Diaper Situation Under Control

Okay, so I took lots of the advice that you all gave me! And in the last five nights, Bear has only leaked out once, so it looks like it's working. We are using Luvs diapers (went up to a size 3) with a cloth diaper liner inside and a cloth diaper cover outside as a soaker. Thank you all for helping me solve this ridiculous problem! Bummer is that Bear still isn't sleeping any later. I was hoping that he was waking up early because he was wet, but it looks like he's just an early riser!

:)

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

OH MY WORD

Bear leaks through his diaper EVERY NIGHT! We've tried everything we can think of. We've tried plastic covers over his diaper, which didn't work too well since the smallest size I could find is still too big for him. We've tried waking him up four hours after he goes to sleep to change his diaper in the middle of the night. What else can we do? I need some suggestions, here, people. Help me!! I cannot keep waking up to a screaming wet baby. And he is waking up before he's rested, too. Which in turn wakes Brenner up before he's completely rested. Please help my family figure out a way to get some sleep!

Brotherly Love

The boys had their first bath together the other day. They love bathing together! Bear cries every time I take him out... he just wants to play!




Both the boys are definitely loving having each other. That makes my heart smile!

Goodbye to Nursing

Well, after much thought and deliberation, I've decided to retire my boobs.

I truly want what is in Bear's very best interest, but it was really hard to decide what would be best for him concerning breastfeeding. Now, I know all of you are thinking "Well, breast is best... duh!" but our situation really is so much more complicated than that. When you are trying to start a nursing relationship with a baby that you are just getting to know and love, the decision to nurse becomes about much much more than just the facts. So, I began weighing the pros and cons (for us) of breastfeeding versus bottle feeding. Here are the main things I was considering:

Nursing Pros:
1. Nutritional benefits
2. Prepares baby's mouth for speech
3. Helps in sensory development
4. Time with mama

Nursing Cons:
1. Time. We would have to supplement due to the fact that I was hardly producing anything. So, we'd spend hours a day nursing and then have to prepare bottles (to fill practically all of his nutritional needs) and sit with him while he eats those too.
2. Bonding. Nursing is supposed to help mother and baby bond, but I assure you it was doing just the opposite in our case.
3. I was the only one who could nurse Bear. ( I realize that's selfish thinking, but it's honest.)

Bottle Feeding Pros:
1. Nutritional benefits, since we will only be feeding him breast milk in his bottles.
2. Time with mama (0r daddy) since we always hold him when he's drinking his bottles.
3. Bonding! Bottle feeding truly makes our relationship so much more loving. The stresses of nursing were just pushing us away from each other, and that's just not acceptable in an adoptive family situation.
4. Thomas can feed the baby a bottle when I am too burnt out to put the effort in.

So then I got to thinking about my motives for nursing Bear. Now, of course my main desire was to give Bear the very best, but I also discovered that one of my deep down motivations was pride. (Which is bad, according to the Bible!) I was proud that I was doing something that most people never could or would get to do. I was proud that I had put all this time and effort into getting to the point that I could actually nurse him. I wanted to do it because I told people I would do it. Now, that's not the right heart.

Someone encouraged me to "Do what you KNOW is right and not what you FEEL." I was doing what I felt I had to do to prove something to other people. What I know is right is for Bear to have a strong and loving relationship with his mommy, and anything that was getting in the way of that was surely not right for us! The same woman also said "I believe God put this strong desire in your heart for a reason" and I think that's true. But I don't think the reason is because I need to nurse Bear. I think, rather, that God had a couple of lessons for me to learn.

1. Things don't always have to be just the way I planned for them to be. There can be great blessing even if things turn out differently!
2. I need to stay true to God and do what is best for my family instead of trying to impress everyone else!
3. Be thankful for what I've got! God allowed me to nurse Bear for a whole month. How many adoptive mothers get the opportunity to do this? What an experience!

I've realized that even though we didn't make it to my original goal of nursing Bear until his first birthday, we did get to nurse for a whole month. And I stored up a bunch of pumped and frozen milk for him before he came home! All the time that I put into getting to the point of lactating was not a waste!

I'm happy with the way things went. I fought hard for us to nurse- nursing him was not easy. And I'm happy that I didn't give up because it was hard, but I chose to stop because it was not giving Bear with what he desperately needs: a mommy.

We're not nursing anymore, and I can honestly say that our relationship has grown and flourished since we stopped. I have no doubt that bottle feeding breast milk is exactly what we needed to do.

Photo Shoot

My cousin, Roxanne, is THE BEST photographer I know, and she did a shoot with Bear last weekend. She gave me a sneak peek of what she got, so I thought I'd give you guys a sneak peek too! Thank you, Roxanne, especially for driving to meet us... you don't know how much this means to me!!!!

http://roxannepearcephotography.com/

The Nursing Saga Continued

Boy... this nursing thing is sure a struggle! I went to a LC on Friday and she weighed Berynger before and after his feeding to see how much he was getting at breast. Less than an ounce. :( She suggested pumping every couple of hours, up to eight times a day. Which was fine before Bear came home, but we're having a rough transition already, and between caring for both of my boys (3 and 7 months) by myself during the day, I don't think I can emotionally or physically handle adding pumping in, too.

So, now I am trying to decide if I should even keep nursing. Bear doesn't really seem to like nursing. He seemed to enjoy it for awhile, but that has changed. Things are just so difficult and he is so squirmy and unfocused (I know that's probably an age thing, but it's just really really hard.) pulling of and popping my nipple around in his mouth, pulling my hair and slapping my chest. And I don't really enjoy it either. (I know that sounds terrible, but when I nursed my older son I didn't enjoy it then either. I just don't like nursing that much.)

I've been weighing the pros and cons of nursing verses bottle feeding for him, and I really don't know what to do. The biggest thing I want for him is all the nutritional benefits of breast milk, and even if we're bottle feeding him, it will be exclusively breast milk, so that doesn't help me make my decision. I feel like if nursing is a terrible strain on both of us, and neither of us are happy doing it then it isn't going to help us bond. Maybe it is even hurting our bonding relationship at this point.

Needless to say, I've got some important decision making to do. Right now I'm leaning toward offering for him to nurse once in the morning and once at night if he's interested and filling in the middle of the day with bottles of breast milk. Or maybe we'll just stop all together. I don't know what to do! Any and all advice or opinions are welcome and appreciated!

Polar Bear Plunge

This last weekend Thomas and I and my brother and sister in law participated in a polar plunge. We dressed as pirates (long story) and dove in to a cold Washington winter lake. FUN! All in the name of the special olympics! We even made it onto the local news. ;) And we all know how I love attention! Here's the link:

http://www.krem.com/home/150-people-take-the-polar-plunge-for-Special-Olympic-athletes-85750917.html

Another bonus was that we were part of the Washington State Patrol team, so hopefully if I get pulled over for speeding now they'll let me go.

A Little Longer

Well, I decided to keep this blog a little longer. I've realized that even though we have our son home, this adoption is far from over. It feels like our whole family is on a roller coaster, every day is something different. Some days feel great, like this is all right and we are making headway, but some days don't.

Someone sent this list to me after I mentioned having some trouble since being home. Maybe this can help someone else, too. It was written by Melissa Faye Greene, author of There Is No Me Without You... awesome book, I highly recommend it.

10. WHAT IF THINGS GET REALLY DIFFICULT WITH MY NEW CHILD AFTER WE ARRIVE HOME?

Things can get really hard. The demands of a baby, young child, or older child may far outweigh your earlier estimate of what you could handle. You may find yourself blinded by fatigue, bleary-eyed with regret and confusion. You may hear the word “Mom” more often than human ears can withstand. There’s a sort of “buyer’s remorse” that can kick in, after you bring this precious and long-awaited child home. You wouldn’t be the first to wonder, “WHAT was I THINKING?”

I’ve written elsewhere about post-adoption panic (see RECENT ARTICLES), which hit me hard after Jesse’s adoption in 1999.

Part of what was hard about it, for me, was that I’d never heard of it. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I reached the conclusion that what was wrong with me was that I had ruined my life and the life of my family permanently, and there was no escape, and it was all my fault, and it would never get better.

It’s really hard to think rationally when you’re in this state.

In TWO LITTLE GIRLS: A Memoir of Adoption, [NY: Berkley Books, 2006], Theresa Reid writes of despair after the adoption of a second daughter, Lana, a three-year-old from Ukraine:

“I have no patience for this new child, who gets up two or three times during the night, and never sleeps past five-thirty A.M., who is hungry and desperately needs to eat, who asks for food, and then, when I hopefully, lovingly put food before her—even specially prepared food she has eaten happily before—cries and whines and angrily pushes it away. “Nyet!” she shrieks. “Nyyyyyyyeeeettt!” as she shoves it off her tray, kicking and flailing, then slumps in her seat with her head down and cries.”

Reid phones her adoption agency for help (I did the same in 1999), expecting to be offered support. Instead (as I was), she is met with confusion and bewilderment.

“I may be at my wits’ end,” Reid writes of her thoughts after ending that phone conversation, “but I think I can objectively say that this is NOT okay, to put together extremely challenging family constellations and then walk away. I hang up, abandoned, angry…”

The good news is that, in most cases, these can be the disharmonious opening notes of a love story. An out-of-synch beginning is not predictive of the parent/child relationship.

My tips for getting through a rocky and nauseating depression after the arrival of your child:

(1) Take really good care of yourself; do whatever it takes to get enough sleep, including spending the night at a friend’s or arranging a time and place for napping. NOTHING WILL WORK OUT IF YOU ARE SLEEP DEPRIVED.

(2) Make yourself eat and shower and exercise.

(3) Get help. HIRE help if you need to, even if you think you can't afford it. If you feel yourself spiraling into depression, you can't get out of it alone. While a babysitter is there, sleep or exercise or read or eat or go the library or do anything refreshing and pleasant other than caring for this darn child.

(4) Put Feelings on a back-burner. This is not the time for Feelings. If you could express your feelings right now, you’d be saying things like, “Oh my God, I must have lost my mind to think that I can handle this, to think that I wanted a child like this. I’ll never manage to raise this child; I’m way way way way over my head. I’ll never spend time with my spouse or friends again; my older children are going to waste away in profound neglect; my career is finished. I am completely and utterly trapped.” You see? What’s the point of expressing all that right now? Put Feelings in the deep freeze. Live a material life instead: wake, dress, eat, walk. Let your hands and words mother the new child, don't pause to look back, to reflect, or to experience emotions. "Shut up, Emotions," you'll say. "I'll check back with you in six months to see if you've pulled yourselves together. But no whining meanwhile!"

(5) Pick up something to read that carries you away. I’ve found that reading about Paleolithic art engenders deep calm and a sense of remove. There’s something about studying 40,000 year old cave painting that makes you feel you can survive the sound of your new child’s voice the next morning.

(6) Let yourself off the hook. This is not your fault. You’ve done a grand thing—you’ve gone out into the world in search of a child and, despite every obstacle over tens of thousands of miles, you’ve brought the child home. It's all going to work out in time. Meanwhile, you’re exhausted. This is all really hard. If it were easy, everyone would do it. You’re doing fine. Just rest up, find something to laugh about, and give Feelings the month off.