Skiing on Mount Olympia

Ethan and I had a wonderful boy's day today. Jenny took Quin up to meet his aunts in the Dells while celebrating their mom's birthday. Since it was a rare beautiful day, Ethan and I decided to go skiing at our local "mountain." Really it's a recovered garbage dump, I think... It's definitely not a mountain, but it's close. The last time Ethan skied was last year in the U.P. and he did really well. Today was no different. He hasn't forgotten much from his time in ski school. The early going was a little rough. He had some control problems and was a little timid of the rope tow. But after two times down the hill, he was going up the rope himself and starting to be a bit of a daredevil. He was doing a little more "french fries" and less "pizza" than I'm comfortable with. We were there for two hours, each time Ethan would say, "one more time down," or "five more times down."

We finally left the hill and went to Burger King, a place Ethan has wanted to go to eat for two weeks. There is a special toy in the happy meals that he really wanted. Unfortunately, they were out of them. We ate there anyway, and while we were there I saw two white families with adoptive black children. It's amazing how you start seeing these things once you become acutely aware of them.

After eating, we went to Target and picked up a new action figure, did a few more errands, then caught a movie, The Spiderwick Chronicles. This rated PG movie was a lot of fun, though perhaps a little on the scary side for six-year-olds. Even though he closed his eyes for parts, Ethan enjoyed the movie.

It was quite a day for the two of us. Apparently Jenny and Quin had a good time visiting with her family as well. It's rare that you have a nice day like today in February. Hopefully more are coming our way as spring slowly approaches.

Bringing Quin home

Yesterday we got the call that Quin was going to be discharged from the hospital. It was going to be later in the day, so we took Ethan out of school around 12:30 and headed over to the hospital. When we walked into the nursery, we were surprised to find two doctors circumcising Quin. We thought that had happened already in the morning! Well, it was somewhat interesting to watch, but Ethan was not so impressed. He asked me what was going on. After telling him, he was officially appalled and decided he didn't want to watch or be near that, so we went and found a TV for him to watch Zathura.

About an hour later, they were ready to discharge Quin to our care. Since then, it's been your basic baby caring stuff. He likes to eat, he does so about every three hours or so. He also likes to sleep. He does that in between eating.

Today we took him to see our doctor for the first time and all seems to be going well. I did not remember how much time these little people can take. It's not so much the amount of time you take tending to them, but running after things that you need to get for them. Like today, it took us about 15 minutes just to get ready to go, then we drove all over the place to get to the doctor, went to Target to pickup a prescription and some baby things, then we had to go vote... By the time we got back, we had been gone for like 5 hours. So much for that novel I was going to write...

Anyway, here are some more pictures for your enjoyment.

Quinton Edward

On February 16, 2008 at 10:47 AM, Quinton Edward Grady was born. OK, that will be his name assuming the whole adoption goes through, but since the birth mother has not named him, we will refer to him from here on out as "Quin." Quin was born via a Caesarian section delivery in a Madison area hospital. He weighed 6 pounds 11 ounces and was 19 3/4 inches long. He has a pretty good head of straight black hair and brown eyes (so far as we can tell).

We were able to meet Quin at 3:00 yesterday, when he was about 4 hours old. He is being well cared for in the nursery. While we were there we had the opportunity to feed and change him. He is a decent eater already from what we're told. It's hard to remember hum much babies eat, but they said an ounce was a very good start.

After spending a couple of hours with Quin, we were able to meet the birth mother for the first time, who was recovering in a different part of the hospital. She was doing well, happy to have her pain button. She wasn't real fond of the whole C-section delivery, but was in good spirits. It was nice to finally put a face to the voice and to get at least some idea of what features Quin might have as he grows and develops.

Ethan is a very proud big brother. He made sure that he got equal time holding Quin and took lost of pictures. He even drew a picture of Ethan, Quin, and Dad in the hospital:


If all goes well, we should be able to bring him home on Monday. More pictures will be posted to Facebook or Flickr, I haven't decided which yet.

New Brother Coming

I'm putting a stake in the ground to start doing these again. Perhaps once a week is a good goal, but I need to get it done...

So much has happened since the last time I 'blogged, it would be foolish to try to recap. Instead, I'll talk about the most significant event of recent memory, our adoption. Jenny and I have been trying to have another child for several years now, but with no success. Finally last year we visited a fertility doctor who informed us it was unlikely to happen for various reasons. Rather than try to get a donor egg and try invetro fertilization, we decided to pursue adoption. Three weeks ago, we were finally selected by a birth mother.

Should everything go through as expected, our birth mother should be giving birth any day now. She was due on February 5. Here we are on the 15th and she has just started to labor, so good news should follow soon.

To simplify, I will probably continue to 'blog under this site but perhaps under a new title. More to come...