Week Three

After three false starts it looks like we might get to 48 hours medication free.  I get on a train tomorrow and meet DH then we get into a car and drive back home 7 hours.  Can't wait for everyone to all be under one roof.

Week two

BabySam was born January 15th.  She still is in the NICU.  The nurses that cared for her before we arrive gave her a few different names but the one that I remember was Sam short for Samantha.  For those of you that followed my old blog you will know I spent three long weeks in the hospital with her.  The roller coaster of her health condition in addition to her birth family coming and going it was hard.  To top it off she wasn't in the most supportive of NICU environments.

BabySam like Baby Girl was born dependent on illicit substances.  This means she must go through the slow process of weaning off.  We hope tomorrow is the day she finally is done with the medications but her body will tell us.  DH this time is the one staying at the NICU.  He has been there every day with her.  I on the other hand got to meet her and a short 30 hours later I had to go back home to go back to work and care for Baby Girl.  These past two weeks have been hard on all of us but we are most concerned about BabySam.

The day we met her we learned that they were considering a feeding tube but they provided us a chance to give her the attention she needed to avoid that.  The staff has been really supportive and helpful.  DH was stuck due to the snow storm that hit the east and they set him up with a bed in the hospital.  We can pick her up and hold her whenever she needs it and the list of rules are not endless.  They just ask that you dont talk on your cell phone at bedside and that you dont eat at bed side.  I kept asking them about rules and they kept looking at me like I was crazy.  The first full day we were there we needed to run errands and get DH set for his long stay.  I wasn't stricken with panic like I was when I would leave Baby Girl.

Baby Girl has been angry that her Dad isn't home.  She wants the baby home but doesn't want her Dad to come home (so she says).  She spent the first weekend calling me "Dude" because "thats what I call drives that do things I dont like"  (could be worse-right!).  She isn't so angry now but more sad.  She enjoys face timing with her Dad and watching videos of BabySam.  

Last Sunday I took her out for bagels.  I was sad myself because her birthday was the next day.  I told Baby Girl that 4 years ago her Birthmom was getting ready for her c-section that would happen the next day and that would be her birthday.  Baby Girl asked some questions about her birthday- then she shocked me.  "What is BabySam's Mom's name?"  She has put it all together- she is too smart for her own good.  I explained to her that BabySam's birthmoms name was J and that she unlike D didn't think she would be able to see BabySam after she placed her with a family she knew would love her.  I told her that Baby Girl was special because she gets to visit with D and BabySam wont be able to visit J.  We hope that J changes her mind down the road but we can't make her.  I don't anticipate that her change of heart will occur any time soon.  I can't imagine that J might fear opening her heart up to an open/semi-open adoption only to be crushed when it closes.  She also maybe fearful of being judged or she may not hold the self worth to realize that she still is important to BabySam even if she can't be a Mom to her.  

Baby Sam does  have a half sibiling that we will try to make contact with via the agency.  Her relationship with her birthfamily will be different.