Victory!

Friday's Ultrasound

I got a text from C. (the potential birthmother we're working with) earlier in the week, saying that she had an ultrasound appointment on Friday. Would I like to be there?

I'm sure you can imagine my response :) Unfortunately, Brian is traveling for work this weekend and couldn't go, but I still wasn't going to miss this! I've never actually seen a live ultrasound before, much less for a child I'm so invested in.

I don't think I was prepared to see this baby move around. I knew intellectually that now, at 35 weeks, this baby is almost fully formed. But actually seeing him on the screen, reacting to us in real time? Completely unexpected. And incredibly amazing. Most parents have the chance to start looking at ultrasounds when the baby's so small it's just a little dot on the screen. We've gone from zero to eight months in the span of two weeks, so I think I'm still experiencing a bit of the "I can't believe this is happening!" feeling.

Anyway, it's all good news! Baby's doing absolutely fine and is a very healthy 5 lbs 7 oz. And I got to see his fingers! The tech wanted to test his fine motor skills; this apparently involved "pissing off baby" by jostling C.'s very pregnant belly around a bit until baby reacted. Seeing his little fists and fingers was the absolute highlight for me.

This was the only one they printed out - I wish it wasn't quite so blurry!

The other great upshot of the day was that I got more of a chance to chat with C. We weren't actually together for very long, but got maybe 20 minutes to just chat in general. After both being so nervous at our first meeting, things felt a lot more natural this time. I'm very much looking forward to us all getting together again when Brian's back in town, especially if we get to meet C.'s almost 4-year-old son!

The Hard Stuff - Name Change

For those of you that have read most of our posts, you might remember how Andy and I decided on a single family last name back in August.  That post touched on each option we looked at and how we went with Magee.  However, we also decided not to start the name change right away.  In our home state of Washington, marriage is up for a vote in the November election.  With polling looking favorable, Andy and I thought that we'd celebrate being officially married (rather than in a domestic partnership) by doing the name change after the election.  Of course, recent events have certainly changed that timeline since we want the adoption to reflect our joint last name!

It hasn't even been two full weeks since got the call, but it's been a busy time for us.  After expecting a wait much closer to 2 full years, we've been crunching a lot of things into a short time frame!  One thing on my end has been the name change...and wow.  I never knew it would be so involved, or maybe I was just in denial.  The latter might be more accurate  :)

Changing your name is both surprisingly easy and also really, really hard.  Going through the process of filing with the court and then sitting in a court hearing for your 60 seconds of glory with the judge - easy.  Chasing down all of the following - hard:

> Drivers license, social security, vehicle registration, voter registration, insurance, bank accounts, work information, utilities, email accounts, passport, etc.

After meandering my way through part of the process, here's some tips that I'd pass on to any of you that might consider a name change in the future:

• Give yourself a timeline  (I'd procrastinate for weeks if not for the adoption)
• If you have to file in court, never assume a court time of 1:05pm means your hearing will actually be at 1:05pm.  Taking War & Peace to read while you wait your turn is entirely appropriate.
• Never change your name the week of a voter registration deadline
• Time your process to avoid airline flights.  I'm traveling on Friday and am waiting for TSA to hate on me.
• Think ahead about all of your accounts for email, twitter, skype, etc.  If your accounts all have your old last name, decide if you want to keep them or switch to new ones.
• Practice signing your new name before you look incredibly incompetent as you sign your brand new drivers license that will stay with you for years.
• Note: Moving your old last name to your middle name is great as you can smoothly transition from signing your old name into just signing your new full name.
• Make a list of everything you need to update no matter how small.  Otherwise things are guaranteed to fall through the cracks.

With all of that, I'm not done with the process, but I'm far enough along that I'm going to switch to my new name in the most official place possible: Facebook!  Ok, maybe not the most legally official place, but just roll with it  :)

Waiting Families Night

Tonight we went to our first "waiting families" event at the agency. Very unexpected that we would have been picked before going to our first event! And also ironic, given the topic: "Surviving the Wait". Yep, that 2 month wait was extremely long and arduous!

Regardless of that, it was really great to have a chance to meet other folks who are also waiting in the pool now. (Technically, we're all "waiting families" until after a placement actually happens.) We recognized a few faces from the website, and had a chance to get to know a number of them. More importantly, it was eye-opening to realize how much variety there was in everyone's individual process. There were certainly other couples there who, like us, have only recently started working towards an adoption. But there were also quite a lot of couples for whom adoption has been a multi-year process already, and they're still just waiting. One couple in particular we talked to worked with three other agencies before OA&FS - definitely a huge amount of time has passed for them so far!

During most of the evening, we decided not to share the news that we'd recently entered adoption planning. Given the topic and the emotional battle scars that were apparent for a number of people, it almost seemed like bringing up our good news would be gloating. But we did end up sharing it with a small group at the end of the night, and I have to say it was gratifying to feel their excitement for us! And Katie (the agency counselor we worked with for the homestudy) was facilitating tonight's meeting, so it was fun to chat with her about our recent developments as well.

The only sad part about tonight is that there's only one more event for waiting families before our potential placement on November 12. We were hoping to get to know a whole network of other adoptive parents, both pre- and post-placement, before our placement happened, so now I guess we'll have to amp up that whole process! But I guess there are worse problems to have :)

Quick Update

To get started, I want to thank everyone that's been reading the blog.  All of your comments and support through facebook, emails, calls, in person, etc., has really been amazing!

On Thursday, our series of posts documented everything from getting 'the call' up through our first meeting with our birthmother.  Where we left off, the next step was for Courtney (our counselor from OA&FS) to check back with everyone to make sure we were all happy and ok to move forward.  Good news, that was the case so we're still on track! 

Over the next few weeks, we'll have lots of fun posts as we get to know the birthmother more (perhaps even share her name here if we have permission), ultrasound pictures, and our thoughts as we progress through all of the  fun baby preparation work we have ahead!

• Waiting Pool
• Chosen by Birthfamily 
• Adoption Planning I
•  Between Adoption Planning I & II
• Adoption Planning II (1-2 weeks before delivery)
• Delivery (C-Section scheduled for Nov 12th)
• Placement