Week 8 Update

Interesting Facts!

Your baby is no longer a mass of cells, but he's looking more and more like a miniature baby-to-be. Your baby's face is becoming more defined: eyelids have formed, his nose is beginning to protrude, and his upper lip is taking shape. Where there once were only stubs, fingers and toes are starting to develop from his arms and legs. His heart is beating quickly and strong inside his tiny body.

How Big Is Baby?

Your baby-to-be is now just over one half of an inch long. He's a little bigger than a dime.

How We Feel

Wow, 8 weeks already - time is already flying by. We're really starting to get used to the idea of becoming parents and as we get closer to the end of the first trimester we are getting excited about sharing our news with the world.

S has been feeling very tired with lots of nausea which is a good sign of a healthy pregnancy. She is heading to the medicentre today to get referred to an obstetrician. I am so appreciative of her for everything she is going through, I can only imagine what it must feel like to have something the size of a dime take over your whole body and control your life. The good news is that there are only 4 weeks left before things settle down for her.

For us on the other hand things will start getting crazier in a month. Once we hit the end of the first trimester we have a nursery to paint and furnish, a million baby accoutrement to buy, names to pick....not to mention finding a lawyer to help with all the paperwork and adoption counselling to arrange.

8 weeks and counting!

Week 7 Update

Interesting Facts:

Your baby-to-be has been busy this week. His brain is continuing to develop. The circulatory system becomes more complex as lungs begin to form. His face is taking shape with his eyes showing some pigmentation, visible ear holes, minuscule nostrils, and an indentation where his mouth will appear. His digestive system and stomach are starting to form. His arms and legs are growing, but his fingers and toes have not yet developed.

How Big Is Baby?

This week, Baby is about the size of a pencil eraser!

How We Feel:

It's been a tough few days. I realize that at any time M and S could decide to keep the baby, it's their right as biological parents and I'm sure it's a near impossible decision to make. I know that if they decide to keep the baby I will be heart broken and devastated because as the baby grows so do my hopes and dreams for our future together. Having them ask us if we'd like to adopt the baby felt the same to me as if I had seen two pink lines on a stick myself. I am overjoyed, nervous, excited, and planning for the future just as I would if I were pregnant myself. (Luckily though it's Stacy that gets to deal with the hormones, morning sickness, and cravings....thanks Stacy!).

There are still 5 weeks to go before we can announce our news to the world. It's near impossible to keep it a secret. I'm so excited I want to tell every random stranger I encounter never mind the people that are dearest to me. I'm hoping the next few weeks go by quickly and smoothly and we can get in to the second trimester and really start to move forward with the nursery and all the preparation it takes to get ready for baby.

We've been doing some planning and we've decided to save all my pay cheques, because once the baby comes I won't have an income and we'll have to get used to living off of D's. I've been making a budget and looking around at the costs of everything. A stroller with an infant car seat attached is close to $400 and a crib set with a change table and dresser is going to be about $1500. That's before we even feed the baby or send her to college! I read somewhere that by the time a child is ready for college they will have already cost about $500,000 to raise....D, I think you need a raise!

Anyway that's it from us. 7 Weeks and counting....

Week 6 Update

Interesting Fact:

This week your baby-to-be's brain begins to take shape. Her head becomes more distinct with tiny spots appearing that mark the places where her eyes will form. Spots for her ears also become visible. Buds that will later become arms and legs begin. And for the first time your baby's heart beats. Within her growing midsection, what will become her lungs, liver, and other organs are forming.

How Big Is Baby?
Your growing baby this week is now the size of a pea.

How We Feel:

Wow, where to even begin. We are so excited - elated even. I can't believe we still have 6 weeks to go before we can start telling the world our exciting news. We have started talking names and we really like the idea of honouring M and S in the babies name somehow. We're thinking of using Mattea as the babies middle name for a girl, and Stacy if it's a boy. We also like the idea of combining their names and using Macy as a first name if the baby is a girl - which the Chinese astrology charts predict it is.

S and I went to her doctors appointment and they have referred us to the Diabetes clinic at the Royal Alex. Hopefully the doctor there will refer us to an obstetrician and do the pre-natal blood work I was expecting her family doctor to do. No word yet on when she'll have the appointment.

I think I'm going to ask S and M to email me a little weekly update (if they're interested) on how they're feeling and I can include that in my weekly updates as well.

And that's it for this week in baby news.

Oh and I've posted a link of some of the baby names we like on the right hand side of the blog. Go vote for your favorites....but don't be sad if we don't like your answers and do what we want anyway! We will update it here and there as we find names we agree upon.

Sunday Update

After some discussion we decided that it would be best to tell my dad - rather than spring it on him in a card. My mum told him a couple of nights ago - we volunteered her to do the dirty work. I spoke to him on the phone yesterday and he's excited about it but has his concerns, as all parents inevitably do. Now, our parents all know and I've told one close friend - so that I have someone to talk to about all of this...it's just to exciting to hold inside.

Unfortunately S's mum is not happy about the choice they've made and it makes me sad for S because I think this is a huge decision to make and having her mum's support would be so great for her. Thankfully her dad is on board and hopefully she knows that we are all here for her if she needs to talk or even just a hug!

D and I have been busy little bees this weekend. We, being the total yuppies that we are, each had our own spare room in the house. D's was a video game/computer room and mine was a craft room. We had been talking for some time about combining the two rooms into one, and creating a guest room - or my idea, a giant closet....but a nursery sounds like the perfect way to use that room! We spent the entire weekend clearing out the room that will become the nursery, downsizing our stuff and combining our two "hobby" rooms in to one.

We went out and purchased What to Expect When You're Expecting for S because I'm hoping she'll find it informative - it's a big book so I'm pretty sure it has the answers to many of the questions she might have. I am also giving her my copy of The Girlfriends Guide To Pregnancy which is a very funny and insightful book about being pregnant. I know I laughed out loud on a few occassions reading that one. For ourselves D and I got the What to Expect in the First Year book which scarily enough is even bigger, but has a section on adoption and everything! I'd better start reading it now, with 800 pages to memorize and 8 months to go - I'm gonna need to average 100 pages of pure information download a month!

That's it from here - it's time to hurry up and wait :)

Surprise!

It's my dad's 60th birthday this weekend and we haven't told him about the baby yet. He's been busy working and no one has really seen him much since we've all made our life changing plan. My mum thinks it would be a great idea to surprise him on his birthday with the news about the baby. Dustin and I have some reservations because I think it will be an awfully big surprise to say "M and S are pregnant - but we're going to adopt the baby - Happy Birthday!"

He's turning 60...isn't that a heart attack waiting to happen?

I tried to write him a poem to write inside a birthday card, though I'm still not quite convinced it's the best way to tell the old guy the crazy news?

Here's the poem:

Happy Birthday Grandpa,
We saved the best for last.
And Although I'm not quite here yet,
The time will go by fast.

But Grandpa that's not all,
There's something you should know.
I'm going to live with one mum,
But in another one I'll grow.

You see grandpa it's kinda tricky,
Stacy's growing me in her tummy.
But they've asked Jordanna and Dusty,
To be my daddy and mummy.

So Happy Birthday Grandpa,
Enjoy your special day.
Sorry I couldn't be there,
But I have to stay here till May.

There are no words

Dear Mat & Stacy,

I want to write you a letter, because there is so much to say and I don't think the words will ever come out right if I just blurt it all out. First off and most importantly, thank you for such an amazing gift. Just the thought of you both trusting us and loving us enough to entrust us with your baby brings me to tears.

Dustin and I were at a point of giving up hope for a baby. We were silently coming to terms with our dreams of a family slipping away. In an instant you changed all of that for us and we are so grateful that I don't even have the words to thank you enough.

We believe that a baby needs to be surrounded with love; we believe that in order to know where you’re going you need to know where you came from and we think it’s wonderful that this baby is going to have two sets of parents from the very beginning. When our child is old enough to understand they will know that you are their tummy mummy and daddy and the fact that we can all share in this is an incredible & wonderful experience.

The joy we have about this is all consuming and you will never know how grateful and indebted we feel to you both for what you are doing for our family, with that all we can say is thank you and that doesn't even begin to describe how we feel.

Much Love

Jordanna and Dustin xoxo

The Beginning

For as long as we have been together we've wanted a baby. After 3 years of trying we gave up. We've spent the last year convincing ourselves that we're fine, we're happy to be yuppies, we don't need a baby, but the minute we found out they were giving us their baby, all of our convictions about being fine were washed away with my tears of happiness.

Perhaps I should go back a bit. I'm Jordanna & I'm married to the most wonderful man in the world - Dustin. We've been together since 2002 and we couldn't be happier together, except for wanting to complete our family by having a baby. For three years we tried, and tried, and took fertility drugs and tried some more and after peeing on 100's of magic wands, not once did we see the positive sign....not once were we blessed with a baby.

We had looked in to adoption and decided that it is something we would definitely like to pursue, but unfortunately don't have $8 - 10,000 laying around to start the process. I guess babies are on the back burner for us for at least a couple more years. We're only 30, we still have time....right?

Yesterday our entire lives changed, our world was flipped upside down and the yuppie lifestyle we had become accustomed to flew out the window. My brother Mathew told me that his fiancee is pregnant and they were wondering if we would like to adopt the baby! After wondering if I had fallen asleep at work again and realizing I was in fact wide awake, I pulled myself together, burst in to tears and said of course.

Now, Stacy is only a few weeks along, and we have Type 1 Diabetes to be concerned about but she is definitely pregnant and they definitely want us to adopt their baby. We're keeping everything on the down low for now, at least until the end of her first trimester. I feel like I have a balloon inside me that is filling up with excitement and I know it's going to pop soon so hopefully I can hold my excitement inside until the time is right to tell friends and family.

And so begins our journey to parenthood.