Three outfits

Well it seems in terms of clothes I can wear to work, I am down to about 3 outfits that fit - 2 skirts and 1 dress. I wore the dress yesterday. It was one I hadn't worn in years (so obviously not exactly my favorite one, LOL). Now if the skirts were a solid color it would help as my sweaters and turtlenecks and such still fit, but they both have a pattern so there aren't many possible combinations. I think I'm going to start to feel like I'm wearing a school uniform like I did from grades 6-9 (and I didn't like that at all). I did receive and purchase some maternity clothes over Christmas, but mostly I got tops. I did get a few bottoms but two were shorts which I don't need right now (it's snowing as I type)! I do have a black pair of pants which I need to take to get hemmed as they're way too long (which is surprising as I'm 5'7" so usually things aren't too long for me). So that leaves me with a black skirt. I do plan on getting a LOT of use out of the black skirt since I can wear a variety of tops with it, but I don't really need it yet. It's too big. I am in that "in between" stage I guess. A friend in handbell choir (who is due in March) suggested one of those bands that Motherhood sells. The problem is that won't help with most of my "work" clothes as most are not zipped up. I guess I can keep wearing these same 3 outfits for another week or two, but then I think I need to go shopping for a few more maternity skirts or pants (or start wearing my black skirt every other day, LOL). I do feel a little weird wearing maternity clothes right now as I am sure if someone doesn't know me that they'd never guess by looking at me that I am pg. I don't have that big of a baby belly yet! Of course I can't wait til I do!! :-) In terms of casual clothes I am still doing okay as medium size pants with an elastic waist still fit just fine.

Yesterday was a long day. I got up much earlier than I have been for quite some time (5:45) and spoke at a middle school from 7:45-10:10 (three different class periods back to back) and then I had some office hours and then taught from 12:00-3:00 and then had a meeting at 3:00. I went to bed at 9:15 (even before Paul got home from school as he has a night class on Wednesday nights) and had a HARD time getting up at 7:15 this morning. I had a conference call scheduled for 8am. Thankfully I can do that at home in my pjs, LOL. I had then planned to go over to a friend's house but because she and her husband are sick (and I don't want to catch their bug) and because my head is pounding, we rescheduled for next Wednesday morning. I just want to stay home in my pjs today. I am exhausted! I know people talk about this "burst of energy" that happens in the 2nd tri, but I haven't experienced that yet. I'll be 15w tomorrow so maybe this burst happens later in the 2nd tri. I think I could have slept quite a bit longer than I did this morning, and I had already gotten 10 hours of sleep!

Tomorrow will be a long day too. I have a meeting at another college (about 1 hour away) from 10-2 and then a meeting on my campus from 3-5. I usually teach from 12-3 on Fridays, but I told my students since the first day of class this semester that we wouldn't have class on the 25th. The mtg at the other college is to work on a grant which involves 10 universities, and I am the project administrator of the grant (that's also what the teleconference was about this morning). So I am very glad I can have a day at home today since yesterday's schedule wiped me out. This exhaustion is a good reminder that I need to be saying "no" more often and not filling up my schedule quite so much! I don't have the same amount of energy I do when not pg!

Not that I am trying to write an epic long post today, but I did also hear back from Cathy yesterday. I asked her about the home study and also about whether a birthmother would still want to place her child with us if she could tell by looking at me that I was pregnant. As for the home study she said that we could wait to update our homestudy until after we were matched as long as we could complete it prior to the baby's birth. I am guessing it would take about 1 month so as long as we were matched more than a month before the EDD that should work (I say 1 month bc we would have to redo the clearances and physicals). As to the second question, she said this would vary case by case but that once she did have a client who was 7 months pregnant adopt a baby, and the birthmother had no problems with that. I haven't had a chance to talk with Paul again about it yet, but actually my thinking has changed as I have thought about it more. I am inclined to just freeze our contract now. The reason is that if hypothetically we were selected in the near future (which seems like a HUGE "if" after not being picked the last 3+ years), we would need to update our homestudy (which would cost at least $560). Now if the birthmother followed through with the adoption plan and the child was placed with us - great. However, if the birthmother were to change her mind, then this money will be wasted as we then need to freeze our contract for 1 year+ which means it would again expire prior to us restarting the process of adoption again. Along these same lines, it hit me that once we are matched we owe Cathy the other 1/2 of her fee (another $4,900). Again no problem if the birthmother doesn't change her mind, but if she would change her mind we don't get the $$ back. We wouldn't owe any more $$ to Cathy when she got us another match; so if I wasn't pg it wouldn't bother me as much that we'd have already paid our whole fee as hopefully we'd be matched again in the near future. But again in this case there could be a long time gap. It would also mean we'd have definitely said "no" to doing ivf again. I haven't talked with Paul yet about #2 (whether to adopt a sibling or do ivf again), but I wouldn't be shocked if he'd prefer to do ivf again since he preferred it for the last 3 years over adoption (and of course IVF brought us success or so it seems at least at this point and adoption has not done so). I think though if we paid the rest of our fee to Cathy that the ivf option would no longer be there for financial reasons. So all that to say I think I'll be emailing Cathy tonight and telling we'd like to freeze our contract now (which means we'd have 23 months left for later use).