I never got to finish cleaning my room. The good news is that every surface got dusted and vacuumed--just not wiped with cleanser or put back nicely. Let's appreciate what we have--shall we?

The baby's caseworker told me yesterday that birthmom is doing more drugs--not less. She qualified for inpatient rehab... which means she's really bad. The caseworker believes it is a 6-month program; and said that the state is not thinking of allowing her to go into a mommy and baby program because of some things she said to the caseworker. I THINK that's what she said... I was on the cell phone at the county fair and couldn't hear her very well. And as far as the maternal grandmother goes, they requested a file from the state she lives in to investigate that "red flag" and see if it's something that would prevent her from getting custody, but nobody knows how long it will take to GET the file.

We're (thankfully) not attached to her yet... but if grandmother doesn't get custody soon like they're working on, I'm going to guess we will get attached to her. I'm not sure what would be worse, really. The child deserves to feel that kind of love and that's our job. We'll get over it. If she's going to a good situation, so will she.

Anyway... this morning she had blood in her poop. I'm concerned. I have no clue what this could be. Since we moved her to the allergenic formula, things have gotten progressively better. In fact, she's sleeping at night. Sometimes she actually has to be woken to eat in the middle of the night. Hallelujah! Minimal fussiness or gas. No more inconsolable crying (although I know it can return any time over the next few months). By all counts, she looks great. Except for the blood in the poop. Of course, my only experience with that is food allergies. Her formula has soy and cow's milk, but the proteins are pre-digested--so they SHOULDN'T be a problem. I have no clue what else it could be... so I've put it out to all the experts I know before taking her to a clinic. We shall see.

I'm starting to love her. But it's weird: it's the way you feel about someone else's child. I don't know quite how to describe it, but it feels like when you're babysitting someone else's baby that you completely adore being around--but don't mind when they have to go home. I wonder how long it will take for that to change to feeling like I don't want her to go. Staring at a 6-month stay while mom is in rehab makes me nervous about that.