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.

The Waiting is the Hardest Part...

I know I've posted about waiting before, and I wasn't fond of it then either. It feels like each new stage of waiting gets harder!

Now we're waiting for the baby to be born. Then we'll have to wait to see if the parents will sign the termination of parental rights.

Then we'll know.

She's due any day now. The baby could come at any moment between now and the next 2 weeks. It absolutely boggles my mind.

In some ways, I'm trying to just live my regular life. If I sat around waiting for the phone to ring, it would be a long and boring 2 weeks. On the other hand, I start to think things like, (True story!) "If I do laundry on the day when I have *absolutely* no clean clothes left, what if she goes into labor while I'm in my sweats and all  my clothes are in the wash?" She could go into labor at any time. While I'm doing laundry, while I'm in the shower, while I'm sleeping, while I'm at the store, at any time.

(The day that I had all my clothes in the wash at once, I asked Mister, "What if she goes into labor right now while everything is wet? I'm in pajamas!" Mister, always wise, said, "You'd wear your pajamas straight to the mall where you'd buy an outfit that you could wear to the hospital! And then we'd go!" This is why I love him.)

So while I'm trying to just live my regular life, I also don't want to start anything that's so involved I couldn't just walk away from it. You know, like all my pants in the laundry at once!

In their state, the parents have 15 days to sign TPR. I'm deliriously excited for day 16, if it happens. I'm trying to keep my feet on the ground and not get too excited until then though. This whole thing is all moot if they choose to parent this baby, which, of course, is a possibility. I'm trying very hard to be realistic about all the options. I just don't want to fall in love with a baby who never gets to be ours.

On the other hand, how do you go to the hospital and watch a baby being born and not fall in love? I just don't want to lose my heart to this baby and then have to say goodbye in 2 weeks. So I'm trying to be a little guarded, recognizing that this baby may not be ours.

Some baby will be ours, someday. I kind of hope it's this baby in a few weeks, but life isn't always the way I hope.

In the meantime, I think I'm going to clean my house and get ready. Just in case I have to go to the hospital soon...

Has anyone been in the delivery room as an adoptive parent? Anyone know what I can expect?

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?

When to tell people

Way back when we first started our adoption paperwork, we didn't tell anyone. It was a few months later when we asked our 2 closest friends to write reference letters. They were both thrilled and excited for us. It was easy and exciting to tell them our news, and they both said they were honored to write letters on our behalf.

Connecticut has a weird requirement that 1 reference letter come from a family member. We decided we'd ask my brother and SIL to write a letter for us. For some reason, it was a little more nerve-wracking than to tell our friends.

As an aside, I'm going to tell a funny story about my brother and SIL that made it much easier to tell them about our adoption plans. I'll get back to my original point shortly.  One day last spring, my brother sent me an e-mail in the middle of a weekday. He said, "Is _____ still your phone number? I called and called and no one answered." I wrote back to him right away and said that it was, but I hadn't answered because my phone was upstairs and I was downstairs. He wrote back and said he'd call again in 5 minutes, but he really needed to talk to me. Of course, I spent the next few minutes with my heart pounding, absolutely convinced something was wrong. We don't call each other that much, let alone at 1 PM on a Tuesday. So swirling in my mind was death, divorce, destruction, something awful. 


So the phone rings a few minutes later, and my brother said, "Don't worry. Nothing's wrong." and he proceeded to tell me that the reason for his call is that he and my SIL have just begun the process to adopt! And that their agency requires family information, so he wanted us to help him fill in the paperwork that would pertain to us. 


Always composed, (NOT!) I crack up laughing and say, "Wait, you're adopting?" 
"Yes," my brother said.
"Well no $@$!" I respond, "Us too! And we need your help to fill out our paperwork too!" 


Obviously, we both agreed to fill out paperwork for each other. We laughed, and still laugh that we told each other about our respective adoptions on the same day. I love that that's part of our children's adoption stories. I love that our children will have cousins who were adopted. Even though they'll have very different adoption stories, they'll have adoptions in common when they won't share common DNA and genes.

I'm getting off track though. Back to my original story. So my brother and SIL's agency made them fill out paperwork about each member of their families. They told everyone in their families very early in their process. We didn't. For a long time, we didn't know from where we'd be adopting, and it changed several times before we decided to do a domestic adoption. We didn't want to tell people one thing and then change it shortly thereafter. We knew it would take a long time, we didn't want to answer a lot of questions when the answer was just going to be, "I have no idea. No, really, we don't know." So we didn't tell anyone except our three references.

Fast forward to Thanksgiving, and we told my brothers and my dad. At Christmas we were going to tell Mister's family, but somehow the conversation never happened.

So one side of the family doesn't know, Facebook definitely doesn't know, and any friends outside of those 2 sets of friends who wrote our letters don't know. Or so I thought....

Our old friend who recently reappeared in our lives knows. I told him way back in 2007 that we would adopt someday, and I think he may have understood that to mean that we had started the process back then. Shortly after he and I e-mailed about adoption in 2007, he e-mailed Mister to congratulate him on adopting. Mister was like, "Huh? What?!" So I assume that he probably asked Mister as they've talked more recently, knowing that it was something that we were talking about 3 years ago. He asked Mister last weekend on the phone how it is going and what's next in the process. So he's supportive, he cares, he's happy for us. Which is really how everyone has been that we've told.

No one's said anything rude or annoying or asked intrusive questions. Which is not too surprising, since only about 10 people know, and 5 of the 10 are family! But still. It's all those other people who don't know. I don't really know how to handle them.

I asked some people on an adoption forum once, and so many people said they told early, wished they hadn't told, and had to deal with months or years of annoying questions. Some other people said that they didn't tell at all, not even family, until they were traveling to their child. Some people said they waited until they were home with the baby. No one was mad that they hadn't been told because how could you be mad when you're playing with a baby.

But I can't help feeling like I'm keeping a big secret. It feels weird to tell people now, because really, there hasn't been any news to tell. Yet, I feel like if I tell people when we're matched, or when we're home with a baby, that might be too shocking. I don't know.

I guess if I were pregnant, there'd be all kinds of people  - people we'd tell when we were TTC, people we'd tell early in the pregnancy, people we would tell later, and then people who would just see me and figure it out. Then there would be people we hadn't seen in a long time and they'd see us in a year with a baby.  I get that. The difference is the timeline. If I were pregnant now, while I wouldn't be 100% confident that I'd have a baby born in the fall, I'd have a rough timeline in mind. For this adoption, I have no rough timeline in mind. Maybe sometime within the next 3 years. Maybe. But that's kind of a lame timeline.

So for those of you who have adopted, when did you tell? How did people respond? Have you had unexpected annoying or intrusive questions and comments? Also, if you told some people and not others, how seriously did they guard your secret? I worry that someone might tell someone that I didn't want to.

Fun Updates

Hi!

It's been a while since I posted. I was away all last week at a friend's house, which was great. Any time I go somewhere, even if it's winter, it still feels like a vacation. I always love a vacation! Even if it takes a week for me to recover...

1) We're officially waiting, which I guess we knew. I'm kind of mad about it, because despite the fact that we mailed everything to the agency on December 14, they didn't get everything filed and processed until January 11. So we kind of lost a month that I thought that we were waiting but we apparently were not. Grr. More frustration. I hope the rest goes smoothly. I'm not changing my ticker though, because I've been waiting that long, whether or not the agency thinks we have.

2) My SIL invited me to go to a black tie gala with her in 2 weeks. It's been a while since I've been to a black tie gala, so that should be fun. And by "it's been a while," I mean that it's been like 6 or 7 years. In case anyone thinks that I'm so fancy that I'm at a black tie gala often, well, they'd be wrong.

3) This is not new news. In fact, anyone who has read this blog for any amount of time will know this. I HATE WINTER!!!! I hate it with a passion. We have about 3-4 feet of snow on the ground in Connecticut and it's supposed to snow more this weekend. And I seriously can't take it anymore. I wish I lived in a place like San Diego where it's always sunny and 75. I counted, and it's about 10 weeks until April. That's not too long. I guess I can push through 10 more weeks.

4) I am going to make cupcakes today. I found this recipe online for banana cupcakes. Then another one for nutella frosting. I love nutella and I have some very dark brown bananas. I think it'll be a good combination.

5) Happy ICLW. I'm going to post more this week, just in case some people come by!

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!

The Waiting Game

Well friends, the day has finally arrived. Our last bit of paperwork has been submitted and we are officially waiting. I suppose not officially, since I just mailed the stuff today. We filled in all the checklists and budgets and releases and whatever else, stuck it in the mail today and sent it off. I guess we'll be officially waiting on Thursday when the agency receives the paperwork. I'm celebrating today though. I figure that since it's now out of our hands and on its way, I'm counting us as waiting from today.

So I introduce you to the Lilypie ticker. It's going to help me keep track of how long we wait. I imagine it'll be long, but there's always the hope that it'll be short.

For a fun quote on the subject of waiting, we turn to the wisdom of Homer Simpson.

"Well, John Q. Driveway has our number. Now we play the waiting game."

(Long pause)

"Awww, the waiting game sucks. Let's play Hungry, Hungry Hippos!"

I suppose in our particular case, it's not John Q. Driveway who has our number. So for us, I could say, "Well, John Q. Adoption-Agency has our number. Now we play the waiting game!"

Anyone want to play the waiting game with me? Of course, I'm with Homer - I'd much rather play Hungry, Hungry Hippos too.

Busy busy!

Does decorating for Christmas turn anyone else into a cleaning machine?

This weekend was crazy. It was the kind of weekend that made me glad for Monday so I could finally get some quiet! On Friday night, Mister and I went out for sushi (yum, sushi) and scheduled our whole weekend plans.

We woke up early on Saturday, planning to clean the house, buy our Christmas tree, decorate the house, decorate the tree and run various other errands. I started with cleaning because I couldn't stand the thought of bringing a tree into a messy house.

The worst part of cleaning and decorating for me is that it becomes a never-ending spiral. We decided to put the tree in the living room, which required moving some of the furniture. No one on here knows me in real life, so I can admit this in relative anonymity. I hadn't moved the furniture for a few months. There was a lot of gross stuff behind those couches! Of course, I can't vacuum behind and underneath one piece of furniture and not the others, so we moved pretty much everything out of the living room so I could clean it. Phew. That was long. Then I realized that I couldn't clean the living room without cleaning the kitchen and dining room either. So my quick cleaning before I move the tree in actually became a long cleaning and it took several more hours than I thought. Then we went out, did some errands, and bought a Christmas tree. By then it was after dark! We hung up some of the outside lights, had some hot chocolate and called it a night.

Yesterday we did some more cleaning and organizing, more errands, grocery shopping, decorated the tree and I baked some brownies.

I have to say, since I stopped working, I rarely have weekends with that much activity. Our weekends used to be that busy, but lately I spread out our errands across the days.

Today, Mister went to work and he's going out with a friend after work tonight. I hope he doesn't wake me up when he comes in, but he will be home very late. It's about 25 degrees and he and his friend have gone to the Jets game up in MA. I have to say, I'm not jealous of him at all. I don't like football and I can't stand being cold. I'm glad his friend invited him so that he gets to go out and do these kinds of things. I have no interest at all, but I hate to see him wanting to do things that I won't do. So I'm glad he has a chance to go with a friend. But man, I am not jealous of that experience!

Tomorrow night is the local adoption meeting, Wednesday I'm interviewing a pediatrician for our baby (hee hee, our baby! I love it) for whenever we're matched, so hopefully on Thursday I'll be able to submit our final bit of paperwork to the agency and we'll be really waiting.

Thanks for all the feedback on my last post. I still haven't decided what I'm going to do about the drug test. If I ever get around to doing it, they'll probably think I took so long while I waited for all the illegal drugs to leave my system. Ah, the irony. Really, my issue with it is the abuse of power. I just bristle at the thought of quietly submitting to an abuse of power. And the fact that the process to become a substitute teacher in this town is more stringent than to become an adoptive parent, that just seems so strange. If CT required drug tests for everything, fine, whatever. It's still an abuse of power, but if it's state-wide, then I wouldn't be able to avoid it. However, none of the other towns around here requires a drug test, so if I want, maybe I'll just sub in one of the non-power-abusing towns. We shall see.

And now for something completely random... We have those candles in our windows for Christmas, so the shades are only down about 2/3 of the way. As I've been sitting here typing this, I'm looking out the window. My neighbors across the street have come home since I've been watching. This house has a mom and a teenage daughter. Both of them are home. It's completely dark outside now, but the house across the street has no lights on. Maybe it's an early bed night at their house too...

And how bad is it that Mister goes out for a night and my most exciting plan is that it's an early bed night?

Back!

It's been a crazy few weeks around here. Mister took a class over Thanksgiving, so he went away. It was a pretty cool opportunity - to take a week-long "study abroad" class. However, it meant he was away from me on Thanksgiving, which was kind of sad.

So I piled my stuff in the car, took the dog and we drove north to MA to spend the week with my family. It was good, my dad and my brothers were all there.

But weird, because my dad invited my mom's family. It's so strange to me that my dad is getting close with my mom's family at this point in our lives. My mom was never close to her family, so they were this side of the family that I never saw that much growing up. Consequently, I'm not really close to them, and actually I'm kind of suspicious of them. My mom was always pretty honest with me about her relationship with her siblings and it was not a good relationship. Sure, people change and all of that. So it's possible that my aunts and uncles have all grown up and changed and become normal. Sure, it's possible. But I'm not holding out any hope or anything like that. Anyway, Thanksgiving was fine. Everyone was social and appropriate and it wasn't too bad.

Mister came home on Sunday from his trip, and then he had to go back to work on Monday. Now this week I've been sick, so I think I've mostly slept this week. It's been kind of boring. I might be ready to shed the sick and laying around boredom for some excitement.

And in adoption news, we're *STILL* not officially waiting yet. "Wha!??!" you say? Yeah, me too. Our social worker found some more paperwork for us to do before we can be officially submitted. Sigh. We have to find a pediatrician, and while I'm tempted to just write down a name, it's probably better to take the few days and do the research.

But in good news, I wrote an e-mail to someone that I've seen on an adoption forum. Her signature says that she is from the town next to me, and that she works for a local agency. So I asked her for any recommendations on a pediatrician who is experienced working with adoptive families. She wrote back to say that she has many friends who live in my town who have adopted and that she'll call them for me and see who they use for doctors. Then she said she's a facilitator at a local adoption group and that they're having a meeting next week and that I ought to come! So I think I will. And then I can ask people what doctors they use! Or even just meet other people who are adopting and local. That's pretty awesome.

Now Mister and I are meeting for lunch. We have a favorite restaurant that's opening a new location nearby, and we've been waiting a long long time to go to the new place. It's finally open, so we decided to meet up for lunch. This is what I love about having my days free! I can go on a Thursday afternoon and meet my husband for lunch. Ah, sweet unemployment...

Waiting

Last week, I was on an adoption related forum, and a bunch of the posters were talking about adoption Christmas ornaments. I have to say, I've seen many, and I've never seen any that were my taste at all. (If you're reading this and thinking, "I love adoption ornaments and I have 35 of them on my tree!" I'm sorry and I don't mean to insult you or your tree. I'm sure your tree is lovely, but adoption ornaments have just never been my thing.)

Anyway, on this forum, one lady posted a picture of an ornament that she got while she was waiting to adopt her daughter. It said, "We will hold you in our hearts until we can hold you in our arms." For whatever reason, that struck me as one of the most lovely sentiments I'd ever read. And it was phrased nicely. It just hit all the right notes for me.

I told Mister about it, and he rolled his eyes. He doesn't get this whole "waiting" thing. His perspective on having an ornament to acknowledge "waiting" is that it's mournful, and hanging a reminder on the Christmas tree of what we don't have. So the idea of holding someone in our hearts while we wait only serves to make us sad about who's not here instead of celebrating and enjoying the people who are here with us now.

I kind of get it. Kind of. I didn't really have a response to him about it either. But here's why it's different for me. Being sad about who's not here (which I totally am) doesn't fall into the "adoption waiting" department. When I'm sad and mad about who's not here, when I get annoyed at the fact that EVERY SINGLE LAST ONE of my friends has kid(s) and that they get to send picture Christmas cards and buy Baby's First Christmas 2010 ornaments and write jackass messages on Facebook about how many diapers they've changed or when was the last time they slept (last Tuesday) or whatever, I don't blame adoption for that. Oh no, those complaints go straight to the source - infertility.

In my mind, infertility = bad, terrible, angry, sad, all those feelings that make me mournful for who's not in our house for this Christmas, last Christmas, any Christmas. I can be angry with our infertility. I am furious with our infertility. It has robbed us for the last 6 Christmases of the holidays we dreamed of. That's the infertility department. That's where all the hateful feelings go.

But adoption = hope. We Wait in Joyful Hope, remember. I am angry, furious, even hate infertility. But infertility is not the same as adoption. Sure, we're adopting because of infertility, but I come to adoption with an absolutely pure and hopeful heart. When I think of adoption, I don't think of that feeling of having been robbed for the 6 Christmases in the past. I think of the future, and all the Christmases we will have together. Someday.

You know how people can read the same thing and get a different meaning? "We will hold you in our hearts until we can hold you in our arms" doesn't emphasize empty arms to me. It emphasizes hope for the time when I will hold our baby in my arms. It's not empty arms, it's full heart. To me, that ornament says, "Hang on, Baby. We're coming. Someday we'll all be together."

On the other hand, I don't need an ornament to tell me that I have a heart that's full of hope for the future. "Hang on, Baby. We're coming. Someday we'll all be together." Well, that's what I say to myself every day, every breath. Every fiber of my being is waiting. This baby does not leave my thoughts. Hanging an ornament wouldn't change that.

Honestly, I probably wouldn't have gotten a "waiting family" adoption ornament anyway. As I said, it wasn't really ever my style. But I absolutely will be holding this baby in my heart until I'm holding him/her in my arms, no matter what I hang on my Christmas tree. And some Christmas, my arms will be as full as my heart.

Updates All Around

1) Book club was weird. I was the only one who came. Well, me and the guy who set the whole thing up. So we chatted and hung out, talking about the book, life, other books, movies, TV, whatever. It was awkward, as it always is to meet somebody new. It felt kind of like a first date. Which seriously, I've been married for over 7 years. Before we got married, we dated for 6 years. Folks, I haven't been on a date with a new person since 1997. So I went on a book club date last night. It was weird. But I guess I'd go back next month, so that's good.

2) Our profile books were delivered to the agency yesterday. Now we're just waiting for our social worker to send the final copy of the home study, and that's completely out of our control, so we've done what we can do.

3) Out of the blue this morning, I got an e-mail from the personnel director in the town where I interviewed for the kindergarten job last summer. When I spoke with the principal in August, she recommended that I sign up to substitute, which I did, but no one ever called. But today, she did. She's going to send out the paperwork to me today, so maybe within the next few weeks, I'll be working again.

So that's what's new around here.

Social Stuff

Thanks for all the support on my Christmas wish! I just hope it comes true.

I have a quick adoption update and 2 social quandaries to discuss.

Adoption Update - I got an e-mail today from someone at the agency who said that our fingerprints have been received at the agency and that's one more thing we're no longer waiting for. Also, the profile books are scheduled to be delivered to the agency tomorrow. Now they're waiting for the final copy of our home study and a big old check from us. I guess I'll send the check tomorrow. And then, holy moly, I think we're officially waiting. Who knows how long we'll be waiting, but waiting is better than being almost ready to be waiting, no?

Weird Social Situation #1 - This is not a quandary as much as it is just weird, but here it is. I signed up to go to a book club that meets tomorrow night. I'm scared to death. I read the book, and I liked it, but I'm nervous to talk about it. But you know, we moved down here almost 4 years ago, and I have no friends here. I worked with a bunch of great people at my school 2 years ago, but I don't really see them or talk to them that much anymore. They're all busy working in the pressure cooker that is elementary school. I was great friends with them when I worked there, because we were all there 10-12 hours a day and they were really cool people. But now, they're at work 10-12 hours a day, and I'm home. So I figure it can't hurt to do something new that may expand my social circle. But I'm scared to death. But you know that saying? "Do one thing every day that scares you." Well, I know what mine is for tomorrow! Gulp. Mister keeps telling me that the worst thing that could happen is that I go and it's terrible. Then I won't go back next month. And who cares? It's just about trying something new and maybe meeting some new people. So that's my first weird social situation of the night.

Weird Social Situation #2 - This week on Facebook, I reconnected with someone that I haven't seen in probably 9 years. We used to work together, and I left that job 9 years ago, and I really don't think I've seen her since. As with probably any 9 year segment of anybody's life, a lot can happen in 9 years. 9 years ago, I was engaged, I was in grad school, I had a job, we lived in Massachusetts, we hadn't gone through any IF stuff, we definitely weren't home study ready for adoption (woo hoo! I just have to keep throwing that out there because it's so exciting...) So of course, she wrote on my wall tonight, "How are you? What are you up to now?"

I feel like I could go several ways with this. I'm generally a positive, happy person. I'm not a complainer. And most importantly, *NO ONE* in our lives (except for 2 very close friends and one brother) knows about our adoption plans. We are not "out" at all about our IF and adoption stuff. Obviously, we tell people that we don't have kids, but we tend to shut down the conversation there. I'm just not a sharer (funny to think of the cognitive dissonance that allows my non-sharing personality to write a blog.)

But in the last 9 years, I've gone through a lot of crap. A lot of great stuff, too, but it feels like the great stuff is less significant stuff. Except being married. That remains the most incredible thing I've ever done, and Mister remains the most incredible person I know.

So since I last talked to this lady, I finished grad school, got married, got the greatest dog, went through IF crap, moved to Connecticut, got a great job, lost a great job, still have no kids, took some awesome trips, and a bunch of other stuff.

But it's weird because I don't even really know how honest or open I want to be with her anyway. I haven't seen her in 9 years. And I liked her, I liked working with her; she was a lot of fun. But I haven't seen her or talked to her in 9 years. So beyond the "Oh, we're great, live in CT now, keeping busy" filler, maybe it won't even go further. If I ran into her in the mall somehow, that's probably all I'd give her. But because it's Facebook and it's the same space I share with some deep friendships and family, I'm tempted to be open and honest and tell her that it's been 9 years with ups and downs. I don't know. Facebook is weird, man.

How honest would you be with her if you were me?

Better

Thanks for bearing with my blah feeling last week. I was able to push through it by making some Oreo cheesecake cupcakes. They were awesome. Well, the recipe made 30 cheesecake cupcakes, so they continue to be awesome. I've eaten about 3, Mister's had maybe another 3, and he took a dozen and a half to work with him. I think we have 6 or 7 left...

As I said in this post, I am a little obsessed with Christmas. I love it. I love Christmas music, I love cooking and baking for Christmas, I love decorating. I just love Christmas. I pretty much always have.

A few years ago, we decided in my family not to exchange gifts with each other anymore. My brothers are all really bad at buying gifts, and it clearly was highly stressful for them. We never liked the things that we bought for each other, so we just decided not to buy gifts for each other. When we told Mister's family that we were not buying gifts in my family, they decided that it sounded like a good idea too, and in both families, we stopped doing a gift exchange.

That may have happened in 2007, I don't remember. So for a few years, we had these weird Christmases without gifts. Last year, we were with my family for Christmas, and we all went on a trip together. That was fun.

This year, we're spending Christmas with Mister's family. I told Mister that I want gifts again. I don't care if his parents get us anything, or his sister. Or if we get them anything. But we've at least decided that we should buy something for each other.

Mister asked me what I want, and I told him that I want one of those 3 stone past, present, future necklaces. Not necessarily that one that I linked to, but one like it. But when I wear it, the stones won't represent the past, present and future. Each stone will stand for a person in our family. One stone for me, one for Mister, and one for baby. I wonder if I'll get one.

If I do, then I can wear it and it will be a visible symbol of our waiting. Not that anyone would look at a 3 stone diamond necklace and assume that each stone stands for a member of my family. Not that I would tell anyone. Also, not that I forget for a second of any day that I'm waiting for that 3rd person to join our family.

Then the other thing I thought of that would be cool is if I get one of those necklaces and wear it while we wait for baby, someday I could give the necklace to baby when he or she is an adult. Obviously, this scenario works better if baby is a girl. But maybe a guy would like a piece of jewelry. Especially if the story behind the piece of jewelry is, "I wore it when we were waiting for you. I wore it as a reminder to myself that you were always in my heart. And I wore it knowing that I would give it to you someday."

Does anyone else have any good holiday wishes this year?

Blah

I'm feeling very blah this week. If that's even a word. I need a new project, because I don't really feel like doing much of anything.

It feels so weird, because I worked so hard on our profile books for so very long, and now I kind of don't know what to do with myself since I've finished.

But here's a quick list of what's happening.

1) I ordered the profile books to send to our agency. If, in a few months, we decide to switch to a larger agency, we may have to redo and reorder our profile books. I figure that goes into the "cross that bridge when I get to it" category.

2) Our home study is finished. Our social worker finished writing it and sent me a draft copy. I know that I'm not alone in this, as I've read on other blogs and adoption message boards and whatnot. Our home study was full of mistakes. Not so many factual things that she got wrong, but more spelling and punctuation and grammar stuff. That aggravated me. It's just sloppy, and someone with a master's degree should have been held to higher standards in school and in work all along. I shouldn't have to explain to a social worker in her late 20s with a master's degree, that when writing about my brothers, she should call them brothers and not brother's. So I fixed it for her. The whole thing. Because my other option was to allow her to submit a home study with spelling errors. And that seemed stupider than making the errors in the first place. So I fixed them.

3) Otherwise, it's been a quiet week. I got a new food processor for my birthday, and I haven't used it yet. I've been too much in a funk to bake. But today is rainy, so I just may start cooking something. I got a bunch of new cupcake pans, which is good because my other one was so old. I think I got it in 1999 or something. I saw them at Target for 50% off! They're awesome because they come with plastic covers that snap on to the pan. So now I can make cupcakes, put them back into the pan after I frost them, and Mister can put the lid on and take the whole thing to work.

Nothing really exciting. Kind of a blah week, see what I mean? It's a good thing this is not an ICLW week because I would so not be into it! Anyway, sorry that I've fallen behind on my reading and commenting. I'm back now, I think.

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!

Welcome back, ICLW!

I remembered to do ICLW this month, for which I'm quite glad, since I completely forgot in September and was a terrible blogger and commenter, so I hope that more people will come and read and stay for a while!

Here are some interesting things about me that will help you get to know me better.

1) Mister and I are planning to complete a domestic adoption. We are in the waiting phase, otherwise known as the "it's completely out of our control and there's nothing more we can do" phase. We're waiting for our social worker to finish writing our home study, we're waiting for our fingerprint clearances to be returned by the FBI (8-12 weeks, how 'bout that for efficient governance...sigh.) and we're waiting to be ready to wait to be matched.

2) I majored in music in college. I wasn't (and still am not) particularly talented, but I loved playing the piano in high school, so I picked my major in college because I thought it would be fun. I am, as you might say, the complete opposite of driven. I studied music because I loved it. I knew so many people in college who studied economics or science so that they'd get jobs. It's 12 years later, I have no job, and they probably do. But whatever. I had so much fun doing what I loved for those 4 years.

3) I got this new cookbook last week, Martha Stewart's Cupcakes. I'm thinking about doing a Julie & Julia style project and baking each one of the 175 cupcakes in the book. I don't know if I'd do it as a blog or not though. I'm sure someone else already has, so it's not like I'm the first person to think of such things. Or even if anyone would be interested in looking at pictures of my cupcakes.

4) I'm slightly obsessed with Christmas music. I have 31 hours of Christmas music on my computer right now. It's October. I'll add more throughout the season. And that says nothing of all the CDs that I have. I have no idea how much Christmas music I actually have. I try not to listen to it before November though. I figure that while early November isn't really when most people turn on their Christmas music, putting it on in October would make me an object of public scorn and ridicule. So I wait until November. Usually.

5) I hate cold. Hate it, hate it, hate it. To the point that I wish that people could hibernate. If I were a bear, I'd be getting ready to go to sleep now and I'd wake up in March or so. It sounds excellent to me. I hate cold, I like to sleep. Clearly, I should have been a bear.

What is something interesting about you?

D'oh!

I completely forgot about ICLW. I forgot to sign up and now it's too late. But maybe that's OK - I'll do free form ICLW and post and comment when I can. Feel free to leave comments (or not) if you like.

We are moving along right along with all the adoption stuff. Mister went to the doctor for his physical, and we are so close to being finished with the profile book. We're still working on the closing few paragraphs and then that's it. I can't believe we're really this close. (Of course, this is before I have to wait up to 3 years or whatever. I'm sure after years of waiting being "this close" will seem funny.)

This weekend, Mister and I are going to my aunt and uncle's 25th wedding anniversary party. My uncle is my mom's youngest brother, and he was a very young uncle. He is 13 years older than my older brother, and 16 years older than I. When we were very little, we had a teenage uncle! Kind of funny. (It's not really that funny, I suppose. My uncle was born when my mom was 12, and so my mom was 25 when my brother was born and 28 when she had me. Not that unusual at all, really.)

At any rate, we're going to my uncle's party. My mom wasn't really close to her family, so we didn't really see them all that much, and I'm not sure I've seen them since my mom's funeral.

None of my brothers are going; they all have other things they're doing. So it's just me and Mister and my dad. I still feel weird about going though. Just because I haven't seen them in so long. And because I haven't seen them in a long time, I really hope this party won't turn into a "when are you going to have kids?" spectacular. Because while I can write my little paragraph up there about how much progress we've made on this adoption, we still have no idea when we are going to have kids. And we're not "out" about this adoption AT ALL (like no one except the people who wrote our reference letters knows) so I won't even tell them how much progress we've made.

But, the good news is that on the way home from my uncle's, we are stopping to see our friends who had a baby recently. I think she's like 7 weeks old or something. So I'm kind of psyched about that. Knowing that I will get some baby cuddles is going to be the carrot on the stick to get me through this (probably very boring) family party.

6 Pages Left!

First off, is everyone's profile 20 pages long? I looked at some online and they were like 6-8 pages, so when our social worker said that for our agency, most people's are 18-20 pages I resisted the urge to have a temper tantrum and scream, "THAT'S SO UNFAIR!!!"

Either way, Mister and I have 3 more pages to write each, so 6 pages in total left. I'm pretty psyched. I have to write about Mister, like what I love about him and why he'll be an awesome father. He has to write one about me too. Then we each have to write about our respective families and then we each are writing a page about ourselves. I think on my page about myself, I'm writing more about biographical information, things like where I grew up, what I like to do, how I feel about teaching and I'm writing less about why I think I'll be a good mother. I'll let Mister cover that, because frankly, I have no idea. It's kind of weird.

So 6 pages left - about me by me, about Mister by Mister, about Mister by me and about me by Mister. Then we each write a page about our families and we're done. We're finishing this weekend. And from there, we're on our way.

Oddly, Mister and I had one of our very first conversations the other day that was actually about parenting and what it will be like when we have a baby.

:-D I just said, "when we have a baby" like it's really going to happen!! Yay. Sorry. Back to my story.

One of our dear friends had a baby about 6 weeks ago, and she posted something on Facebook about how she thinks the baby has acid reflux problems because the baby cries so much. One of her friends commented on that post and said, "Yeah, that's awful. We thought that about (whatever her own kid's name was) too. She just cried for like 6 months and then it got kind of better."

So here's the thing - we love our friend, and so automatically, we love our friend's baby. It sucks that her baby might have reflux. I hate to think of a tiny 6 week old baby just being in pain and crying a lot. That makes me sad. It makes me sad to think that my friend has to watch her baby be in pain and not know how to help. That makes me sad.

But then there's this other part. This part of me that reads that FB comment and wonders, "Wait, they just cry for like 6 months? And then it gets kind of better?"

So that's what Mister and I were talking about - what the hell do you do? They just cry for 6 months? How do normal people handle that? I am patient, patient, patient. I have a master's degree in teaching small children. I've been the big sister, the babysitter, the teacher, all feeling like I'm preparing myself for that "someday". But let me tell you. I'm patient, yet I get annoyed when the dog scratches the door to go outside for the 2nd or 3rd time in an hour. I'm always like, "WTH? I just took you out. You need to go out again?" I'm patient as anything, but I recognize that I have limits and annoyances.

Mister, well, he doesn't think he's patient at all. I think he is more patient than he gives himself credit for. He's patient with me, and he's patient with the dog. He gets impatient when people at work bug the crap out of him, but I don't think how you behave at work is necessarily the same as how you behave with family.

But yeah. So they just cry for 6 months and then it gets kind of better? Kill me now. Oh wait. I'm signing up to do this. On purpose.

I don't know, man. Are we insane for wanting to do this? I figure somehow babies turn 7 moths old and everyone has a baby, so somehow it works out. I'm banking on it.

Yeah, so I've been blogging about babies who cry and I've written 0 of my 3 pages. And really, worrying about crying babies when I haven't even finished the profile, well that's kind of putting the cart before the horse. I guess I'd better get back to work. Because we're finishing this weekend. I'm sending the final draft to the social worker on Monday. For realz.

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.