Welcome to the World of Baby

The true adventure has begun.
It's amazing, even the notion, that you are living your life one day
childless, anxious, waiting for something to happen with adoption
and then the next day you wake up and your a momma.
Your still anxious, scared, nervous, your brain is shot from all these new feelings,
not to mention you constantly need a cig but your too busy to smoke one, lol.
You bring your 14 month old baby home and your house is turned upside down in toys and laughter and screaming and crying and poop and diapers and baby food and juice and sippy cups and 30 second attention spans and teething
and more anxiety, apprehensiveness.....
do you get to adopt her, do you have to watch her leave?
Is she going to fall and hurt herself and then CPS is going to take her away?
Does she hate you? Does she love you? Is she detached? Is she on target?
Are you stressing too much? Not enough?
Ah the unknown of motherhood.
I knew I would say it one day......but nobody told me is would be so nerve wrecking! lol
Nobody said you will worry until the day you probably die.....
actually I do recall my mother saying that once.
I feel like a mom, but its too soon to elaborate.
I know Jeff feels like a dad, and is actually a really good dad.
She is like his shadow.
She doesn't like us to leave her at all. She wants to see us at all times.
She is probably scared after leaving her previous foster dad and thinks we will do the same.
Only time will heal.

Her name is Brittany Michelle, she is the happiest baby in the world.
She laughs all the time and has the most evilest little laugh when she gets super happy.
Her face gets all twisty and she kind of hisses the way Jeff does when he does that side ways face hideous laugh.
There is so much I have to say about her and write about her.
I am just going to sit back and take it as a sign that her first and middle name are both my sisters names.
Brittany, obviously and Michelle is Brandy's middle name.
A sign? Is it?
I was going to sleep last night thinking if we should change it to Brittany Michelle Tara Buck....just to be fair. lol

Let's go back a couple of days shall we?

Okay so we got "The Email" Monday, as stated in my previous post.
From there Brittany's foster dad called to set up a time for us to come and pick her up. We talked for about an hour about Brittany's birth family and case and her history with him. He loves her very much and is sad to see her go but he knows it's the best for her.
We decide to get her Tuesday at 5 because she takes a nap around 2 or 3 and will be up then happy to greet us. I went ahead and took off Tuesday and Wednesday just to make sure we had everything ready for her when she got to the house. We went to WalMart Monday night to get a toddler car seat and some snacks and some clothes, we figured size 18 months since she is 15 months old. As much clothes as we already had we did not however have any girls clothes in those sizes. We were sooo nervous and anxious and just plan on edge ready. After 3 years of trying to have a baby it just seemed to be coming so quick. It was and still is a shock to the system.

Tuesday Jeff worked half a day while I slept and then paced the yard. I was just so worried that she was going to get to our house and hate us. I would be soooo sad. I am not going to write the ins and outs of her case or how it came about she was taken into care so don't even ask...its basically no ones business and it's her story to tell one day. Not mine. Plus that she is not adopted yet so we are not supposed to talk about it to anyone anyways.

So at 4:30 we head over to pick her up. Just us two and the foster family. Noone from DDC or CPS. It was weird and exciting and nerve wrecking to say the least. I was trying to pay attention to her and look at her pics and listen to what the FD was saying all at the same time. We didn't know what to do first. lol He had soooo many pictures of her but she was right there! Why would we want to look at pictures of her when she was standing right there!
While we were there she was crawling around on the floor just watching us. She started staring at Jeff and he was trying to talk to her under the table and drool was just falling out of her mouth. She was posed for about 5 minutes before she moved. She was trying to figure us out. I think she had a pretty good idea what was going on. She finally grabbed a hold of Jeff's finger and let him pick her up. It was truely magical. When it was time to go I held out my arms and she came to me. She waved by to the FD and we walked out the door.

Then finally with her, 5 bags of toys and clothes, a rocking horse and rocking chair, her big yellow duck she sleeps with and a green blanket we packed the car and drove home.

The whole drive she just watched us and laughed at me sitting in the back seat with her while Jeff drove. She was happy and well entertained with her new car seat handle bars.

When we got home we showed her the yard and her room and her toys and the pugs. She and Abby got in each others faces and just looked and looked. She absoluetly LOVES Abby.

When she walked in her room Jeff was holding her. The first thing she wanted to see was a light on the wall. She would press it and watch it glow. She did that for about 5 minutes giggling. It was like she found a light in the darkness of the room and I will never forget it.

Then Jeff's parents came, my parents came with my sister Brittany and Tommy and Jessica came with Eva. Eva was jeleous and mentioned that was her Jeff. lol They played well together and she was still just smiling and laughing. When they left around 9 she cried a little and was probably tired of seeing everyone come and go. We layed her down in the pack and play and she fell right to sleep. She didn't wake up until 6 am.

The next day our clinician came over to have us sign some papers. She is basically the lady from Depelchin that is a mediator for us with CPS. She was probably our age and really nice. Although she didn't know anything about Brittany's case she was aware of CPS pushing for parental rights being terminated in September.

It is sad to be happy at the thought of her bio parents rights being terminated but I am and we are so blessed to be her parents, we cannot help but to chear for ourselves and Brittany who needs a safe and happy family to love her and watch her grow. I dread the thought of what could happen to Brittany if she goes back home, she obviously wasn't safe to be there in the first place and although we are told her bio parents do love her, they just cannot take care of her our feelings of the situation are backed up by CPS's view as well as the courts.

After our clinician left we went to Wal Mart to buy some diapers and more wipies. I know we couldn't have know about the diapers until we got a placement but I wish someone would have told me to stock up on some wipies. We also got some toys and snacks she likes to eat and a small kids pool for her to swim in on the porch. Jeff's mom came with us so she would be use to her and well adjusted when we returned to work. We had a fun day running around shopping and laughing and screaming in Wal Mart. She threw her sippy cup down and water went EVERYWHERE in the food section and we kind of just ran away laughing. It was embarassing. I think everyone has one of these stories though !

When we got home she ate some super...played in her pool and passed out! Then me and Jeff crashed on the sofa to just bask in the tiredness of our day. We are parents, we are constant, we are busy, and although scared to death, we are happy.