Bittersweet

^^^^^^^^ Isn't my pup cute??? ^^^^^^^

Since I last wrote, I’ve had not one but two yard sales. The one at my mom’s house was very successful (to the tune of about $1000), but when we were done, I still had some really nice items left – a lot of brand new kids' clothes and toys. My yard sale rule is that one box of leftovers can come back into the house. The rest goes to the Salvation Army. I just couldn’t send all of that brand new stuff to the SA without at least trying to sell it one more time, so I had another sale at my house last weekend. We only had probably thirty people attend, but I made a bit more money and O and I had a good time. I gave a lot of stuff away. There were two couples come through who had new babies and didn’t appear to have much else. Very shabby clothes and cars that looked like they were held together with bond-o and twine. I gave them armloads of stuff. They seemed baffled as I kept raking things into their arms, but were very appreciative. It felt good to see those things going to homes where they were truly needed. Our neighbor’s daughter has a little boy a couple of years younger than Mark, so I folded a lot of the clothes we’d bought for him into plastic bags, threw in two pairs of shoes and some DVD’s, and sent them to her. A few things I couldn’t part with, though – a couple of shirts Mark wore, and a blue and white outfit I fell in love with and bought for him. Those came back into the house and went directly back into his closet. “His” closet. Isn’t that funny? We still call it “Mark’s room”.

O and I took my mom to brunch on Sunday at her very favorite place – the Cracker Barrel. I think she likes shopping there as much as she enjoys the food. As we were seated, I noticed a family of four at the table directly in front of me. Their little boy had his back to me but from behind, it could have been Mark. Same age, same hair, same build and strangely enough, wearing the same blue and white outfit I’d “rescued” from the donate box the day before. If I was someone who believed in signs, I’d have had a field day with that little situation, let me tell you.

Our caseworker came to meet with us yesterday. I know I’ve said it before, but I really do think she’s great. We had a good long talk and she rekindled our hope that we might, MIGHT be able to adopt Mark. Now, don’t get too excited. We’d thought there might be a 1% chance. I’d say that now there might be a 5% chance. LOTS of things have to happen before that would even be a remote possibility, but our talk was enough to send up spinning – thinking and talking about Mark all afternoon and into the evening. As I told her, we would do just about anything to be able to adopt that little guy.

So it’s pretty much been “All Mark All the Time” around here which has made for a few bittersweet days, but I try to focus on the “sweet” part of the bittersweet, and just keep on hoping.

I Thought It Would Have Been Me

I have always wanted to be a mom. One of my first memories was holding my newborn cousin when I was about three years old. I had no idea what he was, but I knew he was magic and that I wanted one.

O, not so much. He likes kids and is fantastic with them, but he just never thought about being a dad. It’s like it never occurred to him. Of course, this is the guy who never wanted to get married until he had a change of heart in his early 40’s.

So, I always thought that in this whole foster/adopt process, I would be the one who would be devastated if we fell in love with a child and had to say goodbye. Don’t get me wrong. I knew O would be affected. He’s a loving, caring person. But I thought I would have the more difficult time if things didn’t work out.

We said yes to Mark knowing he was a legal risk placement – that his birth family was working to get him back. I kept that in mind as we met him, spent time with him, and pretty quickly fell head over heels for him. I knew that there was probably heartache just around the corner but didn’t care. O? Well, I think it was over for him the moment the car door first opened and we saw Mark. His heart was set on him being ours forever. Logically, he knew that probably wouldn't be the case, but his heart was having none of it.

It’s been really hard for O to shake off what happened with Mark – much harder than either one of us had realized. While I still miss Mark and wish things could have turned out differently, it's my husband who is still actively mourning the loss of that little boy.

It’s so strange . . . I thought it would have been me.

Update

The hearing for Amy/ Chris has come and gone. O and I did not go, but according to Amy, not much happened. The G*A*L seems to be the only one involved in the legal process who is concerned by the fact that Chris has been in foster care his entire life. He was also vocal in asking why we had not been seriously looked at for Chris. The judge’s response was something along the lines of “That will be discussed at the next hearing”. It seems that during the next court hearing a decision will be made as to whether this case will move to reunification or to TPR. If the plan is reunification, of course we’re out of the process. If it’s TPR, I guess theoretically we have a chance. But again, D*C*F*S makes that decision – not the judge – and last we heard, we were not going to be considered. So forgive us if we’re not turning handsprings at this latest development.

(Note to D*C*F*S worker in other state– IF YOU’RE NOT GOING TO CONSIDER US, SEND US BACK OUR DAMNED SCRAPBOOK, OR THE $40 TO REPLACE IT. I SENT YOU A SASE. HOW DIFFICULT IS IT????)

I did hear from Amy in response to my letter asking if she still wanted us to adopt Chris. The message she left was very sweet – that she hadn’t forgotten about us, that D*C*F*S was giving her the runaround about where her case was going, but that if Chris could not/would not be returned to her, she definitely wanted us to raise him. Again, no handsprings as D*C*F*S doesn’t care what Amy wants for her son, but it’s nice to know where she stands. She didn’t bring up the soon-to-be-born baby, but I didn’t expect her to. At least she knows we’re willing to adopt him/her. That’s good enough for me.

Did I mention that O and I went to the Gulf Coast for a few days? Oh my, if ever two people needed to get away, it was us. O had to work down there, so we went a couple of days early, got an oceanfront room with a balcony, and had a wonderful time. We arrived in the middle of a steady rain and couldn’t have cared less. We bought O his first pair of flip flops (how does a man make it to age 49 without having owned flip flops, may I ask?), marched out to the beach, took pictures and got soaking wet. The waves were really crashing, the sand was its’ usual beautiful white, and all was right with the world. In between beach/balcony time, O did his part to support local fisherman, eating seafood for every lunch and dinner. I researched the area locations that had been featured on “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” and we visited two or three of those. Yummmmm. We did a little bit of antiquing, walked on the pier to watch the sunset one evening, and generally relaxed.

We were on the Mississippi Gulf Coast for a couple of days for his work projects and we were shocked at all of the destruction that still remains from Katrina (5 years to the day, in fact). Mile after mile right on the beach where homes and businesses used to stand were still sitting vacant and overgrown.

This week I’m gearing up for a garage sale at my mom’s house to make some "mad money" for our upcoming New England trip. Why do those things sound like such great ideas until it’s time to actually HAVE THEM??? So, I’m off to find my masking tape and get back to pricing. I’m selling three boxes full of Mark’s clothes and toys. It was hard to pull them out one at a time and remember how excited we were when we bought all those things, and remember him playing with and wearing some of the them, but it’s even harder having them in the closet and seeing them every time I open the doors for something. I dread having to explain why we have so many brand new clothes and toys for sale. I know someone will ask. Boy oh boy, do I have a story for them.

Worth It? * Now With Clarification * Kind Of *

I have quite a few “real life” friends, bloggy friends, and family members who have made their way through infertility and have come out the other side with beautiful children of their own. And I’ve noticed that, at one point or another (and usually within their first year of parenthood) almost every one of them has said something along these lines:

Everything we went through – all the pain and the heartache and the frustration – it was all absolutely worth it.
 Quite often the context is a “hang-in-there-and-keep-fighting – you’ll-be-so-glad-you-did” kind of way – either directed towards me or towards their readers in the blogosphere. And while I appreciate the sentiment, I often want to look at them (or write to them) and say,

“Are you sure? Are you sure I’ll be so glad I did? Are you sure it will have been worth it for me? Of course it was worth it for you. You ultimately got exactly what you wanted. You got a child. But what if you hadn’t? What if you went through IF treatments and/or tried to have a biological child through a surrogate and/or adopt and you came to the end of the road and it simply didn’t work out for you? What then? Would you still be able to confidently and passionately proclaim that it was all “absolutely worth it”?
 We are much closer to the end of this journey than we are to the beginning. We will not do this for another four years. Guaranteed. If I’m being honest, I can’t imagine still being in this limbo even a year from now. And I have to wonder, if we do reach the end of this road with no child to love, will it have been worth it? The pain, the heartache, the frustration, not to mention the wasted time, the wasted money, the relationships that are changed forever (not mine and O’s thankfully, but with others)? Will it all have been worth it?

What started me thinking about this is a talk I had with O the other morning. He admitted that he’s been in a funk. He’s not depressed, but O is someone who generally rolls with the punches and goes on with his life - much better than I do. It’s not that he’s Little Mary Sunshine all the time, but he’s much better at accepting things for what they are and moving on. But what is currently happening with Chris, and more so what happened with Mark back in the spring has really gotten to him. And that makes me sad. And it makes me think that we should call this whole thing off sooner rather than later so we can just mourn and be done. Because if this is negatively impacting my husband, who I love more than anything or anyone in the world, then I can raise my hand and say that this is absolutely, positively no longer worth it.

Not even close to worth it.

*Thanks for the comments and e-mails in response to this post. I guess what I wrote wasn't clear, maybe because my thoughts on the subject aren't quite clear to me yet.

I will never regret giving foster/adoption my all once we decided to dive into it. As I wrote on a previous post, I'm an "In for a penny - in for a pound" kind of girl and want to know that if things don't work out the way we want them to, I did everything I could.

What I was talking about was more the choice to get into it in the first place. When/if we reach the end of the road without a child, will I be able to look back and say "I'm glad we did this - it was worth all we went through."? I can't imagine that my answer would ever be "yes".

In fact, in one of the e-mails I received yesterday, someone (hi someone!!!) asked me if I'd known then what I know now, would I do it all again. Right now, the answer is a resounding "no way", so maybe there's my answer.