Here she is in the car on the way to our house for the first time!

It's now been over a week since we brought home our little girl. She's already five weeks and three days old!

My husband and I are really enjoying her. She is such a good baby. I was worried that I might not love her or might have some sort of post-baby depression. I don't; I'm so happy! It's a little hard getting adjusted to a schedule that revolves around her, but things are working themselves out. I still worry that the adoption may not work out, but it sounds like so far things are going well and that there are no warning signs of this adoption being interrupted.

Yesterday morning was a visit from our social worker. We had a nice time visiting with her, and I took a picture of her holding the baby. I showed her my photos and gave her a letter and pictures for the birthmother (which I won't be posting here, because I decided to write it out instead of typing it). I also gave the social worker two bags of used clothing that the birthmom had recieved and had given to the interim care mom when she picked up the baby. I figured that the clothes didn't have any significant connection to the birthmom, so I only kept a blanket that I liked. The birthmom didn't buy them, they were used, they were mostly clothes for an older infant, and they were for a winter baby. I figured the foster and interim care families could use the clothes more than I could.

Yesterday afternoon was our one month checkup at our new pediatrician. That went really well. We found out that our baby is now 9 lb., 14 oz., and that she is gaining weight at an average weight. We were worried that we were feeding her too much, but the doctor said we can trust our baby to drink the amount of formula that she needs. So, we will continue to feed on demand. We scheduled a two month visit, which will include some immunizations.

Something annoying that we are dealing with, which we didn't expect, is a problem with insurance. My husband's insurance wouldn't accept our baby because she is a "foster child." Although we didn't want to, we had to use her medicaid insurance that she got through her birthmother at our doctor visit. When we talked to our social worker, she told us that the insurance company can't reject her for that reason. A child that is to be adopted is legally to be treated the same as if she is already our own child. The insurance company is not allowed to discriminate against her. Although we had to get a foster care license to do this early "legal risk placement", she really isn't like a normal foster child. We do not get any aid from the state for her care. Even the family that cared for her during her first month didn't get any aid. We are able to use her medicaid until we get insurance set up, but we don't want the state to pay for her when we are capable of getting our own insurance. Our social worker said that some smaller insurance companies don't know this law, so they need to be informed. I'm working on getting some information from our social worker so we can prove to the insurance company that it was illegal for them to discriminate against our daughter. Insurance companies are so dumb!!!!!

We are already seeing some changes in our little girl since we brought her home. Yesterday was the first time she smiled at us, not just random smiles! She's also cooing much more and instead of following an object with her eyes, she now also turns her head. I love it when she watches her mom and dad. One thing that she doesn't particularly like, which we are working on, is laying on her tummy. She can lift up her head and move it to face the opposite direction, but she doesn't hold her head up much. I can't keep her laying that way longer than five or ten minutes or she gets fussy, so I'm hoping that she will soon find that position interesting.

Yesterday our baby was really alert. She cut out a lot of her nap time, so we wondered how long she would sleep. Last night she slept for six hours! We were very impressed with that accomplishment.

Yesterday my last order of diapers arrived from Canada. I was so excited that I had to change the baby right then to try out her new tiny tots diaper with a prowrap cover! Getting new diapers is as exciting as I had hoped.

We have been keeping our little girl in cloth diapers almost full time. If we go out I take one cloth and a couple disposables along. I put her in a dicposable for the doctor. It was really nice because while I was filling out forms, my husband had to undress and redress the baby. Hubby hasn't tried out the cloth yet. He thinks it will be too hard for him. I don't mind, because I do most of the changing anyway.

My main frustration with the cloth diapers is that I get some poop staining. I can get the stains out with the sun, but I'd rather do it in the wash. I would probably get more out if I swished the diapers in the toilet, but I'd rather not do that. I want to do things the easy way. I also wonder if poop from soy formula stains worse than breast milk. My mom thought maybe the iron was causing the bad stains. I don't know, I guess I'll just keep experimenting. I'm trying to do all the things suggested on my cloth diapering email list.

I showed my new sister-in-law my diaper stash yesterday and she seemed impressed and interested. Maybe someday my brother's baby will be in cloth too!

That's all for now. More pictures are coming soon. I haven't forgotten; the baby is waking up!