again.

Let me know if you have any questions or if you run into any problems when commenting. You may have to verify your email account before you can post so if the following instructions still do not work, wait until you get your confirmation email, click on the link to verify your email and then just login using your Google/Blogger identity and comment away.