Moving Right Along

I have several pieces of very happy news:

First of all, we are getting closer and closer to becoming cc's forever family. Recently our social worker said for the first time that we are being considered for his permanent placement. Hooray!!!!!! Chris and I squeezed each other's hand so hard when we heard this. What a relief. We're almost there, cc!

Another exciting turn of events is that cc has begun sleeping through the night recently. He doesn't do it every night, but if he wakes up it's around 4am after having been asleep since about 7pm, and so we've gotten some good solid sleep by this point. If he wakes up before 5:30am, we're able to give him a bottle and then he'll go back down until 7am or so. If he wakes up around 5:30, he's often up for a couple of hours. So I actually can't decide which I prefer. I'm not exactly a morning person, though having a baby certainly forces you to try to be one. Either way, he's doing so well with his sleep, and we are thrilled.

We didn't actually try to get cc to sleep through the night. It really just sort of happened, though I guess we can take some credit for a series of steps we took. For the first four months of his life, he slept in the bed with us at night, initially on my chest and before long cradled on his side in my arms. We had always planned to cosleep for awhile because it promotes attachment and is very natural for babies who have spent nine months in the mother's womb. We figured we would just follow cc's cues on when to move him out of our bed.

I think one of the things that made the transition so easy is that we started having him nap in his crib when he was a few weeks old, and at some point we also began putting him down to sleep at night in the crib until we went to bed. I'd give him a bottle around my bedtime and then bring him to bed with me. We moved him into the cosleeper at night after our beach trip in June when he was almost four months old. For those who aren't familiar, this is basically a bassinet that attaches to the bed. We figured we would keep him in the cosleeper at night until he got mobile.

But then one night a few weeks ago he didn't wake up for his 11-12ish bottle, and I ended up letting him sleep in the crib until he woke up for a bottle a couple of hours later. He kept doing this, and then one night a week or so ago he didn't wake up until 5:30. We almost couldn't believe it. We thought this nighttime thing was supposed to be harder. I guess this is one area in which cc is indeed an easy baby. He seems quite content sleeping in his crib, and we're sleeping better, too. His timing really couldn't be better for us. There's a reason for this...

I'M PREGNANT!! (and I've been feeling lousy for the last 6 weeks!!)

It's totally crazy. It was such a surprise. And it's all happening exactly as it was meant to - we have no doubt about that. Our sweet cc came into our lives at the perfect time, and he is going to be a big brother before he's even a year old! Belly Baby is due on Valentine's Day next year, and cc will turn 1 on March 3. Who knows when Noelle will enter our lives, but it's sure to be in the next couple of years. What a lively house ours will be!

This was a fun post. :) More to come!