Tuesday, September 20, 2011

A day of firsts

So today was a day of big firsts around here starting with Miss A's very first "awake" smile! She's given us lots of asleep (gas) smiles, but this was her very first awake "hey-I-recognize-you" smiles! It instantly made me forget about the 5 times she had woken me up last night. Her smile is just as beautiful and perfect as I imagined it would be :@)

Our second first occurred in the carline waiting to pick up big sis. Avery had her very first diaper blowout. WooHoo!! It was followed by our first emergency change in the car on the floorboard in the backseat. Did I mention that it was raining?? Seriously, what a MESS!! Out both sides and up the back! Gross!

Our last first came tonight with Mackenzie's first skate night at school. She did so well for her first time roller skating. We had to go straight there from her ice skating practice, and I think she thought she was going to do much better than she did. I had to remind her that these things take practice and that she did well for her first time. I tried to take pictures, but none of them came out well :@(

Post again soon,
~Jeny

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Yep, we're still here!

That has probably been the longest lapse in Jeny-blog history! And this time I have an excellent reason. Miss Avery is growing like a weed. She is up to 7lbs 6oz as of her last doctor's visit and is starting to outgrow her newborn clothes.

She's also starting to sleep for longer stretches of time. YAY!!!
She doesn't always do this at night though. BOO!!!

Despite the lack of sleep we are absolutely smitten with her :@) There is some jealousy and sibling rivalry starting to sneak in though. Mackenzie is having a bit of a hard time adjusting to not being the center of the universe any more and the crying does not sit well either. Yesterday she told Avery that her crying was "Unacceptable!" and today she told her "Avery, please stop crying, you are giving me a headache!" She then proceeded to start crying herself. Considering we were stuck in the car in traffic, I was close to tears myself.

I'll try to update here as often as I can at least to get some pictures up.

Post again soon!
~Jeny

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Meeting Avery (Part 2)

Sorry it took so long, but here it is…

While I waited for DJ to get home I started getting everything ready to head to the hospital. Luckily since the last false alarm we had everything washed, put away in nice little bins and ready to go. Getting the diaper bag ready to go was the easy part, getting me ready to go was crazy!! It took me forever to figure out what to wear! Seems silly now, but I just had no clue. I wanted to look nice, but not too nice. Luckily my friend Adrienne was there to keep me sane (while she cleaned my house – Thank you Ade!!!!)

Once DJ was home and Mackenzie was picked up from school we were ready to head to the hospital. It was a very surreal drive. We headed up to Winnie Palmer and met with Michelle, the director of our Adoption Agency. We got a quick background on the birthparents and a rundown on how the rest of the evening would go. Then we got our hospital stickers and headed on up. Walking into the hospital room was such an amazing and overwhelming experience. We were lucky to meet both Avery’s birthmother (ABM) and birthfather (ABF) and spend some time talking to them and getting to know one another.

ABM asked me if I wanted to hold her so I did. She then asked Mackenzie if she was excited to be a big sister. In true Mackenzie fashion she said “I’m already a big sister.” It was comforting to know that since they had read our profile book there was no need to explain :@) We sat with them for awhile and I’m proud to say that I did not breakdown crying like I was afraid I would. We took some pictures together and then left to give them some time to say their goodbyes. I will confess that I did breakdown crying right before we left the room. I just couldn’t contain the overwhelming sense of greatfulness that I felt. I tried to express it and hopefully it came across.

After we left we then had to wait for the hospital social worker to handle the discharge paperwork. We learned that she had been called to Arnold Palmer to handle an emergency and we would have to wait. We decided to head down to the cafeteria where amazingly, part of our church family was waiting having just visited another member of our church who had their son the previous day. We ate some dinner, hung out and answered Mackenzie’s endless requests to “Please go get my baby sister.” We were finally able to go back up and start the discharge process.

They brought Avery to the nursery and we changed her into her going-home outfit (the same outfit Mackenzie and I both wore) and wrapped her in her blanket. We headed down the elevator to the lobby. Amazingly, Jack’s nurse, Brie, was working and was able to meet us in the lobby. It was at that moment that it really struck us that we were leaving Winnie Palmer with a baby. We got Avery loaded up and headed for home.

I’m sure that I missed many details as much of the night was a blur. We are settling into life as a family of four. It’s still amazing to think that we have a new daughter. She currently has her days and nights mixed up but is getting better. I'll get some new pictures posted soon.

Post again soon,
~Jeny