Breaking the Silence...

Hey bloggie friends.

It's been a while. I'll tell you all my news.

• Last time I wrote, my cousin's wife was having a baby shower and my SIL and I didn't want to go. When I found out that my SIL was out of town, I made Mister plan a vacation to the Caribbean. I couldn't lie to my aunt and say that I was out of town if I wasn't. 

• So I was able to RSVP to my aunt and say "thanks for thinking of me, I'd love to come, but I'll be in the islands where it's sunny and 80 degrees." And I'm such a lucky girl that we could actually plan a getaway in about 10 days' time. It was one of the most remarkable vacations ever. Like a second honeymoon. The kind of trip that if you never have another trip like it, you can say it's OK because you have the memories of it forever. It was that good. 

• Then we got home and I decided that I would start a serious exercise program. I downloaded the Couch to 5K app last summer and I did it once. I really am a terrible runner. But I decided to make a good effort this time. I was terrible! But I stuck with it. I did week 1 and week 2. On the third day of week 2, I felt something weird in my knee. The next day, I tripped over the dog in the yard and really twisted my knee. It was swollen, and I was limping. My illustrious career as a runner was over! Just as I was sort of getting into it. Sigh.

• I'm generally not a wimp. I don't usually go to the doctor much, but the week my knee was at its most swollen was the same week I had my physical scheduled for my adoption paperwork. So I went to the doctor, and when she asked if I was having any issues, I told her that I had hurt my knee. She said that I should keep icing it, taking Advil and rest for another week or so. 

• After another week of rest, I was excited to get back into running again. (At this point, I still had images of me spending the summer 10 pounds lighter...) I started the program over again, figuring I had now taken more time off than I had spent running, so what's another 2 weeks? 

• So I did week 1, week 2, and week 3. Kind of, and not on consecutive weeks or anything. In there was Easter, friends visiting us, trips to visit friends, Red Sox games, you know how it is. Somehow over the next 6 weeks, I found 9 days to run. I was impressed.

• One day last month, I was driving home from the park after my run, and I checked my e-mail while driving. (I know. Totally bad and illegal and unsafe. But it's a fun story.) It was a message from my agency saying that they're working with a family and would we like the agency to show our profile to them? 

• Um, yes please. This is the first time anyone's ever looked at our profile besides the social workers and my friends.

• So that was a Wednesday, and the social worker told me that the couple would receive the books on Thursday. She said, "Usually they don't decide at that exact meeting, so if I don't call you on Thursday night, don't panic. Don't think that they didn't pick you if I don't call right away. It doesn't mean that they did pick you, but it doesn't mean they didn't, either." Typical doublespeak from my agency. "We don't know anything. We don't know when we'll call you. We don't even know *IF* we'll call you. We just don't want to commit to anything, lest we're wrong and you're mad about it."

• She didn't call on Thursday, and I didn't panic. She didn't call on Friday, and I didn't panic. I had a fun weekend, not really thinking about it.

• She called on Monday to say that they picked us and we'd been matched! (I know, I'm a stinker to bury this way down in the bottom of a post. Ha ha!)

• So we're matched, we've met them a couple times, I'm frustrated with the agency and with the process and really struggling with a lot of the twists and turns of the relationship we're supposed to have with this family, and I'm not really hearing anything from the agency that makes any sense. 

• The mother is due in about 2 weeks, and then has 15 days to sign the termination of parental rights paperwork. So we really may not know anything for another month or so.

• On the other hand, in another month or so, we might have a BABY!

• It's very surreal, and obviously I've come out of my blog silence to vent about this. So expect some venting at some point soon. 

• Oh, also, I have to get a new car. My mechanic told me that my car will not pass inspection next month, so after 100,000 miles and almost 11 years, I'll have to get a new car. I might have a baby by then, so I think I'm going to try to get the car before she goes into labor. Hopefully on Saturday I will buy a car. 

• Can we even talk about the major cash depletion of paying for an adoption and a new car in the same month? I'm having palpitations just thinking about it. We've been saving for an adoption, a house, and cars for years, but geez, I'm not sure I thought I'd ever pay for 2 of those things in the same month! Now that most of our savings are gone, we have to be all budget-y and cook at home and not go out as much. Which, ultimately, is a wise decision anyway, but I still have the shakes just thinking about it.

• I'm "nesting" but in very funny ways. I'm doing the regular stuff, cleaning the house, trying to get everything set up, thinking about pre-freezing some meals, you know, the regular stuff. But then I'm also getting a new car, I have a hair appointment today, I have to get a pedicure. Because you know, when will I have time to get my hair done after I have a baby? I won't. So I'm getting it done today. 

Did I totally throw you off with my story about running? I think I did that story without a lot of foreshadowing. Except the part where I talked about losing weight. That was my only foreshadowing. I'm quite the trickster! 

What's new with all of you?

Fantabulous

1) I got an e-mail today from Shutterfly saying that our first copy of our profile book is in the mail and on its way to us. The agency wants about 15 copies of our book, so I ordered 1 copy from Shutterfly to just see what it's like in real life. If I like it when it comes, I will order 15 copies and ship them straight to the agency. I'll keep a copy for myself as a keepsake.

2) We decided that we'll at least apply to our agency's domestic program and order all the copies of the profiles that they'll need. We're allowed to apply to other programs at other agencies if we want. And if other agencies require that we redo our profile in a different way, we'll deal with that and redo the profile in a different way.

3) Remember this? The bad? Fingerprints from the FBI are taking 10-12 weeks to come back? That's Thanksgiving! Today, I checked my credit card statement online and it has been charged. "FBI Record Request" is on there! Now I know it's only been 6 weeks. And just because they charged the credit card does not mean that they've actually done the background check or mailed the results. It just means that they've charged my credit card. But that is progress, and my goodness I will take every step of progress available.

4) We are very, very close to being listed as "waiting." When I spoke with my social worker on Thursday, she said she was almost finished writing our home study. We can be activated when the agency gets our profile books, fingerprint clearances and a(nother) check. As soon as the home study is written. Ooh, it's so close I can feel it.

5) Our profile should be available and out in the universe in early November.

6) Thursday is my birthday. I have a whole post on that coming up tomorrow. Happy birthday to me!

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!

Even Larger Victory

I heard back from the domestic adoption program manager. She also agreed that I had an awesome first draft of our profile, and that there were only small changes that I should make.

I'm still working on the other sections, but I may start playing on Shutterfly one of these days and start adding some pictures to accompany our "awesome" text!

What a week this has been.

Large Victory

Our social worker wrote back to me about our profile book. She said it was an awesome draft and that she loves it. I'm really almost done with our book! I need to write more about our extended family and holiday traditions, write a little bit more about each other and take a few more pictures, and we'll be ready to work on the layout.

I'm psyched. It's funny, because like I said the other day, if fingerprints really take 10-12 weeks, we could be waiting until Thanksgiving before our profile could even be able to be shown. And even then, it's not likely to be fast.

But I don't really care because progress is progress. And this week, we made HUGE progress.

Small Victory

I was able to send a draft of our profile book to our social worker and the domestic adoption program manager today. I'm smiling so big right now! I'm not getting ahead of myself here - I know it's not finished, and it's just text, no photos. But this is a big step. I've written almost all of the text and we'll see what they say. I feel great to have even finished as much as I have.

What's cracking me up is the fact that I sent the e-mail to both of them, and they're both out of the office this morning. I know they probably *are* both actually just out of the office on official business, but it's funny to me to think that these 2 people who work by themselves in this satellite office are both out on the morning after a long holiday weekend. (Not that it's any of my business where they are - I don't really care if they come to the office today or not.) Clearly, if I worked only with one other person in a generally quiet office anyway, I'd also attach an "out of office" reply to all my e-mails the morning after a holiday weekend too. I just wonder if they know that the other one is also out. A has in her e-mail, "if this is an emergency, please call B." Meanwhile, I also received B's out of office reply at the exact same time. D'oh!

But hey, why not, right? It's a gorgeous day, and one of the advantages of being unemployed is that every single other person (except perhaps my social worker...) is at work or school today. I'm going to enjoy myself! Because our profile is mostly written!!!! Woo! Off to the post office to mail our fingerprint forms. We're for real now.

A Fun Post

I think I've been kind of a downer this week by publishing all the stuff I had written that makes me sad. Now I want to write something cheery and mindless because I like to balance things out. I'm cool like that.

These are some of the things I like (in no particular order)...

1) Reality TV - It's embarrassing to admit, but I am the biggest sucker for reality shows. It's pathetic, truly. My favorite reality show is Amazing Race and my SIL and I applied to be on it. We made a terrible video and they never called us though I think that was their biggest mistake ever! We would have been the first all-female team to win. Take that to the bank. I guess that's why they didn't call - we were too intimidating!

2) Soft desserts - especially chocolate chip cookies and brownies. I make the 2nd best brownies I've ever had. There's a restaurant in town that makes better brownies, and I'm OK admitting it. If we were to move somewhere else, I would take back my title of Best Brownies in Town. Chocolate chip cookies are badass when they're soft. When they're crispy, they're not worth my time and calories.

3) Sleeping late and staying in pajamas all day. Speaks for itself really.

4) Text messages - for some odd reason, I love texting with people. I used to be so good at texting before I got an iPhone. I could press all the numbers without looking at the phone at all. Then came the iPhone and the flat screen. I still have my iPhone, but I still love to text. I highly prefer that to speaking with people, which I think is kind of strange, since people are supposed to want human contact.

5) Traveling and going on vacation - I've been to 37 states (soon to be 38) and next year when Mister finishes grad school, I already told him I want to go to Hawaii. It depends of course on the adoption and how much money we have and if I have a job or not, but if we have time and money and no baby, I say what the hell. I've also been to 5 countries besides the US (which I realize is a small number compared to most people) and that's a number I'd definitely like to increase.

These are a few of my favorite things. There are more things I like (waffle fries, Sonic limeade, new cars, thunderstorms, and drinking wine) that I may explain in greater detail in a later post.

What things do you love?

Nothing Better!

I signed up for the July ICLW comment quest, which means I might actually get traffic on this blog! And with that in mind, I write this post.

Lest anyone come to my blog and think I'm a Debbie Downer, which would be an odd thing for a blog that's titled Joyful Hope, right?

So with joy in mind, I'm spending a gorgeous summer afternoon inside eating goat cheese on crackers while watching super-trashy high school TV. Wait... that doesn't sound like I want to be doing this, which I do. I'm watching this show, Pretty Little Liars on ABC Family. It's so ridiculous it's funny, so bad it's good.

I'm reveling in relaxation and goat cheese is involved. That makes bad TV even better!