April Fools

I checked two things off my Junior to-do list today. I finally went and saw a lawyer, which was way less traumatic than I thought it would be (mostly because he looked like NPH), and I called a pediatrician’s office. I’m glad I called the doc today, because they do Orientations the first Thursday of every month, which means tomorrow! I guess I go in and get shown around and hopefully meet a couple doctors. Whatever. I’ll have something to put on all the forms I’ve been having to fill out, which is all I care about. Don’t get me wrong, it’s important that Junior have a good doctor, but there are good docs and bad docs everywhere. At least at the practice I’ve chosen there’s a lot of selection, and the receptionist seemed nice.

The consultation with the lawyer was brief and free due to my work legal plan I joined. The paperwork to terminate Quiet’s rights will not be either of those things. $2500!!! That’s ridiculous. I hate lawyers, even if they are very young and very cute and say ‘y’all’ a lot. Basically the advice I got was instead of filing a Voluntary Waiver of Parental Rights right after Junior’s birth, wait six months and file a Termination of Rights, which is much more serious-sounding and supposedly more binding. It seems a lot like Abandonment to me, which I guess it kind of is, but it still bugs me. Basically Quiet will have zero contact with Junior in any form for ½ year (which is in line with what he wanted anyhow), I’ll file a petition, there’ll be a hearing (which he purposefully will not attend), and I’ll have to go to another hearing to sign some stuff and that will be it. NC has next to no case law on something like this so my little precious lawyer is going to pull NY and CA files (slightly more progressive than the South) just to be sure, but he couldn’t think of anything else I needed to do/not do.

Also, I forgot to post that I had my first Braxton-Hicks, or at least the first one I could feel. As you know from my incessant complaining I have had the croup so was working from bed one day last week trying to rest up before the move, and all of a sudden I got this weird pinch-y cramp-y feeling. Shifting position didn’t help, so I stood up and walked around a bit, then finally ended up bent over the end of the bed holding the footboard. It only lasted a couple minutes, and didn’t really hurt (more just a discomfort). It was very exciting. I didn’t think for a minute it was a real contraction though, which I thought about later a little nervously. I’m so sure that I’ll go past my due date – what if I don’t? What if I don’t take those early ‘real’ contractions seriously? It sounds like something stupid I’d do. People say that you know when it’s really starting, and I’m relying on all the pre-labor warm-up activities my childbirth instructor told us about (like the show and the plug and the trots, all the niceties). I’m just starting to get a wee bit nervous since I was watching ‘Deliver Me’ again last night and the woman was 8 weeks from her due date, and I thought, ‘Man, that’s not long at all’ and then realized I was SIX. Ridiculous.