Happy 1st Birthday, Tatem Rose!
A SPRINKLES Party!
Party Pics
Peas in a pod
Yes! I LOVE it! (The many obsessions of an almost 3 year old)
Breastfeeding vs. formula...the stuff you won't read in a book:)
I LOVE YOU!
Rejoicing over T's 1st HEALTHY well check!!
Traditions that make me
Happy
Dancing baby
Adoption vs. Pregnancy
Yipee, I'm three!!
I feel like I'm FINALLY out of the new baby fog (7 months later!), which is probably because Tatem is sleeping all night long! Also, April marks the anniversary of Landrie's Gotcha Day, which is the day her adoption was finalized. What better time than to compare adoption and pregnancy? I know you want to know. Lots of you have asked, but there are so many more of you who I only know through the blog! So, here goes!
1. What was the first moment you laid eyes on each baby like? Was is better with Tatem since you gave birth to her? This is question I get asked the most often. Before I gave birth I wondered too! The answer is that I actually bonded with Landrie easier and more instantly than with Tatem! Landrie was our first, and I physically felt GREAT when I first held her. She was maybe 20 minutes old and all our dreams came true in that moment. With Tatem, I was in labor all night and on some crazy drugs that made me SO tired. Of course I was happy to have a baby, but I think I hugged her and took a nap. I didn't even stay awake during those first precious hours when they let the baby stay in your room! Later that day, I had taken a nap and got to love on my baby. Of course, I was head over heels in love with her too! :)
2. Everyone LOVES a pregnant girl. Did you miss that by adopting? I thought I would. I was the girl who couldn't wait to be pregnant. I actually bought maternity clothes before we even started trying to have a baby! Actually, people were SO intrigued by our story that I felt like I got what a pregnant girl gets x10, and no one ever rubbed my belly. haha!
3. How did people react when you told them you were adopting? Did people say the wrong thing and upset you? Our families were overjoyed! One of the reasons we started this blog was to just put it all out there. We wanted to answer questions people have about adoption and clear up lots of the assumptions many people still have. Since we wrote all about birth moms in general here, when we got matched, no one assumed she the worst. (or at least they knew better than to tell me. :) ) I think in our situation, if we got pregnant (instead of announcing an adoption), everyone would have been ecstatic because we had waited so long. I know many girls who have not gotten a great response with their pregnancy announcement, even with a silly reason, like if their babies were close together or they were newly married! Bottom line is that it may take some people awhile to warm up to the fact that you'll be bringing a baby home, but if they love you, they'll love your little bundle of joy too!
4. Was it hard to wait so long with adoption? Well, I don't know. I feel like we waited FOREVER to have a baby, but each step of the adoption went by pretty quickly. No step lasted longer than two months! When I was pregnant with Tatem, I actually had a book that showed how the baby developed each day! Each day seemed soooo long, and waiting for what was happening until next week was too long. Ask a pregnant girl how far along she is. There's a good chance she'll answer with something like almost 27 weeks. Yup, she's counting the days! It's just a different kind of waiting. One, you have a deadline, and the other, you know what's coming, but not when! With adoption, you might actually get your baby sooner than 40 weeks!
5. Was it agony knowing she could change her mind and take her baby back? In Texas, a birth mom can sign the adoption paperwork after 48 hours. Birth moms taking their babies back after months or years just is not a reality. In adoption, the uncertain "first trimester" just happens in your baby's birth mom's LAST trimester. Losing a baby, whether she's in your belly or in your heart is just heart breaking. If everything goes well though, instead of breathing a sigh of relief that your pregnancy is okay and announcing your pregnancy, you bring a baby home!
6. What's the best perk of adoption? Hands down, that I felt GREAT for the entire 9 months before Landrie was born, and and I got to wear my jeans home from the hospital. :) Not putting my body through the wringer, but still getting a baby was a big plus! Wait a minute...that's what our husbands get every time!! :)
7. What's the best perk of pregnancy? That Tatem's birth was happy for everyone. It was agonizing watching Landrie's birth mom with her, knowing that she was making such a tough decision. Of course, everyone's first fear is, "What if she changes her mind?" Well, once "she" has a face, it's a whole different ball game. It was hard to even pray that she would go through with it, because I knew what heart ache it would cause. That's why we are so thankful for our open adoption, because we still get to keep in touch with Landrie's birth mom.
Here's a picture and caption from this post:
Here's one of each of us with Tatem from this post. We never got a family shot until a few days later!
Look at that beautiful baby (and tired mamma)!
True love!
Landrie grew in Brianna's belly and in my heart, and Tatem grew in my belly and my heart. Although the ways God brought our girls to our family are very different, they are both 100% ours, and we couldn't possibly love them more!!!
2 comments:
Reading all of your lovely posts about adoption always makes me wonder about my birth mom and what it's been like for 31 years of a closed adoption. I think it's so great Landrie knows her story. She is so lucky!!!
*been like for her
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