Mushy Gushy

A few days ago, my wonderful husband turned 26 27. As this is our tenth birthday spent together, I felt I should say a few words about how the last ten years have gone.

I don't typically get all mushy about my husband outside of our home. We're not PDAers. I don't call him my hubby, hubs, hubbers, DH. He is my husband, and his name is Joshua.

I like stats, so here are a few stats of the past ten years:

20 - birthdays (10 each)
3 -  cars manufactured before 1979
2 - new siblings
4 - graduations
10 - dogs
1- dog pregnancy and labor
5 - years blogging
4 - years as homeowners
2 - Disney trips
5 - Ocean trips
1 - Walmart customer service blowup
3 - years of infertility
1 - ice storm
2 - floods
1 - sex change. Ha. Kidding.

You know that I journal to the baby, but you don't know that I also journal to my husband. He doesn't know either, that I know of. One day he called me at work to tell me that he "kind of accidentally" read the journal that I write to the baby, but he didn't even notice the other journal right under that one that is to him.

Joshua,

You crack me up. I never in my whole life thought that marriage would ever be this fun. I thought marriage was like a job, and once you got to a certain age, you just put up with it. At times I get so frustrated with you, but I still couldn't love you more. (Actually, if you'd clean your protein shaker cups, I might love you more). Before we wanted children, I thought that most people had kids when they got bored with their significant other. Like, yeah, you're cool, but let's make some people. Now I know that isn't true. I love that you've been here with me through infertility, and I love that we get to become parents together. I cannot wait to see what an amazing dad you'll be, because I know you're going to be so wonderful at it.

In the past ten years I've seen you change so much into the man I love today. You have all of the qualities I hope our children have and more. It is so sweet to see you excited about our baby, and it kills me when you buy toys for the baby. I'm so excited for this new part of our life together. We work well, and I'm sure the baby will fit in like one of us.

I'll love you forever,
Angi

Dear Pinterest,

I know that you know, but I may not say it enough. I love you. I love your boards (but only public ones because the private boards ruin my life).  I love the organization and the disorganization that happens at the same time. I love all of the ideas you give me to work out and then eat something deep fried. I love that you give me jokes about infertility and inspiration about it as well. I love how you've enabled me to plan my unborn child's entire life (hello graduation pictures!) in the span of a year.

That being said, I've been silently giving you the side eye long enough.

Something needs to be said.

I understand that you aren't responsible for the strange love that most people have for sock monkeys. However, sock monkeys creep me the eff out, but still not as much as these cupcakes do. Um. Ew.

Check out Holly's hot bod! Great job, Hol. Work it, girl.

And this, Pinterest, makes me shake my head.

Oh, what a beautiful house. How nice the white and natural light looks with the stainless steel deer head. Oh. What's that? A penis door? Why don't I have a penis door? I need a penis door In. My. House. Now.

I say these things to you, Pin, with a kind heart. I hope this doesn't change the way you feel about me, but I couldn't suffer silently any longer. I mean, we have so much yet to go through together. Also, if you're going to delete a pin for copyright infringement, could you at least mention in your email which pin it is that you're deleting? I look forward to working with you, and seeing what the next big thing in pallet making is going to be.

Sincerely yours,
Angi

Fashion Impossible

I'm not going to lie, I'm kind of a fashion disaster, but I'm okay with that. It has never really been that important to me. I'm a one extreme to another kind of person. I'm either dressed for work, or I'm dressed for a coma.

I became friends with Nikki at the Fashionable Wife a few months ago when she and Kelly created our online book club (which I'm slacking as a member of). Nikki is my new guru. She finds things for me. I told her about my riding boots and she styled them for me in about a billion different ways.

I bought this dress at b.Moss in 2006 (They're not even in business anymore) and it is honestly my favorite item of clothing I've ever owned. It looks as great today as it did when I bought it. This is me wearing it in spring 2008 (look at how small my brothers were!).

It is one of my summer favorites, but have never worn it past fall. I have a new love for tights though, and I've learned how to layer, so I've started making this happen:

I have more than one way to wear my favorite dress now! I'm so excited about this new development!

And my riding boots. I'm not sure if I've posted about my calf conundrum before, but I've got serious issues. My feet are the size of someone without calf muscles. True story. I've had this issue since the very first day I wanted knee high boots. We all have our crosses to carry. Nikki taught me that I can layer everything I own and make use of my second favorite summer dress in the winter. Suddenly my wardrobe potential has doubled without costing millions.

And I now need to go put on my sweats. Fashion is exhausting.

Shower Recap

I have photos from my camera and photos from Ingrid's camera, so a few of these are repeats.

In a move that would make even the most thoughtful party planner say "Wow! What an excellent idea!" Ingrid picked all of the food from my Pinterest boards. Seriously. Everything we ate was hand picked by me. How amazing is that? I didn't even know.

Hold for the closer up photos.

How do you add to the excitement of a baby shower? Give wine to the expectant mother (adoptive moms only!).

I wish I could go back for the food.

This is us after the shower. It was so much fun, but also pretty awesome to be over with.

We got the rug for SuperBaby's room, and Amico was excited because it makes it easier for him to sit in there.

Ingrid had a quote game going on and this is one of them. It so made me cry.

I was overwhelmed by the generosity of our friends. It is such a blessing to have such wonderful people in our lives.

The onesie station. I was impressed by the talent of our friends! (Talent not pictured.)

The guest book is this awesome frame that will go in the nursery and will feature a newborn photo.

Alright, here is the food.

Appletini punch and specially decorated waters.

Enough said.

These are the most amazing things in the world. We kind of made an agreement that Ingrid would make these for me when I got pregnant. Close though, right? Seriously, they're delightful.

Festive balloons.

Gifts for the baby!

My brothers handmade cards for me. I love when they do stuff like that.

Me: "Gosh Ingrid, did you have to wear the same exact boots as me?" Ingrid: "Yes, Whore. Just sit there, open your presents and get over it."

It really was a pretty amazing day. SuperBaby got lots of amazing gifts and I feel all that much more ready to be a mom. The whole shower thing made it really feel real. Opening the packages and cutting tags off of clothes, realizing that we're really going to have something that small in our house and that we're really going to be parents. We've always been excited about the adoption, but it's less of an idea now, and more of an OMG reality. We're really doing it and we're really going to be in charge of another human. Lord, help us.

I'll end with my favorite quote from the whole day:

"Little souls find their way to you, whether they're from your womb or someone else's". - Sheryl Crow

Ready To Be Mom, Just Not Today

I've had a rather interesting 24 hours. Sunday night is my laundry and relax night. Ok, every night is my relax night, but I add laundry on Sunday. I'm starting to sound like Rain Man here. Anyway, I was doing my ritual of eating dinner in front of the computer so I can be on Pinterest and got a text from our birth mom that her water is leaking. Like leaking, leaking. She knows what it feels like because this isn't her first rodeo, whereas it is mine, so I panicked.

I tried to convince her to go to the hospital, but she wanted to wait until the morning. So we waited, because what else can I do? This morning I went in to work because I would at least be closer to her house if I was there, and she decided at 9 that we were going to go. Her nurse told her to go straight to L&D, so that's what we did. And then I started to panic that I was going to be a mom today. TODAY.

As soon as we got a room they ran the tests that confirmed that she was not leaking amniotic fluid. So we sat there for a few more hours. If that would have been the case we would have been sent to a bigger hospital with a NICU and I truly don't know what would have happened. From all I've read, everything should have been fine, but I'm so glad SuperBaby is staying in for at least another day. Birth mom is 33 weeks today.

So I decided not to go back to work, because honestly all that stress is exhausting. Both of us were almost falling asleep in the room because we hadn't slept last night. I came home and slept so good for the entire afternoon. I accomplished more at home than I would have at work.

So that is my day. I hope you all had a less eventful one!

8 weeks old

Dear Women of the World,

It's about to get real in here. Yo.

Someone needs to say this, so I'll do it.

Josh and I were talking and he told me that a girl he works with goes to Planet Fitness. I had never heard of the gym before and didn't know we had one in town. He said that if I went there I would be kicked out, so I did a little research on my own. This gym offers:

Source

A Judgement Free Zone, a Lunk Alarm (it goes off if you're too loud with weights or grunting), and an environment in which anyone - they mean anyone (except heavy lifters or grunters) can be comfortable.

What I want to address here is the fact that we feel the need for a Judgement Free Zone at the gym. I am aware that many women would rather die than set foot in the guy room (free weights) at the gym. I get it. No. I don't get it, but I know a lot of women feel that way. I don't know what it actually is that is so intimidating about it though. As someone who now does all of my weight lifting in the guy room, I can pretty much attest to the fact that I am regarded as invisible. I have two theories as to why this is.

1. I lift more than most of the guys in the guy room, so if they pretend I don't exist they don't have to feel bad about it.

2. (This is the more likely reason.) They don't know I'm there. Have you ever been around a guy who is lifting (and please don't tell me that that you've been the puppy dog girlfriend who follows her guy around while he works out. Please don't do that, ladies.)? If you take a second to look around, you'll notice that no one is looking at you. No one. This is not because you're not hot, because trust me, you are. It is because they think they are the hottest thing in the room, and if they wear their headphones they can't even hear anyone else. If you watch long enough you'll catch them flexing in the mirror every time they turn. They only see themselves in that room. They are the strongest in their own little world where only they belong.

In this participation ribbon world we live in, it is easy to think that everyone is judging us, but if we're being honest, we judge ourselves the hardest.

I'm not making light of the fact that some people are mean. I'm sure people think I'm mean. I think people are too sensitive. I have had more than one blogger write a negative post about me, and that's fine. They can say whatever they want. I am confident enough in myself to not let it bother me. I don't know how I got this way, but I swear, you can too. (Just buy my five disc DVD set for four easy payments of....never mind).

There is nothing wrong with you. Nothing. I don't know who told you there was, or why you believed it, but there isn't. I don't want to go all Dove commercial on you, but seriously. The pressures we put on ourselves to be perfect are too much. We have to be the perfect moms (hellooo Babies-R-Us), with the perfect jobs, and make the perfect crafts with our kids, and make the perfect kids, and have the perfect body (you do realize that in the past, women utilized shape wear far more than we do now, right?) We want to be the walking-talking-living-breathing-Pinterest-Wonder-Woman. Who has time for that? I'm not perfect, but I don't care. Yes, I pin. Yes, I exercise in hopes of being more fit. But there is nothing wrong with who I am now. And the same goes for you. So stand up for yourself. No one is going to respect you if you don't.

And world peace.

The One with the Ultrasound

Yesterday was our birth mom's 32 week appointment. We missed the 30 week appointment completely, so I was very relieved to get there and find out that everything is going well.

The baby is measuring on schedule, the birth mom is healthy and doing well, and the doctor is pleased with all of it. Our birth mom had an ultrasound at some point before we met her, because she went into the emergency room and needed to make sure everything was alright. However, that was the only ultrasound her insurance would pay for. I asked the doctor yesterday if her file would have any photos from that, and he said that he only had the report, no photos. Then he suggested that we do the 3D ultrasound and do it quickly because she was approaching the time when it would be too late to see the baby clearly. We asked the lady at checkout if we could do it then and she squeezed us in.

I can say honestly that this is the only ultrasound I have ever gladly paid for. We went in to the ultrasound room and I got to see our baby for the first time. I got to see the beautiful little face and it made me so excited for bringing our baby home. Really the best part was that I didn't think we would ever see the baby before birth. I finally realized that it is a real baby. SuperBaby even looks like a baby. This is our baby.

Becoming A Mama

I haven't updated lately on SuperBaby, and I know it. Once we got all the technical stuff out of the way, things slowed down a lot. The room is mostly finished, our home study is finished, our attorney is taken care of, the hospital staff is ready for us, and now we wait.

Josh and I have fallen back into our everyday just-the-two-of-us life. I stopped running around with baby things to do. I started to read again and now I'm a professional television watcher. I haven't been in the baby's room in a week or so. It's almost like the past few months haven't happened. Our house is back to normal and seemingly our lives are too.

Now I'm starting to be concerned if I will really be a good mom. I don't worry anymore about how SuperBaby is doing. The birth mom and I don't have very good communication. Not that it is strained, it is just hard for us to connect. That is my opinion though. I don't know how she feels about it. But even though I haven't talked to her much, I'm not worried about SuperBaby. I'm not worried that she will change her mind. I'm not worried that she isn't taking care of herself. For the first time in my life I'm really alright. But aren't moms supposed to worry? For the first time in my life I'm going to be a mom and for the first time in my life I'm not worried. What the what? Furthermore, I'm writing a blog post complaining about not worrying. I don't even know who I am right now.

I don't know how to be a mom or take care of a newborn. I don't know how to manage everything all at once. I don't know what formula to pick, or how many outfits the baby needs. I don't know how we're ever going to go anywhere, because we don't even have a car seat. But honestly, it doesn't even matter. Obviously having a car seat matters, and we'll have one before the baby is born, but it doesn't matter that we don't have one yet, and I don't know for certain when we'll get one.

We have less than eight weeks to go.

A baby shower is being given for us in less than two weeks.

I never thought I would ever have a baby, let alone a baby shower. Perhaps after that, this will all be and feel more real to me.

Josh and I went on a romantic date last night. We got two gift certificates for Christmas, but the two restaurants we had them for were super packed, and we ended up at the China Buffet. Seriously. We talked a lot while we were there and Josh asked when I was going to reveal the gender. That's right. The gender. We asked the birth mom to not tell us what the sex of SuperBaby is, but she accidentally did, and we know. Josh wanted it to be a secret, but I think I will reveal it at the baby shower. So if you're anxiously waiting for it, you better be there.

And here is my parting gift to you. Our puppies are seven weeks old now and this week one of them will be going to their new home. It's also a surprise though, so that is all I can say.

Class Photo L-R: Phoebe, Joey Tribbiani, Monica, Chandler, and Rachel

 I hope you've all had a great holiday season and beginning to the new year.