It's Been Awhile

Seems like forever since I last looked at my blog, or even read anyone's else's blog posts. Life has been busy. Ruby turned 1 in August and Max 3 in September. I can't believe how much they both have grown this past year. Max seems to have changed from toddler to little boy in the past 6 months. He also speaks so well now. He loves playing with his friends. He loves cars, balls, Paw Patrol and really into doing puzzles. He has also been in swimming lessons and starting skating lessons tomorrow. He really wants to play hockey. He also now has glasses. Ruby seems to have moved from baby to toddler overnight. She wants to be just like Max and do everything he's doing. She is running everywhere and climbing on everything. She seems very bright. She is also speaking quite well for her age, saying about 15 words already. It's just so awesome to see them grow through this stages and become such amazing little people.

Big changes also happened at the beginning of the New Year as I decided to go back to work full time. It's definitely been bittersweet. Because of all of my fears of losing them, I never thought I'd be able to leave them at a daycare, but so far so good, and I think it's been good for them too.
Not much else has been going on for us, but for now, I kind of like the mellowness of it all.
Liam's 6th birthday in heaven was on January 3rd. It's hard to believe it's been 6 years. It doesn't affect me like it once did but I'll always wonder who my 6 year old boy would be today. Max is really into birthdays now. So it was nice to have him more involved in picking out a cake and singing happy birthday to his big brother. I try and show him pictures of his older siblings and say they are in heaven, but he doesn't seem to fully understand, yet, but that's okay. Evelynn will be 5 in April, which I also find hard to believe. Every so often I still get tangled up in this web of thoughts varying from "why I didn't go straight to the hospital when I first felt pain" and "why didn't I fight harder for her," but it is what it is, I guess. I still have no desire to go to a baby shower, be around pregnancy talk, or even see newborn, but I do better around it now than in the past. Maybe one day it'll be different.

If you're reading this, thank you for still following along, even though I don't come back here often. If you're new to baby loss. I am sorry, and I hope you find comfort in the words of baby loss mom, or dad, bloggers, like I did, letting you know you're not alone. The same goes for all others who have experienced a uterine rupture, struggled with infertility, used a gestational carrier, or have adopted like my family in order to grow your family.

Evelynn's Scrapbook

In 8 days it'll be 4 years since my sweet Evelynn was born, and 10 days since we had to say goodbye for now. I have been saying for the past almost 4 years that I need to get her scrapbook started, and of course, then finished. Back when I did Liams scrapbook it took me a little over a year to finish his. Although it was still hard to work on, the drive to have it done before Evelynn was born helped me to get it done. I don't recall exactly when I started her scrapbook, but it took me a very, very long time to get anywhere with it. So many baby stickers bought and cute scrapbook ideas that I found, once again never got used because those things don't seem to work with how this scrapbook was going to end. I even started once and ended up ripping multiple pages out, only to start over. I just wanted it to be perfect for her. When I finally started making real progress on it, I did everything from before her birth and then the funeral on. I just couldn't bring myself, until probably the last 3-6 months, to really go through her pictures from birth, and even then it was (is) still hard to look at those nicu pictures. So, like Liam's, I needed to take pictures of the whole scrapbook, just in case something were to ever happen to it, and of course to share her beautiful life with all of you.

I can't believe its been almost 4 years since you were born. I miss you so much.

 Love you forever baby girl

Adoption Journey Update 8

Sorry it has taken me so long to update, but thank you to a recent commenter, I realized I need to just take the time and share what has been going on with our family and little miss Ruby these past few months.

We got Ruby's birth certificate a few months back, way sooner than we expected. We then immediately applied for a social security card for her so we could have that all finished by the end of 2015.

The nursing has still been going pretty well. For the most part I can keep up with her on a daily basis, except for when she decides to cluster feed. A few of the moms in one of my mom's groups also gave me a bunch of milk, which was really nice to have.

It's hard to believe Ruby will be 6 months old in 2 days. She smiles, coos, has an adorable giggle when tickled, and rolls over. She loves her exersaucer and loves looking at herself in the mirror. She doesn't care for a pacifier, but loves her thumb, and is all about putting anything else she can find in her mouth. We are working on trying to get her to sit up but she seriously hates to bend at the hips. She is also not a fan of tummy time. I see it being awhile before she starts crawling. We see the pediatrician on Friday and then we will start solids. She is really long and skinny, no teeth yet, and her hair seems like it is always changing color. For a long time we swore she was turning into a red head, but then other days it looks very light blonde, almost white, other days a dark gold color, and then back to strawberry blonde. Her eyes look to me like they are almost a grey color. She's such a beautiful baby girl and we love her so much.

I got our first letter in the mail from our adoption agency last week about sending out our first update. I didn't know this but I have to include a letter on how Ruby is doing. With that I also have to send at least 10 pictures of her. I still keep in contact with her birthmom, mainly by text, but have mailed her almost every picture I have taken so far of miss Ruby. She sends me messages every so often asking how Ruby is and I'll occasionally just send her a picture. I am glad that we have this contact and hope it continues. I have never had any contact with the biodad, so I hope he likes the pictures I send and the update on how Ruby is doing.

Here are some pictures from the last few months. Since we got Christmas pictures, I probably will wait and do 7 or 8 month pictures instead of getting 6 month ones done. I am not sure when I'll post next, as the kiddos have kept me quite busy, but thank you to everyone who has given so much support and followed along through the adoption process.

I love this.

Adoption Journey Update 7

As well as a 2nd birthday party and adoption finalization party in one

August 25, 2015- Social worker came for post placement visit. The state of Alaska only required one.

August 26, 2015- One of my mom groups through a sip and see for us. It was so sweet. I cried. I still have a hard time with the idea of baby showers, but this was really nice. Also, makes it a lot easier when the baby is here and alive.

September 30, 2015- Court date for finalization. Ruby is officially a Rasmussen!!! That night we had a party for both Max and for Ruby. A 2nd birthday party for Max and an adoption finalization party for Ruby. Of course, it was train themed and the cake was strawberry flavored with reddish frosting. Red for Ruby and also red for adoption. The girl who made it did an amazing job. If you look closely you can see all of our kids are included on the cake. A boxcar with a sign for toddler crossing. A boxcar with a sign for baby crossing. And then a boxcar with a sign for angels crossing with l's and e's on the boxcar to represent Liam and Evelynn.

October 2, 2015- Got our paperwork in the mail saying the adoption was fianlized and that we can expect to get the supplemental birth certicate in around 12 weeks. Once we get that we can finally apply for a birth certificate.

Train cake for Max. Red for Ruby.

Thank you to pinterest for this cool idea for our train themed party.

My big boy on his actual birthday (Sept. 26).

The perfect gift found on etsy for our birthmom.
A necklace for her and one for Ruby.
A Ruby as the stone versus her birthstone.

2 months old already. Such a happy baby, and love those dimples.
 

Ruby Is 6 Weeks Old

Well, 6 weeks and 2 days.

After living out of a hotel room for almost 2 weeks with her it's hard to believe we've been home with this little beauty for over a month already. Things have been going okay. Max has been having a fairly hard time though. He's clearly very jealous and I think he also hit the terrible twos stage, along with some teething going on. I suppose that's to be expected. So, we've had some rough days, but I am so grateful they are both healthy.

Here are some picture of my sweet girl and our family. Does anyone recognize the pink tutu and headband? That's right, it is from our Evelynn bear, and I think Ruby looks darling in it. And can you believe Max is almost two?!