Weekend Update/Next Question Answered (Long Post)

Weekend update first. The Air Show is going on here this weekend. As I'm typing this I can here the Blu.e Ang.els flying in the near distance (we live that close to the air base). We went yesterday. I volunteered to work a 4 hr shift selling beer for an on base organization. I had fun doing it but man, the number of people that I sold beer to that were missing teeth - holy crap!!! Some of the mouths on these people were just gross. Make you want to gag gross. But I was polite and smiled and sold the beer. Lane spent the day chasing Eriks who had a blast.

I have some issues with Air Shows though. This may be true with other military spouses, I don't know. I am proud of what my husband and all the others stationed here do. I am happy that they give the public a chance to see what their military does. However, I do not like people who don't follow rules. After my shift was over we grabbed some grub and went and sat in the shade under the airplane that Lane flies. Not even 10 ft away from me there's this guy puffing away less than 5 ft away from the airplane. There is NO SMOKING allowed on the flightline. There were signs all over the air show saying only in designated areas. The airplane is full of fuel (maybe not completely full) but still it had fuel in it and there were people going in and out of the airplane for viewing and this guy is smoking right next to the airplane. This is a general pet peeve of mine but I guess being proud of who my husband is I was really annoyed that people were not respecting the base at all and trashing the flight line. I do think there should've been more trash cans around but still. I guess one of the reasons this makes me angry is because the base doesn't have a cleaning crew come to clean up afterwards. Before they can bring the airplanes back to the ramp they have to clean it up so that no trash or debrit ends up in engines. This means that all the hard working men and women of the military tomorrow morning will have to go out to the ramp and clean up all the trash that people were too lazy to get up and throw away.

I didn't take many photos. When you've seen as many air shows as I have since I became a military wife, they all start looking the same. So instead you're getting a great shot of Lane flying in an Air Show about 5 yrs ago when we were stationed in C@lifornia. I didn't take the photo. I was on the ground.

Finally question and answer time!!!
Kayce asked a few questions and here is the answer to her 2nd one.

"HOW DID ERIKS COME INTO YOUR LIFE?"

Lane and I attempted to have a biological child in 2000. After my thyroid condition had gone into remission and I was no longer taking meds for it, I was given the green light to get pregnant. However this was not going to be easy on our own. I wasn't having regular cycles and Lane also had a few issues that thankfully were correctable with a surgery.
I ended up on Clo.mid and with only 1 month of trying, I ended up pregnant. After seeing the doctor we found out my due date was election day - Nov 7th.
I was high risk but my pregnancy was going smoothly. Unfortunately about 13 1/2 weeks into my pregnancy we couldn't find the heartbeat and that was the end of it. It was one of the most painful things I've experienced.
After that, kids biologically were out of the question. To be honest, we didn't even think we had even 1 chance. And I'm thankful that even for those 3 short months I knew what it was like to be pregnant and that I was blessed enough to have that baby in my womb at all.
In Jan 2001, my SIL who had a connection with a crisis pregnancy center met a mom who wanted to place her child for adoption. We were hopeful as my SIL had given her lots of information about us. However, after some adoption counseling required by a social worker the birth mom liked us, but in her opinion we hadn't been married long enough or were old enough (although Lane was almost 33 and I was nearly 26).
We got word of a few more birth mothers through an agency we worked with but we never got to meet them either because they had given birth and decided to parent or they wanted qualities that just didn't match who we were.

After we moved to CA in 2002, we got a call in early 2003 from our agency. A birth mother wanted to meet us. So off we flew to TX where she lived. The match was made and about 3 weeks later I returned to TX. In early March she gave birth to a girl who we thought was going to be our daughter. However that didn't work out and we were devistated. Not because she wasn't placing her child with us but because of the agency we were working with at the time. After the adoption didn't work they started to treat us badly, ignore our phone calls and wouldn't explain anything to us about why A had changed her mind. They wouldn't even tell us whether she had decided to parent or placed with another couple. We strongly believed that the agency had talked her into placing with another couple. Eventually our frustrations turned to anger. They had $11K of our hard earned money, were not returning our calls and didn't even offer to council us or comfort us. So we moved on.

I was part of an adoption message board and one of the ladies in the group not only was an adoptive mom herself but her adoptions had lead her to become an adoption coordinator. She knew our story and in Oct notified us that an attorney in OK was having a difficult time matching a birth mother with any of their clients. She wanted us to send a letter telling who we were and some photos that she sent to the attorney. Not long after she called me telling me that B and her mom wanted to meet us.

So out to OK we flew without anyone knowing. After the heartbreak of the failed adoption in March, Lane and I made the decision that until there was a child in our arms, we weren't telling anyone anything. Our meeting with B went smoothly and on Dec 13th after B called saying she thought she would be going into labor soon we packed up the rental car and drove to OK. We ended up in TX for a few days first and then when the social worker called to say she was in labor, we headed North. We decided that we wanted to be close enough that we could get there quickly but we didn't want to hover.

On Dec 17, 2003 at 9:48 am, Eriks Nikolaijs Tuttle was born. We did call our parents that evening even though we still had to wait for B to go to court to relinquish her rights which wouldn't happen until Monday and he was born on a Wed. However we did take him back to our hotel room on Friday and waited on pins and needles. A little after 4 pm on Monday, one of our 2 social workers from the attorney's office called and said that court was over and he was ours for the rest of our lives. In OK once you make the decision and sign the papers, it is irrevokable.
Actually on Sunday night, we took B, her mom and Eriks brother D to dinner. That is something they wanted to do with us before she went to court. I was a little nervous but it went fine. We got them all Christmas presents since it was a few days before Christmas and B gave us a beautiful Will.ow Tr.ee figurine (mother & father with child). That evening was actually bittersweet. Not only because we were gaining a son, but because I knew I would never ever understand B's pain doing what she did. But she knew it was best for Eriks and for herself. I think it's also one of the first times I really understood a mother's love for her child.

So here are a few photos from Eriks 1st year.

(Colts fan from early on.)

(We could not keep this child away from Syd's water bowl as you can see from above. This was quite often what we saw when Syd was either eating or drinking.)

(Eriks began crawling at 6 months. This child has done everything early.)

(Eriks was a lobster for his 1st Halloween. He was actually walking by this point and had been for a few weeks. Lane was holding him because he didn't want to stand still.)

(Finally, the 1st birthday. We celebrated it in Ind.iana with my huge extended family.)