Lotion and hairspray and formula, oh my!

Here are the things that are different with my adopted baby from my collection of biologicals:

Her amazingly beautiful brown skin needs lotion every day or it gets dry and loses pigment when her jammies get crunchy around her face from formula dribbles or when her sheet is not soft from having been spit up on.

Her lovely black curls look better if they are sprayed regularly, and her head gets dry and flakey if we don't do that also.

She would probably have breastfed nicely if I were able to make enough milk for her, she latched on well, but being pregnant, I couldn't pull it off. Thus begins the formula adventure. We have tried a few different varieties, Parent's Choice (Walmart generic) Enfamil, Similac, Enfamil Gentlease, Sam's Club, and have landed on Parent's choice version of Gentlease. All of that to manage constipation. But we also have an aspirating problem (undiagnosed . . . I talk to my doctor about medical questions, I talk to other moms about mom questions - so when I noticed her coughing and spurting and gagging and needing a ridiculous amount of burp breaks when feeding, especially at night, I asked other moms who I knew had dealt with that and followed their advice. Had she been wheezing, or if it didn't work, I would have brought the pediatrician in on the deal) so she gets 1 teaspoon of rice cereal per ounce of formula mixed in the bottles, and instead of the slow flow nipples we were using (that helped some but eventually not enough) are feeding it to her in Avent with the size 4 nipples. We still have to shake it up a little, but her poops are good and soft and her feeding is soooo much better (night vs day).

I also feel a greater desire to make sure she knows I love her, make sure she feels loved. I am more conscious of milestones. I am waaaay more aware of things like smiles and recognizing faces, etc, especially since I'm still filling out monthly forms on how we're bonding and attaching, and still having home visits.

I am normally pretty committed to my rebellion against the whole "back to sleep" movement. Here's why: most babies that die of SIDS (which isn't something you die of, it is a statement of not knowing why a baby died - they died suddenly as an infant, but SIDS isn't a disease or even a collection of symptoms - it is a mystery) die between 2 and 4 months of age, last I read. Now, back in the day when my older kids were younger, it was a normal developmental milestone to roll over during that time period. However, since the advent of the "back to sleep" model, the milestones have changed. Babies are deliberately being trained NOT to develop normally, out of fear. The idea of tummy time is supposed to compensate, but we don't really want them to develop the normal amount of upper body strength, because then they will roll over in their sleep and not be on their "backs to sleep". I also don't like the flat-head syndrome that happens when they are on their backs all the time. Sorry, I am flabbergasted that we have to make our babies weaker, on purpose, because we are afraid they might lay on their bellies and die of an unknown cause. SIDS is not caused by tummy sleeping. It is unknown. That's what makes it SIDS!

(tangent - sorry)

Anyway, because I have an adopted baby who is not yet officially mine and who I am more afraid of screwing up, she has slept mostly on her back and sides. Babies spit, I prefer to have them at least on their sides. The whole point of this discussion is to say that because she is being adopted, I am a little less confident, a little more chicken, a little more likely to play by the rules. Instead of just answering to my husband and God Almighty, I am also answerable to the home study agency, the adoption agency, and the states of Missouri and Florida, at least until finalization.

I am a little more worried about the long run. Will she like us? Will she feel uncomfortable as one brown face among so many cream colored faces? Will she struggle with her birth mother and/or birth father not being in her life, and their reasons for that? Will she struggle to find a like-minded spouse more than my other children? And my only answer to questions like that is Jesus. She, just like my other children, will need Jesus.

Anyway, those are some of the differences I am experiencing, along with things I've talked about in other blogs.