A Rocket Ride Through The Blogosphere, Destination New Home

Well, it's official, I'm moving. I've decided I really don't have anything left to say here. This blog was my adventure in creating a baby with my wife and "husbands" and that has happened. To continue to blog here under the title, "Adventures in Babymaking," seems so daft.

But, that being said I am still a person who gets her feelings out through the written word, so I will continue to blog. I have created a whole new site dedicated to my new life as a Stay At Home Mom and wrestling all of the new hurdles that entails. It's much fancier and has cooler gadgets and it's own domain. I would love to become one of the women I admire that blog for money. This new venture is my attempt at getting my words out there and seeing if I may have some kind of future in web writing, be it designing or writing.

So where can you find this mysterious new blog? I'm glad you asked. If you head on over to One Bad Monkey Mommy you will find my new home. Why "One Bad Monkey Mommy"? I know it's intriguing right? Well, you'll have to jump over there and find out.

And now I bid you farewell Adventures in Babymaking. You gave me so much room to grow and explore that it's hard to move on. You carried the history of our joys and our pains of creating life. If you were a person I would wrap you in my arms and say thank you. Thank you for always being my shoulder to lean on. So, I bid you farewell for now, but dear friend I hope I may return when we think of baby #2.

The Blog in Which I Find My Scream

Well Morrigu, tonight I scream at the world. I don't have a new title, and this has nothing to do with kids, but this really is my blog so for those of you not interested in my life other than my son feel free to check back later.

Tonight we were informed that Wendy and all of her co-workers are being forced to take 3 weeks of unpaid leave this summer. Their school had to do cut backs somewhere and this is the solution they came up with. Why yes it is May and in July, only 2 months away, we have to figure out how to live without a paycheck and a half. The company did offer to let employees cash out their vacation time, but Wendy already had to do this when she went out on pregnancy disability (you use all your vacation time before disability will start paying you). So come July we are supposed to be out a lot of money. Yes, we all should save and have plenty of money in our savings accounts to cover such freak ideas from brainless companies, but with the economy as it is and bringing a newborn into the world this isn't always feasible.

That's it. That is all I have to say. Except for this, Morrigu, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

A little house cleaning....a new title please?

A friend of mine posted on FB today, "I don't understand conversation. It seems boring most of the time. Two ladies are boring each other about the different types of coffee and how they come packaged. Really! I blame reality TV, suddenly everyone thinks they are interesting." I kind of chuckled and thought about blogging. Blogging in a sense can be seen the same way. I sit here with my thoughts churning in my head and end up throwing up some version all over my blog for you, my reader, to read. Is my life really that interesting? Is there really anything in what I write about that draws you back here, makes you sit back and question or ponder life? Or am I in fact, one of those women boring each other with conversation?

Last week I got a comment on my latest blog (a post from probably 2 months ago when having a newborn wasn't yet demanding and I had a second). It said, "*grumble* are you done blogging?" So maybe there are people out there that really are interested in what I have to say. But look at that picture up in the corner. That is what my life entails: dirty dishes, a crying baby, a computer with blogging ideas, and me crying realizing my wife is going back to work in 2 weeks and I am now going to by flying solo with this infant for almost 7 hours a day. Do those issues interest my reader? And then there's the title of my blog, "Adventures in Babymaking". I'd say that adventure is all over. Does what I have to say even work anymore with this blog?

So as my therapist would say I am at a crucible of sorts. Do I continue blogging? Do I have anything interesting to say? Does what I say still work with this blog? I am a storyteller and I believe to tell a story you must tell the whole story. Getting to the baby was only part of the story. The rest is really left to come. So maybe the whole story does belong here. Maybe it's just time for a title adjustment. Yes, a title adjustment. What are your thoughts? I'm a lesbian mom; married to my beautiful wife; we are co-parenting with our baby's father and partner; my nickname for our son is monkey and mine is spacemonkey; I am entering the world of being a homemaker and I'm scared out of my mind, but looking forward to every second. Title suggestions?

Attachment Parenting

This is the parenting style we are using. Many of you have asked about how we came up with

co-sleeping, kangaroo care, etc. Our pediatrician is a huge advocate of this style. We don't follow

it to a "t", but what we have done has helped Nehem gain his weight back more quickly and get

rid of his high levels of bilirubin. This link explains what the style is and how it is implemented.

http://www.askdrsears.com/html/10/T130300.asp

The meaning behind the name...

Several of you have asked where we came up with such a unique name for Nehemiah. His full name is Nehemiah Grant Lisbon-Slack.

Nehemiah comes from the bible. He was a man chosen by God to rebuild the fallen city of Jerusalem. He not only rebuilt the walls, but turned the city into a thriving town once again. Nehemiah was a name God gave to Wendy long before we had ever met as the name she should name her future son. When we got together she shared this with me and at the time all I could think of was it was a hard name to pull off as kid in school (always a teacher). After our long journey to become parents, I revisited the name and told Wendy that he was definitely a gift from God, and I thought we should use the name God had given her. Upon further study I found that not only did Nehemiah rebuild Jerusalem, but his name also means comforter. We have already seen how our Nehemiah has helped to rebuild relationships with family and friends and he has been our comforter since the moment we found out he had been conceived. God knew the perfect name for our son before Wendy and I had ever met and long before he was a twinkle in our eyes.

Nehemiah has two fathers, but the one that was our donor has the middle name Grant. Having Grant as a middle name is a tradition that has been carried down for 3 generations. Since we would not have a son without him we wanted to honor him by giving his son the same middle name as him.

When California legalized same-sex marriage Wen and I took advantage of the opportunity to marry, and in doing so joined our last names together. We did this so that when we had children we would all have the same last name, and therefore be connected in a very visible way.

That is the story of Nehem's (the nickname he goes by) name. I think it helps to know there is a very important story behind it and that his name bears witness to the Christian family he has been born into.

Please Welcome to The World...

Nehemiah Grant Lisbon-Slack born February 19th at 3:48 a.m. 5 lb. 7 oz., 18.5 " long. God has blessed us with an angel.

There are too many memories to share, but my fondest so far is being alone in the room right after Nehem turned 24 hours. He was a little fussy so I put on Lennon singing, "Beautiful Boy". His mom held him and I stood back in awe of this perfect family God has entrusted to me. My heart runneth over. There is no greater joy.

36 weeks and holding

"Your baby is still packing on the pounds — at the rate of about an ounce a day. He now weighs almost 6 pounds (like a crenshaw melon) and is more than 18 1/2 inches long. He's shedding most of the downy covering of hair that covered his body as well as the vernix caseosa, the waxy substance that covered and protected his skin during her nine-month amniotic bath. Your baby swallows both of these substances, along with other secretions, resulting in a blackish mixture, called meconium, will form the contents of his first bowel movement.

At the end of this week, your baby will be considered full-term. (Full-term is 37 to 42 weeks; babies born before 37 weeks are pre-term and those born after 42 are post-term.) Most likely he's in a head-down position. But if he isn't, your practitioner may suggest scheduling an "external cephalic version," which is a fancy way of saying she'll try to coax your baby into a head-down position by manipulating him from the outside of your belly (babycenter.com).

I talked to a friend of ours who's husband is a doctor and based on the baby's measurements and the week we are in he thinks our baby will weigh about 7 lbs. at birth. He is around 5 lb., 6 oz. right now. This weekend some other friends of ours had their baby a couple weeks early. All of this is telling me it could be any day.

Yesterday we had our shower with the dads and our friends and some family. It was lots of fun to have everyone together and we got some really good gifts and gift cards. Bugaboo has a closet full of clothes, more clothes than his mommies combined.

This afternoon we worked on putting everything away and made a list of what else we need to get that we will need right away. We made a trip to babiesrus and walked out with 2 carts full. We were able to get his stroller and the cutest swing ever. It is by Graco and it is one of the sweet sleepers with the really plush seat with giraffe decor. It's funny because we had started out getting him mostly monkey stuff because I really like monkeys, but in the past week he has received several giraffe themed items. They go so well with the monkey things he has so I'm excited about that too.

This week we meet our pediatrician to make sure it's a good fit and go over our plans with baby. We need to pre-register at the hospital, pack our bag and wash all the bedding, towels and clothes, and we need to sterilize the breast pump and bottles. Things are coming together and I'm feeling good about it all. All we need now is the baby. Good thing Wen only has a week left before her leave at work.