Baby Bling aka Maya's Nursery

C and I debated over the theme for the nursery for days. First I wanted to do a casino room (slot machine diaper genies, roulette inspired crib bumpers - you know classy), but she wanted to have something a little more traditional. We decided to ponder it for one week and then bring our "A" ideas to the table for discussion.

I scoured the Internet and spent hours in the library looking for the perfect idea when it hit me like a load of bricks- a vision, an epiphany of the grandest scale that had to be nurtured to fruition. After flipping through some of my old scrap books I was reminded of a simpler, more honest time in my life. Where my friends and I laughed and sang songs and never had to worry about money in greater than $1 denominations, the best idea since the wheel, sliced bread or Sudoku:

"Tijuana bachelor weekend"

There was no way this idea could lose. We went out to a fancy dinner on Friday night each carrying our idea printed on a slip of papers in a sealed and notarized envelope. We waited until we each had finished our second White Castle and then slid our envelopes across the table.

I opened hers: "Paper Dolls"

She opened mine: "Tijuana Bachelor Weekend"

I won't go into details of the extended discussion we had that would rival some UN peace talks, but we talked it all out and made a compromise that would incorporate the best of both ideas. We would use "Paper Dolls" and I would apologize for making all of this up.

In reality, over Thanksgiving weekend we attended our first baby shower thrown by my Aunt Ann and hosted by my cousin in her house in Missouri. Nice place, beautiful event and I couldn't believe how fast all of the guys left me.

We received a lot of great stuff from all of my family, stuff we need, stuff that was unexpected and some pretty amazing items that will receive instant heirloom status.

First off was this blanket made by my Aunt Ann. You heard me right, she made this with her two hands:

I can't even imagine the hours it took to make this. We both feel so incredible to be related to someone that would take the time out of her life to create something so intricate, beautiful and amazing.

The second item I had to show was a little bench that was hand-painted by my sister. I never knew that she was so talented. Growing up, I thought she only good at creating trouble. :) Again, another beautifully created items that Maya is going to love and means a great deal to us.

The final person I wish to thank is my Mom. She created the amazing piece below over a long period of time. Again all by hand (I don't mean she hand ginned the cotton, but you know what I mean.) Another beautiful piece that we will surely cherish for all time.

The picture does not do this justice if you look up close at the hand stitching that goes into creating this item.

For everybody that was there and everyone else that bought us items, wished us well or sent us positive thoughts, we can not thank you enough. Our friend Jessica even tried to set me right by giving us a Cardinals jersey for Maya so she won't become tainted with the Cubs mediocrity, You are all truly amazing individuals that we are gifted to call friends and family.

The nursery is still ongoing, but I've inserted a couple of other pictures of our progress. I will give the grand pictorial tour when her room and the play room are completed.

Journey to Maya (Part 1)

Today is actually a big day for us; an anniversary of sorts. It was one year ago today that Courtney and I submitted out adoption application to the Great Wall China Adoption agency.

So how did we get to this point in our lives? C and I both wanted kids and we had started to try about two years before we submitted our application. We weren't really pressing it, just thinking that if it happened, great, if not there is no pressure we have plenty of time.

After multiple attempts and failures Courtney suggested that maybe introducing a third partner into the picture would help things out. Of course I got excited until I found out that the partner's name was Twinlab's ovulation cycle detector and response kit. It was as sexy as it sounds. Basically it was a packet of strips that reacts to your urine stream (hers not mine) and would indicate when the ovulation would occur or was occurring. They made for great foreplay as you can imagine.

In addition to the Twinlab Courtney went to her OBGYN at the time and she started her on a Clomid cycle to help increase her fertility. Of course at this point we laughed about how easy it was going to be and that we would be "that" couple with triplets and a third mortgage. This didn't work out so well, the OBGYN was a dud, the chlomid wasn't working and I got my first glimpse of what happens when you jiggle a woman's hormone levels (more on that later). Not pretty or advisable.

We were both starting to get a little freaked and had a little wine therapy and discussed what could be the problem as we cobbled a mental checklist of possible explanations.

Including:

• Tighty whitey constriction was not an issue (just boxers no unfinished basement)
• I had an America's Funniest Home video moment with a tennis ball in my formative years, (doubtful, but possible)
• The tick incident (If you already know about it keep your mouth shut, if you don't I may tell some time if you share an equally embarrassing story)
• Three hours of commuting a day with a hot laptop (Hmmmm if this was the cause I wonder if I could expense the adoption to work)
• Were we tracking ovulation correctly (Yep, have the strips and Courtney has good aim)
• Were we doing it right? (That's the final question the OBGYN asked. "Believe it or not," she said, "this is an issue for some people." I wanted to play stupid and see if she would bring out the anatomically correct dolls so I could make up some crazy position to illustrate in great detail what methodology we were using, but I played it straight.)

Courtney had her own concerns as well and we both felt like we had run into a wall and didn't know where to turn. Eventually we turned to the good book for answers....

Read more in part two: The Good Book- Unicare's HMO/PPO Guide to what you can and can't afford for infertility treatments (vol II)

Forgot to put this on the registry

Some great stuff on this site. The Bacon Band-Aid lets you fix any boo-boo with the flavorful smoky power of bacon. And that's right, you get a free toy with every purchase. Hopefully it is a set of scratch-and-sniff stickers. Get all 20 entries in the breakfast meat collection.Mmmmm is there anything that bacon can't do?http://www.accoutrements.com/products/11476.html

Believe me, we don't hate you

Courtney and I just had two of our cards returned to us. It appears that the address labels fell off but the return labels stayed stuck so we in affect mailed it to ourselves. (Or is this a caftily sneaky way to cover our butts for people we forgot to send cards to? Hmmm. Just kidding.)

Anyway, if you live in St. Louis or the surrounding area and a friend or a family member received a card and you didn't, we still like you, we just had crappy labels. Sorry!

First Post

Thanks for visiting! Courtney and I are glad to see that our Christmas (or holiday) card made it to you. Our goal for this site is to keep you up-to-date on our adoption plans, provide pictures and throw out a few comments and conversations complete with bad grammar and poor spelling.

First, I wanted to thank my brother Rob for making the DVDs. If it did not work for you, let me know. We were only able to test a handful trying to get everything done.

I know a lot of you are curious about how we ended up on our "journey to Maya" so I will be covering that in a couple of parts. It has been a crazy ride and I will provide more information soon. This site will continue to change as I have time to make it look better and add new things.