The importance of adopting older teens

If you haven't seen Blind Side, please go see it!! It is a great movie based on real life events surrounding a homeless teen and the family in Memphis who adopted him. One line in the movie is something like, "He'll be 18 soon, so there isn't much point in looking into adoption." Obviously, the family does go down the road of adoption, and it makes a huge impact not only on the life of the young man, but also on the life of each of the family members. (Only down side to the movie is that it was filmed in Atlanta, not Memphis : ( I was really looking forward to seeing some Memphis landmarks in the movie, but alas, no.)

Here is another story about older teen adoption (from the Youth Villages internal website):

Mary's story: the importance of adoption
Watch Mary Lee, who works in our Business Development Department, tell her life story and how important it was for her to be adopted at age 17.
Mary spent part of her life in foster care. Her greatest wish was to be adopted before turning 18. She always wanted a family who would love and support her, and who would be there for her for life.
She wanted what most people take for granted – a family to visit for the holidays, a mom to call for advice, siblings to bond with, parents who would cheer her on as she graduated from college, a dad to walk her down the aisle on her wedding day and parents who will be grandparents to the children she hopes to have one day.
Just days before her 18th birthday, her wish came true. Mary was adopted by her former case worker and his wife. And she even got a younger sister.
Mary began working at Youth Villages while she was attending law school. She stayed on working in human resources after graduating and today, as a business development specialist, is dedicated to marketing our Transitional Living program and expanding it to new areas of the country.
She has an extensive background in lobbying for permanency rights for children in foster care. After she spoke on Capitol Hill in 2005, Congress passed a bill that allows former foster children to apply for student aid as independent adults, without claiming their adoptive parents' income. This means that older foster children don't have to choose between financial aid for college and a forever family. The legislation was nicknamed the "Mary Lee" bill.

Bigfoot

I had an ultrasound on Friday because I was in a very minor car accident. A lady rear-ended me on Sam Cooper on my way to work. The car is fine, the baby is fine, I was just super paranoid (and bawling...). Amazingly my blood pressure was perfect when I went in to the doctor, despite my worries that it was high. While doing the ultrasound to make sure baby/placenta/fluid and all were doing well, the tech went ahead and updated the baby's measurements. The baby is measuring 3 weeks ahead, so I am trying to prepare myself for an early January instead of late January baby. Apparently the size of the abdomen shows how far along the baby is developmentally (is this because of the internal organs??), and both the abdomen and head are measuring 3 weeks ahead. Also randomly, one of the feet measured 7 cms (that is 2.75 inches). When I was in Dallas over the weekend, my mom pulled out my footprint card from when I was born, and it was 9 cms. I think that if this child is under 24 inches long when born, I might actually be disappointed! Weight on Friday was about 4.5 pounds, and the baby was curled up with its head down.

We get another ultrasound on December 4th to monitor the baby's size. I think I've been pretty spoiled with ultrasounds - so many people tell me that they had one ultrasound, and I have had about 6. Thankfully I have a really, really good insurance plan that covers all of them!

Hat!

I went to Dallas over the weekend to see family and enjoy a super fun baby shower hosted by my mother and sister! My sister took pictures, and I should have some to post soon. We went to a Tapas restaurant and just spent about 3 hours eating, chatting, hanging out, and opening a lot of sweet presents.

My sister taught me how to knit hats over the weekend, and I finished this one on the plane last night!

I also started a blue one when I got home (it won't look as nice, because my sister actually started the pink one for me....). My plan is to take the pink and blue hats with me to the hospital as possible 'focal points' during labor. Baby Hulgan will get to keep one!

More baby blogging...

As due date approaches, I will probably spend much more time publicly airing my thoughts about the coming baby...

* I think I am having third trimester morning sickness! Anyone else deal with this? It may be the antibiotics I'm on, but I feel slightly ill when I wake up and have to eat something before showering or else I feel like death. This is exactly how I felt in the first trimester.

* The labor and delivery dreams continue! In my dream last night, I was chatting with Stacey (who just had her adorable baby two weeks ago) about how both of our labor and deliveries had gone. I had a hard time remembering the details of mine, and then I realized, "Wait - you have not actually given birth yet!" I woke up and could not honestly tell you whether I was disappointed or relieved.

* I am soooooooo looking forward to our trip to IKEA next weekend!! We get to shop for our crib, extra storage units, lamps (to replace a couple death traps we currently have), a high chair, and maybe a couple of other fun things for the baby. We are also going to REI while in Atlanta to check out some high end jogging strollers. A relative gave us money to buy a really nice stroller, and I am excited about that. I have very high hopes for my half-marathon training next year - Becky has been quite inspirational this season as I have had to sit it out.

* I am going to Dallas this weekend to see my family and have a little shower hosted by my mom and sister. I'm travelling by myself, but I am going to wear something on the plane that makes it very clear I am 7 months pregnant, and hopefully people will treat me nicely. I STILL have people at work who get surprised when I tell them I am going on maternity leave in a couple of months. Seriously - have you not noticed the protruding tummy?

* We toured the maternity ward of the hospital in our prepared childbirth class this week, and it is pretty nice. The post partum rooms are a bit tiny, but the labor and delivery rooms seem to be roomy and comfortable. We got to see a baby in the nursery who was only an hour or two old, and I must admit that I had a very hard time holding back tears. I am totally going to lose it when our baby arrives!

Alright, those are my baby thoughts for now!

Ack!

Just checking my email as usual today, and I read my Baby Center update for 30 weeks. I read about how big the baby is (well...how big a baby with normal sized parents is), some discomforts to expect as the third trimester continues, and other stuff like assembling the crib and swing.

Then I just kind of stared at the computer screen and thought, "Good grief! In 10 weeks I'm going to be a mother!!!!"

After mini panic attack at my cubicle, I am okay again. Although waiting to find out the sex of the baby is going to make for a fun surprise at the end of January, I must admit that it makes me feel like this whole pregnancy thing is a bit pretend. I still wake up in the middle of the night sometimes and wonder why I have to pee. Then I feel my ever growing tummy and remember that I am pregnant! We are purchasing furniture for the baby over Thanksgiving weekend, so maybe having an assembled crib in my bedroom will make it all a bit more real.

I went to the ER on Saturday morning because I was throwing up A LOT and also having some urinary issues, and I wanted to make sure everything was okay with the baby. When Jonathan and I arrived (half asleep b/c it was 2am), they almost sent us up to labor and delivery, but decided to keep us down in the ER until I had been initially examined. Thankfully we did not have to go up to labor and delivery, because the baby was perfectly fine although I was puking my guts out. I got to practice my breathing as I had a catheter and IV put in, and Jonathan got to practice his coaching through those processes. I am almost recovered at this point, but still a bit fatigued. I also learned that you feel amazingly better with fluid in you!! Despite the initial discomfort, I think IVs are my friends.

Jonathan looked at me last night and said, "Did it freak you out when they almost sent us to labor and delivery that we could have had a child on Saturday?" Granted, it would have been a child in the NICU, but a child nonetheless. We keep telling baby to stay in there until Christmas, when it will be 36 weeks. But now that we're 30 weeks, 36 weeks doesn't seem that far away.... And now I'm starting to panic again!!

Okay, enough stream of consciousness for one day. Whew!

Cafe Eclectic is crawling with Rhodents!!

I am a bad person. Jonathan and I always breath a huge sigh of relief when December 20-something hits or May 20-something hits and all of the Rhodes students GO AWAY FROM MIDTOWN! Then there is always January 20-something or August 20-something when we realize there are a few more luxury cars on the roads with out-of-state plates, and you can no longer enjoy a meal at Central BBQ, Huey's or Memphis Pizza Cafe. I am a bad person, because not too too long ago, I was one of them (minus the luxury car, of course).

Tonight I am eating dinner alone at Cafe Eclectic, because - ironically enough - Jonathan has a dinner at Rhodes. Yes, he is going to all of the extracurriculars that he can to hopefully prove to the Math powers-that-be that he would be a totally awesome professor, and they should hire him in 2010. There are multiple study groups here right now, and I hear snippets of "short answer question, we can do this" mixed with "do you think this is store bought hummus or do they make their own?" Ah, Rhodents....

Since I have married an academic, I should get used to the college-town vibe. Jonathan is immersed in job applications currently, and every now and then he tells me about a new school that has made the list of places where he will apply. I have always thought that staying in a city would be the best possible living situation for our family, since we enjoy city life. We like being in an apartment; we like going to sleep to the lullaby of homeless rants outside our window; we like being less than 5 minutes from every possible thing we could ever need (minus Target). However, Jonathan is applying to some schools in the middle.of.nowhere. It makes me wonder what we will think about the great college student migration in a place where half of the population is college students!

Donations for Breast Cancer 3-Day

Do you remember last spring when I told you I was walking 60 miles to raise money for breast cancer research? Then do you remember that I got pregnant?

I am obviously not walking 60 miles this weekend in Dallas - I have a hard enough time walking from my car to my desk every morning! However, my mother and sister are both walking this weekend, and they are still in need of funds. I know that I spoke with several people who were interested in donating to my walk effort. Since I am not able to go, I highly encourage you to support either Karla Pollock or Katie Pollock (McCray) as they walk!

To donate, click here. Please do not donate to my page, as donations to me unfortunately do not help them reach their goal of $2300. All donations made in the month of November go toward the walk this weekend.

Let me know if you have any questions, and thank you so much for supporting the cause!