Time Keeps Tickin'

I was in the tub last night thinking about just how hard this journey has been for us, particularly in the last year. Before that, we had the frustrations of 18 months of trying to just get our home study completed – its’ own particular brand of hell, to be sure. After that, the children we inquired or were contacted about were just faces on a computer screen. We didn’t know them. Meet them. Hug them. Sing them bedtime songs.

Ugh – what a brutal year.

One of the most difficult aspects has simply been the waiting. We’ve lived our lives in blocks of time this year, for sure. If only we could hang on for two more months or three more weeks or four more days or six more hours, the meeting/phone call/court date we’d been waiting for would happen and we’d finally, finally know more and maybe even have an ANSWER. Through those chunks of time, we’re just left hanging, wondering if our dreams will be answered or shattered.

Most of the time, those meeting/phone calls/court dates come and go and there is very little to report. It’s a let down almost every time, but at least we hear something. We’re able to process it and then put yet another “x” on the calendar and start the countdown to the next date.

And then there are the times that we countdown and wait and think, “All we have to do is make it through a few more days”, and that date marked on the calendar comes and goes and we hear absolutely nothing. It prolongs the agony and make no mistake, it is agony.

Amy’s court hearing on Monday? No idea.

The judge’s ruling on Mark’s case? I was told he would rule in two weeks, yet two weeks came and went with no news. Come to find out, he USUALLY rules in two weeks but doesn’t have to, and apparently he hasn’t yet – that or the ruling is sitting on his overworked secretary’s desk waiting to be typed up.

And so we wait some more. And that makes me want to cry.

Amy and her son Chris have been on our radar screens for well over a year.

We’ve known about Amy’s soon-to-be-born child for around seven months.

Little Mark has been in our hearts for eight or nine months.

At one time, it seemed possible that we might be raising all three of these children and I can tell you, we had quite a few semi-panicked “How in the world are we going to do that?” conversations. Silly us.

It appears that all of these situations will finally, finally resolve themselves this week.

We should hear about the judge’s decision re: Mark any time. (Please God.) (And while we’re at it, please let my mom stop calling me over and over and over again – just for today. I jump like I’m shot every time the phone rings.)

Amy’s court hearing to determine whether Chris will be going home or whether her rights will be terminated is this week.

It remains to be seen whether she’ll attend, though, because she is expected to give birth at any moment. We've heard nothing from her about raising this child, as she'd once mentioned, so I guess she's going it alone. Three children under the age of three. Heaven help that girl.

I suspect that as Chris and Mark’s situations reach their resolutions, our dreams of having them in our family will come to an end once and for all, but there is a part of me that will be so happy for them – that maybe, just maybe they will get the stability they deserve. It’s been such a long time coming for them both.

I swear to you, if I make it through this week without an ulcer, it will be a miracle.

Blah and Ugh

Okay, so the child we’re waiting for the judge’s ruling on? It’s Mark. And I don’t mind telling you, my stomach has been in knots for eight days now. Eight days of waiting for the phone to ring. Eight days of obsessively checking e-mails. Eight days of soaring hope. Eight days of just waiting for the bad news to arrive. I can’t concentrate. I don’t want to eat. I don’t want to chat with any of my girlfriends. I just want to WILL the judge to make the ruling. To WILL the caseworker to let us know. To WILL this child into our home and into our lives for the rest of our lives.

I can’t help but think of his bio family. If O and I are feeling this wait so strongly, I cannot imagine how it must be for them. Yes, it was their actions or lack of actions that brought them to this place, but I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t have some compassion for what they must be going through.

I wrote a letter to his caseworker and the caseworker’s supervisor, telling them how much we love him. How much we think of him. How much we’d love to be his parents. The caseworker told us on the morning we decided not to have him move in that if they hadn’t found another adoptive home for him by the time TPR was done (if TPR was done) we would be the first people they came back to. I guess we’ll see if that happens.

In the meantime, I’ve been staying close to home. Enjoying fall. Well, imagining that it’s fall (80 degrees here today – yucko). I made a candy corn wreath yesterday and have the hot glue burns to prove it. I’ve been doing a little bit of Christmas shopping online. Planning a 50th birthday party for O. Today I have been cleaning the house. Except that when you have to stop to check e-mails every 10 minutes, it slows the process down. Speaking of – back to it.

Happy weekend everybody!!!

Fall-ish-ness

Today was one of those nearly-perfect days. Pretty blue sky. Temps too warm for October and too warm for my taste, but at least not scorchingly hot like it's been. O home with me. A nice lunch with my mom and dad. Playing with kitties and a cute one-eyed pup. Leaves crunching under our feet. Huge yellow mums planted on the porch. Pumpkins placed - well -EVERYWHERE. O's grandmother's old green wheelbarrow filled with pumpkins and mums rolled into our front yard. Football on the TV. An autumn spice candle burning in the front room. BBQ in the crockpot and a homemade apple pie bubbling away in the oven. Good friends over to help cheer our team to victory. Boy oh boy do I love fall.

2WW

Since I don't really seem to ovulate, and since we decided not to pursue either IUI or IVF, I never thought I'd have my very own two week wait, but guess what - I do. I am. We are.

There is a foster child we know of who we'd love to adopt (at least based on the information we currently have). The trial to terminate the parents' rights was held recently. The judge has two weeks to rule.

There is certainly no guarantee that we'd be considered for this child if TPR is done. We're simply very hopeful that we would be.

So now we wait.

All those road-tripping days on vacation spent NOT thinking about adopting? I am MORE than making up for them now.

Please oh please oh please let this work out. Oh please.

#'s

20 days since I last posted on this blog
12 days we spent on a road-trip vacation
4202.2 miles (yep 4202.2)
13 states
1 black rental car
1 transmission problem
1 white rental car
2 people who fell in love with Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine
1 moose
1 round barn
1 round church
2,775,482 times we said the word “pretty!” or some variation of it
1 pesky cow messing up my idyllic Vermont farm picture
1 loving husband trying to shoo the pesky cow (Cows will not be shooed, by the way. They will look at you like you are an idiot.)
1 drive-thru worker who had trouble understanding my husband’s accent
2 old mills
4 lighthouses
8 covered bridges
1 cider mill
2 warm cider donuts (Yum!)
1 sugar house
1 jug of the best apple cider you’ve ever tasted
3 nights in a harbor-front room with a to-die-for view
1 happy man eating seafood to his heart’s content
50 (or so) antiques stores and malls
1 trunk filled with wonderful antiques
1 surprise drive straight through the Bronx (do not blindly trust your Garmin, people)
1 stolen afternoon in PA Amish country
countless country roads and beautiful leaves of yellow, red, and orange
1 jaw-dropping sunset
2 tired travelers who made a lifetime of memories and were happy to be home

And the most surprising . . .

1 – the number of times I thought of fostering, adopting, Mark, or Chris and Amy

One time. Pretty strange. And very welcomed.