Baby Burl Is a GIRL!

Yes, indeedy, she is. :-) I know 90% of you know this already but I have to post anyway! I had my 2nd trimester ultrasound last Monday and both the sonographer as well as the doctor were 100% certain she's a girl. The sonographer during my nuchal translucency scan had also felt strongly that she is a girl so Robert and I are feeling pretty sure she's really a she. I will actually have another scan - a fetal echocardiogram, to be specific - in two weeks. Because I'm on several medications, two of which are known to cause different fetal conditions, my doctor is being very diligent in covering all the bases. My bloodwork looks great and Monday's ultrasound showed that Burl is developing right on track but Wellbutrin is known, in an extremely small percentage of women, to cause fetal heart issues so my doctor wants to do the echo just to be safe. My psychiatrist is also monitoring me - and my meds - very closely; the frequency of my visits has increased and will continue to do so as I get farther along in the pregnancy. Everyone from the nurses to the doctors to the geneticist keeps telling me that, while the meds pose their own risks, a depressed mother is the biggest risk of all and everyone wants to make sure I'm feeling good. I am appreciative of that because I have definitely felt the effects of the pregnancy on my depression and anxiety and, if possible, I don't want to tweak anything just now. The doctors are currently okay with how things are going because I am on low doses of all my meds and Burl is progressing just fine so, knock wood, things will keep going well.

I have had a few requests for a bump picture so here you go:

My official 20-week portrait.

Robert got to feel her move for the first time on Saturday so it's definitely sinking in that there's a baby on the way! Considering I just hit the official halfway mark (20 weeks), I guess it's about time it did. ;-)

As for the adoption process, we have decided to put it on hold. We told the agency that I'm pregnant a couple of weeks ago and our counselor wound up wanting to have a talk with us. We had two options: to keep the process moving or put it on hold. We were more than welcome to keep things going but there were a couple of big caveats involved. It would probably take a couple of months to finish our Dear Birth Mother letter and get it into circulation. Which means we'd only be in circulation for a couple of months before Burl arrives. And then we'd have to re-do our home visit (because there's another person in the house) AND re-do our DB letter (because our biographies will have changed). :-/ And all of those things will cost extra money in addition to being a pain in the tuchus. So our counselor recommended we put a hold on everything; Robert and I talked about it and decided the same. We want to make sure we put as much of ourselves as we can into the process and we wouldn't be able to do that right now. But we're still adopting, no worries there. It'll just take a little longer than we planned for Burl to have a little brother or sister.

Foster Failure

Though I will say right off the bat that I never really expected to be a success in this particular case. :-)

This is Jenna. Jenna has been a patient at the clinic for roughly the same amount of time as I've worked there. She's an 8 1/2-year-old King Charles Cavalier with a grade 3 heart murmur who is currently in stage 3 kidney failure. Her previous owner, Voldemort (as in She Who Shall Not Be Named because she's a terrible person!), had a trade services agreement with the clinic, meaning that we gave her free vet care and she gave us free advertising in the magazine for which she worked. That agreement was made, of course, prior to Jenna's deterioration of health so, in the end, Voldemort ended up with a pretty sweet deal. In the last month of her contract, Voldemort had to bring Jenna in every other day to receive subcutaneous fluids; she had to pay for the fluids but not the actual tech time, which saved Voldy about $25 per visit. Voldemort's contract with the clinic expired in mid-August and the clinic manager chose not to renew it. Literally three days after Voldemort was informed of this, she decided Jenna was on death's doorstep and needed to be euthanized. 

Unfortunately for Voldy and fortunately for Jenna, the latter had been coming in to the clinic so frequently that all of us knew she wasn't ready to go. Jenna made a point of visiting the reception staff each time she came in for her visit, and then she'd head to the back without any prompting. When we'd let her in the treatment area, she'd trot around and say hi to all the techs and then head toward the table where she received her fluids. Jenna LOVES people but she was my girlfriend and everyone knew it; anytime Jenna came for fluids, everyone knew I'd do it because Jenna was a favorite of mine. She'd give me kisses after her treatments and I'd give her liver treats. We had a relationship. :-) So when the staff heard Voldemort planned to put Jenna down, we were all up in arms. We talked to the doctor about Jenna and he agreed to talk to Voldemort about surrendering Jenna to the hospital. Turned out Voldy wasn't interested in surrendering Jenna, she absolutely wanted her put to sleep. We all talked about this attitude in the back and came to the conclusion that, as an owner, if a doctor agrees to put your animal down, your belief in her poor health is validated and you, therefore, are not a bad person. If, on the other hand, the doctor wants you to give your pet to someone else, that means your animal isn't beyond saving and you are giving up on her. It really took a lot of persuading but the doctor finally convinced Voldemort to let Jenna go and she officially became the hospital dog. 

I think the doctor and the manager (his wife) were so easily persuaded to save Jenna because they believed I was going to adopt Jenna. And, believe me, I really wanted to! And I talked to Robert about it at length. Unfortunately, Jenna's care is quite costly and with the baby coming and the adoption in the queue, caring for a special needs dog wasn't the best idea. So the hospital was stuck with Jenna. There were several inquiries from clients interested in her but once they learned of her special needs, each one declined. Understandable, of course, because so did I but it was still sad. Jenna is an AWESOME dog - she loves people, car rides, and walks and is not fazed by loud noises, cats, dogs, children, or anything else. Aside from her medical needs, Jenna is the most low-maintenance dog you'll ever meet. But since no one was rushing to adopt her, Jenna had nowhere to go. Which, of course, meant I took her home the first night. 

Another tech took Jenna home several times in the beginning but she has two small children and a very active lifestyle and it was tougher for her to keep Jenna. Robert and I, as you know, are not social butterflies so slowly I became the Foster Lady and I was tickled pink. Robert fell for Jenna soon after meeting her, as I knew he would; it wasn't long at all before he decided she needed a new bed, new bowls, and a new collar. It's been 8 weeks now and Jenna is definitely a McCauley! It's actually a pretty sweet deal - I get to keep her but since I haven't officially adopted her, the clinic pays for her prescription food, three different medications, and her fluids/dripsets/needles. The manager has OK'd this arrangement for as long as I work there so I couldn't be happier!! I honestly don't know if that will change when I'm on maternity leave but I'm really hoping not.

We took Jenna to the dog park but she mostly just wanted to hang with people.

Linguini was VERY unhappy with Jenna's presence when she first arrived but he's slowly gotten used to her, in part because he's figured out she doesn't move much so she's not going to come at him. He no longer hisses at her and they can both be in the same room together. Funk was a little jealous at first but it wasn't as bad as I was expecting and now he's completely indifferent to her. Except when Robert or I get home from work - Funk definitely wants to be the first to say hello and is a little dramatic when Jenna trots up to say hi, too. I, of course, have to give Jenna all of her treatments and I will admit it's not super fun. She won't eat pill pockets so I literally have to shove the pills down her throat and syringe-feed her some water to make her swallow. And this happens twice a day. Jenna has also decided she's tired of being poked every other day and so doesn't take her fluids as uncomplainingly as she used to. But she's just a doll and I love her to bits. My parents like her, too, (a lot!) and have been super awesome about letting Jenna hang at their house when Funk does. Things have been going as well as could be expected and I'm just so happy about that.

She did pretty much immediately decide Funk's bed was her new bed and Funk is too much a gentleman to kick her out.

Jenna's health is the elephant in the room, though, and it's already decreased some in just the short amount of time she's been with us. Her kidney failure is a little tougher to manage given her heart issues so she gets bloodwork done every so often to check-up on things. (Another expense I'm extremely grateful the clinic covers.) The doctors estimate she has less than 12 months to be with us and while that does make me terribly sad to think about, I'm just so happy she's getting to experience love and cuddles and fun that fostering her is absolutely worth the upcoming heartache. And, best of all, when it is her time to go, I'll know with all my heart that everything was done for her and she wasn't just discarded as an inconvenience.

Jenna in her old bed and with all her hair.

Jenna in her NEW bed with her sassy new 'do.

Voldemort didn't keep up with Jenna's grooming so she was covered in mats. We shaved her down at work and then Robert and I took her to PetSmart to smooth out the cut and bathe her. She kinda looks like a beagle but you can tell she loves having less hair!

Of course, she wasn't thrilled with it right away... It took a little getting used to.

This is Jenna in the new bed we bought for Funk to replace the bed Jenna overtook. He sleeps on the couch.

Jenna is a born beggar and therefore fits in seamlessly with the boys.

The other tech that watched Jenna bought her a fabulous Halloween ensemble! Unfortunately, J is just a little too plump for a perfect fit so it had to be returned. I don't think she misses it.

Surprise! We're Adopting, Too!

Many months before Robert and I found out we were expecting, we had started the process of adopting a baby. We didn't necessarily know that we couldn't have kids, we just knew we hadn't had any yet. And I'd thought about adoption a lot over the years, given my depression and anxiety, and when I broached the topic with Robert, I was pleasantly surprised to discover he was all for it. Unbeknownst to me, Robert had been worrying about the possible adverse effects of pregnancy on my depression, especially considering postpartum depression. Fairly soon after we talked about Robert hopped on the computer and researched several different agencies and options for us - this was probably a little after the beginning of the year. We soon discovered that open adoption, where the baby (and we) will still have contact with the birth mother, is pretty much the only game in town in California; closed adoptions or private adoptions are very few and far between. We attended a couple orientation sessions for different agencies and finally decided on the Independent Adoption Center.

The adoption process is a very long one before you even get put "into circulation" and begin waiting for a baby. It's also a fairly expensive process and different agencies have differing payment structures - some of them charge you for each step, some charge you in tiers, some charge you each time you enter the pool (for example, if we were matched with a baby but the match fell through at some point, we would be charged for getting ourselves matched with another birth mother), etc. Robert and I both felt that IAC had the best, most fair-seeming payment structure and it most definitely does not require us to pay again if our match falls apart because that completely stinks!

In a (somewhat large) nutshell, the adoption process looks something like this:

• fill out the initial application to the agency as well as an autobiography, both of which are several pages long
• attend a two-day intensive orientation session where we are assigned an adoption coordinator as well as a social worker and we get to hear from both a birth mother as well as an adoptive family who have worked with the agency
• fill out a staggering number of forms - health evals from doctors, DMV driving records, employment verifications, proofs of marriage and health insurance, various legal releases, income information - and get fingerprinted
• have a home visit, where a social worker inspects the house for carbon monoxide and smoke detectors, makes sure our running water does not exceed 120 degrees, checks on locations of medications and cleaning products and fire extinguishers, etc.
• take an online training course and complete an accompanying questionnaire
• receive 4 letters of recommendation from non-relatives
• write a "Dear Birthmother" letter which is essentially our resume to prospective birth mothers and for which we have to have professional pictures taken
• purchase a 1-800 number for interested birth mothers to call 
• create a Web page on iheartadoption.com
• potentially create our own personal Web page and/or Facebook page for birth mothers to check out

We aren't considered to be "in circulation" until our Dear Birthmother letter goes out but the average wait-time for a baby is 15 months, which is a lot shorter than either Robert or I expected, quite frankly. It's a very rigorous exercise but extremely informative and helpful because the agency addresses every question you can possibly think of and that's certainly very reassuring for some things (especially concerning paternity if the birth father isn't known or around). The process is also extremely detailed in that everything from how many visits per year with the birth mother to who gets to cut the cord in the delivery room is discussed, decided, and legally recorded. It's pretty crazy. We get to bring the baby home from the hospital and it takes about 6 months for the adoption to be finalized and the baby's birth certificate changed to reflect Robert and me as the legal parents. There is no limit to how long the birth mother can wait to sign off on the adoption but the agency assures everyone that about 3 weeks is the longest any mother has taken. So, of course, the entire process is fraught with possibility that the adoption could stall at various stages but we just have to power through. The amount of stuff birth mothers have to go through with the agency is almost comparable to what we as adoptive parents have to do so by the time a birth mother contacts us, she will have already had a lot of opportunities to back out. In fact, the agency stated that last year they had 3,000 birth mothers contact them and only 200 matches because the counseling that the agency does with the birth mothers is very effective at getting down to those mothers who really are prepared to give their baby up for adoption.


Robert and I have kind of stalled out at the Dear Birthmother letter, mainly because with the pregnancy and everything else going on, we've just been swamped and I've been feeling pretty poorly, though that's thankfully improving some. I did ask our counselor if my being pregnant would affect our chances of a birth mother selecting us - I assumed we wouldn't be very desirable because a birth mother would assume we'd give more attention to our "real" baby than an adopted one - and the counselor said no. It's about a 50/50 split between birth mothers who do care and who don't and she said she recently had an adoptive mother and a birth mother who essentially had the same due date and the adoption was very smooth. I think we should probably take pictures before I get too chubs, however, so I think we're going to be moving fairly quickly to that step! :-)

Robert and I talked about the possibility of my getting pregnant while we were trying to adopt and we both decided that we'd want to keep going with the adoption. So we are! We definitely want more than one child, we both still really like adoption, and who knows how long the process will take? We could wind up matched with a birth mother in weeks, months, or years and even if it is weeks, it will still take months for the actual baby to arrive so we feel like moving along with the adoption is the right choice for us. We've discovered that many of our friends and family have lots of questions about the process so I'll probably be posting quite a bit on the subject as we slog through the steps. If you have any questions, feel free to ask!