this woman’s work

Madison had her well-baby check-up today and she weighs 23 pounds and is 27 1/4 inches long although both of those numbers are suspect since she was awfully wriggly and so the nurse just kinda guesstimated. In any case, give or take an ounce or a centimeter, she’s about 75th percentile height (meaning she’s taller than 75% of the babies her age) and way off the charts for weight; she’s following her own growth curve exactly and predictably.

The doc asked if she was able to sit up “using her hands like tripods to balance.” In answer, I set her down on her tushie to demonstrate that she’s been sitting beautifully for some time. Then, just to be a show-off, she leaned forward and took off across the room at an extremely fast crawl. (Ok, so I’m lying about the show-off part. She really wanted to get her hands on the biohazard trash can in the corner.)

He was appropriately impressed.

“Are you sure she’s not nine months old?” he joked, admiring her beautiful bottom teeth.

Last week on Monday, October 8th (I’m putting this here because I don’t like either of the baby books we were given), Madison also demonstrated her newly accomplished pincer grasp by conveying a piece of fuzz from the carpet to her mouth delicately between her thumb and forefinger, complaining bitterly when prevented from completing her task. She also started pulling up and letting go, hovering for a millisecond before crashing down on her well-padded diapered bottom.

This week, she’s begun to cruise and is now clumsily making her way back and forth from end to end holding onto the coffee table. She’s not very good at it yet but she’s also not falling quite as much as she used to.

In short, she is Super Baby.

She has also become cheeriest baby in the universe, amusing herself no end in the car seat and as she motors around the room, chortling and squealing and generally being adorable.

Now, Robb asked about our adoption yesterday: “[W]as J with you? How does it all work, as it related to J?”

Good question. No, J was not with us. I’m going to try to explain this as it was explained to me although when I asked some questions of the lawyer, she just confused me more (and was rude and bored with me to boot so I didn’t nag her to make sense as much as I might have otherwise).

My understanding is that J signed over legal custody to the agency when she surrendered her parental rights at 72 hours. However, she was still considered the “parent” although she no longer had any legal rights or responsibilities as a parent. Then, as Ohio law dictates, we parented Madison for six months, which pretty much amounts to a legal trial period for all involved.

The agency submitted information to the court ncluding record of J’s surrender, (which they audio recorded in the hospital). I was afraid that they would play the recording but I was led to believe that this was part of the paperwork already filed before we got there; I’m not clear on that. Anyway, J’s surrender and our adoption are connected but ultimately separate. Basically J surrendered to the agency — and that was one deal. The agency handed physical custody over to us (retaining legal custody per Ohio law) and that was another deal. Then we applied to become Madison’s legal parents and the agency gave permission for us to do so and that was another deal.

The last thing the judge told us before announcing that he was officially making us parents of Madison, was that we needed to be clear that Madison now had no other parents. So I think that up until we adopted Madison yesterday, J may have still been considered (legally) her parent although she no longer had custody and had surrendered her rights and responsibilities. I think that this is why they issue a new birth certificate for her, declaring that I am her mother by birth and Brett is her father by birth, (which strikes us both as totally weird, I might add). Except that we all know better, legally we are — and have been — her only parents. That part’s all a bit too Handmaid’s Tale for me though, and I don’t like to dwell on it.

I could have this totally mixed up but that’s how it was explained to me.

I think that state laws vary so much, however, that our process likely has no similarity to any other state’s process. Maria (mom to Ethan and MaddyKay) was trying to explain to me how things go in Virginia and I came out of that conversation more confused than when I came in!