The Big Kid Bed Fix

For months I've been dreading moving my toddler into her "big girl bed." We didn't have the attachments to change the crib into a toddler bed, and with baby #2 on the way it seemed pointless anyways. So we decided to skip ahead to a twin size bed and move her to that when she was ready.
My greatest fear was her rolling out of bed and getting injured. I love the girl to death, but she is a CRAZY sleeper (definitely takes after Daddy when it comes to sleep habits)! I can peak on her throughout the night and every time she is in a different, and even more awkward position. My other worry was how in the world I would keep her IN bed. She often plays in her crib for about 20-30 minutes before falling asleep... a routine she picked up after we weaned her off her pacifier. I am totally fine with her playing in bed when she's confined to a crib - but the idea of giving her an entire room to explore at bedtime petrified me! This girl would never go to sleep!
In preparation for her inevitable big move, my hubby built her a beautiful platform bed! I immediately started an online hunt for side rails that would work with a platform bed. Many of the rails I looked at were not clear in their description if they could be used with a platform bed - so I read a LOT if customer reviews! I only found one that sounded like a match... But it had poor quality reviews. So I looked at other options. I found some awesome foam bumpers that go under the fitted sheet, they looked perfect and had great reviews! They were about $40. I was about to order them when my sister-in-law suggested using pool noodles to do the same thing (but cheaper... I'm a huge fan of cheap)!)
So I bought 2 pool noodles from WalMart for less than $8! I had to go with the 3" noodles since they didn't carry the jumbo sized ones. There was no way little 3 inch bumpers were going to contain my crazy toddler though, so I rolled them in blankets to add extra thickness.

And what home-made bumpers would be complete without a touch of Duck Tape!!! I even used some as straps between the bumpers to keep them in place.

Then the fitted sheet went on which also helped keep it all together. My girl has been sleeping in her new bed for almost 3 weeks now and hasn't fallen out once!!! Woohoo for cheap fixes!

The Great Wait

As someone who is waiting to bring a sweet little girl home from China, I'd like to offer encouragement to others who are praying about adoption or in the process themselves.  I've heard many prospective and adoptive families express concern over the length of time an adoption can take.  I know that it CAN take a really long time, or sometimes it just FEELS like a really long time, and sometimes, you get to the end when you're about to bring your child home and you start freaking out because it's all happening so fast! (I'm in the freak out stage right now!)

When we adopted our son from Russia in 2011, the process from start to bringing him home was about 18 months.  To some, that may seem like an incredibly long, grueling timeframe.  To me, that's just how long it took.  When you think about it, the length of time between when a man and a woman start trying to have a baby and when they actually have a new human to care for, this can be a relatively quick process of roughly 10 months (if you're lucky!), to any number of years, to never.  Adoption happens this way also ~ everything is in God's perfect timing!

The adoption process starts with a home study in which a social worker visits your house several times over a few months.  During that time we were busy completing background checks, passport photos, parent training, local fingerprints and gathering copies of our birth and marriage certificates.  We were also simultaneously working on something called a Dossier (a group of documents that includes a home study, citizenship and immigration approval, medical reports, and a bunch of other stuff) that gets sent to the country where you are adopting from.  Having your Dossier sent to the country is a BIG DEAL and reason to celebrate…. now the waiting to be matched with your little one begins!

We began the adoption process for our daughter in March, 2013 and plan to travel this September (woo-hoo!!) to bring little sweet cheeks home.  We sailed through all of the initial paperwork (some people in the adoption community call this period a "paper pregnancy"), submitted our Dossier and then my husband deployed for 7 months.  A deployment happened after submitting the Dossier for our son's adoption as well.  Our agency worked with us to complete our paperwork before the deployments, and in both cases it worked out wonderfully!

This was the only time in the process that I felt the wait.  There was no paperwork to do, no social worker visits, just waiting for that sweet phone call telling us that we were matched with our little girl.  Our agency has a really informative Facebook page, but seeing others being matched quickly made me a little…oh, what's the word…impatient??

I remember talking to my husband (whom was overseas) the day before we were matched with our Mei.  It was about 4 1/2 months into the wait, and it was expected that this period could last anywhere from 3 to 6 months on average.  We were waiting for our agency to match us when a child became available, but I was also looking into other waiting children programs.  I complained.  I whined.  I uttered the words "ugh, why is it taking so long?".  My husband, whom was on a satellite phone somewhere in the Middle East, likely with bigger problems at hand, gave encouraging words like always and reminded me that when it happens, it'll happen. And boy, did it happen!

The next day a storm like I'd never seen came our way.  Wind flew and rain crashed down from the sky.  A friend I hadn't seen in years was visiting in the next town over, and despite the crazy weather I set out to see her.  After pulling over on the road a few times from falling debris, rain, and water rolling over the car like waves that made it impossible to see, I found myself in a hospital parking lot, debating whether I should go in for shelter.  

While sitting in the car a familiar number blinked on my phone.  Could this be it?  Is it the call?  Now?  Here? And after all that complaining I did yesterday?  YES! I found the familiar and cheerful voice of our social worker on the other end, telling me that we had been matched with a sweet little girl, and could view her file now.  Technology is a wonderful thing, folks.  I was able to email my husband the file right then, and he called me so we could view our girls' file "together".  

When you see your child's sweet face for the first time and your heart skips a beat, all of the time that you were waiting for this moment fades away.  We knew that this was our little girl before we even looked at her file, really.  It was just knowing that God had orchestrated this moment for us, and that He has a sense of humor indeed for this moment to take place where and when it did.  

We are now in the exciting stage of waiting (yes, still!) for approval to travel to China to bring our daughter home.  This is a four step process, starting with submitting I800 paperwork, an Article 5, then receiving travel approval and lastly receiving a Consulate Appointment.  When we know when our appointment day is, we will then be able to book our travel arrangements around it.  If you asked me to explain any of these steps, I don't think I could.  We rely on the expertise and experience of our social worker to guide us through everything, and she's wonderful at it!  

We also applied for our visas during this time and worked at getting everything together that we will need to travel.  (If you're an organizing junkie like I am, you've really been working on this since last year, when you did your application….)  And then, of course, there is a little girl's room to get ready!  Oh, the burst of raspberry and pink that has exploded in her room!  Then clothes, sippy cups, stroller, let's just say a lot of shopping has happened during this time.  Instead of focusing on the wait, our family is trying to educate and prepare ourselves for bringing a child with special needs.

So, yes, the whole adoption process does take a bit of time.  But, honestly, there is so much mental, emotional, financial, and physical preparation that goes into it, I can't see how it would or should happen any faster.  All throughout this process there have been stages, and the joy that comes with graduating to the next stage.  We are so happy to say that our next stage is welcoming the newest member of our family!  

By: Sarah Plevinski

A Baby Story: SURPRISE!

So far I have been blessed with fairly normal/healthy pregnancies. My first child came the day before her due date, I was in labor a total of 10 hours, no epidural, and no major complications. So the second time around I was planning for about the same process. Except this time, we wanted to be surprised, so we skipped finding out the gender early. Little did we know this kid would surprise us in more ways than one.

Everyone told me the "second baby comes faster"... and sometimes "sooner," so in my head I thought "that's great, maybe baby will come a week early!" However, I still tried to keep my "nesting" instincts to a minimum until after I hit the 36 week marker... sounds silly, but I didn't want to get myself overly anxious and then end up going past my due date. So when I went into labor BEFORE 36 weeks I was totally unprepared! No "go bag" ready, no freezer meals made, and, worst of all... no call list of people who could watch my 2 year old. Boy was I stupid!

My contractions started around 2:00 AM. I was half asleep through most of them thinking it was all a dream... in my mind there was NO WAY I could actually be in labor this soon. Around 4:30 AM, the contractions were coming too close together to possibly be Braxton Hicks contractions and too painful to be 'just a dream,' so I whipped out the trusty contraction tracker app on my phone. They were about 10 minutes apart. The hubster started waking up around this time to get ready for work; I rolled over and said "don't want to freak you out, but I'm pretty sure I'm in labor." Took a while to convince him this was happening FOR REAL... he was even more in denial than I was.

This pregnancy I'd been seeing a midwife who worked with 2 other doctors. I called my midwife and filled her in on what was happening... at this point contractions were around 5 minutes apart. The hospital I was planning to deliver at did not have a NICU, and since I was technically 2 days before being 36 weeks they wanted me to go to Kapiolani Medical Center instead, just in case there were any complications with baby. Sadly only one of the doctors from my OB's office is able to deliver at that hospital and, of course, he was on vacation!

The hour we spent getting ready to go to the hospital is a blur. Between contractions I sat there staring at my empty "go bag" trying to remember what the heck I was supposed to put in it... ended up with a few pairs of underwear, nursing bras, and a toothbrush (it was pretty pathetic to say the least)... later on I had to send hubby home with a list of everything I forgot... it was a big list.
I managed to send out a mass text to any of my friends I thought might be awake and able to take on my toddler.  I managed to get ahold of my friend Lala, but she couldn't take her until 9:00 am when she got off her morning shift at work. So what did we do with our daughter? Took her with us to the hospital. That was fun.

Part of me wanted to keep this baby in another week or so... I wasn't mentally ready for this. That same part of me was going through all the worst case scenarios of things that could be wrong with the baby. What if it's lungs, heart, or other organs weren't fully developed yet? What if the baby was in some sort of distress that triggered early labor? I tried not to focus on all the "what if's" too much... but that is easier said than done. When I got to the hospital I was already 8 cm dilated and 100% effaced... ready or not, this kid was coming!

My toddler made for great comedic relief in the delivery room. She was bright eyed and full of energy, prancing around the room. She squished into the narrow bed with me, tried to help daddy rub my back, threw the tennis balls around (meant for rubbing my back), tried to roll me off the birthing ball (it was "her turn"),  and was fascinated with all the buttons on the monitor. It was cute and entertaining until I started to hit the "transition" phase. I was pretty sure my 2 year old was gonna see EXACTLY where babies come from if we didn't get her out of there soon. Out of desperation I called my good friend Julia, who was even more pregnant than I was with TWINS and had a 3 year old to chase. I felt horrible even asking but I was so desperate, I just needed someone to watch her until 9:00 when Lala could take her.  Julia was my hero and got there just in time before things got too intense.

As with my first pregnancy, my water never broke, so the doctor had to break it. The Dr. seemed a bit impatient, which really annoyed me. Once he broke my water it wasn't too much longer til I was ready to push. It took just a few big pushes and out SHE came! It was a GIRL!!! Hubby and I both thought it would be a boy. We had 5 different boy names ready to go and had struggled to think of any girl names. She was absolutely beautiful and melted my heart the moment I held her. To my surprise, she had a head full of dark hair! She weighed 6 lbs 7 oz, 19 inches long... pretty good size for being a month early. Our little girl was perfect and totally healthy.

We stayed in the hospital for two days. She struggled with nursing at first, but with some help from the lactation consultant we learned a few tricks to help her latch. Poor girl was nameless until just before we left the hospital when we finally decided on naming her Grace Michelle. I feel so blessed that everything worked out so well despite how unprepared we were. Grace was so excited to join our family, she just couldn't wait any longer.  I'm overwhelmed with gratitude to my Heavenly Father for our beautiful baby girl! Our family is so in love with her.