A post dedicated to my son...

Who is now officially a one year old!

Happy Birthday, my sweet and beautiful boy, you turned one yesterday and I can hardly believe it.

You like to eat soy meatballs, and bean and cheese quesadillas, and lots of vegetables (baby food style only!) but you have ventured out and tried some edamame and even some green peas. You did NOT, however, like your birthday cookie. We are saving the cake for the actual party but alas, I have a feeling you will not like it much either. That's ok, there will be plenty of time for sweets in this family. You are walking behind a walker and can stand on your own for a few seconds but you can crawl faster than I ever could have imagined. You are happy and laugh easily. You will not, however, say Mama no matter how much begging I do. You like to smother me with very wet kisses and when we play, you check in for a cuddle at least once every five minutes. I adore it.

Your birthday is a happy but complicated day. Other adoptive mothers will get this. I grieve for myself that I did not know you on this day one year ago, that you were on the other side of the world and your birth was surrounded with complicated emotions. I grieve for your birth family. But yet I know you were loved tremendously. And I know you still are. And while that is not the only thing the matters, I think it is what matters the most. Which is why this mother did get her feathers ruffled when some comments on my 'Lucky' post insinuated I might actually raise my children under a dark cloud of being unlucky. Puhleeze give me more credit than that.

But nevertheless Happy Birthday! You didn't want to look at the camera, but that's ok. Do you see the smile on my face?

You put it there.

Cry, baby, cry

When you've got to get it out.

"Hi Pumpkin," he manages to sputter. His voice is barely audible, barely recognizable.
He only knows my name because my Mom tells him it is me on the phone.
I ask him a question.
He doesn't answer.
I hear him choking on the other end of the phone.
He chokes on everything these days.
He's labeled "comfort care" but that doesn't mean there is any end in sight.

"Have I been laying here for five years?" he asked my Mom the other day.
No, it's been two and half. But it must seem like an eternity.

"Oh Dad I miss you," I say, tearing up.
I miss the man you were, the man I wish you could still be.

You are trapped, trapped in a shell that has utterly betrayed you. You are paralyzed. You can barely eat. Your mind doesn't work anymore, for the most part.

The only thing that keeps me from wailing sometimes is the idea that a friend gave me, that maybe, if we're lucky, in his mind he is out jogging, or riding his bike, or riding his tractor, or being with his dog.

Not trapped. Not lying in a bed, unable to do anything for himself anymore. Unable to make sense of the world around him. And wondering if he's been laying there for five years. It must feel like one million years.

I was exhausted yesterday. A busy day at work, a trying time at mealtime with one baby who just.doesn't.like.to.eat and was tired and doesn't feel good and was throwing food and crying and as we pushed their stroller for our regular evening pre-bath stroll, I just felt the tears rolling down my face, recalling the conversation I had had just an hour prior with my Dad, as he laid in the hospital ER, dehydrated to the point of a blood pressure of 70/40.

I could barely choke the words out to the Mr.

"Is this what the sandwich generation means?" I want to run home and help take care of my Dad but I can't leave my children. I want to be everything for everyone and fix everything.


Cry, baby, cry.
When you have to get it out.

My children are fine. The eating issues will pass. They will sleep better. I will sleep better. My Dad will not get better and that is a fact. We have been home with them four months. My Dad has laid paralyzed for two and half years. We are planning their first birthdays. That is something to celebrate.

I am definitely feeling sandwiched. It's my new sensation I guess.

Love, baby, love.
It's written all over your face.




*I will revisit my lucky post, and some of the comments, when I can. I have so much more to say.

Lucky

FIRST: I'm sorry I've been MIA. I've tried to read and honestly, I've tried to comment but blogger has been giving me fits. So I wouldn't blame you if you have stopped reading, but I've had this post in draft form for a while, and it rolls around in my brain a lot, so here it is...



Lucky.
It's a loaded word, for me anyway.

I used to rant and rave about using the term 'blessed' when describing someone having a baby. Because it must mean that me, barren as a log, was decidedly unblessed because I couldn't procreate. And who wants to be called unblessed? Hearing that term cut through my heart like a knife. I wanted the word 'blessed' replaced with 'lucky' because I could deal with being unlucky, but unblessed? No thanks.

And now I hear the term lucky being tossed our way quite often. Nearly everyone comments on how our babies are so lucky. I don't mean here, in the comments section, and even if the word did crop up there that wouldn't bother me because my readers tend to get it.

It's the general public. They learn our babies are adopted (I mean, it's pretty obvious) and if they learn they are Ethiopian they immediately say how lucky they are, usually with a big smile, and sometimes an actual pat on my back, and always one that is implied. Ick.

I don't correct them because if I did, it would go something like this, and I'd probably be carted off to the looney bin.

Lucky? No, they are not lucky. They suffered a loss that is unimaginable to most. They are separated from their birth family. In an ideal world, the first choice, barring a safety issue or a complete inability to provide loving care, is that children are raised by their birth parents. Second choice is always other family. Third choice is another family in their home country, in their culture--domestic adoption. Then it gets down to orphanage care versus international adoption and I think it's pretty obvious that international adoption into a loving family has many benefits over institutionalized care. But no, they are not lucky. They got the fourth choice. The fourth one down the list.

We were the fourth choice. And I don't think anyone ever feels lucky when they get their fourth choice.

But if I said all of that people would wonder why the hell I adopted (and why do I still get my feelings hurt over the fact that it feels like most of my infertile peeps will do anything but adopt?).

I know it's confusing. Because I do believe in international adoption as a way--the fourth choice way-- to provide a family to a child who would otherwise be raised in institutional care. But I will never, ever think of it as the ideal choice.

And yes, I understand that there might be benefits to living in the U.S. over Ethiopia--improved life expectancy (by decades), improved access to education and opportunity, etc. etc. But actually---even that gives me pause. Taking someone from a country where people are satisfied and happy with much, much less and introducing them to our vulgar consumerist nation (and yes, I know I could work really hard to raise little non-consumerists but right now I'm just happy to have two babies that might start sleeping through the night consistently and don't throw their food across the room) isn't ideal either. And yes, as far as families go I do think Mr. MTL and I will make decent parents.  So I understand why people immediately think our babies are lucky, on the surface.

But the more I am with them, the deeper my love grows for them, then the more deeply I am able to get a sense of the pain of their young lives. Of the immense loss and grief that will always, always color their world. And it's more heartbreaking than I could have ever imagined.

Some days I watch them, playing innocently, laughing and discovering and taking sheer delight in the pleasures of being an infant.  And my heart starts to hurt. I think I'm having a heart attack. Because I know, I know they will not be this innocent forever. Soon they will know. And it will hurt. And I can't do one thing to make it not hurt.

I am not foolish enough to ever think we can 'make up' for their loss of culture. Making up for their loss of birth parents isn't even on the radar because that's an impossible task. Impossible.

If you don't understand that and you have fertility issues then try to imagine what would 'make up' for the loss of your fertility.

Their job is NOT to make up for the loss of our fertility and our job is not to make up for the loss of their birth parents, their culture, their everything. Our job is just to parent them the very best way that we can. To love them with our whole hearts. To allow them their grief and sorrow, to hold their hands through it, to be aware.

They are not lucky.
But we are.

Scattered

I feel like this post is going to be scattered, and probably long, so go ahead and get a cup of coffee. Or a Diet Coke. I'll wait.

And yes, forgive me for bullet points. I have exactly 14.5 minutes until two sleeping Africans become two boisterously awake Africans and so bullet points will have to do.

• Sleeping. Thank you for the advice. Honestly. I enjoyed reading everyone's opinions. I had a total DUH moment a couple of times. We are down to one feeding a night--hooray! Basically some of you were right, we had to offer more formula during the day. However, it's interesting to see how they can really push that bottle away if they simply don't want it, no matter how badly I want them to want it/drink it during daylight hours so they won't need it/want it during the nighttime hours. They basically take a few ounces before morning nap (here is where I wish they would take more), 7-8 oz before afternoon nap, 8 oz when we rock them before bedtime, and then they wake up for 7-8 oz anywhere from 2:30 to 4:30 in the AM. We will probably start gradually reducing the nighttime offering too. But waking up once, and sometimes after 5-6 solid hours of sleep for us (we go to bed at 9 pm now, ha) feels heavenly. And they really pack away the solids too, for the most part. But every day is different.
• I went back to work this past week. Three full days (I leave at 6:45 am and return at 5 pm, DH gets home at 4:30 pm). The babies wake up at 6:10ish so I get to play with them before I leave. Which means I get up at about 5:15 to get myself ready.
• Sub-bullet time (fancy schmancy!). I cried the first day. I did not cry the second two days.
• I am really enjoying work time. Yes, I realize it was the first week back and in another month I'll probably loathe work. But for now....
• I feel like I fail one million times a day as a mother, but at work, I know what I'm doing. I'm ordering lab, writing prescriptions, explaining test results, chatting with coworkers (oh! adult conversations, how I've missed thee so!) and while I may not be perfect at it, I'm better at it than I am as a mother, at least in terms of errors made.  
• I love coming home to them.
• I love my two full days with them on my own, and of course love the weekends when we're all together.
• The nanny is great with the babies.
• My heart broke a million times over when I saw how, on the third day, they were so excited to see the nanny. I guess the alternative is worse, but still....
• The nanny is not so good with the housekeeping. Granted, it's not her primary job, but I don't really relish coming home to extra work created by her. Clean up your food prep mess for goodness sake!
• I don't like being a boss....argh.
• Patients. As in, mine. I had two photos of the babies in my office. It was all the patients wanted to talk about. I had to redirect conversations a million times over. And if I hear how lucky my babies are one more time I am going to lose it. That's a whole other post. And yes, I know it is said with nice intentions, but they aren't lucky. I promise to post that post (written weeks ago and tucked away in my drafts file, soon).
• When do other people clean? My DH and I just nearly broke our backs trying to get the whole house cleaned while they napped. Our daughter hates loud noises so we have to wait until she's really asleep or out of the house with the other parent to vacuum and run the hard floor scrubber. Otherwise I feel like my standards for cleaning are going by the wayside, and anyone who knows me knows this stresses me out.
• Cold fronts. It will only hit 90 degrees here this week and honestly, folks, it feels like a blizzard. This morning for our morning run it was 58 degrees and I had to put the babies in little jackets. And I kid you not, there is nothing more adorable than the little man in his Paul Frank zip up hoodie (thanks Kim!). Nothing. At least, I challenge you to find something more adorable. Did I get a photo? No.
• Running. I only get to do it four days a week now. Simply can't go on a work morning. I miss it. I had never run for so many consecutive days ever before, without missing one. Oh well, all good things must come to an end.
• Weight loss. After three days of just sitting at a desk and then resuming full time Mom duties on Thursday, I quickly realized why I lost weight. Oh.My.God. I never sit down. Except now, when I'm typing at 105 wpm trying to get all my thoughts out on a random blog post. But it's ok, because I probably should have been at this weight for years. But having to buy all new pants and skirts is somewhat annoying because who has time to shop anymore?
• Hiking. We took the babies hiking yesterday. To the trails where we used to run, all.the.time. I had a heart clench moment when DH was talking to the babies and said "Mom and Dad used to run here all the time, and all we would talk about was you. And now you're here, with us." Oh man, what a moment.
• Concerts. Mr. Lee.bot had a show the other day and I was able to take the babies with the help of their Aunt Stacey. He called us onto the stage and sang "Our Family." Our son reached for the guitar, smiling as his Dad sang a song written about him. I held it together guys, I actually did. But inside I was sobbing tears of gratitude and joy listening to him sing the words "Our family, looks different but we're still, our family."
• Prunes. DH learned the hard way that a little prunes goes a long way in helping intestinal issues of certain babies. I won't go into any other details because, really? Disgusting.
• Photos. I will now post some, in the 7.5 minutes I have until they wake (how do I know when they'll wake? They really, really are on a schedule!)

I can't decide how I feel about my hoodie.

Help! I'm being swallowed by this backpack!

All headphones, no pants.

Dad, I'm not a dumbell.

Two of a kind.

(why am I standing weird?)

Who is this NY people keep telling us about?

Advice needed!

This post is a Mom blog type post whereby I will be soliciting advice from those who have gone before me...I am sorry for those still in the IF trenches. I wish it weren't so.

Sleep. Night feedings. Please help.

Our babies are over ten months old. We brought them home over three months ago. Somewhere along the way some friends of ours who also adopted "psuedo twins" told us they did the bedtime routine and fed their babies a bottle, but then also woke them right before they (the parents) went to sleep and gave them another bottle, and then they slept through the night.

We tried that! Basically, it meant that at 6:45 pm or 7 pm ish we fed them their last bottle and then woke them at 10 pm and fed them again. Guess what? They always sucked down about 6-8 oz of formula at that 10 pm feeding. Guess what again? They didn't sleep through the night, still waking for another bottle at around 2 am. Hmph.

Our pedi told us the other day to STOP the waking up forced feeding at 10 pm. She said that it was teaching them to need that feeding.

We happily obliged. Quite honestly most nights we are falling asleep at 9:15 pm so we were happy to go to bed earlier. The first few nights--EUREKA!--they slept longer, sometimes going until 3:30 am before waking once to be fed. So we were still waking once but getting to go sleep earlier so getting a longer stretch of solid sleep and it seemed like a decent plan.

But lately, here's the thing: they are waking TWICE per night to eat. They eat solids three times a day and take two small bottles daily and are starting (though they are not good at it at all) to take liquids from a sippy cup. We feed them dinner at 5:30 (it takes them about 45 minutes to eat because of the self feeding) and they seem to eat quite a bit. Then at 6:30 they have a bath, at 6:50 it's books, bottle, rocking and then to bed. They usually goof off in their cribs (despite nearly falling asleep drinking their bottles, so this, too, perplexes me) for a while and then drift off to sleep anywhere from 7:15 to 7:30 pm. But now they are waking at 11 pm and 4 am consistently for bottles. They usually drink about 6 ounces, sometimes the full 8. Last night our son woke at 10 pm crying...we let him cry for about five minutes, he did fall back asleep but then woke SCREAMING at 11 pm and there was no going back.

I guess I always thought 10+ month olds would sleep longer, could go longer at night. I'm not complaining really--at least it's pretty easy to just get up and feed them, change them, and they go back to sleep, but really I'm just wondering if anyone has any advice. I feel like sometimes we're doing something wrong.

Well, this is rambling. Just hoping someone can tell me the magic cure :) Ha.

EDITED TO ADD:
I think they get enough to eat during the day...they get about 28 to 30 oz of formula total daily plus three meals of solid foods and they seem to really chow down at those meals! They eat vegetables, fruits, soy *meat*, grilled cheese sandwiches, bagels, waffles, etc. Our daughter is 90th percentile for weight and our son is 50th percentile for weight. I guess I just thought waking every four hours to eat at night seemed frequent, but maybe not....

Too much.

I know I've been away. I'm sorry I'm not always commenting. I'm trying to read and keep up. But some days it's all I can do to keep up with the most basic of tasks. Hmph.

Warning, the following is a little tongue-in-cheek, and I don't want to be flamed in comments, BUT this past week our normally 'easy' 9.5 month old daughter has 1) started crawling (yay!) 2) started completely refusing to be fed ANY baby food on the spoon (argh) 3) finally sprouted one lonely tooth and 4) decided that naps are for babies, and so is going to bed at night at the normal hour too, since you asked. Our son was teething and also had an ear infection. They also got their last set of 'catch up' vaccines plus a flu shot...

So it's been stressful. Tiring. Agonizing. See--there are books on raising twins, there are books on parenting internationally adopted infants, but there are not a lot of expert opinions about parenting internationally adopted psuedo-twins. One expert says let her cry it out on the naps, but what about her brother, sleeping ten feet away? On the feeding--just let her self feed whatever she wants, but do NOTHING to make mealtime stressful (international adoption book) but the pedi says "make sure she gets her several servings of fruits and vegetables per day." How? She won't feed herself fruits OR vegetables. But yet she went from the 50th percentile to the 90th percentile for weight...so clearly she's not starving....

Anyway. My head. It explodes with the what ifs. What if I'm doing it all wrong? I feel like I am, about 75% of the time. Why don't I have more patience? When will the sleep deprivation get better (ha!)...although we are getting better at nighttime, we still don't get through the night without being woken up twice...once for a full feeding and the other time because one of them starts to make noise and we have to wake up to determine if it's for real or not. And did I mention that on top of everything, I go back to work parttime in one week? And the nanny is wonderful--truly wonderful (experience with multiples twice, mature, hardworking, very loving) but I'm all at once jealous of her and looking forward with such glee and delight to our two full mock days this week, where I will be out of the house but not at work. I will get to have lunch with a friend, I will get my hair cut, I will do some shopping. I will feel guilty.

OK, so the blog title post.

On a particularly trying evening, the Mr. looked at me and said, "Was it too much fun we were having before they got here?"

I answered back, "No, I think it was too much free time we had."

"No, he said, too much going out to eat!"

"No, too much hanging out with friends!"

And back and forth it went.

Too much money.
Too much sleep--glorious sleep!
Too much running on trails.
Too much watching TV.
Too much eating food while it's still hot.
Too much reading for pleasure.
Too much staying up late because we knew we could sleep in.
Too much going anywhere at a moment's notice.
Too much vacations.
Too much, too much, too much.

We had too much of all of these things, and so we gave them all up.

Ha.

From the Mr.'s birthday.

Too much cuteness, indeed!

I'm the last splash...

Today was my birthday.

It was the first one in a long time where I wasn't anxious. I wasn't thinking about the fact that I was another year older and still not a mother. I remember my 31st birthday, the year I knew I would be a mother. Hmph. That was six years ago.

But today, today I am. And it was different. It made a difference. I felt light, happy, some might say ebullient even. That heavy, heavy weight of the question--would I be a mother?--gone.

I took the babies swimming! It was glorious. I received gerbera daisies from a dear friend Gail. I did someshopping, completely alone--divine. And the night will end with a chocolate cupcake filled with a caramel mousse. Oh yes.

I leave you with these photos from my day.