Things About Adoption No One Told Me About Part 2

When you finally start some resemblance of real sleep, you think things are getting better. You're finally able to leave the house on time again. Things seem to be looking up! One thing I really wished I had known was how long exactly 6 weeks were then how long 6 months were.

When you first come home, 6 weeks doesn't seem like that long of a time! Heck, you've probably waiting 6 months trying to bring home your baby. During the firsrt 6weeks, agency, experts, etc. reccommend that only primary care givers, aka, mom and dad, are the ones that feed, bathe, hold, comfort, etc. SO for 6 long weeks we did this. It was really hard. Especially after not sleeping and being tired and just wanting a shower so bad! We made it through this though, pretty easily. During this time though, Paxton was mostly sick, so it was okay that only we could hold him! No one else wanted to come near us after he had RotaVirus!

After 6 weeks, others can start to hold your child, and another primary caregiver, aka a babysitter can step in, but it's highly recommended that you not leave him/her in church nurseries or short periods of time with random baby sitters. SO for 6 long months, one of us, mainly me, was with Paxton at all times. No church nursery, no date nights unless grandparents were available, no time really whatsoever with Paxton. Now at first I didn't mind this. I mean, come on, I was a new mom again! I loved showing off our new son. I don't even mind the questions that people ask that they probably have no business asking! I love telling our part of his story to others. It does start to wear on you though. About 4-5 months in, you start to test the waters of leaving them in the church nursery, only to know that they've screamed forever, so you don't do that again for awhile! Finally that 6month mark has hit, and you're the one not really ready to leave them for the entire church service, or with a sitter, even if they know that sitter!

We made it through those 6 months. Attatchment was great. People finally knew to page me in church if he cried more than 10 minutes! Those 6 months were hard. You don't realize until they're up what you've missed by being out of church so long. Or not being able to go out with friends at night or just spending time alone with your spouse. It was hard to finally leave Paxton and even now after being home 9 months, I still worry about leaving him with people he doesn't know. With the bigger kids, this was never an issue. They just got left! We had sitters and they were left at church from 2 weeks of age to never look back! It's just such a different experience in this situation. Not being able to leave him plus the exhaustion led me some other issues that I'll talk about next. It's something that I never thought I'd have to deal with. I already had two kids, wouldn't adding a third, be a piece of cake?