By The Numbers

1. Our worker did talk with the state adoption worker today.

2. She forwarded him our home study which he will take a look at on Tuesday when he is back in the office.

3. His first question was what is the racial make-up of our area. We are obviously caucasian. This child is not. Our little town is very white, BUT . . .

4. We decided long ago that if we ever had a child, he or she would go to the schools in the next town over - larger, better school system and very diverse. That was a bonus, apparently.

5. We were asked if we had any family members and friends of this race. O's cousin and his wife who live in another state have adopted three boys of this race from the foster care system. In fact, his wife has been SUPER supportive of us on this journey and would be a great support and resource. That is apparently another plus. I also have several girlfriends whose children are mixed race so . . .

6. I'd hate to be rejected summarily because we're caucasian, but that may very well happen.

7. All I know is that this is a wild and crazy ride and I've got my hands up on the roller coaster.

8. With my fingers crossed.

"Ask and Ye Shall Receive"

Those were the words our worker used when she called us this afternoon . . . about two separate children available for adoption . . . one of whom we are unbelievably excited about.

There is nothing about this child that raises a red flag for us thus far, and she was able to give us quite a bit of information about him/her. I didn't even have any follow-up questions and if you know me, that is nearly an impossibly.

We called her back and told her we were in love.

She will contact the worker in the morning and I guess we'll go from there.

We shall see . . .

So Damned Tired

So I followed through on my committment to myself. The last three days I have literally spent hours pouring through state websites, national databases and heart galleries, looking at the profiles of kids who we might be a match for. O and I even decided to expand our search parameters, considering much older kids than we were initially looking at.

I've sent probably 30 initial contacts to case workers in all the state that are within driving distance of our home, and have heard back from most of them. Some were quite enthusiastic. All requested our home study. Some state require it from our worker directly. Others are fine with the individual submitting it.

I have a copy of our home study on my computer. Our worker sent it to me to proof read which was a good thing, since they had about 25 things wrong on it, including our dates of birth and even my name in one place. (I am not Mrs. Sealy. Don't even know Mrs. Sealy.)

I was hopeful that I could just send it out to the states that weren't particular about who submitted it. Nope.

I was hopeful, then, that our worker could send out the "official" copies since she has the original. Nope.

Our state requires us to send a letter to the state office requesting that our official home study be sent to one state. One state only. I have to include the contact name of the person we've been in touch with and the child we are interested in. (Of course, there are SEVERAL kids in each of the states, and the contact people are different for each child. I am too angry to even ASK if my state will send several home study copies to one state or if it can only be one at a time.)

After the home study is sent out of state, our state gives that state THREE MONTHS to decide whether they will use us as a resource. We cannot pursue any other out of state children during that time.

THEN, if the other state doesn't use us as a resource, we can craft yet another letter to the state office requesting that our home study be sent to ANOTHER state about ANOTHER child.

Oh, and let's not forget that I can't even send a letter to the state for several weeks because we've changed the age range of the child we're interested in and it will take that long to get that corrected in the home study and in the state's computer system.

I understand that they would much prefer for us to adopt a child from our state. We would too! But it seems to me that they are doing everything possible to discourage us from looking outside the state.

Just heard one of those, "You'd make a great parent to an older child in foster care" bullshit commercials. I'd love to rewrite the copy for that particular ad, except they wouldn't be able to air it on the radio.

Fa la la la la!

^^^^^ "helping" put up Christmas lights^^^^^

I know I’ve mentioned it here before, but I just love the holidays and this year, like most years, we tried to wring every last drop of fun and merriment out of them. Seems like we had something going on from early December until just a few days ago.

I had a girlfriend visit from Michigan for a few days before Christmas, and she left just in time to celebrate O’s birthday on the 23rd. (He was sick with some sort of virus, but my lemon pound cake seemed to make him feel somewhat better.)

Christmas Eve I made pies and we spent the evening at my mom and dad’s opening gifts and eating too much. Christmas Day was crazy busy – a yummy breakfast and opening presents at O’s parents’ house, Christmas lunch for my parents and cousin at our house, and then a couple of hours of “down time” before our yearly Christmas Day Open House. We had about 25 – 30 people come to talk, laugh, and watch “Christmas Vacation”.

Yet another girlfriend arrived from Ohio for a week on the 27th, and in the meantime my FIL was hospitalized for several days. (He’s home now and doing better.)

New Year’s Eve I had yet another girlfriend visit for a few days. Once our Ohio guest was delivered safely to the airport, we were ready for some solitude, just me & O. I hurriedly put away our houseful of decorations (7 trees are fun to put up – grim to take down), and I had one day to immerse myself in pre-National Championship festivities before our beloved football team played on Thursday.

We had our dear friends over for the game and though I did not enjoy the game at all until the end we WON we WON we WON.
The day after our big win, O and I drove to the location of the college, got some lunch, wandered around near campus and did some shopping, and generally enjoyed the festive atmosphere with some seriously excited fans. We even drove out to the airport to welcome the team home, but it was about 10 degrees and incredibly windy, so we decided to avoid pneumonia and watch it on TV. Such a fun day though. We hope to return for the parade/celebration this coming weekend, depending on the weather.

I can say with all honestly that during the holidays, I did absolutely nothing on the foster/adopt front. Didn’t look at our state website, or other state’s websites or heart galleries. I didn’t even think about it really. It wasn’t a conscious decision, but in retrospect, I don’t think I was willing to tarnish that wonderful time of the year by spending any time focusing on what we don’t have, because we have so, so much.

Now, though, my plan is to throw myself into the search whole-heartedly – to make the search my “job” for the next few months to see what eventuates. I can’t put a date on it, but my feeling is that if we don’t have a child in our home by the end of the year, we’ll call it quits and get on with our lives.

Who knows.

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.