A Little Bit of Everything

Still no baby. Maybe over the weekend?

Next up... ghosts. I don't really believe in ghosts, especially not the "Casper in a white sheet going to haunt you" kind. Because really, that's bizarre. And what's the point? I watch Ghost Adventures a lot and kind of laugh at them hunting ghosts. Going into hospitals and jails and mental institutions in the hopes of finding unsettled spirits. It's silly and it's fun, but I don't really believe it.

On the other hand, I believe in ghosts in dreams, and I'm not even sure ghosts is the right word to use for this concept, of the people with whom you have a deep spiritual connection. The part I'm unsure about is how it happens and why it happens. The part I'm very sure about is that no one talks about it and if I said my theory on ghosts out loud, to the people in my real life, I think they'd laugh at me. (You can laugh at me too, if I sound ridiculous, but just don't make fun of me in the comments please.)

But here goes...

I lost my mother 6 years ago. But we had that very deep, very close mother-daughter connection. My mother is frequently in my dreams. Sometimes it's fun, and it feels like we're hanging out like we always did. Sometimes I'm aware (or almost aware) that it's a dream, that it feels weird to be in a dream situation and say to someone, "Let's ask Mom" and Mom is there to answer. During those times, when I'm aware that Mom isn't really around to answer the mundane questions anymore, I can go one of two ways. Either I'm aware on some level that it's just a dream, but I'm enjoying having my mother back, so I keep dreaming. The other option is that I get a little desperate and try to change the moment because I feel like I have to catch up with her on all the things in my life. I have so much I wish I could tell her.

Sometimes, (and this is the part that I think people would laugh at me if they knew) my mom is in my dreams in an advisory capacity. Seriously. Ever since she died, whenever it's been something really hard or big or painful or scary or significant in my life, in my dreams, my mom has weighed in. She has sometimes told me not to worry, sometimes she does something or shows me something that makes me realize the way things will work out.

Now on some level, I'm going with the fact that we had a deep bond. They say that when someone dies, they're always in your heart. Probably my dreams of my mom are the part of my heart that carries her around. Probably when I'm stressed out and missing my mom and wondering what I should do about something, rather than actually hearing from her, I know what she would have said. Probably.

However, since we've been matched, I haven't heard from my mom. AT ALL. No ghost dream, no dream about baby, nothing. Not even a flash of her. I'm a little bit freaking out, because where could she be? I've always dreamed her when I've needed her, and for the last 2 months, I really thought I've needed her. This is the first time in 6 years that I've wanted her and needed her and she's been silent. So all this time, I've been stressed that maybe this match is doomed to fail. Because she's never been silent on something when I really need her advice. I've never gone 2 whole months without dreaming of her. But where could she be?

I also kind of believe in signs and things from God, the universe, whatever. Sometimes things just seem too right to be a coincidence. 

Yesterday for the first time, I think I heard from my mom about this adoption. I think it's going to be OK and I think my mom told me. (And I know that I sound crazy saying it.) Yesterday was kind of a weird day, (actually, all my days are weird these days) and I went to my regular grocery store. They didn't have what I wanted, I was feeling kind of aimless, so I went to the faraway store. The one with the animated characters that sing songs and do shows. Just as I pulled into the parking lot at the faraway store, my cell phone rang. It was our social worker calling with an update. Basically a "no new news" update, but I'm just happy she called!

After we got off the phone, I started to whirl around in my mind all the possibilities of what may happen in the next few days. I had that knot in the pit of my stomach. These parents may not sign TPR. I started to feel stressed. Suddenly, some of the animated characters in the store were doing a show. They were singing my favorite song as a little kid that my mom used to sing to me all the time. As I got older, she still always used to sing it to me. One year for Christmas, I downloaded as many versions of the song as I could find. I made her an entire CD of this one song, like 20 different versions. It was a meaningful song for us, and not one you hear all the time. Not one I've ever heard played at this store. 

Of course, I heard the song, felt like it was from my mom and broke down in the dairy department. Sigh. But the better news is that it felt like a hug from my mom. Reassurance and an "it'll be OK," which is exactly what I need.

Am I seeing things that are not there? Probably. I just liked the idea of finally hearing from her. That and I miss her hugs, so I have to take them as they come these days, even if it's from an animated robot singing a favorite song in the dairy department. 

Drama, drama, drama

First things first, no baby yet. The doctor says they'll induce her sometime next week if the baby doesn't come over the weekend.

Second. We've just had drama, drama, drama over this whole adoption. It drives me crazy. I'm such an anti-drama person. I don't attract drama people, I don't like to be around them. I just want a quiet, peaceful life.

It's been a whole lot of "will she or won't she?" crap, from the social workers, to the expectant parents themselves. I sort of want to distance myself from it completely and say that if there's nothing we can do until the baby's born, call me when the baby is born.

It sounds cruel and insensitive for me to say, and please don't think that I don't have empathy or compassion for these expectant parents and the choices they have to make in the next few weeks. My heart is broken for them. And I cannot imagine the way they must be feeling right now. So broken and hurting and awful. I get that.

What gets me is the way the social workers don't seem to know how to respond to her. Yet these are social workers! Who specialize in adoption! They ought to know.

I guess I expected social workers to be more realistic and factual with her. Like, "Let's all acknowledge why you're even considering placing a child for adoption. You live in squalor, you have no education, you have no money..." etc. And obviously, no social worker would phrase it like that. (That's why they're social workers and I just stay quiet!)

But it bugs me that she seems to be in fantasyland and the social worker allows that to continue. Rather than explain to her that open adoption does not mean that you get to name the child, take the child for overnight visitations, babysit for us, have monthly visits, weekly phone calls, take summer vacations with us, and whatever else, the social worker instead proposes these as demands that we ought to consider meeting. And that if we're not willing to consider these things, maybe we should re-evaulate the level of "openness" that we will accept. Huh? What? She's asking for the moon and the stars and we're not "open" because we don't have the moon and stars to give? Come on.

I hope this adoption happens. I hope that this whole thing works out for all of us. I hope that if it doesn't happen, that my life will go on relatively normally. I recognize that it will hurt, that I will be sad, and that I'll hate the way it plays out.

I hope I'm tough enough to meet a baby within the next week that may not be ours. I hope that if he's not ours that the situation these parents are in will change drastically. They are in no position to care for a baby. I just wish I could turn the calendar to August already and know how it's going to end! The next month or so is going to be really hard and painful no matter what the result.

A Good Holiday Weekend

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Mister and I had so much fun. For the first time this year, Mister and I had Christmas at home. By ourselves. Usually we alternate holidays and years with our families, so if we spend Thanksgiving with my family, we'll spend Christmas with his family and then the following year we'll do the opposite - Thanksgiving with his family and Christmas with mine. It works, sort of. That way we spread out the holidays with different sides of the family and end up having time with everybody.

However, what I've always wanted is to have Christmas at home, in my house. Of course, I've always sort of fantasized that we'd have kids in this scenario, but whatever. One thing at a time I guess. This year, Mister found out that he will be doing some traveling to work over New Year's. He'll be working in PA, about 30 minutes from where his parents live. So once he knew we'd have to be there for New Year's, he didn't want to spend 8 or 9 days at his parent's house. His parents are great; we all get along, but let's face it - 9 days is a long time to spend together. So we'll go down later this week and stay for the long weekend.

This Christmas was exactly what I wanted. We were together, it was quiet and fun at home. Connecticut got slammed with a blizzard on Sunday, so we were snowed in for a while. But we cooked, we ate, we watched movies, played games, drank wine, shoveled the snow, ate some more, drank some more wine. I'm telling you, it was exactly what I wanted from a holiday. (Mister did, by the way, get me the necklace I wanted in this post. It's not this exact one, mine is smaller, but it's similar. I'm so excited. I keep touching it and thinking about the baby who will someday join our family.)

This Christmas was so strange for me. I've turned an emotional corner on holidays, and I can't quite understand why. Christmas in 2006-2008 were so hard for me. I was so sad for the babies that we didn't have, for the family that I really wanted. I just felt like our family had a big hole in it, so between my mom not being with us anymore and no babies either, there are just people missing. My mom's not coming back though, so it's a different kind of hole in our family from the babies who have not yet arrived. But this year, I just wasn't as sad. In other years, I haven't wanted to decorate, to send cards, to travel, to bake cookies, any of those things that people do. This year, I felt like a cloud was lifted off me. I wanted to do all of those things. (Except traveling, which we didn't do... yet. And because we already had our Christmas together, I won't mind traveling a bit.)

We had not ever celebrated a holiday together with just the 2 of us before. If we had had a baby early in our marriage, we probably would have wanted to stay home together for holidays before this. Since we haven't had any babies, we had never talked about just staying home. It was like it didn't exist as an option. I really never considered it. I loved it though. I wonder if we can figure out a way to do it again next year!

2010 was really a great year for us - we moved to our new house, which we love, Mister finished grad school, we finally finished our home study and are now on a path to become parents. In one year, that's really a lot to accomplish. Because those are all really happy things, I was able to feel fairly content this year. For the first time, I've been able to look back and some really wonderful things that happened to us this year and feel proud and happy for all that we've been able to do, and not only feel sad for the people who are not here with us.

So I'm in a good and peaceful place after the holidays. A good place in our marriage, with our families, with the adoption, with everything. I hope that everyone feels this calm, peaceful and happy in 2011.

And of course, I also hope that we're matched quickly and that I'll spend most of 2011 being someone's mom. That's my Christmas/New Year's/Every Single Day until we're matched Wish.

This is one of my favorite ornaments. And you know, you're supposed to wish on a star, so I'm making my Christmas/New Year's/Every Single Day until we're matched Wish on a star!

Big Compliment, Big Decision

Let me start this off by saying that making decisions is tough for me. Mister is not dissimilar in that personality trait, so often, even the simplest decisions make themselves for us. Even picking a restaurant becomes this big, complicated ordeal.

Mister: Are you hungry?

Me: Yes. Let's go out.

Mister: OK. What do you want?

Me: Oh, I don't know. I could have anything - pizza, pasta, sandwich, burger, Mexican. Whatever.

Mister: Well, what do you feel like?

Me: Any of those. How about you?

Mister: Oh, well, any of those are fine.

Then we go on to weigh the specific merits of each pizza place. When we had it last, what kind it was, etc. Then we do the same for each pasta, sandwich, burger, Mexican place. Then usually at this point someone throws in an option that wasn't on the list.

Me: Oh... we could go to the diner too. I haven't had pancakes in a while....

Mister: True. Do you want pancakes? We could go to the diner....

At which point we will add that choice and revisit all the merits of each restaurant we can think of. And each type of food.

Me: Hey, you know it's now 10:00. We should just have cereal I guess.

Mister: Yeah.

This is an exaggeration, but only a little bit. Under the hyperbole is this nugget of truth - decisions are really, really hard for us. The bigger the decision, the harder it is for us to decide.

I wrote a while ago about this decision - basically, our agency said that they're small, their program is small and the vast majority of their domestic placements come from other agencies. They said they'll take us into their program, and they're happy to do so, but people waiting at our agency are waiting a lot longer than at some of the big agencies in the South. So they'd completely understand if we left them for a bigger, faster agency. But if we stay with our agency, we might wait for about 3 years for a match. Apparently New England is not a hotbed of domestic adoptions. Not surprising, I suppose.

Last year, when we chose our agency, we didn't think we'd be doing a domestic adoption. So we didn't pick this agency on the merits of their domestic program. But here we are.

This is where the big compliment comes in. Earlier this week, we submitted a final draft of our profile book to the program manager of the domestic program and to our social worker. Both of them said that the tone of the writing was so warm and perfect from the first page on. The pictures and the layout are both very nice and that we created a great profile. Most importantly, they both thought that because of our great, warm, nicely laid out profile, we would likely be chosen very quickly.

(OMG!!!!!!!!!111111!!!!! Did she really just say that?!?!?!? Our profile is so good that we might be chosen more quickly than the other people who are waiting 3 years?!?!?!?)

So this forces us into a decision. Wait 0-3 years at our agency with an excellent profile or switch agencies and possibly have to redo the profile that took me months to write?

Well, friends, we're out on a limb. We're staying with our small agency and betting on the high quality profile to not make us wait 3 years.

The best news about that decision is that it's not mutually exclusive of another decision. If, in 6 months, our profile has seen no action, we'll start talking with some of the other agencies and figure something out from there. So really, we win. We get to stay with the agency we've been working with, and we don't really have to make any sort of a decision until we feel like it. Now that's my kind of decision!

Bummer... But Hope Anyway

The principal e-mailed me last night - I didn't get the kindergarten job. She urged me to sign up to substitute in their district though, and hoped that she'd see me around. I haven't signed up to sub in that district, but I have in my town. I figure I'll add the other town as well, since it's only the next town over and not far away.

So I'll sub this year. It'll be OK. I'm kind of sad to not get a job for another year. (Because seriously?!? What the hell is wrong with me that I can't get a job for 2 years in a row?!?) It brings up all this self-doubt - should I be a teacher? Am I doing the right thing with my life? This job that I love and think I'm really good at, apparently no one else thinks I'm good enough. That kind of hurts.

So I'll sub and I'll continue to delude myself with thoughts that we'll have a quick adoption in the fall or winter and I'd have had to quit that job anyway.

I've had other times in my life when it was really hard to find a job, and looking back at them, I was fortunate to have had really precious non-job opportunities that I wouldn't have had if I had been working. When I first graduated, I couldn't find a job to save my life. Same kind of thing as now, I went on all these interviews and didn't get any jobs. Then my mom was diagnosed with cancer, and because I was not teaching, I had so much more time to spend with her. I wouldn't trade those last months with my mom for any job security or teaching experience in the world. And if I had been at work that year, I would have missed being with her.

Last year, with no job, it was kind of my hedonistic year. I really focused on doing things that I love. I tried new things I didn't even know I loved. I took a photography class, which was really awesome and I ended up buying myself a fabulous camera and I learned how to use it. I love to bake and cook (and eat, which is why I gained about 10 pounds too...) so I spent the year baking new things. Also, I traveled a lot last year. I went to France and Spain and Ireland during the school year, and California last summer. It's been a busy year, even without a job.

I'm open to taking full advantage of this time off. I had hoped I'd take advantage of a job this year. But if not, then hopefully I'll finally get to be a mother. I do recognize how those two things are not related, in theory. At least subbing this year will give me the opportunity to continue to travel and do fun things that I like, regardless of when (if) we are matched.

But really, I have this secret fantasy. I guess it's not going to be a secret fantasy anymore, since I'm about to say what it is. Basically, it goes like this - shortly after we're finished with our home study, we're matched quickly. This is the part where the fantasy gets fuzzy, but it ends with me buying a Baby's First Christmas 2010 ornament for our tree. Fantasy, I know. But it's fun to dream...

Together Again

Well, Mister and I are walking together again. Figuratively, of course. Well literally, too, when we are walking. Right now he's sleeping and I'm awake, so we're not really together at this exact moment, but whatev.

The appointment has been made. It's not until the end of September, but I really don't care about that. We have a date, we have a target. This way, whether I get a job or not, regardless of anything else in our lives, I have a deadline and I hope to finish our profile by the time Mister goes to the doctor.

That way, as soon as our social worker gets his medical forms, she can finish our home study and I will have our profile finished. I hope we can have our profile out in the universe by October 1.

And from there, it's not up to us. We'll just do our thing and pray that we are matched with the right people. And then, maybe we'll be parents. How amazing that would be!

I had a moment yesterday, when I started to think of that marriage analogy I said last time, when one person is walking faster than the other, stopping every so often to turn around and say, "Hurry up!" Or the other side of it, when you're walking more slowly than the other person and you have to say, "hold on! Slow down!" Mister and I were walking together, completely together. Holding hands, walking side by side and really just walking together. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, Mister started going really really fast. We were still holding hands, though, and the result was that he pulled me forward. I caught up and we were walking together again.

For whatever reason, that image hits home for me. Our marriage is like that - we're together, completely, in lockstep. And then suddenly we're not, for whatever reason. We push ahead of the other, wait for the other one, hold hands and pull the other forward. Then, just as suddenly, we're together, completely in lockstep again. The most incredible thing about it for me is that whenever we're together and we're moving in unison, that's an unbeatable team. And there's no better feeling in the world than that.

More Hope

Well, I'm back from my interview. I think it went well. It was for kindergarten, so that's always a good thing. How can you go wrong with a group of 5 year olds?! After we talked, as I was leaving, the principal said that my passion for teaching was evident to them.

Clearly that's a good thing for her to have said. On the other hand, I've been on so many interviews and received so many compliments and heard such nice things, only to not get the job in the end.

So my fingers are crossed and I'm waiting in joyful hope for the phone to ring!

Funny, one of my friends told me that she'd say a prayer to Saint Anthony for me. Saint Anthony, for those who don't know, is the patron saint of finding lost things. Of all the prayers I've said in the last year for a job, I never thought of telling Saint Anthony that I lost my job and I need help to find it!

Saint Anthony, I lost my job. I really need your help to find it. :)

He's never let me down, so there's that. Fingers crossed and whatnot.

Hope

I got called for an interview later this week. I was so excited that I forgot to ask the principal what grade it's for! I tried to call back, but no one answered, and then I figured that I'd feel really dumb to leave a voicemail saying that I forgot to ask and she forgot to say, so I am just going to hope that I'm interviewing for kindergarten or first grade. I just hope it's not for 4th or 5th, since I've never taught either. While there's a part of me that would really prefer to have a baby this fall, I also wouldn't mind cashing some paychecks first. May as well start socking away the money for Adoption #2 while we can, right?

It's funny to think how quickly things can change. I might have to prepare a classroom next week. I'm not holding my breath though, because I've been on a bazillion interviews already this summer (and all during last year too) and I haven't gotten those either. But it's sure fun to hope....

And, if nothing else, if I do get a job, I'll have a place to wear all those skirts and sweaters and boots I saw in the catalogs yesterday!