Final!!!

That's right, Little Miss is officially ours!! Woohoo!! We met with the judge today and signed our final paperwork! We feel so incredibly blessed to have this little miracle in our family. I feel even more blessed that now I know without a doubt she is ours! 

The court appearance was short and sweet. We did have to wait 2 hrs to see the judge in a courtroom full of other people who had custody battles going on. For me it wasn't fun, but for my sweet 6 month old it was quite exhausting. She was so good and slept quite a bit but still. Finally a few lawyers couldn't be located so they stopped the custody battles to take care of the 2 adoption cases they had. Thank goodness!! We knew one lawyer who was there, the one they couldn't find, and he said he had 8 cases!! So my guess was we would've been there for a few more hours. When we sat with the judge he cleared the courtroom except for us and had us sign a few papers, made comments about how cute Little Miss is, and then took a few photos.  I think it took about 7 minutes. It was wonderful. 

Tomorrow we will have our little angel sealed to myself and DH for time and all eternity. As members of the LDS faith, or Mormon faith, we believe families are eternal. There is no "at death do you part" stuff for us. To learn more about what we believe about families click here. We have waited so long for our little family to have one more member and I can't believe the day has finally come! Then on Sunday DH will have the privileged to give her a blessing at our Sacrament service. It is all about Little Miss this weekend and I feel like I'm walking on sunshine! I just can't believe she is ours! 

First Mother's Day

My first Mother's Day as a mother was amazing. DH made breakfast in bed, we had a great brunch at church and a yummy dinner, also prepared by DH. The one thing that was a little different for me than most mothers, well at least from what they have told me, I had no desire to give up "baby-duty" all day. I changed diapers, fed, dressed, and just loved on Little Miss all day long. I just wanted to hold and basque in her chubby baby-ness all day.

IF has made me a better mother. I'm not judging mothers who need days off. It is a hard job and we all need a break. DH did get up with her at 6:30 am for her first feeding and let me sleep until 7:15. It was glorious. But I really wanted to just spend every second with her. And I really feel if she had come 9 years ago like I had planned I wouldn't have the same appreciation. How can you know how sweet something can be without the bitter? I appreciate her and not a day goes by that I don't think about what it was like before her. Those were dark days for me. No, my battle with IF isn't over, it may never be, but I will always be her mommy. I am eternally grateful for that. Only tears of joy shed yesterday!

Signed!! AND Introducing Little Miss...

M and BD went on Tuesday to sign away their rights!! They both opted to sign the final termination of rights so there is no grace period. That means little miss is ours!! Yes I know we still have to wait for the judge to sign off and blah blah blah, but in my mind it is pretty close to being done! I'm so excited!! I feel like a huge weight has been taken from my shoulders. I told DH two nights ago while we were celebrating with some froyo that I felt like she was finally ours. He was floored and said you haven't thought that the whole time?!?! I told him yes I always knew from the moment I knew she was coming she was meant to be ours BUT I knew that until all their paperwork was signed that she wasn't legally ours. My love for her is constant. I have wanted to spend every moment with her since the second M told us her plans. It was hard living in different cities over an hour away and not being able to be there all the time while she was still growing in M. I guess that IF has taught me never to count my chickens before they hatch. So even if my heart was "all in" from the moment I knew about her, my mind still had one tiny part that liked to remind me it could all fall apart. I don't know if every adoptive mom feels this way, this is my journey and this is how I feel. I never would've guessed it would take 5 months to sign TPR but that is how our adoption went. State of CA adoptions are funny. Good thing we are good people who have had this little darling with us for the last 5 months. HAAHA!

So without further ado, allow me to introduce Little Miss...

Pictures have been removed. Sorry.

We gave her my middle name and her first name came to me the Sunday before we even knew if she was a boy or a girl while sitting in church. I don't know that I will leave the pics up forever, after all this is an anonymous blog, but I couldn't not share her with all of you. She is our whole world and the women (and maybe some men) I have shared this road with needed to meet her. She is truly the greatest gift our Heavenly Father has ever given us. We are incredibly blessed. 

Cured

I was talking to a good friend the other day on the phone and we were talking about trails. She mentioned that we all have different trials and some have 9 years of infertility or a sick child or they lose a spouse... so on and so forth. It was interesting because it seemed to me like she was saying that WAS my trial, but now that Little Miss is here that part of my life is over. I don't consider my trail of infertility to be over. Yes, we are EXTREMELY blessed to have a precious little girl in our family who came through the miracle of adoption; but just because I'm now a mom doesn't mean my trial is over. The fact is it is likely my husband and I will never be able to have biological children and they certainly are unlikely to come though rolling around in the hay. We will never be one of those families that has a new baby in our home every 2 years like we had originally envisioned for our family.

Motherhood does not mean any woman is suddenly fertile. So why do so many people think that just because I have joyously joined the mommy club that struggle is over for me?? Infertility is a lifelong trial. Even after we have passed the child bearing years there will still be a piece of me that will wear the IF badge.

I'm not saying I'm not grateful for my little girl. I am beyond thrilled she is here and came the miraculous way she did! And I can honestly say that having her really takes away a lot of the pain from IF. I don't think about it all day every day like I did before. Now my longing for more children is so she can have siblings. I want that for her so badly, but if it never happens, so be it. I am 100% content being her mommy. I try to not take one second for granted and so what if I rock her to sleep and don't train her to put herself to sleep in her crib. I won't still be rocking her to sleep when she's 7. There is only so many days I get to enjoy each of these little baby moments and chances are she will be our only baby. So I'm loving every second of it and not hoping she moves to the next milestone too quickly.

Motherhood at 30 after nine years of TTC is so different than motherhood at 21 after one month TTC. I think I'm a better mother to her now than I ever could've been had she come when I thought she would. I'm not saying 21 yr old moms are bad, I'm just saying the perspective we IF ladies have gives us something special. And for that I am so grateful. I just wish people could understand that having a child or 4 doesn't mean you are no longer infertile, it means you were given the incredible gift of motherhood. They are not the same.

Update

I promise we are still alive! I had two dear bloggy friends contact me today to check in. I guess that's the nudge I needed to get back to this space to update those of you who are still reading.

Little miss is 3.5 months old!! She seems to be doing amazing new things daily. She giggles a lot and can roll over from her tummy to her back. She sleeps through the night, yeah! She loves her binki, bamboo blanket from A&A, and playing with mommy and daddy. She hates her carseat and tummy time. She just started taking naps in her crib and isn't sure how she feels about that. Thank goodness for our Angel Care Monitor that is making that possible. I still run up and down the stairs to check on her every 5 min but hey it's progress. She just started fitting into 3 month clothing! The girl has over 60 outfits to wear that are 3 month size so here's to hoping it takes her a while to move to 6 months.

TPR still have yet to be signed. Like I have said before, when you are going through the state of CA no one cares or is in any kind of hurry to get these things done. We just continue to pray and wait as we care for our darling girl. We have faith it will all be ok. We know the BM is waiting for he BD to sign before she does just to be sure he doesn't try anything. She is still so amazing and so happy! She has no doubt she made the right decision. I text the BD weekly about small talk stuff and he seems to still 100% stand by the adoption so I'm not sure why he hasn't taken care of his part. So if you would like to send prayers our way it would be appreciated!!

All in all life is beautiful and amazing! I'm officially a SAHM! I love every second I get to spend with my girl. We have so much fun together throughout the day. I have never felt so blessed in all my life.