Ryan and Amanda's Big Adventures

I mentioned in a previous post that Cheyenne had named her daughter Jenai Marie Cox. I also mentioned that when I first talked to Cathy she said that one of Cheyenne's requests was that she keep her name. But she also said that wasn't a demand, that it didn't have to be that way. And she also indicated she didn't really like the name. My initial reaction was that I didn't like Jenai at all, but I liked Marie so I told Cathy then that if we were to adopt her we would probably change her first name and keep Marie.

Ryan also didn't like the name Jenai so he didn't really want to keep it either. We never actually had a conversation with Cheyenne about the name but she knew we didn't like Jenai and would be changing it. Oh wait, that isn't true. I did have one conversation with Cheyenne about the name while she was still in the hospital, but that happened after Cheyenne had mentioned a few times in emails that she knew we didn't like the name.

So I had a few reasons for wanting to change her name:
1) When Ryan and I were first considering adoption we met with a social worker at LDS Family Services just to ask some questions and learn more about how it works with them. This was in June of 2008 (it happened to be on our 5th anniversary) so more than a year before we actually felt right about adopting and started the process. I had several questions (one of the most important being did they ever pressure girls to place for adoption - which was a big deal to me because if I adopted I needed to know that the baby was being placed because that was the decision of the birth parents, no on else.) One of those questions was about naming the child. I wanted to know if the baby had already been named by the birth parents if we would be able to change it, or how naming typically worked. I don't know if it is true of all adoptive parents but naming my child was important to me. As an adoptive parent it felt like there was so much I wasn't a part of - I didn't get to be part of the creation or birth story. I wanted to be able to name her. He assured us that even if the birth parents named the child it was still the adoptive parents right to change the name to whatever they wanted. All this to say that even before I knew anything about what Cheyenne named her I wanted the opportunity to name my child.
2) I didn't like the name Jenai. In truth, it did grow on me over time, but I never loved it. I did love Marie though. Marie is a name I had already wanted to name one of my kids. I just like the name for one thing. Also, my first name is Mary but for some reason a lot of people have thought my name was Amanda Marie, so in a way I felt like naming her Marie was like naming her after me. Also, Marie is an M name. My sisters and I all have M names - I like M names.
3) No one knows how to pronounce Jenai when just reading it, and hearing it no one would know how to spell it. (How are you pronouncing it as you read it? Is it a challenge for you? Well, it is pronounced like Janae, except I at the end instead of A.) I think that is hard on a kid.
4) I wanted to name my children either after someone in the scriptures or after a family member, or both.

Ryan and I didn't have 9 months to discuss names, we didn't even have 1 month, in fact, we didn't really discuss names at all. We had decided right away that we would change her name, but didn't even discuss what we would change it to.

I don't know how Cheyenne picked the name Jenai. I had never heard of it before. But it means "Gift of God" and that is one of the reasons Cheyenne really liked it, she felt her baby was her gift from God, and she is. I mentioned before how once I learned about Abby I didn't sleep so well. One night while I was up I looked up what names meant "Gift of God". I don't remember any of the other ones but Michaela also means it, and is one of my favorite names. The next day at the hospital I told Cheyenne I knew she loved Jenai because of its meaning but that Michaela also meant it, and we liked Michaela much better. She said Michaela was too common, she liked Jenai because it was unique. Well, since she didn't really like it and I didn't really want to have a double M name I decided against Michaela. (That was our one conversation about names.)

So during another sleepless night I looked up the meanings of Biblical names and picked out a few that I liked. I then looked at a family history sheet that I have to see which of those Biblical names were also family names. There were 3 that stood out that I really liked: Anna, Hannah, and Abigail. (Mary is the most common family name - hence my name - but Mary Marie wouldn't work.) I liked all their Biblical stories as well.

Anna was the prophetess that saw Christ in the temple. Hannah was the woman who pled for years with the Lord to bless her with a child and when she was given Samuel she turned him over to the Lord (I could relate to her). And Abigail was the lady who interceded on behalf of her husband when, after he offended David and David wanted to wage war on them, she pled with David to forgive her husband and took his blame on herself (in effect, she was the savior of her husband, his intercessor - she was a foreshadowing of the atonement.)

The next day I told Ryan the names. He said he didn't like Hannah, he liked Anna okay, but he liked Abigail best. So that is what we decided on - a 15 second conversation.

We wanted to test it out in our heads for a while before we fully committed to it. We did tell our families that is what we thought we would name her, but while she was in the hospital we never called her that, we didn't want to upset Cheyenne. But we also never called her Jenai - we just called her Baby Girl. Once we brought her home we didn't really consider any other names for her - Abigail stuck.

Cheyenne knew that we would change her name, and I knew that would be hard on her. I did encourage her to always call her Jenai. I thought it would be cute for her to have her own name for her. But she hasn't - she calls her Abby or Abigail. I first told her what we were naming her that first Monday out of the hospital when we were on our way to drop her off after taking pictures. She said she liked it - that made me happy.

Cheyenne has the original birth certificate and on it her name is Jenai Marie Cox. We can't get a new birth certificate or legally change her name until after the adoption is finalized - which will be on October 12th. Then she will legally be Abigail Marie Colby. On October 13th we will have Abby sealed to us in the temple - this will be a promise from God that she will be our daughter not only in this life, but in the eternities as well. On October 14th Ryan will give her a baby blessing, and at the beginning of it he will give her her name which will mean that her name will be recorded in the records of the church as Abigail Marie Colby. We are very much looking forward to that weekend!!!

I was so happy Tuesday (April 17^th) that I had already scheduled with my TAs to cover my classes – I really didn’t want to leave Abby so soon after bringing her home. I wanted to hold her, and look at her, and smile at her, and feed her, and marvel that I was finally a mom, that I had a daughter, and that daughter was Abby. And that is what I did – that was most of what I did. I spent time with my mom and Abby. I may have taken a nap. I know at one point my mom took Abby from me so I could force myself to work. My mom really wanted to get me a rocking chair before she had to leave, so we went up to Grapevine and picked up Ryan’s mom so she could spend time with us and Abby, then went to a few different antique and second-hand stores. It was not a successful shopping adventure and once Abby let us know she had had enough we headed back to Burleson. After work Ryan came home and his dad also came over to see Abby and pick up Janet (Ryan’s mom).

Wednesday was my birthday (April 18^th)– I turned 33. I again spent the day basking in Abby sunshine. We gave her her first bath in a sink. It was also Abby’s first doctor’s appointment post-release. The doctor didn’t really seem too concerned about anything. We learned that having a fan on while the baby is sleeping reduces the chance of SIDs up to 75% - good to know. We learned a little more about the trauma of Abby’s delivery (e.g. we learned about APGAR scores and how Abby started out at a 2, then got up to a 5, and by the time the were rushing her to Cooks she was at a 7.) Because she had been a NICU baby he wanted to see her the next Wednesday just for a weigh in to make sure she was gaining enough, and then the following Wednesday as well. We really liked him (Dr. Reddinger) and were glad we had picked him. We went to the mall for a little bit to look for furniture. We had picked a bedroom set years before but we kept thinking we would move soon and didn’t want to move it. But they discontinued the bedroom set we wanted I guess. It was from Dillard’s but they didn’t have any more (in fact the company didn’t even make anything other than recliners any more), so that was disappointing. After we got home Ryan got back to work (working from home.) I may have tried to work some. Once Abby was asleep my mom and I went to another store to look for a rocking chair – still no luck. I’m pretty sure I took a nap.

In the evening we met Ryan’s family for dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. I love cheesecake in a big way. Our wedding cake was cheesecake. I like all kinds of cheesecakes. I also love carrot cake. I am not really a big cakey-cake person, but I do love carrot cake. At the cheesecake factory there is this amazing, miraculous, brilliant thing called Crazy Craig’s Carrot Cake Cheesecake. I don’t know why more places haven’t married the two best cakes in the world but I am glad the Cheesecake Factory got it right. I always look at the cheesecake menu and consider trying other varieties, but then I wonder – could they possibly be better than carrot cake cheesecake, and the answer is of course no, so I continue with my indulgence. Luckily for me Ryan is usually with me when I go to the Cheesecake Factory and he also loves the carrot cake cheesecake, so we get one of those and one of something else and split them. I have yet to find one that takes the place of my love, but I don’t mind trying J. That night we also tried the red velvet cheesecake. It was also good, but I was not swayed. I did eat a meal before I got to the cheesecake – in case you were wondering. I have enjoyed everything I have ever had there, but the orange chicken is one of my favorites, and it is what I had. Oh happy birthday to me. I thoroughly enjoyed my first birthday as a mom :).

Thursday (April 19^th) my mom had to go home and I had to go back to work. However, it was honors graduation that day and apparently TCU really wants all students to attend the honors graduation so they cancel all classes during it. So 2 of my 3 classes were cancelled. My mom and Abby came with me to school and sat in my office while I taught. Some people in my department saw me carrying a bottle and asked about it – so then I told them about Abby too. They were super excited as well. Then we took my mom to the airport and dropped her off.

It was different having only the 3 of us at home – different and nice. It was nice to have our small little family. I don’t remember a lot about the weekend. Friday (April 20^th) I took Abby to Cheyenne’s work so she could see her and show her off to her co-workers. That was nice. We also stopped by Joann’s so I could get some fabric to make a blanket.

Saturday (April 21^st) we took Abby to Ryan’s parents and we went to the temple. We had been temple workers for 3 ½ years and on the same shift. I really liked being a temple worker and the people on our shift. Although I was so happy for the reason we couldn’t be temple workers any more (Abby) it was sad not being temple workers any more. And since Abby had come so suddenly we hadn’t even had a chance to say goodbye or explain why we weren’t going to be there any more. So we went and did an endowment session while our shift was there so we could see some people, which was fun. And Ryan’s family enjoyed playing with Abby while we were gone. We went furniture shopping after. We really wanted to find a bedroom set so we could move the dresser we had been using into Abby’s room and get it organized in there. We saw one we liked at the Dump and it was a great price, but we didn’t want to buy on an impulse. So we went back to Ryan’s parents. After being there a little we decided we did want to buy the furniture so called to do so and learned you couldn’t buy over the phone. They were closing soon so we hurried over and bought it before they did close. We were excited.

Sunday (April 22^nd) morning I had a Primary Presidency Meeting (I was the assistant secretary) and after it I was called to be the secretary (the 2^nd counselor in the bishopric had attended our meeting.) I was overwhelmed knowing how much I had going on over the next few weeks with Ryan’s high council assignments and travel plans and such. Also, taking Abby to church in our ward (congregation) for the first time stands out. As soon as sacrament meeting was over we were swarmed by people. We did not make it to Sunday School/Primary that hour – people were too excited to see her and talk about her and everything. So much love!

Monday (April 23^rd) I got some work done while also just enjoying Abby. Cheyenne and her dad came over for a little bit. Cheyenne brought us a bunch of bagels and bread from Panera (if they have any left-over food at the end of the day they either throw it away or donate it or the employees can take it – it’s nice to have connections). That evening Ryan picked my sister Molly up from the air port. It was fun to introduce her to Abby. And she brought with her a gigantic suitcase full of adorable baby girl clothes – hand-me-down from our sister Mindy and her daughter Ellie. I loved going through them and organizing them.

Tuesday (April 24^th) I had to go back to work – for the full time. That was hard. I hated leaving Abby. I love teaching, I loved my job, but I would have preferred to be with Abby. (I could have taken maternity leave but with it being so close to the end of the semester I didn’t think that would be very fair to my students or for who would have to cover for me.) But it was fun telling my classes why I had missed so many days in a row (I had missed 3 days in most of my classes and I had never told them I would be gone and I told my TAs not to say anything.) They were excited I was back and so excited for me – I showed them pictures of her and of course everyone told me how cute she was. Some sweet students even sent me congratulations emails after class. And our program administrator asked if they could have a department baby shower for us and then sent an invite out to everyone. So nice! After I got home I snuggled Abby for a bit and then I got some work done. Molly was awesome – she had done all our laundry while I was gone. I’m so lucky to have sisters! That evening after Ryan got home Molly and I went to Michael’s to get stuff to do hand and foot prints, and then we did them. Abby hated it and was not cooperative. Do any babies behave for them?

Molly kept Abby overnight so I was able to get some decent sleep. Ryan dropped her off at the air port in the morning so we were on our own again. Molly had been able to get Abby to sleep a little longer in the night so they talked about different things to try with Abby to see if we could help her sleep better. When Abby was in the hospital she almost never cried and slept almost constantly. The longer she was home the more that she changed – she started crying a ton and having a hard time sleeping. I think it was just because she was getting healthier, less tired. But it was hard for us. Abby had her second doctor’s appointment that afternoon. It was just to check her weight. The doctor wanted her to gain an ounce a day. That seemed like a lot to me. When we’d been to the doctor before it was in the morning and we hadn’t had to wait at all. But this time it was afternoon and we had to wait. We were taken to our room after not super long, but Abby hadn’t gained enough weight (she had gained around 4.5 or 5 pounds instead of 7) so we had to wait for the doctor to come talk to us. While we waited I decided to read to Abby. I hadn’t ever read her a book before, but there were 3 in the room. I don’t remember what the other 2 were but the first one I read her was “My Doctor, My Friend.” The doctor wasn’t concerned with her low weight gain, he said it was enough. So I was happy about that.

Thursday (April 26th) was my last day of classes before I gave my final test. I reviewed with my students. Ryan’s mom had come the night before and spent the night so she could be there to watch Abby for me. It was still hard being away from Abby but I was glad Abby got to be with her grandma, that they got to spend time together. But as soon as I could I went home and did some work from there – after spending time with Abby. It was Abby's 1 month birthday so I asked Cheyenne if she would like to come over and visit her. She did, so I picked her up. I think she liked getting to be with us (especially Abby).

Friday (April 27^th) my sister Emily came to visit. It was her first time to ever visit us. It was fur to have her come and introduce Abby to her. But Abby is not good in the car. She has very strong opinions about having to stop so driving in traffic or having to stop at lights causes a lot of screaming. But she also doesn’t like being alone and she just gets mad about having to be in the car. She can scream, and Abby doesn’t have quiet baby cries. Hers are loud and high-pitched, ear piercing screams. So I had Emily sit in the back and try to comfort her and keep her happy while I drove. I helped but didn’t keep her completely consoled. That afternoon Emily helped me work on the blankets that I wanted to make. Our furniture was also delivered! That was exciting. We knew we wanted to store food storage under our beds to make space in Abby’s closet so we all worked on moving that – those boxes were heavy!

On Saturday (April 28^th) Emily went with Abby and me to our first baby shower. My friends from my Burleson Ward had it for us. It was amazing. So many people came, even people I had only met one or two times. We played games and ate awesome food and laughed and had a great time. One of my friends that put the shower on is also an adoptive mom and she had the idea to have everyone write letters to Cheyenne. So I brought a framed picture of her so everyone could picture her while they wrote her letters. I loved that they did that! And there were so many presents – I don’t know if we had even received that many wedding presents. Maybe, but there were sure a lot of baby gifts. And for the group gift they gave us the crib we had wanted. I was overcome with gratitude, not only for the gifts, but more for the love we were being shown.

I don’t remember too much about the next few day. I know the next day, Sunday (April 29^th) was stake conference. Monday Emily went home. Tuesday (May 1^st) was the final day of classes when I gave my last tests, and after all my classes was our department baby shower. I wanted to be able to take Abby to the shower so everyone could meet her so Ryan’s mom came with us and watched her in my office while I was proctoring my tests. The shower was fun. There were lots of people in my department that I had never really talked to except at our department socials. I just don’t see most of them very often. But they still came and celebrated with us, so nice – feeling the love. Even though I still had to deal with proctoring finals for those students who elected to take them and also with grading and such but it was so nice to know I was pretty much done with the semester and could focus on enjoying Abby.

Wednesday (May 2^nd) Abby had another doctor’s appointment. Ryan came to this one with us. Abby still hadn’t gained an ounce a day, but she was still more than ½ an ounce so the doctor was okay with it. Ryan took the rest of the day off. It was the first time since we had brought Abby home that he just took time off to be with us. It was good, we needed that time. We stopped at Burlington Coat Factory. We had each been there individually but not together. We wanted to look at cribs (Ryan thought he may like one of them more than the one we had previously picked out but decided he didn’t) and rocking chairs. My parents came to visit that night and it was fun to get to introduce Abby to my dad. And my mom was also super excited to see her again. We didn’t do a whole lot while they were here. My dad was exhausted from having worked a ton leading up to their coming and my mom had a lot of work to do. Unfortunately while they were visiting our A/C broke. We had to replace our whole unit – but that didn’t happen until we had spent more than a day sweating.

Thursday (May 3^rd) afternoon we visited Cheyenne at Panera, so my dad got to meet her for the first time. She sent us home with two big things of soup and she already had a big bag of bread and pastries at her house for us – yum! We also ran a couple errands while we were out. That evening was book club. Ryan had never been in charge of taking care of Abby on his own and didn’t really want to since she was so needy. But I wanted to go – one, just because I love my book club, and two, because I loved the book – The Immortal Life of Henrieta Lacks. I almost didn’t go but my dad said he’d help take care of Abby so my mom and I went, but were about an hour late. I’m so glad we went, not only because I enjoyed being there, but they gave me a surprise book shower! Victoria, whose house it was at, had asked everyone to bring a copy of their favorite children’s book for me. And she had super cute cupcakes made. I was completely surprised – and again overwhelmed with gratitude for all the awesome people in my life!

Friday (May 4^th) my parents took Abby and me to the zoo – which was great. It was a little rainy and school was still in so there weren’t many people there. It didn’t rain the whole time, but while it did we went into the ape enclosure and they put on great shows for us. We also really enjoyed the herpetarium. After we went to lunch at Ol’ South Pancake house. That night after Ryan got home and we were hungry again we all went out to dinner to Texas Roadhouse – best ribs ever (and I don’t normally like ribs)! While we were there we ran into one of our friends who just recently moved to California. She was back just for a couple days but she hadn’t heard about Abby, so it was fun to get to tell her about it all and show Abby off.

Saturday (May 5^th) before they left we went to the science museum which was really fun. While we were there we saw one of the movies in the Omni theater – To The Arctic – Abby’s first time to a movie. They were our last visitors. That evening Ryan’s mom and sisters gave Abby and me a baby shower, which was great. Most of the people there I had never even met, but they were so excited to celebrate Frank and Janet’s first grandchild. So many nice people!!!

The days then started blending together. There are some things that standout that I will write about later, but most days are a bit of a collage. Overall I liked being home with Abby, but she was colicky. That was hard. We tried putting her in a baby swing, a bouncy chair, a boppy pillow, a podster (we call it her nest), a crib, our bed, her car seat - everything we could think of. She didn't sleep long in any of them. She would eat for only a few sucks and then start screaming. She had lots of gassy problems. It was sad, and we didn't know what to do. At her 2 month check-up our doctor told us that she was harder than most babies and not to expect all our kids to be so hard :). That was kind of funny to us just because it had been a debate Ryan and I had been having. I told him she was average (I’d heard some horror stories from friends with colicky babies) and Ryan held that she was harder – I guess he was right. Ryan discussed Abby with people at work and one of his coworkers told him that they had had trouble with one of their babies and his wife had switched from nursing to a particular formula which had helped. I had used all the milk my sister had pumped her. I had gotten donations from 3 different people which was quite a bit, but I was at the end of that and I wasn't having success finding more donors. Ryan really wanted to try the formula and we had some normal formula we'd bought when we first got Abby, so when we ran out of donor milk we tried the formula. It was horrible. She had so many digestive problems, so much pain, so much crying. It was so hard on all of us. I looked into what was different about the kind of formula Ryan's friend suggested and found that it had partially digested casein. So I researched symptoms of casein allergy. I knew that kids could be allergic to casein but Abby didn't have the symptoms I had previously heard about. But in my research it did seem likely that could be her problem. We bought the other kind of formula, and I also started looking for dairy-free donors. We found new donors almost the next day, which was great. Once Abby had dairy-free food she changed immediately. It was a miracle. She stopped crying all the time. She was so smiley and happy - like a new baby. She started sleeping a lot - multiple naps a day. And about a week later she started sleeping through the night - oh hallelujah! Life is good now. We haven't had dairy-free donors for a while so have been using formula. I don't love it, she has problems still. While on the low casein formula she had some nasty problems, but still happy. Our doctor suggested maybe she really had a lactose problem so we are now using a low lactose formula. The problems we had with the other formula have gone but now she has different problems - she is super congested and constipated. I think she really needs dairy free but the only dairy-free formula I can find is soy, which I don't like. I wish it was easier to find donors. What I really wish is that I could nurse her myself, and I have tried, but it hasn't worked. Hopefully she will outgrow her problems soon :). But still, she is so much better than she was before, and life is good!