Sleep is for the Weak!

We thought it would be a long 3 days but it turned into a long 5 days. Remember when I mentioned that the birthmom had to be free of all medication, well the attorney felt it would also be good if we did the final signatures outside of the hospital. For the next 3 days in the hospital Doug and I had a room across the hall from the birthmom and baby Jackson stayed with us almost 24 hours a day. If you remember from the previous post we didn’t get much sleep before Jackson arrived and we haven’t since. But day 2 of feeding every two hours we had the nurse take him to the nursery for 4 hours so that we could literally nap.

Everybody said, get the book that talks about how to get babies to sleep through the night in 6 weeks’ time. That is a bunch of crap as far as we were concerned as Jackson didn’t sleep through the night until he was 13 months old. We gave him cereal in his bottle, (didn’t work), he was on a schedule that you would think he needed the sleep (didn’t work). The doctor said, he will sleep through the night when he was ready so stop trying to force it. Doug and I decided, Sleep is for the Weak!

With all the excitement we also needed to have the carseat installed by the fire department ( we thought) but it turned out to be the police department where we were and the only office was in the suburbs and we didn’t have a huge window of time to get this done…. So we thought it would be best to leave Jackson with his birthmom so she could have some quality time with him. We were nervous about this as she hadn’t spent a lot of time with him so we wondered how this would go and when we returned if she would have changed her mind. Some 3 hours later we returned and she and baby were doing great and I am sure although she didn’t say – they had a good talk and she told him all about how great this was going to be and that she would be around to check in on him from time to time.

We are leaving and have checked out of the hospital we are in route to the hotel – our home away from home while the 2 states reviewed our home study and then we wait for permission to cross state lines and return home. Over the next several days at the hotel the birthmom visited Jackson every afternoon and on the 3rd day at the hotel she signed the necessary paperwork to place him fully in our custody. She really wasn’t emotional as she was at peace with her decision and she knew by now this child was going to have the world. We had also agreed to an open adoption that would allow her to visit Jackson at least once a year.

For the next several days we fed Jackson every 2 hours to the point that Doug and I were beyond exhaustion. After about 8 days in the hotel room we decided to leave the city and travel to the state line and await permission to enter Georgia. It would be another 2 days but then it came! We started our journey home on January 9th.

What wasn’t mentioned in previous blogs was that back in October I began the search for a Nanny. Yes, Jackson was going to have a Nanny to be with him every day while we worked. Jackson would be in his own home, in his own environment. This process takes a lot of time because you want to find the right person that meets your criteria. Back in October I placed an ad with Care.com that pretty much said, if you don’t like gay people, Don’t apply, if you don’t speak Spanish, don’t apply, if you don’t have a car don’t apply, if in your heart you don’t like kids, don’t apply. Well about 75 applicants later I began the search for the right person to be with Jackson. The ad also said we wouldn’t need you until late January so if you can’t wait – don’t apply. After 3 months of reading profiles and getting background checks I had narrowed the search down to 3 and as we got back home, it was time for a face to face meet and greet.

Next blog.....meet our Nanny...