Finally

Yes, I finally have a moment to blog! I just spent 20 minutes catching up with the blogs I read and responding to email that I haven't had a chance to respond to. Life seems to have moved into high gear in the past couple of days.

First, the thing you are all most interested in...Bailey! She is doing very, very well. Overnight it seems that she has entered a phase of interacting more, crying less, sleeping better and overall just being more pleasant. Tonight, we sat on the couch and sang nursery rhymes. In particular, she was very interested in the Itsy Bitsy Spider and Bingo. I think that was because those are the songs that have hand motions to go with them. I wish I knew sign language...fluently. I'd sign all the songs I sang and teach her that way.

She's decided to start breastfeeding. I say she, because I cannot take any credit for it. The only thing that I contributed to this was that my body had not stopped making milk. It had slowed down, for sure, but not completely. So, we were in the bath. The heat had caused a drop of milk to leak from my breast, and Bailey, while throwing herself around got a taste. She looked surprised for a second and then threw herself (literally) at my breast, where she proceeded to latch onto my nipple. By herself. And then she stayed there. For 20 minutes. So I switched her to the other side, where she stayed for another 15. And that is where it began. The next time I tried (the next morning) she latched like a super star. Ever since, I've been latching her five or six times a day. She stays on the breast for quite a while each time. For the first few minutes, I can hear her swallowing, so I know that she's getting milk. After that, it slows down. I keep her latched, though, because they say that it's the suckling that will cause my milk supply to increase. I'm also taking Fenugreek to help out. It seems that each day my breasts produce more. I doubt that Bailey will ever be exclusively breast fed, but I'm willing to let her go for it whenever she wants. We'll supplement with the bottle to keep her fed and happy.

Interesting, huh? Seems that nature wins and Miss. Bailey decided it was time to be a breast fed baby. I'm just glad that my milk supply had not dried up.

The three of us are headed to West Virginia this weekend for Bailey to make her grand debut with that side of our family. We also get to finally meet our new niece!!! It's been weird to not know her, and we're very much looking forward to it. We're hoping that Bailey does alright in the car...she doesn't really like it. It'll be a long, long four hour drive if she decides to scream the entire way (or until she cries herself to sleep). We are staying in a hotel also, so hopefully she'll do alright sleeping. If not, we'll deal with it, but this is a good test to see what kind of traveler our little honey is.

The adoption paperwork is finally all pulled together and on its way to our attorney. I'm not sure what the next step is, but I think that she will file the paperwork and the petition for adoption with the court. I assume that we will then be assigned a court date and that will be that. I could be wrong, but that seems logical.

I can't wait for Bailey to legally belong to Kelly. There is a level of discomfort that I have when I think about what would happen if I died. I mean, I know that our families would not fight Kelly having soul custody of Bailey. My will makes it very clear that Kelly is the person with whom Bailey belongs. But legally, if anyone wanted to challenge Kelly's rights to Bailey, they could. And that isn't right. Not one bit. When the adoption is final, it doesn't matter what happens. The entire world could go completely conservative and decide that they will never allow another same-sex, second parent adoption and Bailey will STILL be Kelly's child in the eyes of the law. Once it's done, it cannot be undone. I can't wait.

That is what's been going on. Tomorrow is Kelly's office picnic. We'll spend lots of time outside, enjoying the sun and other kids. I probably won't have time to write...but I'll have lots of picture when we get back from WV! For now, these pictures were taken today...isn't she growing up???