cranky

I'm feeling restless and moody today, for no good reason. I'm off work and M took E to school this morning (180 degrees out of her way - so big thanks to her) so I didn't get out of bed until 9am. Since then, I've been sitting on the couch watching United States of Tara, stressing over our finances, and making a list of all the crap we still have to do before the babies arrive. (Huh, I take back what I said about not knowing why I'm feeling moody...) I have an OB appointment in a couple of hours and, for the first time, I'm planning on whining a bit. I am just so big and uncomfortable. The frequent contractions I've been having for the past couple weeks seem to have slowed, but they've been replaced by intense low pelvic pressure - no less concerning. In other (related?) news, my previously-lauded chiropractor is (a) just plain too far away, (b) not working enough days/hours to accommodate her patient load, leaving not a single free appointment on one of the days I wanted to get in this week, and (c) dragging her feet on ordering the type of table she needs to treat pregnant women comfortably, despite telling me that she fully appreciates how much she needs one and they ship within 48 hours of being ordered so, hey, it could totally be here by my next appointment, but she just can't bite the bullet because "it's like buying a car!" /vent

For contrast, I should document that we had an AWESOME day as a family yesterday. E helped me make a yummy breakfast of buttermilk pancakes (using my B&B-operating mom's signature recipe), bacon and fruit salad. Then we headed out to run some errands - something I haven't felt up to doing for 2-3 weeks now. Our spoils included a stylin' haircut for E, a new iphone for yours truly, treats from Godiva for all, and Build-a-Bears for Crash and Bash, lovingly chosen and "built" by the big-brother-to-be. (Geez, that last one was some serious cute overload. Let me tell you.) Our days as a family of three are numbered, and it was fun getting out with M and E, enjoying the family we are now instead of being all-consumed with thoughts about the family we're becoming. There were several times that E and I were walking together hand in hand and he was chattering on about this, that, or the other thing and I felt overwhelmed to think our time together will never be this simple or effortless again. Gah, this is supposed to be the happy paragraph. But, even the sad-ish part was still happy. I'm thankful for the relatively quiet moments with M and E, thankful for the 3+ years I've had to get to enjoy him as an only child, thankful for the burst of energy that let me participate in yesterday, and thankful for the pictures taken and memories made.

Update on a couple of things from my last post... I decided to go down to part-time this week. I'm still planning to work 25-30 hours (unless my doctor expresses other plans at my appointment today), but it seems like the right time to start scaling back. My "last day" is tentatively planned for April 27th (34 weeks), but I may move it up or push it back depending on how I'm feeling. The meeting with the lawyer was a bit of a mixed bag, but positive overall. The good news: We don't have to pay double for anything except the amended birth certificates, and she is charging us the same fee for her services that we paid with E ($300 less than her current charge). The bad news: The judge who granted E's adoption - the ONE judge in our county who was willing to handle same-sex adoption cases - has retired. There is another judge who has expressed an openness to hear cases like ours (and has accepted one of our attorney's cases so far, after the judge who replaced the retired judge flat out refused to keep it on his schedule), but this new judge has been really tough to pin down or get responses from. The attorney suspects he may not waive some of the requirements that the last judge did (i.e. home study, publication of intent to adopt) and it's likely this will end up costing us quite a bit more money, time and stress than our last adoption did. Ah, the lengths we go to, huh? All of that said, she's optimistic we will be able to finalize before the end of 2012, so we wrote her a big fat check and she started preparing our paperwork. Once the babies arrive, she'll update the petition to include their names and birth dates, and as soon as their SSNs and birth certificates are received, we'll be able to file. Then, we just wait out the 6 months and tackle whatever ridiculous hurdles the court puts in front of us. I can't believe we're going through this demeaning process again, but glad we're getting off to an earlier start this time.

I've been feeling really introverted lately, hence the lack of blog commenting. I am still reading religiously though, and sending out good thoughts to all of my blogosphere friends!