Would I Even Know?

Last night as I was sitting at my desk, reading yet another e-mail telling us that we wouldn’t be getting a child we’ve wanted to adopt for a long time, I couldn’t help but wonder . . .

We’ve been on this path for so long, do I even still have the ability to recognize when it’s time to stop our pursuit of parenthood?

I have prayed for God to send our child(ren) to us. More recently, I have prayed that if we aren’t supposed to be parents, we get some sort of definitive sign where we’ll just KNOW and can get on with our lives. ***

Since that prayer a few weeks ago, one adoptive situation fell apart, the birthmom changed her mind on another, out-of-state-baby is no longer an option because of policy changes within the county, and the girl we were approached about is being put through every test her foster parents can think of before they’ll make up their mind to adopt, but all evidence is pointing to them keeping her.

Have I become one of those women I swore I’d never become?

On one level, the answer is no. As we went into this years ago, I had a list of lines I vowed never to cross in my pursuit of motherhood (though I don’t judge anyone who has done these things – I understand each and every one). I have been true to my word.

I haven’t put my marriage in jeopardy. Our marriage is rock solid.

I haven’t put us in financial jeopardy, which would have been so easy to do.

I haven’t taken money from other people to try and build our family.

I haven’t continued in a direction that didn’t feel “right” for us as a couple (infertility treatment specifically).

I haven’t fixated on what I don't have to the exclusion of all that I DO have (though I’ve had my moments). I would have missed out on so much these past few years if I had gone to that dark place.

But, I do wonder if I’ve been “in this” for so long that I've lost my perspective - yet another thing I never wanted to do.

We had four solid irons in the fire a month ago. Now all four have gone cold. Is that our sign? Would I even know it if it was? I’m truthfully not sure. I don’t like that.

Looks like someone has some more soul-searching to do.

**** Though I appreciate the very good intentions behind it, please oh please don’t write and tell me what to pray, or how to pray.

Strike Out

The birthmom changed her mind. She's keeping the baby.

When I found out Friday night that the baby would be here so quickly, I took a MAJOR emotional step backwards from the situation. I just didn't see a way, logistically, for all of the legal stuff to fall into place between now and "then".

So I wasn't upset when I got the call this afternoon. O is actually more disappointed than I am.

Oh well, one strike doesn't mean we're out. Onward to the future, which will include a call to our worker in the monring letting her know that we're jumping into the foster care mix - ages three and under, preferably one child but we'll consider two. We'll do this only with the understanding that if the adoptive situation we are discussing works out, we'll have the opportunity to pursue that and any others that may come along.

Make That a Fast Ball

The baby?

Due in one week.

If he/she comes early, I have no idea how that would work. We will probably have to wait till Monday at the earliest to even start getting paperwork drawn up, and we can't take a child from the hospital who we don't have legal custody of. We couldn't make medical decisions for that child, and couldn't cover him or her under our insurance. That would be a recipe for disaster.

So, I wait for more information and hope that somehow this can all work out logistically.

Crap my brain is tired. And it's only 4:46am.

Curve Ball, Left Field

When you're looking to add to your family through adoption, it's not unusual to find yourself in the following conversation, or some version of it:

Other Person: So, how is that whole adoption thing going? (insert tentative grimace on their face)

Me: Blah blah blah - usually short and sweet

OP: Well, my mother's co-workers' friend's granddaughter is pregnant and looking for someone to adopt her child. Would you be interested?

Me: Sure.

OP: Well, I'll let me mother know about you and she can pass along the information.

Then you never hear another word. That's fine. You never expect to.

Except . . .

Last weekend one of our friends who is a social worker (not with D*C*F*S or any subsidiary thereof) mentioned that one of her co-workers knew a lady whose niece was pregnant for the second time. She already has one child who is being raised by the birth mom's mother, and Grandma can't/won't do anymore. Was I interested?

Of course I said yes, and my only caveat was that we'd want to find out if birth mom was taking any kind of drugs, not because it would be a deal breaker necessarily, but because we wanted to know what we'd be dealing with.

To be honest, I forgot all about it, until I called my friend this morning about something completely unrelated and she said, "My co-worker talked to the aunt and the family says it sounds good to them."

My eloquent response?

"WHAT sounds good to them?"

Apparently they are interested in us for this baby.

I have no information. None. Other than no drugs are involved.

I don't know the sex, the due date, any health problems the baby may have.

Nothing.

So I e-mailed my friend with some basic questions, cause clearly this family is further down the track than we are in terms of information about each other. I'm waiting for a response.

I spent an hour on the phone with an attorney's office this morning, first with the attorney and then with the woman in his office who handles adoption. Got all my questions answered. They just need the go ahead and they will draw up adoption papers and take care of getting them signed. They even said they'd pick up the baby and bring it to us if that's what we all decide to do.

The state does require one home study visit, but happily our home study through D*C*F*S covers that.

I called our social worker because there was some talk that the family was just going to put the child "into the system" after they'd been told they would have to shoulder some of the legal costs of having the child adopted. I let my friend know that that was 100% wrong, and that the adoptive family pays the legal expenses. (The attorney confirmed that.) Anyway, if they choose to go the D*C*F*S route, my question for our worker was whether they could request that the baby be placed with us. They can, but of course the workers would then be legally required to spend six months offering services to the birth mother and trying to return the baby to her. As J said, if they are wanting the child adopted, D*C*F*S is not the way to go. She even said to give them her phone # and she would explain the way the system works and also let them know about us and all we had to go through to be approved to adopt through the state. So generous!

I assumed that the family would like to know more about us, so I'm working on yet another copy of my ABC scrapbook of our family and life here to give to them. I'll also include a letter of introduction and try to answer some of the questions that I'd be wondering about if I was a birth mother. That should take up a huge chunk of my weekend.

Holy cow. No really. Holy cow. What in the world is going on?

I've told one of my girlfriends and she got all squealy and happy and started talking about the "hand of God" being all over this. I told her that I appreciated her enthusiasm and excitement but that I had spent waaaaaay too long in this process to be putting my eggs in this basket right now. In fact, I don't even SEE the basket yet. It's fun to think about - that's about where I am right now. It's entirely possible that the birth mother will choose another family and I won't hear another word.

But if nothing else, this shows me how quickly things can change.

We're still "in the game" regarding the adoptive placement we were approached about, by the way. Just waiting to see what foster mom and foster dad decide and we'll go from there.

Better run. There's scrapbooking to do! Happy weekend all!

No News Is Probably No News

I don’t know whether no news is good news . . . or just no news.

I sent J a note yesterday morning asking if she knew when the child’s worker would be speaking with the foster parents. Haven’t heard a thing. She’s great about responding in a timely manner so I’d expect to get an e-mail today.

Our guess is that if they choose not to keep the child, visits in our home will begin quickly. If that’s the case, we will be thrown into a “child-proofing frenzy”.

The child has some behavioral problems. We’ve been given quite a bit of information, have done some research, and have talked ourselves silly, but until we can spend some actual time with her, we simply can’t know if those behaviors are something we feel capable of dealing with or whether she’d be better suited to another home.

I have met one of the foster parents – heard her talk about this child and how much they hoped TPR would be done so she and her husband could adopt. Knowing what I do, I’m guessing they keep her. If they don’t, that sends us a pretty clear message about just how challenging this little one might be.

I’ve been praying about this situation and have simply asked God for this:

If this isn’t supposed to be our child, then please make that clear to us in the least painful way possible. Let there be roadblocks between us and her so that we have no doubt.

If this IS supposed to be our child, then please remove the roadblocks, clear our minds of some of our concerns, and equip us to take on this little girl and her challenges and create the best life for her that we possibly can.

Boy Oh Boy

Boy oh boy . . .

oh boy oh boy . . .

do I have a lot going on in my head at the moment.

I got an e-mail from our worker a few minutes ago. She was able to answer most everything we'd asked regarding the possible adoptive situation we've been presented. Some of the information was definitely concerning, but there was nothing there that stopped me in my tracks.

The kicker is that everything is on hold. The foster parents of this child are dragging their feet in committing to adopt, so the state is getting together the paperwork to look for adoptive parents - possibly us. Our concern, and the concern of the workers is that once foster mom and dad hear that someone else is interested, they'll say that they want them.

On one hand, they've been with this family for a long time. It would probably be better on an emotional level for the child to stay with them. On the other hand, as much as we have tried to not get excited, it hasn't worked. I think we both have our hearts set on at least having the CHANCE to see where this goes.

Boy oh boy.

Making a List ~ Checking it Twice

^^^^^This is our pond in the woods behind our house^^^^^

I've spent a good part of the weekend talking to O, our foster/adoptive mommy friends and family, and racking my brain to compile a list of initial questions to ask the caseworker of the child we are interested in. Here's the generic version:

What is her exact age?

Why was she taken into care initially? What is known about the abuse/neglect she experienced?

Was there any known sexual abuse?

What is the placement history? How old was she when she came into care? How many foster homes has she been in? Any disrupted placements? How long as she been with the current foster family?

Does she have any other siblings? If so, what is their status?

Does she have contact with any biological family members at this time?

What do you know the backgrounds of the biological parents, including medical? Is there any information available on the biological grandparents?

When was TPR completed? When did she last see her biological mother? Father?

Has she ever had any psychological evaluations? Counseling? Is there any indication of RAD, ODD, PTSD?

You mentioned that her only diagnosis at this time is _______. Does she seem to have some issues that her foster parents (or caseworker) feel are currently undiagnosed?

Any medical problems?

Did her biological mom use drugs while pregnant? If so, do you know what kind of drugs? Was she born drug addicted?

Is she on any medications? If so, do they have any side effects for her?

Does she have delays or impairments on any developmental level? If so, in what areas, and what is being done to treat them? Any learning disorders?

I’d imagine she is a little bit young for it, but has IQ testing been done?

Are there any issues with eating, sleeping, and napping?

Has there been any aggression towards other children or animals? Any sexual acting out?

How soon would weekend visits begin if we decided to move forward?

What do you feel would be our biggest challenge in adopting her?
 

Is there anything else that you feel we should know to helping us make the best decision for ourselves and for her?

So that's it . . . anything jump out at you that I'm missing? I'm pretty sure I've covered all of our bases, which means that I'm absolutely, positively missing SOMETHING!

My weekend has gone something like this:

nervousexcitednervousexcitednervousexcitednervousexcitednervousexcitednervousexcited

Can't wait to see what this week might hold! Tee hee!

Ode to Opie

O and I are both dog people and have been all our lives. We didn’t really dislike cats – just had no use for them.

God said “HA!” to that and sent a very pregnant Mama Kitty to have her babies in one of our barns about five years ago. The rest, as they say, is feline history.

At first they were just little curiosities. We’d get a glimpse of them every now and then as Mama Kitty moved them from place to place. She took such good care of her four babies, even when the remnants of Hurricane Ivan blew into town. I knew we were hooked when my dog-loving husband put on a raincoat and went looking for the kitties in the midst of the storm, finding them warm and dry (much drier than he was) under a hollowed-out log at the edge of our woods.

As they grew, O and I would take our lawn chairs out in the evening and just sit and watch their antics as they ran and played and explored their world. They also became less skittish, letting us get closer and closer to them as the weeks passed. Mama Kitty was very tame and loved to be petted, which showed the kittens that perhaps we weren’t so bad after all. When they were a couple of months old, I noticed that one of the kittens, Opie, had been attacked by something. He had a huge gash in his side – it looked horrible – but I simply couldn’t get close enough to catch him and get him to the vet.

He healed physically but spent the first few years of his life terrified of the world. He liked to be near us when we were outside, but as his sister and brothers would come running up for petting, he’d sit a ways off in the yard watching. As months passed he’d inch closer, sitting on the patio when we were out there in the chairs. He WANTED to be petted. You could see it in his eyes as he watched the other cats come over, unafraid. Every month he seemed to edge his way closer, rubbing up against the hand rail on the steps or on the leg of the bbq grill nearby.

Finally one day – VOILA – he was in a group of his siblings who were getting loves and O was able to scratch Opie’s back. The funniest part was that Opie was in heaven until he turned around, noticed someone was touching him, and headed for the hills. So for a while there, you could pet him as long as he didn’t realize it.

Then one day he gathered up every ounce of his bravery and just let us love on him. Each night he’d come sit on the back steps and peer in through the blinds, waiting for petting. In the weeks before his death, O was even able to pick him up. I could not believe it.

Opie was my favorite. He’d been so scared so much of his life, yet even though he was still fearful, he chose to be brave and vulnerable and loved. There’s a lesson in there for all of us.

Last night I couldn’t help but glance at the back door expecting to see that little black and white face peering in at me. But of course he wasn’t there. His body is resting in his warm bed, covered by a soft blanket and buried back by our grape vines. His sweet spirit is finally no longer scared, and I hope he is racing around kitty Heaven playing and getting lots and lots of loves. He deserves them.

I love you Ops. I’ll never forget you my brave boy.

Buzzzzzzzzz - Updated

There's a buzz of excitement around our house the last 12 hours or so.

I can't say too much - don't want to jinx it - but I will say this . . .

We got an e-mail from our worker about a situation. Even if it works out, nothing will happen immediately and although there is the possibility that the rug might be completely pulled out from under us, we are buzzing with excitement this morning.

Well, with excitement and lots and lots questions.

On the agenda for today?

1. Shopping for Christmas ornaments with my Mom, Dad, and O. It's a tradition in our family - Dad and I have done it every year since I was a little girl.

2. One lengthy call to our worker.

**Updated** O found my kitty cat Opie dead this morning. We don't know what happened. He'd been sick a couple of weeks ago - was unable to move his front legs - but some major antibiotics and anti-inflammatories at the vet's office and he was almost back to normal. O found him laying back by our smokehouse where he eats and sleeps. My Ops is gone and I am devestated.

Positivity

You might want to mark this date down in your calendar because I am hereby going to say something extremely positive about our personal experiences with the foster/adopt system of my state.

Ahem.

I love our caseworker. Love. Her.

She taught our foster/adopt classes way back when and is the one who arranged for us to go from Horrible Rotten County’s D*C*F*S back to her county, where they actually seem to do things like “communicate” and “follow up” and “do their jobs”. Imagine that.

She visited a couple of weeks ago to meet with us and do her every-six-months check of our home. O wasn’t able to be there but J and I sat and visited and laughed and had a grand old time. I think if we weren’t “case*worker” and “adoptive parent”, we’d have been dear friends. So needless to say, I feel like I can really talk to her and that I can trust her to give me her best advice and to do what she says she’s going to do. That just plain makes me happy.

Basically, we are at the very top of her list for an adoptive placement.

We talked about whether O & I really wanted to foster at this point, and I told her I was really torn about it. Several of my friends have recently had foster children removed from their homes to return to biological family. O’s cousin and his wife are losing their foster son (less than a year old) tomorrow; a child they picked up in the hospital as a newborn with multiple broken bones; a child they love and wanted to adopt. The word “devastation” doesn’t even begin to touch their pain, even though they knew it was a possibility he would be leaving at some point. We just can’t say that we’re ready to sign up for that.

We also don’t want to miss out on an adoptive opportunity and a child who could stay “forever” because our places are filled by a child we are fostering.

And of course, we wouldn’t want to remove a foster child who is happily bonded to us because there is an adoptive placement available.

As J said, we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.

I don’t know that I ever gave her a final answer on what we want to do, but she knows that for now, we are leaning away from it in hopes that an adoptive placement will come along soon.

And it appears that that might be a possibility.

There is one situation that O and I are ridiculously excited about. I’m not going to say much about it right now, as there’s a ways to go before anything could happen, but J is on the case and is keeping us informed as things progress.

There’s another situation with children we are familiar with that may or may not become an adoptive placement. Lots of questions would need to be answered before we’d feel comfortable saying “yea” or “nay”, but again, a possibility.

The out-of-state baby has another court date mid-November so maybe we’ll have some idea of what direction that case is taking. We’re still hopeful that that situation might work out.

At least we’ve got some irons in the fire.

I was interested to hear that our old worker, Mia, may no longer be with Horrible Rotten County any longer – that she had perhaps been let go. I was thrilled to hear it, not in a vengeful way, but because I’ve always felt that if she was so blatantly dropping the ball with us, what in the world was happening with the kids she was supposed to be taking care of?!?! Okay, maybe there was a bit of glee at the thought of her finally being held accountable for the less-than-half-assed approach she seemed to take to her job. Karma. It always comes back around and bites you on the tee-hiney.

Anyway, I came away from my meeting with J ever so hopeful – moreso than I’ve been in a very long time – so hopeful that I even finished the “tree” that I wanted to do for the child’s room in our home and hung it over the bed. I like it. It makes me smile.

Last One Out, Turn Off the Light

Almost three years ago, I started an infertility support group in my area with the help of a fellow blogger. Our group was a small one– just a core group of four, with another who attended a couple of our dinners, and a few others flitting around the edges. Lord did we have fun. We got together each month (or at least tried to) for Mexican food and friendship and a ridiculous amount of laughter.

One of us, J, was newly pregnant when we began our get togethers, and is now the mommy of two deliciously beautiful little girls.

Another, B, became a mommy soon after, adopting her darling son through the foster system. His sister followed a few months ago after a successful pregnancy through ART. Two words: Gerber baby . . . . . . except maybe cuter.

Yet another, K, has two sons. I have chosen to “lose touch” with her for several reasons, but I am imagining that the boys are healthy and happy little guys.

And just a couple of weeks ago, our final member, S had a son. All babies are cute but DANG, that is one cute boy!

So that leaves me.

I’ve drifted away from the girls a little bit over the last year, and not for the reasons you might imagine. It’s not because it’s too difficult for me to see their pregnant bellies or because I feel uncomfortable with their mommy talk. My world is filled with plenty of pregnant bellies and mommy talk.

The reason why is summed up pretty well by a conversation I had with B in the early spring. We were talking about S’s newly-announced pregnancy and B said, “Of everyone, she was most apprehensive about telling you.”

I wasn’t hurt or saddened by H’s pregnancy announcement. I was thrilled for her and her husband – that after years of pain, their dream of expanding their family was coming true. I adore H – we clicked from the beginning and though we haven’t spent a lot of time together, she is one of my very favorite people.

The punch to my stomach was hearing that she didn’t want to tell me.

(By the way, B would NEVER do or say anything that she knew would be hurtful. She is generous and loving. I’m sure it just never occurred to her how that information would land in my world.)

I understand S's apprehension. I really do. She was worried about how I’d take the news because she cares about me.

Yet I still didn’t know what to do with that information. I still don’t.

Does my life look exactly like I want it to? Like I thought it would? No, though a lot of my life looks much better than I ever could have imagined.

Do I sometimes wish we’d started “trying” to have a baby sooner, or that we’d met ten years earlier. Sure.

Do I wish there was a child running around our house calling me “mom”? Sometimes I do, though not as often as I used to.

When I was in the throes of IF treatment, I was sad and wistful and somewhat fixated on having a child. I didn’t know who I’d be if I wasn't a mom. That’s what I’d always thought I’d be.

I’ve come a long way in the past months. I am FAR from having it all figured out, but I'm getting there.

When I say that I’m not sure I want to have a child, it’s not a defense mechanism, no matter what others may think. That’s how I really feel.

When I say that I’ve made peace with my infertility, I really have, believe it or not. Not every day is perfect. I do have my moments. But instead of having those moments every day or even every week, they seem to come every few months now.

I don’t need to be treated differently because I’m infertile and don’t have kids. I don’t need people to guard their words around me or be “afraid” to tell me things. I don’t need sympathy. I just need to be treated like they’d treat all the rest of their friends and not singled out for some imagined emotional handicap.

Hopefully I'll figure out what to do with the weirdness I feel about this situation and put it behind me. I am clear this is a "me" problem and that there is nothing for anyone else to do about it.

But all in all, when I look back on our infertility support group, I feel a sense of accomplishment – that I helped create something that made a very painful time in all our lives a little easier to live through. I really love and care about those girls and now their children. I know just how much each one of those babies was wanted, and I can’t wait to see the little people they become.

Click.

L-I-MBO

Aaaaahhhh! Our road trip to Niagara Falls (the Canadian side) and back through PA (Amish Country and Gettysburg) was just what we both needed. It was rainy and cold most of the time, but that didn’t stop up from doing what we’d planned to do. O explored the battlefields in Gettysburg while I spent a lot of time combing through antiques shops looking for treasures. Apparently I was successful because after ten days and almost three thousand miles, our rental car was literally packed to the gills when we pulled in our driveway. I truly don’t think I could have fit one more thing in there, unless I was holding it in my lap.

I missed a call from D*C*F*S yesterday. No message. I guess it was for a foster placement.

I did receive a note from my e-mail buddy at the State Off*ice just before we left. Apparently we are being considered for several kids including a sibling pair. No details, of course, so who knows if we’d be a good fit for any of them or if we’ll hear another word about them. Her advice? "Be patient."

Mmmmmmkkayyyyy.

Let the limbo continue. Gosh I wish I was still on vacation.

I needed that . . .

Someone from our foster/adopt classes has found my blog.

She was kind enough to write earlier this week and introduce herself.

To be honest, my first thought was “Oh shit!!!” This is my little corner of the world where I can go to rant and rave and think things out. I wasn’t so much concerned about someone from “real life” finding out about this blog as I was about the fact that I might now need to edit myself from here on out, on the (increasing) chance that D*C*F*S might find their way to me. Because really, what’s the point if I can’t be honest here?

(Of course, for all I know everyone at D*C*F*S reads regularly. If that’s the case, “Hey y’all. Maybe when you finish reading this you could go find us a kid!”)

It’s funny. When I started this blog it was about infertility and our journey towards parenthood. I used my real first name with its’ unusual spelling, and of course included the name of my state. And let’s not forget all the photos of us. I never used O’s name or our last name of course, but I always knew that it wouldn’t be difficult to find me here.

But the only time I’ve ever hesitated to post something I wrote was last week. When I said I’d let a couple of calls from D*C*F*S go right to voicemail. Just before nice-person-from-foster/adopt classes appeared.

I can only roll my eyes at the timing.

All that being said, nice-person-from-foster/adopt class really is just that. She’s lovely and supportive and has promised to keep my blog on the “down low”. I have no doubt that she will, and I am happy to now have someone in my area to compare notes with, get advice from, get to know better, and support.

She did let me know that she and the two couples she’s kept up with from our classes are all close to adopting the children who were placed with them.

Initially that just made me feel bad – that as we were chasing Mia around trying to get her to do her job, they were getting the opportunity to parent. I think that was the cause of a lot of the angry feelings that came up yesterday when I was listening to the girl at the hair salon going on and on and on about her plans to adopt through the state.

But you know what it also did? I re-lit the fire under me. It showed me that it CAN, in fact, happen for us and that if I just hang in there, it probably will.

So I think after our **trip, I will kick things back into overdrive. We’ve been approved for six months now, which means our state has to release our home study to any out-of-state inquiries. I guess I’ll expand our search and we’ll see how it goes.

Thanks for the jump start nice-person-from-G(P)S. I needed that.


** We leave on Saturday morning at o'dark-thirty for a ten-day road trip up through PA and to Niagara Falls. Can. Not. Wait.

Didn't

I was getting my hair cut this morning and the girl in the chair next to me, who was probably 25, started talking to the entire salon about how she and her husband were going to “start classes” to adopt. My stomach dropped a little bit, because I knew what was coming next.

“We’re going to adopt through D*C*F*S.”

She proceeded to ramble on the entire time I was there, certain that everyone was as fascinated by her story as she clearly was. Who knows . . . maybe they were.

“We do twelve classes and then it takes about a month to get approved, and then usually a month or two to get a child.”

“You can choose what kind of child you want, but I’m not going to tell them what I want – I’m just going to take what they give me.”

“But twins would be fun. Or TRIPLETS!!!”

“My friend got a call from the social worker saying she had an hour to get to the hospital to pick up her baby. I hope that happens to me. I’ll be nervous every time the phone rings!”

I sat there pretending to read my book, not saying a word.

My first instinct was to tell her to run for her life. Of course I would never do that. I am quite certain (or at least hopeful) that our bad experience is the rare exception rather than the rule.

But I did wonder if I should tell her to take nothing for granted when it came to her home study – to stay on top of the situation and MAKE SURE that her social worker did her job – or that months and maybe even years would pass while she waited for approval.

In the end I kept my mouth shut. I decided to leave her with her excitement and her great hopes for the future. There was something about it that was very sweet, even in the midst of her loud obnoxious conversation.

But as I paid and left, I found myself feeling angry . . . angry that MY excitement and MY great hopes for the future were worn down and wasted by 18 months of laziness on the part of someone whose salary is paid by my tax dollars.

It’s just so ludicrous.

If D*C*F*S hadn’t found us to be appropriate parents, if we had failed to provide them with what they needed from us, if if if . . . I think it might have been a bit easier to take somehow. But we did everything there was to do. They never once had to ask us for anything in all those months. I’d already given them everything they needed. Our evil worker Mia once told us we were a social worker’s dream – solid marriage, no divorces, no other kids, good income, lovely home, no problems with the law, lots of family support. We should have flown right through.

But we didn’t.

We just didn’t.

And sometimes that makes me so angry.

All Over the Place

Boy oh boy – it’s exactly a month since I last had anything to say here. Time flies when absolutely nothing is happening on the adoption front.

It’s been a strange month for me.

First of all, I’ve started having occasional heart palpitations. They are no big deal, except when they happen! They definitely startle me for the second or two that they last. Neither my family doctor nor my cardiologist are the least bit concerned which is a relief. They think the palpitations, or at least some of them, could be caused by the hormone changes associated with the beginnings of menopause, especially since a couple of them have been accompanied by very mild hot flashes.

Unlike a lot of women, I won’t mourn the loss of my period. I tend towards a thick uterine lining which leaves me at greater risk for endo*metrial cancer. Thus, the large dose of pro*vera I take monthly to prevent that from happening. So once we decided not to continue IF treatments, I was fine with the whole system shutting down for good. I’m not willing to go through any procedure to MAKE that happen, though they are out there, but any time now would be fine.

Whether they are hormone related or not, of course I’ve been thinking about menopause and entering the “next stage” in my life. Part of that thinking has been about whether I want to add a child to our family any longer, to the point that I’ve let a couple of calls from D*C*F*S go to voice mail as I stood looking at caller ID. As it turns out, the calls were for foster placements where there would be no chance of adoption, so we didn’t miss out on an opportunity to permanently add to our family, but dang I’m confused.

What I know (almost) for sure is that we just don’t want to foster. We talk about it from time to time, usually after we’ve received a call for the placement of a child who either will never be available for adoption, or who is completely out of the bounds of our “child desired” parameters. It goes back to what we’ve always been concerned about when it comes to fostering. Perhaps it sounds selfish, but we aren’t in this to be a place for the state to “park” a child for a year or two. We’ve always been very clear that our intention is to add to our family permanently. I don’t know if we have it in us at this point to risk our hearts, or turn our lives upside down for the opportunity to parent a child who may be gone in a year. I just don’t know.

As for the rest, I just don’t know about that either. There are still a couple of irons in the fire as far as children we are interested in. We are definitely on board with seeing those situations through, and are committed to parenting those kids if the opportunity should present itself. When we see how those play out, which I hope happens by the first of the year, O and I plan to sit down and reevaluate to decide what we want to do. I don’t want to half-ass this. If we want to do it, I want to be 100% committed. Perhaps all I need it some time to recharge my batteries/enthusiasm. If we don’t want to continue, I want to sell or give away all of our baby/child items, and turn the child’s room back into a guest room with a small farm table for me to craft and scrapbook and quilt on.

Our social worker called last week to ask if I wanted to train to help teach foster/adopt classes with her. I was so flattered, but didn’t feel like I could take her up on her kind offer. I simply don’t feel like I have enough experience with the foster/adoptive system to teach anyone anything at this point. I thanked her and asked her to keep me in mind again somewhere down the road.

I feel like I am all over the place with this post. Guess it reflects what’s going on in my head at the moment.

We are hosting a surprise party this weekend for my in-laws’ 75th and 80th birthdays. The small party I had originally envisioned has now grown to about 100 people. The most exciting thing is that one of my FIL’s army buddies from Korea is driving across the country to attend. CAN’T WAIT to see the look on his face! And on that note, I’d better scoot. I have a ridiculous amount of food to prepare.

Happy fall weekend everybody!

Proper Word Choice

I'm looking for just the right word to describe the following situation. Perhaps you can help.

Our home study was completed 19 days ago. I spent the better part of yesterday filling out paperwork required by D*C*F*S to REAPPLY for our foster/adoptive parent status, as our initial paperwork is two year old.

The following situation is:

A. ridiculous
B. assanine
C. ironic
D. amusing

Adding to yesterday's hilarity was the letter we received in the mail from Old, Bad County. They are so pleased to learn of our interest in being a foster/adoptive parent and have invited us to an orientation to prepare us for our ten weeks of foster/adopt classes. O handed me the opened letter and said, "Here, this sounds like something fun you might enjoy doing!"

Would it be SO bad if I took a big red marker and wrote "Bite me!" across the letter and mailed it back to them?

Change of Seasons

I look forward to this weekend each year. O plays in the club tournament at his golf course, and I get my boxes of fall decorations out of the closet and go to town. Never mind that it's usually 90+ degrees outside. And that autumn is still a ways away. Today I splashed fall from one end of my house to the other. It is officially overly-decorated. (Frankly, it looks like autumn threw up in here.) I love it.

The last few years I’ve marked the passing of time in our quest to become parents by these little bits of fall color I reach for each August.

I remember getting all this stuff out about four years ago and wondering if the next time I opened those boxes, we’d have a little one in our home or if I’d at least be pregnant.

I remember putting away the fall leaves and pumpkins and bittersweet vines two years ago, thinking, “We just finished our foster/adopt classes! Surely we’ll have a little one by this time next year.” Talk about anticipation!

Last year, I suspect I was flinging pumpkins hither and yon, just trying not to think about how much I loathed our worker, her supervisor, and the entire foster/adoption process.

But this year was different. As I hauled the banker’s boxes into the front room and began to unpack my treasures, a couple of things crossed my mind.

I wondered if we might not have a child in our home by the time these fall colors were packed away in about three months. We have a couple of irons in the fire – nothing concrete of course, but maybe . . . just maybe.

I also thought that if we didn’t have a child come next August when the boxes came out of hiding again, that we probably never would, and believe it or not I’m good with that.

So I guess it remains to be seen.

This time next year will most of my decorations remain safely in boxes, away from little toddler fingers?

Will an older child dip into my box of fall goodies and scurry off with an armful of color to decorate his/her room?

Or will I spend the afternoon as I did today . . . with a scary movie running in the background (“Signs” was today’s choice), thoughtfully trying to decide where each and every wreath and pumpkin and vine would look best, waiting for O to come home and tell me how pretty it looks?

I really don’t know, but I suspect that these coming 365 days will tell the tale. And Heaven knows I’m more than ready for this tale to be told, one way or another. But the nicest part?

All three options make me happy.

Amen

One completed home study, in need of a few easy corrections, in my hot little hand.

As I said just a moment ago on Face*book, this is proof that there are still miracles. And no, I'm not being facetious. To me, after all we've been through, this is an absolute miracle.

Amen.

Winding Down

It was just about 3 ½ years ago that O and I started “trying” to have a baby. After several unsuccessful months, we sought help from a reproductive endocrinologist and when that didn’t feel right for us, we moved on to trying to adopt through the state.

3 1/2 years

In the grand scheme of things that isn’t a long time until you factor in that we’ve been “doing this” for well over half of our marriage, that when we started I was in my late 30’s and am now firmly entrenched in my 40’s, and that my dear sweet husband who was in his mid-40’s is now fast approaching 49.

I’ve begun to wonder recently if we’re not soon coming to the end of this “in pursuit of a child” chapter of our lives.

If you read back through this blog, I’m sure you’ll see twenty places where I am “DONE!” “almost DONE!” or “fed up and this close to being DONE!”

This feels different.

It’s not about yet another screw-up with our home study. (Although oy vey people.)

It’s not a self-protection thing, where I feel the need to bail out before I get hurt again.

It’s not even that this is such a painful situation I can no longer be immersed in it any longer.

In part, it’s about how long I want to continue to live in this limbo. How long do I continue to put pieces of my life on hold waiting for something that truly may never happen?

If I was 25, or even 30, the answer would probably be “a long time yet”. I’d probably have a standing appointment with the RE every week.

But I’m not. We’re not.

We got a call today for a foster placement. Two babies. Lots of legal complications but ultimately, probably no chance of being able to adopt them. Normally I’d fret and stew about it, not wanting to upset our SW or leave the impression that we’re uncooperative or unhelpful by saying “no”. But this time, when O walked out on the porch and explained the situation, my answer was an easy and unqualified “no”.

Part of that is my desire for the out-of-state babies I’ve told you about. I've fallen hard and would love nothing more than to drive to that state, scoop them up, and bring them home tonight. So I guess in a funny way, I’m “saving myself” for them for the next couple of months to see how things play out.

But the other reason why I so readily said “no” to today's foster situation, and why I wonder if we're not approaching the end of this journey is this:

I often find myself asking if it’s still worth it to me to invite the potential chaos and heartache of the foster system into our mostly-peaceful, mostly-lovely little lives.

Two years ago, it was definitely worth it. Heck yes! Sign me up! I was hell bent on it.

One year ago, it was still worth it but my enthusiasm had waned significantly after months of being jerked around about our home study.

Now, I just don’t know. I really don’t. (What I do know is that I am always going to say “no” to a situation where we are told going in that we’ll definitely come out the other side without a child permanently in our home.)

The ironic part is that I think D*C*F*S may have given me too much time to educate myself – to read books and articles and blogs written by people who have chosen the path I was once willing to race blindly down. I remember thinking during our foster/adopt classes how they really laid things on the line and shared some really hard truths with us.

And they did.

But damn. I had NO idea. I once couldn’t even have conceived of things I see adoptive parents write about every day.

A foster/adoptive mommy blogger I respect recently wrote that genetics trump environment 99.9% of the time. Now, is she a scientist studying the lives and behaviors of foster children over time? No. Does she have pages of statistics on foster and adoptive children at her fingertips? I doubt it. Her knowledge comes from A LOT of old-fashioned, homegrown experience – experience you can only get from raising and loving children you didn’t give birth to. Her words were definitely food for thought for me.

Is the risk one I’m still willing to take? My answer is no longer the resounding “yes” is once was, but it’s still “yes”. I don’t know for how much longer, though. I really don’t. It just feels like it’s all winding down for me.

That being said, I reserve the right to change my mind and get completely excited, enthusiastic, and wound back up again at a moment's notice . . . . . . . even before hitting the “publish” button on this post.

Naughty, Naughty Word - Now with P.S.

There is a possibility that we will be considered for two out-of-state babies this fall. Alabam*a has a policy that they won't release our home study to another state for six months after its' approval. For us that would be September 30th. We are concerned that the babies' SW may need to make a decision about their placement around that time and after all we've been through, we don't want to be tripped up by something like timing, for Heaven's sake.


So about three weeks ago, I contacted our SW Jackie in New, Good County and she was going to send us an unofficial copy of our study to get to the babies' SW. That way she'd know what the study said before the official copy was released.


Except that all Jackie had was the incomplete copy of our home study that the Old, Bad County had done, which did not reflect either our second or our third home study visit. Jackie figured that Old, Bad County must have completed it and sent it to the state at some point SINCE WE'D BEEN APPROVED AS ADOPTIVE PARENTS, and she'd just contact Mo*ntgo*mery to get a copy.

(It was at that point that every one of my sirens, bells, and whistles went off simultaneously.)

I e-mailed her every week to see if she'd received it and she hadn't.

On Wednesday, I contacted her again and said, "Jackie, I'm a little bit confused. We transferred from Bad, Old County because our home study was incomplete. I know they didn't finish it, and if you didn't finish it, it is still incomplete."

Guess what?

Our damned home study is still incomplete.

Let me repeat for those of you who simply cannot believe your eyes . . .

OUR DAMNED HOME STUDY IS STILL INCOMPLETE.

The state SW was waiting for A**B**I and F**B**I Clearances, C*A*N Clearances (a child abuse/neglect background check), and documentation of our two final home study visits. Apparently when she received the clearances, she approved us.

J didn't mention anything about us being temporarily un-approved (dis-approved?) and I didn't dare ask the question, so I'm assuming we're still fine. She said she'd simply type up the missing portions and send them to the state.

Uh huh . . . Mmmmkay.

Often when I'm in the midst of a particularly challenging situation, I'll sit back and try to understand the lesson that God's trying to teach me. As you can imagine in the 20 months since we completed our foster/adopt classes and have been trying to get our home study completed (20 freaking MONTHS!!!) I've done a lot of "trying to get the lesson". And this morning I got it . . .

God is trying to teach me patience in the face of total and complete INSANITY.

Okay God, I've got it. Can we move on now? Please?

P.S. If you know me and/or O in real life and hear about this most recent development, one little piece of advice. If you say something even remotely along the lines of "maybe (we) should talk to a supervisor or something", I will wring your neck.


Wring! Your! Neck!


So be warned.

Baby Kitty Daddy

A few years back we had a cat named Floyd, born in our barn and named before we found out she was a girl.

Floyd was a sweetie but Floyd had one major fault. Floyd had a rather advanced "up" button and no "down" button whatsoever.

Over the course of a few months, Floyd was rescued from trees by ladder, bucket truck (four times), and chain saw (we cut an actual tree to get her down).

Given that we have enormous trees all over our yard, that our land borders thick woods, and that it was likely O would have died of embarrassment if he'd had to call the tree service one more time, Floyd had to find a new home . . . an INSIDE home.

Floyd went to live with the golf pro at O's country club and is now fat, happy, and loved. The highest she now climbs is the back of the sofa.

So when I rescued our most recent 3 kittens O and I were, of course, worried that we might have a repeat of what we like to call "The Floyd Situation".

As a preemptive measure, O started kitty tree climbing (down) classes. He'd work with them a little bit at a time and it looks like they are all getting the hang of it, knock on wood.

I took this picture about a month ago and couldn't help but think, "Won't my husband make a good daddy some day?"

The H Word Returneth

Know why it’s been over a month since I last wrote here? Nope, me neither. I’ve sat down several times to do just that and never seem to get past the first couple of sentences.

It’s been a really lovely summer thus far. Lots of time spent with family and friends, beautiful fresh veggies from the garden, a huge gathering for the 4th of July. We’ll definitely look back on the summer of 2009 with a lot of fond memories.

The three new kittens are a huge source of delight as they continue to grow and explore their world. Almost every night after dinner, we go sit in the yard and watch the kitties run and play like wild banshees. There are few things cuter than a kitten trying to catch a lightning bug.

I’m asked several times a week if there is any progress on the adoption front. Oh how I dread that question. I realize that it comes from a place of love and genuine interest, but when the answer is “no”, I feel like I need to immediately go into the “but-that’s-okay-we-are-content-to-wait-for-the-right-opportunity-to-come-along-no-REALLY-it’s-fine-these-things-take-time-and-we-really-ARE-okay-with-waiting” song and dance so they’ll feel better about it.

There has been some activity – I wouldn’t call anything a “development” though. We’ve received four or five calls from Good County’s D*C*F*S for foster placements, but haven’t been by the phone when the calls have come in and the worker(s) have never left any messages, so the kids have gone to other foster homes.

To be perfectly honest, I am glad about that at least for the time being because our hearts seem to be “on hold” for the moment – so hopeful that we’ll have the opportunity to adopt two out-of-state babies as summer turns into fall.

Yes, I said it. The “H” word. Hope.

I’ve have a strange and strained relationship with hope since entering the world of infertility a few years back. In all other aspects of my life, I embrace hope without hesitation but when it’s come to hoping for motherhood, I’ve been slapped in the face more often than I can count. For a long time, it was just easier to refuse to hope – to push it away with both hands and simply assume that things WEREN’T going to work out. That way, I wasn’t nearly as disappointed when they didn’t.

But for some reason, hope and I seem to have come to some sort of a truce the past few months.

Perhaps it’s because the pain of infertility has faded so much. Perhaps it’s because we were finally approved to adopt. Perhaps it’s because operating from a negative place just isn’t me. All I know is that hope is back.

Now, I can’t quite say that I’ve thrown my arms wide open to hope just yet. I’m more holding it at arms’ length, keeping a watchful eye on it. But I know it’s back.

Occasionally I’ll sit on the bed in our “child’s room” and mentally arrange furniture to accommodate a second crib, or see a cute story book and buy it just because, or start thinking about kids’ trick-or-treat costumes as I’m working in our newly planted pumpkin patch. Stuff like that.

Of course, with hope come TESTS to that hope.

Like the time one of my friends from the state D*C*F*S called and said she couldn’t find our home study and wondered if I had any idea who might have it. Ummm, no. Her response was something along the lines of “Don’t-freak-out-it-must-be-here-somewhere.” It was, apparently on the desk of someone who was considering us for a child.

Or the time that I contacted our wonderful worker J to get an unofficial copy of our home study. Which she was happy to provide. Except that the last copy she has of it is incomplete – the one that Bad County never finished. (Ummm, you were supposed to finish it and get it to the state office. That’s why we switched to Good County in the first place. Remember?) Her response was “Well it must be complete because you were approved to adopt, so I’ll contact the state office for a copy.” Oooooooohhhhhhkay.

Even at moments like that, I find myself at peace. I believe that if we are meant to be parents, God will help us find our child(ren). If we aren’t, I am happy – truly happy with the life that O and I have created just as it is. So there’s nothing to do really, except sit back and yes, HOPE that we’ll get a call from out-of-state worker one of these days letting us know that she’s interested in us for the babies she’s placing.

In the meantime, I’ll be chasing three feisty kitties, obsessively checking our pumpkin patch, eating as much fresh corn on the cob as I possibly can, enjoying time with our family and friends, and loving the heck out of my husband.

It really is a wonderful, hopeful life.

Sweet

The past few weeks have been such a sweet time in my life. There’s no major news. Nothing big has happened. I’m just content.

Our three kitties are a constant source of running, playing, jumping, wrestling amusement for O and I, devout “dog people”. We got them a huge cage (think Great Dane sized) and they live on our front porch for the time being, and are let out every few hours to explore and play, and are brought inside at night. Eventually, when they’re older and can take care of themselves, we’ll turn them loose with our other three to be farm cats. Just thinking about that gives me anxiety, but they’ll be fine and have happy lives.

No word from D*C*F*S though we’ve been getting calls about once a week, including yesterday. No one ever leaves a message, though. I thought about calling to find out what was up, but I figure if it’s important they’ll get back in touch.

There is something I could share - a possibility we have for adopting not one but two babies under a year of age. There are many many “ifs” in the situation, as those babies are out of state and TPR has not yet happened. But we want them. A lot. And so that old frienemy “hope” is creeping back in. That’s all I really want to say about it right now, though. I am afraid of jinxing it. But I’ll definitely share more when/if things start happening.

All for now. The kitties need some play time.

Fly on the Wall

If you were a fly on the wall at my house this week, these are two gems you would have heard:

"Don't jump on your sister's head while she's going potty. You'll give her a complex."

"You'll never be president if you sleep in your poop."

Aaaah, the joys of caring for 5-week-old kittens.

Missed a call from D*C*F*S yesterday. They didn't leave a message so I guess it wasn't too urgent, but I wonder what they wanted.

Yawn

As you can see, there has been a new addition to our home. Well, THREE new additions.

Last Thursday, I ran by the pharmacy to get a prescription refilled and as I pulled in, I noticed a small kitten under one of the cars in the parking lot. As I parked nearby, I saw another one writhing around in the weeds. Sigh.

I called our county animal control where I had the following discussion:

me: "Hi, I'm at the **** pharmacy and someone has dumped some very young kittens in the parking lot. I was wondering if y'all had time to come pick them up."

animal control lady: "We don't pick up cats."

me: "Excuse me?"

acl: "We don't pick up cats."

me: "So basically your policy is that these kittens can just wander until they die of hunger because you don't pick up cats."

acl: "I guess so because we don't pick up cats."

me: "Aaaah, my tax dollars at work." Click!

I happened to know that the store/pharmacy sold travel kennels so I went in and bought one, along with a towel, and started gathering kitties. Once I had the two safely in the carrier, I heard yet another one screaming in the tall weeds/woods nearby.

Now, I'm a girl with allergies and mild asthma and tromping into the weeds looking for a kitten didn't sound too exciting, particularly in sandals, but I hiked up my skirt and off I went. I finally found the little one trapped under some heavy brush.

Poor kitties - they were so sick. Their eyes were completely matted shut and they had bad respiratory infections. I took them to our vet and the rest is history. They cleaned them up and gave them medicine and we've been taking care of them ever since.

During the day, they live in a big wire care on our front porch, sleeping happily on a heating pad. At night they come into the laundry room. That makes the 2 a.m. feedings easier.

Since one of the things I'm allergic to is CATS, you can often find me with a mask on, feeding them, rocking them, or playing with them in the front yard. I look ridiculous but I haven't had a hint of a sniffle (knock on wood) so it's worth it.

They are feeling so much better now. Their eyes are clear, their respiratory infections are almost gone, and they are eating like little piggies.

I don't know what we're going to do with them. We will either look for inside homes for them, or keep them and let them live outside here at the farm. They can join our other three. And if we can teach them to catch the moles that are tearing up O's front yard, he will build a shrine to them and feed them tuna every day.

The most ironic thing about this situation is that not a week prior to stumbling across these little ones, I was thinking about what it would be like to have a baby in the house and wondered how I'd do with having my sleep interrupted as I took care of their nighttime needs. I'm a girl who needs her sleep - at least 8 hours. Now I know. I'll do fine. I will occasionally have a crying meltdown, but I'll do fine.

Moral of the story - not only do you need to be careful of what you ask for, you apparently also need to be careful of what you WONDER ABOUT!

Must run - yowling kitties demand food.

I do

Do you find it interesting that reporters and doctors are going on and on about banned substances that ball players are taking, and the very harmful longterm effects that these substances could have on the atheletes . . .

yet . . .

some of them are the medications given to women to treat infertility (clo***mid, and human chor**ionic gonad**otropingon**adotropin to name two)


and no one says a word about that?

Eye on the Ball

I was talking to one of my girlfriends over the weekend about the situation we were presented with on Friday (re: the child about to be taken into state cust*ody). I explained that even with our strong commitment to waiting for the “right” situation to come along, it was surprisingly challenging for both of us to say no.

I hadn’t expected that.

I also hadn’t expected how little information they give you before asking you to make a decision. I wasn’t expecting a dossier, for heaven’s sake, but the call pretty much went like this:

SW – Hi! This is (name) from (county) D*C*F*S. We have a child we are looking to place. The child’s name is ____________, (s)he is _______ years old, is (race) and is about to be taken into custody. Well, what do you think?

I couldn’t help it. I threw my head back and laughed.

I had the presence of mind to ask a few questions which she was gracious enough to answer, and then I got on the phone to O. He was nearby and came right home so we could sit on the sofa together and talk about it.

I am so thankful for O and for his level-headedness when it comes to these situations. My emotions tend to take over. It’s not so much about just having a child in the house, which we’ve been working towards for a long time. For me, it has more to do with wanting to help a child who is hurting. That tends to cloud the logical part of my brain. I don’t want to give the impression that O doesn’t have a huge heart and all the sympathy in the world for a child being removed from his/her home. He really does. He’s just better able to keep his eye “on the ball” and remember what our ultimate goal is.

As I said in a recent post, we are willing to wait for a child who is a good fit for us and vice versa.

Now if I can just remember that the next time the phone rings. Eye on the ball.

This is Hard

Just got a call for a placement of a child who is about to be taken into custody. The child has extended family out of state and there is a very slight possibility that they will be able to get here in time to take the child to live with them. Otherwise the child will be in care for at least six months, until Mom can get herself together or until the out-of-state family can complete home studies. It doesn't sound like any possibility for adoption. (Of course, I know that extended family could be inappropriate and Mom could continue to screw up. But there IS family that wants this child - enough to try to figure out how to cross several states in the next few hours to get to the child.)

I called O, and he's speaking to the social worker now to clarify, but I think we're going to have to say "no".

Sounds like a darling child who I'm sure is scared. The "mom" in me wants to take the child in and be as much comfort as I can - to give the child a home for as long as they need it. BUT my head reminds me that we are in this to adopt. We have one room, for one child or two siblings. If we take in this child, we are effectively "off the market" for the possibility of a "forever child" until this story plays itself out.

Ugh - I hate this. I don't want to say no, but I realize that it's the best thing for us, longterm.

I think.

Shit!

Polite Southern Girl

I don't know how many times it's happened in the last week. Ten? Maybe fifteen? I'll be chatting with a friend, family member, or acquaintance and inevitably "THE QUESTION" will be asked.

"So, have you heard anything?"

The answer is always the same - something along the lines of, "Nope, not a word yet."

People's reactions vary. Some are upbeat and positive with a brief word of encouragement and then on to the next topic. It's the people who become solemn, get that sympathetic tone to their voice, and try to comfort me that bug the living CRAP out of me.

They seem to think that our lives are empty and meaningless without a child. Or more specifically, that WE THINK our lives are empty and meaningless without a child.

I try to explain that I am fine - that WE are fine right where we are at the moment. We are content to wait for a child who is a good fit for us and vice versa, even if that wait lasts a year or more. I also mention that if for whatever reason parenthood doesn't happen for us, we are truly content with our life together as it is now.

I might as well have the Charlie Brown teacher's voice.

I'm not sure what it is - if they think that it's all a defense mechanism and that I'm trying to paint a sunny picture even as my heart is breaking, but here have been a few of my favorite responses of the past week:

"Just yesterday my husband was talking about how mad he is at the fact that our nephew and his druggie girlfriend keep cranking out kids when you and O are so desperate for a baby."

"You know, there is always the Big Bro*thers Big Sist*ers program where you could mentor a child. That might fill the huge void you are feeling." (That was my SIL!)

"I am so, so sorry." (Whaaaa?????)

So here it is, in black and white - the things I would say if my mother hadn't raised a polite Southern girl.

I am fine. Really. I am not weeping gently by the phone waiting for it to ring. Believe it or not.

I am not jealous of your pregnancy/newborn/toddler/gradeschooler. At all. I love my friends and family members' kids. They make me happy. Not sad. So don't tiptoe around me. It pisses me off. Know what else makes me happy? Playing with your child, hugging and loving on him/her, and then giving them back to you and going home to my quiet peaceful house and snuggling up on the sofa in O's arms.

I don't want to be pregnant. Even a little bit. I'm 41 years old and I'm not interested in taking the risk. If you think I'm saying that as a defense mechanism, okay. But I'm not.

Walking away from fertility treatments was the best thing I've done on this particular journey. It never felt right for me. It just felt like what I was "supposed" to do. Therefore, I am not envious of your IUI/IVF attempts. I really do wish you luck.

I am not willing to bring a child into my home who is not a good fit for us just to be able to call myself a "parent". That wouldn't be fair to me or to the child. Therefore I am fine with waiting. Really.

If motherhood doesn't happen for me, I will happily live my life with my best friend and the most wonderful person I've ever met. Living in that love is "enough" now. It will always be enough. Believe it or not.

Have I always been this "at peace" with the situation? Absolutely not. It's taken a lot of time to get here.

Do I want to be a mom? Yes. (At least on most days.)

Are there moments when I'm wistful, wishing that we already had a child to love and spoil? Yes.

Do I occasionally wish that O and I had met five or ten years earlier and tried for kids right away? Sure I do.

But hear - really HEAR what I'm saying.

I am happy. Really and truly happy.

And content.

And fulfilled.

Right now.

Today.

There is no reason to feel sorry for me - for us. We are not suffering in any way, shape or form.

My life is far from perfect, but it's good. Really really good.

So take your mournful tone and your ignorant assumptions, well meaning though they may be, and kindly stick them.

THAT'S what I'd say if my mother didn't raise a polite Southern girl.

Now what?

I woke up on Saturday morning and wondered for a second if it had all been a dream – if our home study had actually been approved or if my poor tired brain had conjured the entire thing from thin air as I slept. And then I remembered.

The e-mail – that beautiful glorious e-mail.

I can be honest now and tell you that deep down, I never thought we’d be approved.

Wow, it feels strange to write those words. I never even shared that thought with O, and we share just about everything.

If you were to ask me why I felt that way, my answer would have been something truly eloquent – something along the lines of, “Because we just won’t.”

I couldn’t really expand on it beyond that, but that was absolutely what I believed.

Yes, I went through the motions, pretty passionately at times. I did everything I knew how to do to get our home study completed, but I thought the end result would be the same no matter what I did or how hard I fought.

I’m not sure where that came from. I’m not a pessimistic person. Not at all.

Anyway, I said all that to say this:

When you get an opportunity you never thought you’d have, life is pretty sweet.

My instinct now is to hit the ground running – to try and make up for all the time that was wasted as our file sat on a desk in the state office for over a year.

My idea was to put together a few folders about us. They would include a letter of introduction, the form listing the characteristics we’re looking for in a child who we feel would be a good match for us, a few of our scrapbook pages that show photos of us and our life together here on the farm.

I would then contact our friends in the local foster/adoptive community (meaning in our third of the state) to see if they’d be willing to pass them along to the social workers they know who might be placing children in the future.

I contacted C, who works for D*C*F*S and who has been a tremendous resource for us in this process. She nixed the idea for a few reasons. First, SW’s are very busy and have a tremendous amount of paperwork coming across their desks every day. My folder would likely end up in the garbage. Secondly, because no one has ever done this, the workers wouldn’t have a method in place to file and keep track of such a request.

Apparently the state now has a new computer system in place that lets SW’s access prospective foster parents’ info in surrounding counties to see if they meet the needs of a child they have to place. As for adoption, if a child’s paren**tal righ**ts are terminated and they aren’t being adopted by their foster parents, their information is sent to the state for resour*ce work*ers to place them.

So, C reiterated that sending the folders was not at all necessary, but my thought is this:

Even if most of the folders end up in the trash, all it’s going to take is for one worker to keep it, or for us to pop into their heads six months from now if they have a child to place. even if they don't remember us, they would likely remember the name of our SW who is really well known in the area.

I don’t know.

Maybe it’s my strong desire to be DOING SOMETHING that has me thinking this is a good idea. So once again, I turn to those of you with experience in this area to share your wisdom.

What would you do?

Tra la!

Thirteen months after we had our final home study visit, we got the following e-mail from our social worker this afternoon:

I received the letter from the Sta*te Off*ice of Adop*tion today stating that your home study is approved! You are approved for two children up to age eight. I am mailing you a copy of the letter today.

That sound you hear? My hands on the keyboard shaking with excitement. I truly never thought I'd see the day.

Thanks to those of you who were there all along the way. I absolutely would not have made it through to this point without you. I would have jumped ship long ago.

Right now I have to go get gussied up - I'm taking my husband out to dinner to celebrate!

Tra la!

Happy (Almost) Birthday to Me

A week ago we were in the thick of things with the two kids here. We were both exhausted. Our routines had been upended. My front room looked like a toy store exploded in it. I was finding Cheerios in the strangest places (and continue to do so). I barely had a moment to get to the bathroom, much less sit down for computer time or lay-across-the-bed-watching-some-ridiculous-yet-compelling-Bravo-show time.

By the way, anyone else watch “The Real Housewives of NYC”? I’m loving the fact that the Countess just got royally dumped by the Count. Perhaps now she can get over herself.

Anyhoo, today is the complete opposite. It’s quiet here – so blissfully quiet and my day is my own. A little cleaning, some e-mailing, some sewing (still working on the tree wall hanging for our kids’ room), maybe chatting with a friend later, and lots of taking care of my husband whose virus seems to have become a sinus infection. Poor guy!

My birthday is tomorrow – the big 4-1, and I usually use that occasion to take stock of my life – where I am and where I still want to go, if I’m making the “right” decisions, what I want my next year to look like. And I have to say, I’m happy.

Really and truly happy.

Of course there are things I would change.

I would lose a dress size or ten.

I would be working on the novel floating around in my head.

I would probably have a little one running around our home.

Yes, I said “probably” because there are moments when O and I aren’t sure if we reeeeeeeally want a child in our home. It sounds ridiculous to say, given how much we love kids and how hard we’ve had to fight to get licensed as adoptive parents. (Still aren’t there yet!!!)

Simply put, we love our life together and we had a very small taste of what it was like to add another person to our mix.

Now granted, there were TWO people and they arrived on short notice, heavily caffeinated and sugared-up, to a house that wasn’t nearly as child-proofed as we’d thought. So the first afternoon/evening was a bit harried.

Okay, more than a bit.

But I think our time with the kids was a pretty good representation of what we can expect as full-time parents, and there were parts of it we simply didn’t like.

Most importantly, O & I didn’t get to spend much time together.

We’d wake up and after a few minutes of snuggling and watching the morning news, for me it was all about the kids – getting them up and dressed and filling their little tummies as O got ready for work.

O would come home in the afternoon and by that time, I was ready for a break and would scurry into the bedroom to stretch out for a few minutes, or into the computer room, shutting the door and catching up on the outside world.

At night, we crawled into bed and laid there watching TV, somewhat shell-shocked and exhausted, waiting for sleep to take us. We were ships that passed in the night.

Of course, I know we’d get “better” at the rhythm of caring for kids (errrrr . . . ONE child. Only one.), and would then have more time to connect with each other. We just want to make sure that we never do anything to disrupt or damage our marriage. It’s the number one priority for both of us.

So that’s the source of our hesitation.

That being said, we both miss the kids and talk fondly about them all the time. If their foster parents called us today and said, "We can no longer care for them", we'd take them in a heartbeat.

I guess maybe it’s just hard to be committed in every moment to bringing a “mystery child” into our home. We know nothing about him or her – age, race, sex, situation, likes and dislikes, behavior, etc . . . I think once we have a little face in our minds, and our hearts, our hesitation will fade into the background and we’ll hit the ground running and find a way to make it work.

But the comforting thing is, if for whatever reason it never happens, we will spend happy lives together feeling blessed every day that we found each other.

I already have my birthday gift. I get to live my life with a wonderful man. Happy (almost) Birthday to me.

List

Okay, I tried the nap but I have too much floating around in my head to sleep. I learned a lot – WE learned a lot the past few days. I don’t know that it will come out in any particular order, but here goes . . .

1. Before agreeing to a placement, it is essential to ask the following question, “Will any of the children be given THREE sippy cups of Dr. Pepper and TWO neon green quasi-fruit drinks by their bio parent(s) prior to me picking them up?” Trust me.

2. You may think that you are a pretty smart, on-the-ball adult, but children will always, always find a way to get to the things you don’t want them to have.

3. Additionally, you may think that you have your home pretty well child-proofed. That is all well and good until four busy hands come racing down the hall honed in on the things cost a lot of money, are irreplaceable, or can cause them grave bodily injury.

4. ONE CHILD is plenty for us. Plenty. This experience definitely disavowed me of the notion that “two or three might be nice”. One. One is good.

5. I cry more easily if I don’t get enough sleep but learned this week that I can actually be too tired to cry. Didn’t even know that was possible.

6. Do not make one of your favorite childhood comfort foods (Kraft mac-n-cheese in the blue box) for the kids if you are new to caring for two toddlers. You might just find yourself eating all of the leftovers with a big red serving spoon.

7. Watching Sponge Bob and Blue’s Clues will make you long for the days of Bugs Bunny, the Roadrunner, and The Electric Company.

8. There are some really adorable kids in the foster care system.

9. The best way to clean up goldfish crackers and cheerios that have been pulverized on your hardwood floor is just by the brush of your foot, sending them sailing under the sofa till you can get the vacuum out later in the day (week).

10. Spaghetti may not be the easiest thing for a child to eat, but it sure is fun to watch them try.

11. It is going to be virtually impossible for us to guard our hearts in this process. We tried and tried to keep an emotional distance, particularly from the baby who was so beautiful, laid back, and smart, but we just couldn’t do it. We both hated to see him go and would have gladly kept him for a lifetime.

12. My husband is an absolute natural as a father. Every time he’d walk in the room, The Older Boy would say, “Hiya Daddy!”, completely filled with glee, and The Younger Boy’s face would light up and he’d throw up his arms to be picked up, calling him “Dadadada”. They just adored him and spent most evenings in his lap.

13. 40-year-old knees are not the same as 20-year-old-knees.

14. Naptimes and bedtimes are a beautiful thing. Oh so beautiful.

15. You can spend all kinds of $ on toys, but the children’s favorite things will be a cardboard box, a hairbrush, and the baby wipes container.

16. Baby poop really is green sometimes. I’d forgotten that. (Sorry for the gross out.)

17. Silence can be a really lovely thing, or a really lonely thing. I've experienced both in the last couple of hours.

The past 4 days have definitely answered some questions for us, and raised some others. When I arrive at some answers re: any of it, or when I wake up from my planned 28-hour slumber, I’ll be back. Whichever comes first.

A Poem

The Boys were here, but now they're gone.

They've left a mess to carry on.

To all toddler parents I tip my cap.

That's all for now, I need a nap.

(And a masseuse and a maid, while we're at it.)

SOS

Got a call at 11 am to do respite care for a couple of days for a 1 1/2 and a 2 1/2 year old. Literally just peed five minutes ago for the first time in 9 hours. I have never been so exhausted. And still haven't eaten lunch. Considering that it's too late for dinner, I guess lunch is out of the question.

Please send ten more pairs of hands asap.

Hu*mp Day Update

1. Nothing new from our SW, so we’re assuming our home study still hasn’t been approved. Sigh.

2. For the first few days after asking our SW to sign us up as a foster resource for the county, I jumped every time the phone rang. Happily I’ve stopped that, but I still don’t let calls go to voicemail as often as I used to.

3. We went and picked up the new baby furniture this morning – crib and changing table. Neither one of us is too excited to open the boxes and start reading directions and assembling, but we’ll get it done in the next couple of days.

4. I’m a girl who likes a project. I was thinking about painting a big apple tree on one of the walls of the child’s room, filled with birds and maybe a birdhouse or two. But I can’t paint. Or draw. I’m serious. My art teacher in high school offered to help me transfer out of Intermediate Drawing. So I decided to make a huge wall hanging out of fabric. More specifically, from the fabric remnants of the quilt that I made for the bed in there, so it will match. I’ve done about 100+ leaves in different green shades and patterns, and am now making flowers from red and blue calicoes, and will move on to bright yellow birds with different colored wings. I even bought a wooden birdhouse to cover in fabric and “hang” on the trunk of the tree. Hopefully it will be cute. It’s VERY cute in my head!

5. I had the weirdest thing happen last Wednesday. I ran a bunch of errands and noticed that my right knee was a little bit swollen and tight. It didn’t hurt, though, so I wandered all over Wal*mart and went about my business. When I got home, I sat down at the computer for about ten minutes and put that leg up on one of the printers we have sitting under the desk. That’s how I sit all the time – how I’m sitting now, in fact. Anyway, when I went to get up, I couldn’t. I was in excruciating pain and simply could not walk. After a call to my husband, I half crawled/half hobbled to my bed where I put my leg up for about an hour. The best way I can describe it was a charley horse in my knee. I’ve never heard of anyone having that, but that’s just what it felt like. Anyway, I was about to walk after that hour, limping pretty badly but I was simply glad to be able to make it to the bathroom by myself. The next morning I was just a little bit sore and after that, just fine. Feeling 100% again the past few days. It's hell to get old.

6. I just want to say again how humbled I was to get your comments and e-mails re: us fostering. Your advice and support was and is invaluable and I am so humbled to receive it. So thank you all once again.

7. Spring has definitely sprung 'round these parts. Our forsythia is blooming, our roses are putting out new growth like crazy, and our big dogwood tree is budding out. Should only be a matter of days before the world is a lovely yellowish pollen color.

8. We went to see our niece in her high school pageant last weekend. She was chosen as her grade representative and was also picked as best interview. We’re so proud of her.

9. Started a new way of eating a couple of weeks ago – the same way I ate when I lost a lot of weight (over 100 pounds) several years ago. I’m down about 20 pounds with a l-o-n-g way to go, but at least I’ve taken the first step and have a lot more energy than I did.

10. Tomorrow is the 6th anniversary of the first time O & I ever spoke. In one way it seems like just yesterday. In another I can’t remember what I ever did without him. I’m a very lucky girl.

Happy day everybody!