Pre-Adoption Seminar + 4 months

Earlier today, Dominic and I had the great experience of stopping in for one of our adoption agency's pre-adoption seminars.  For those of you that have been reading our blog since the beginning, you might recall that one of the first things in our adoption process was going to a pre-adoption seminar.

I know what y'all are thinking right now.  No, we're not starting the process again (yet)!  Instead, our agency asked Andy and I if we wanted to stop by a seminar to tell our story as adoptive parents.  Because of work and scheduling, it was just me and Dominic heading over to Seattle to talk in front of a few potential adoptive families.  Overall, it was really fun.  On one level, Dominic got a lot of attention so it was exciting for him.  For me, it was interesting to see adoptive families in the same spot that Andy and I were in just 12 months ago.  A lot has changed since then considering we have a 4-month old at home now!

Speaking of Dominic being 4 months old now, his 4-month birthday was yesterday!  Andy took him in for his latest pediatrician appointment, and the little guy is doing great.  He's about 25" long, 13lbs 15oz, and cleared to start trying real foods!  This weekend might involve an experiment with rice cereal.  The only downer was that he had a fresh round of shots and wasn't overly thrilled for a little while.  However, he handled it like a champ and is all better now.

Post-Placement Meeting #2

It's been a busy time the last few weeks, so we're behind on updates!  Here's a post that I started back in February covering our 2nd post-placement meeting.  Yep... finally finished it.

Last week, we had our second official meeting with one of the OA&FS counselors (Katie).  It went really well and was in a way sort of relaxing.  Compared to all of our pre-placement meetings that were all about anticipation, planning, details, money, paperwork, etc., this was a breeze!  In essence, we're at the stage where we're just waiting for the legal items to get wrapped up before a court date where we will be granted custody of Dominic.  At the moment, he's a ward of the adoption agency during this interim time for the legal stuff to get sorted out.  We don't have a court date set yet, but we hope that will find its way onto our calendar in the next 4-6 weeks!

Some other interesting things that came out of our meeting with Katie involve the future adoption steps we might take.  With the knowledge that the average waiting period for adoptive families is a little under two years, Andy and I have debated about when to restart the adoption process all over again.  The earliest we can get rolling again for the ~6 month paperwork period is in November, or at least 1 full year after Dominic's placement.  It's tough to think that far in advance, but here would be the potential timeline for us if we wanted to move as quickly as possible:

• Nov 2013 - Begin adoption process (2nd time around)
• ~6 month paperwork period
• May 2014 - Entry into the waiting pool
• Potential wait time: 0 months to 2+ years
• Average wait time: < 2 years

There's definitely a lot to consider here.  For us, we're not going to think too much on this one as we have several months until November as well as Dominic's legal finalization to wrap up.

A Day with the Nonnos

Dominic started daycare yesterday! Or at least, "daycare". See, we found a center months ago and set February 18 as his start date a few weeks before he was even born. As it turns out, there was a miscommunication and yesterday was actually a staff development day at the center. But, as luck would have it, my dads both had the day off work for President's Day! So Dominic got to spend a fun day with his Nonno Mark and Nonno Rich.

Tummy time with the Nonnos!

I was a little nervous dropping Dominic off in the morning. It wasn't because I worried about Dad and Rich taking care of him, of course (I knew they'd be absolutely great), but rather because it was the first full day Dominic would have away from me and Brian. But there was nothing to worry about. It looks like everyone had a great time, and I was pretty jealous of all the fun "Dominic play time" pictures I kept getting on my phone while I was spending those long hours at work!

Listening to the 'Toddler
Tunes' station

And in the end, I think yesterday was a nice transition for us as both Brian and I go back to work. Today, Dominic will go to his real daycare center, and that's going to be difficult for us no matter what. But since we already spent one day away from him yesterday while he was with trusted family, I think that'll ease the change just a bit.

Anyway, here goes! We'll hopefully have good things to report tonight at the end of day one!

3 Months!

As of 12:24pm today, Dominic is 3 months old!  He's grown quite a bit over the past three months and it's been exciting to seem him develop and get older.

Dominic before Christmas (< 2 months)

Dominic at 3 months

Over the past week, Dominic has had a special treat of having Grammy and Grandpa visit.  Luckily, they were in town through this morning and got to be here for his 3-month birthday before heading back to Nebraska.

Grammy, Dominic, and Grandpa

Changing of the Guard

We're now into my favorite winter month: February!  (because it's the shortest)

Back in October and November, Andy and I put together a schedule for parental leave.  While there's plenty of websites, research, and articles out there that can support each side of the 'stay at home vs day care debate', we knew that the day care would begin someday for Dominic.  We just wanted to stay at home as long as we could before day care started up.  Some day cares accept babies as young as six months!  For us, we opted to stretch out finances and savings to keep Dominic at home until he was at least 3 months old.

Now that it's February, Andy's paternity leave at work is coming to an end.  He goes back to work on Monday for the first time since Dominic was born.  For Dominic, I think it has been great for him to have the stability of Andy being at home for such a long time.  Andy's great parenting has given Dominic lots of attention, taken him out for various excursions during the weekdays, and also resulted in plenty of great parenting experiences.

With Andy going back to work tomorrow, we're doing our final changing of the guard.  I staggered my paternity leave to include the first two weeks of February, so I'm officially back on paternity leave.  I'm really looking forward to spending time with Dominic at home.  Also, my parents will be in town from Wednesday night through next Tuesday which will make the time even more fun.  Between my parent's visit, Dominic's 3-month birthday, a trip to Tacoma to see Carly, and a lot more, these next two weeks are sure to go by really fast.  Before we know it, we'll have another changing of the guard and Dominic will be transitioning into day care.