The First Day of the Rest of My Life

When I suggested this yearly theme last December, I’ll admit I was doing a bit of manifesting.

You see, in addition to the projects I’ve already talked about the last 4 days, we’ve had another one in flight that we’ve kept a little more quiet. Since June 2022, Vicky and I have been trying to adopt a baby.

It’s been a lengthy process full of paperwork, heartache, and a whole lot of waiting. 2025 felt like a make-or-break year for us and we’d recently started having some hard conversations about if we even wanted to stay on the adoptive parent list. My theme choice felt like putting it out in the world that this year was finally the year we were going to finish this (leg of our) journey.

Well I’m pleased to announce that our persistence has paid off. As of a few weeks ago, we successfully adopted a beautiful baby girl! She’s currently sleeping in my lap, tooting occasionally as I type this slowly with my one free hand.

How it’s going

It’s remarkable how quickly everything changed. Our lives now have clear pre- and post- child phases and we’ll never be the people we were again. Plus I’ve started using the phrase “my daughter”, which feels so foreign. I’ve just never used those words in that order before.

Adjusting to parenthood has been interesting. We realized pretty quickly that the baby sleeping in our room wasn’t going to work since no one was getting much rest. Instead, one of us has her upstairs while the other gets a big block of uninterrupted sleep. My sleeping from 5:30am to 11:30 is odd, but I’m feeling decently rested and that’s about as much as we can hope for.

A funny new thing is how we can’t go anywhere with fewer than 19 bags, which is unusual for people who travel pretty light. Plus we have to time outings around her eating schedule, which she doesn’t really have yet. Mostly, we’re just late to things. I’m not sure why the pediatrician even bothers to schedule baby checkups for specific times; we’ll just be there when we get there.

I vastly overestimated the amount of free time I’d have. If I’m not doing active childcare (feeding, changing, etc) I’m usually doing dishes, prepping formula, or other baby-related errands. I went from playing multiple hours of games each day to a couple of hours per week, if I’m lucky. I was only able to write these posts because I can do it one handed. I know this phase won’t last forever, but it’s definitely thrown us for a loop.

The support from our community has been outstanding. So many kind gestures, gifts, and offers to babysit. It’s really reinforced that we’re surrounding ourselves with the right people.

The weirdest thing is that every day feels like Groundhog day. I’m off work and we’re not really going anywhere, so the weekly trash pickup is the only thing mooring us to the concept of “days of the week”. Otherwise, every day is bottles, diapers and naps.

Despite all the work, it’s been totally worth it. We’re constantly amazed at the duality of her size: she’s so big (more than 2lbs over her birth weight!) and yet so small (a whole person packed into a package we can hold in one arm). Her cheeks are SO soft. And her face is so expressive! She can hardly do anything, but she can make 4 distinct facial expressions. We didn’t teach her that, she can just do it! We’re just enamored with her.

Through it all, my wife has been an absolute MVP. There’s a lot of teamwork involved, but she’s been so on top of stuff (even on the meager sleep we’ve been getting). I’m lucky as heck and there’s literally no one else I’d rather be doing this with.

What’s next?

Needless to say, 2025’s yearly theme was an unequivocal success.

Our theme for 2026 is the Year of Growth.

Mostly for our baby- she’s got a lot of ground to cover. But also for us. We want to focus on growing as people, as a couple, and as a family. I also picked up some technical books using my yearly education stipend from work, so I’m excited to explore some new topics (with what little free time I might have).

And with that, I think that’s a wrap on 2025. See you next year!