Baby Hopefuls

We want a baby. Sounds easy enough. Babies are born every day. But it is proving to be more than just a little complicated for Heather and me. I don't know why I am surprised. That's par for the course with us. So Monday we spent the day in Birmingham at the ART fertility clinic and then with an adoption attorney.

We kinda felt like the clinic visit was one of those meant to be things. Week before last, Heather was getting a pedicure and while her toes were under the dryer, she saw a business card from the clinic. We had already phoned for an appointment, so Heather said that the card was a sign. Now I don't really know what kind of sign it was, but it was a sign regardless.

To put it mildly, we are overwhelmed as crap. Everyone has thrown so much information at us that there is no way we will ever remember what all they said. We saw Dr. Virginia Houserman, and we immediately liked her. She's probably in her late 50's or so. Very cut and dry. Very to the point. And you could tell that she knew her stuff. and she was very nice.

Dr. Houserman had several suggestions. I'm not really going to go into all of that on here though, because it would take forever. We spent over 4 hours at the ART clinic. Heather will start taking shots at some point this week. I'm not really sure when. At some point I have to give her one, and quite frankly, that's freaking me out just a little bit.

So we have several options and they all have one thing in common.

Money money money. Lots of it. Piles of it. Mounds of it. And we are not made of it.

We were told to exercise more and lose weight. Then she said no more than 1 drink a day or 7ish a week. Moderation, of course. So quit eating,and quit drinking. Joy. Life as I know it is gone.

So we went to Sumo and filled up on sushi as a last hurrah before going back to strictly low carb. It was sooooooooooooooooooooo good!

Heather finally found her a maxi dress after shopping all over Orange Beach, Gulf Shores, Foley, Spanish Fort and Tuscaloosa. Thank the Lord.

Then we saw the attorney, Drew Whitmire. What a nice guy! Very southern lawyerish. He told us that we need to make a book on ourselves. Like a scrapbook. The mother will look at a pile of them and decide who gets her baby. So we have to make ourselves look good. Then we need to decide domestic or foreign. Then we need to pick an agency. He named a few here in Alabama. One is in Helena. Then we need a home study. So much information! My brain couldn't take it all in.

He also told us that the easiest and cheapest way is to put the word out that we are looking. That way, if somebody knows somebody who knows somebody who's friend is 19 and single and pregnant and wanting to give it up, we might be able to just get it directly. He said networking is a great tool for trying to adopt. So that's what we are doing. And ya'll spread the word too. Far and wide. Who knows who might hear of a baby out there somewhere. And it could be ours.

We filled out and signed all of our legal paperwork to adopt. So the papers are ready. They just need a baby name and date.

And that was our day. We were and still are exhausted. And stressed out.

There's a plan for us. I don't know what it is yet. But following it is about to wear me out.