Our family

I got an email out of the blue this week notifying me of a huge number of visits to my blog. To be honest, I hadn’t revisited my blog since I wrote my last post. Life has been so full and it feels like this part of my life was lived a century ago. 

Our son is now five and is the absolute joy of our lives. Becoming his mother has been the hardest, yet most fulfilling thing. Parenting is not for the faint-hearted! Our adoption was finalised in 2017. 

For everything that happened - IVF, miscarriage, infertility- it all brought me to being his Mum. It was worth every tear.

Final post

I've come to say my goodbyes. This blog helped my sanity for many years- my diary for all of the torment that infertility brought. And now, after everything, this place is not needed. My son has completed me. So now I'm in a different space, and ready to let go of this place. 

My love goes out to all of you who are yet to reach that same place. I'm not deleting the blog, although I'll no doubt let the domain lapse- hopefully people will stumble over the blog in the future and it might speak to them in whatever they are going through. 

May God bless you, whoever you are. 

Love

Bec

Immunisations

We survived our vaccinations this week. J was due for his 18 month vaccinations, and I was not looking forward to it at all. I had delayed it twice already, but knew that it had to be done, so we went to a drop-in immunisation clinic nearby which was super handy.

The nurse who did the needles was great, a great big Pacific Islander guy who was very matter of fact about it all. J had two needles, one in each arm - J flinched for both of them but no tears, and was super happy to run around the waiting room for our 15 minute reaction check with no problems. Both arms have bruising at the site of the injections, but other than that - all good!

Now we only have the annual flu vaccination until he turns 4, when he gets another lot of injections. He is growing up so much!

So many words!

Our little man can say so many words now! He is 18 months old on Wednesday, and obviously Mama and Dad are his two favourite words - swoon!

He also knows:

• Baby
• Car
• Bus
• Peg
• Bin
• Bag
• Bottle
• Yay
• Cheese
• Muesli Bar
• Bounce
• Wow
• Ear
• Nose
• Mouth
• Willy
• Feet
• Boobies - yep this one is a favourite!
• Tickle
• E-I-E-I-O - we sing old macdonald a lot
• Duggee - From Hey Duggee
• Duck
• Dunk - when he dunks himself underwater in the bath or pool
• Monkey
• Go-go - from the Paw Patrol tv show
• Bye-bye
• Door

Notification of intent to adopt submitted

We are one step closer to finalising J's adoption.

We submitted our 60 day notification of intent to adopt on January 12, so March 12 is the first possible day that the adoption order can be submitted to the family court. We officially could have submitted the notification on December 12, however the adoption order can't be submitted until DCP have finished their placement report which needs another two visits and then time to write the report up and get it approved, so the delay isn't actually a delay at all.

Fingers crossed, it wont take long once the paperwork is all submitted and late March/early April it will all be finalised! I can't wait to finally share a photo of our beautiful little boy.

First haircut

J had his first haircut yesterday and he looks so grown up now!

We went along to Murray's usual barber who was pleased as punch to be doing the first hair trim. J wasn't sure enough to sit by himself, but was quite content to sit on my lap and play with a car while his wispy ends were neatened up - no more fringe in his eyes!

At the end of the haircut, the barber let him sit in a decorative red car that sits in the corner of the store, and J couldn't have been more thrilled. To top it off, the barber refused payment, he was just happy that J enjoyed the experience.

 Oh, and I saved a lock of hair for his scrapbook of course!

17 months

I can't believe J has been home with us for over four months already. He is just growing up so fast! He is walking and running like a champion, and talks so much! While it sounds like babble to most people, he has about 20 words that he says in context that we can understand, and understands even more than that.

He can bounce on the trampoline, loves his swimming and music lessons, and has two favourite television shows - Hey Duggee and Sarah & Duck! He plonks himself down in front of the tv anytime either of them come and giggles, and tries to say Duggee and Duck! It's adorable.

One of the challenges over the past 6 weeks has been the transition from baby to toddler in terms of behaviour. He is not quite as carefree and smiley, he has become very clingy to me, wanting me to pick him up all the time, even if he is already being held by Murray. Any time that he doesn't get his own way, whether it be taking something like a pen off of him, sitting down when he wants me to stand up, or the bath isn't ready for him to hop in, he starts whining or fake-crying, which can escalate into full tantrum in next-to-no time. We are trying some strategies but hoping this is just a phase that he is going through, and not the start of three years of the terrible two's!

Even though we have just finished Christmas, I have already started having ideas about J's birthday. It will be Hey Duggee themed, and as there isn't a lot of party merchandise available, I'm going to have to do a lot of DIY. Luckily it's not until July so there is plenty of time haha!

Our first Christmas as a family

Wow. It's two days after Christmas and I am finally getting to sit back and reflect on our first Christmas as a family of three.

On Christmas Eve we all got new pyjamas and watched the carols on television before bed. Waking up on Christmas morning was amazing.His face just lit up once he saw the tree with the presents, even if he didn't quite understand what he was meant to do with them! He was very spoilt with a trampoline from Nanny and Poppy, a playgym from Nonny, and a John Deere ATV ride on and about 30 other things from us!

We had a barbecue breakfast at my Mum's house and he ran about the back yard and had a dip in a blow up pool. Then we did Murray's family for a more traditional sit-down lunch which was lovely. J had a second nap from 4-7pm which he never does, which meant he then stayed up until midnight! But he was having such a blast playing with all of his new toys, he barely made a fuss.

Life is profoundly different. It's not all rainbows and fairytales. I've struggled with my identity a lot, and gosh parenting is hard. I wouldn't change it for the world though, and certainly days like Christmas are made a lot more enjoyable with our little man.

Happiness