Can I Just Say?

Okay, I am going to begin this post with the understanding that I am going to come across as a whiny child. I'm fine with that. Cause it's my blog and I'll whine if I want to.

In the past, I have written a few posts about one of my closest friends and the turmoil we've had in our relationship from time to time.

In the ten years that I've known her, two particularly huge things have happened to me. I met and married O, and we embarked on this journey to become parents. E has had a difficult time being happy for me when wonderful things are unfolding. In the weeks leading up to my wedding, it seemed that she did everything possible to ruin my happiness. As we were completing our home visits with our social worker and were about to find out if she was going to recommend us as adoptive parents, E went missing. She said it was just too hard to see us on the road to achieving something that she'd always wanted and that, in her mid-40's (at that time), she'd probably never have.

For my own sake, I took a MAJOR step back at that point, and stopped communicating with her for several months until our little group of girlfriends was gathering from around the country at my house for few days. While the trip had been organized before she and I went our separate ways, she still planned to come and I decided to bury the hatchet, at least for the duration of her visit. First of all, I'd never want anyone to be uncomfortable in my home and secondly, I thought it took a lot of courage for her to fly in for that weekend - that it must have been really important to her.

As the weekend wound down and we had a little bit of time to ourselves, she broke down crying - apologizing for her actions and asking for forgiveness. Of course I forgave her, and while our relationship is not as close as it once was, we do talk on the phone every couple of days.

Since that time she has seemingly been very supportive of and excited for us re: adoption.

So, since all this news about Smiley has come up in the past couple of weeks, I've noticed that she's been a little bit short - that her affect seems a bit flat. BUT, she's also been sick with some sort of respiratory nightmare since Christmas and is only in the last getting better. I'd be short and flat too, so I hadn't thought much of it.

Another thing I should probably tell you that 75% of our conversations (or more) are about her. She really likes/needs to talk about herself. I am completely fine with that. I've never had a big need to blah blah blah on about myself (except here!) and if I do, I have lots of friends who are great listeners. (She is, however, a great listener when things are going badly.)

It seems like when the attention shifts too much to me, as when I was planning my wedding and when we were getting our initial foster/adoption stuff done, she seems threatened and has to do something to shift it right back to herself.

Thursday we were talking about Smiley, and just how crazy this situation is - how challenging it is to be standing in our shoes, so very close to having a child of our own yet still in limbo.

There was a pause in the conversation and she said, "I've been thinking about adopting."

Even as I write this, I recognize that I sound so petty but my first thought was, "You have got to freaking be kidding me."

For anyone else, I would have been so excited and would have immediately started sharing all that I've learned from these years of gathering information and reading blogs. Instead, I was mad, because it just felt so eerily similar to the days before my wedding when I was on the verge of something life-changing and purely wonderful, and she had to shift the attention back to herself.

Yes, I recognize that it could all be very innocent - that she's seen us getting closer to parenthood and has started thinking about taking steps to become a mom herself. Yes, I recognize it's likely that I am being an overreacting butt.

But it just seems to be entirely too coincidental - the timing of everything. It seems very passive aggressive.

I don't know. I'm just going to take a couple of days to get over myself and I guess I'll go from there.

Squeaky Clean

What a hell of a week.

On Sunday, I glued one of my eyes partially shut with superglue . . . just for a minute. Or five.

On Monday, I got the call from the adoption worker telling us about the new person deciding after years of not making any effort to bring Smiley into their family that they now want him. I didn't talk much for the rest of the day. When I'm upset (or frustrated, or angry, or thinking a lot), I get quiet and clean things. On the bright side, our house is sparkly clean.

On Tuesday, our worker J called to let us know the adoption committee loved us, but that she had absolutely no idea whether we'd end up with Smiley or not. Thus, more quietness. More cleaning.

On Wednesday, Smiley's adoption worker called to confirm what J had already told us - that the adoption committee had no questions or concerns about us as an adoptive resource for Smiley, and that they'd have no problem offering us the option to adopt him IF he's not sent to live with this new person. The irony of that call was not lost on me. What would have been a, "Congratulations! It's a boy!" call was instead, "Congratulations! We think you're great but there is a strong possibility that you're never going to meet Smiley." More quiet. More cleaning - this time UNDER furniture.

Then O and I got into a squabble, which we never do. It was just his work stress plus adoption stress, plus my adoption stress and BAM, we're being not nice to each other. Luckily we have a rule that bad feelings are never allowed to go on. We don't jump in the car and drive away, or have hours of stewing and festering. We take few-minute break and then it's back together to work it out. We were almost immediately apologizing and hugging and back to normal, but the fact that we squabbled at all indicates the level of frustration going on around here.

Today? Well, hopefully today will be better. I don't have many things left to clean.

Oy Vey

Heard from our wonderful worker a little while ago. The meeting went beautifully as far as anyone having any concerns re: us. They think we'd be great parents for Smiley. It simply remains to be seen what the county will do about this new person who has come forward.

That should be resolved in the next couple of weeks.

Till then . . . we wait.

Oy Vey.

The Blind Side

I knew it wasn't a good thing when I saw Smiley's adoption worker's phone number come up on my caller ID.

Someone who does not know Smiley has come forward and want to adopt him. This person is not biologically related, though they do have a tie to him - one that D*C*F*S considers very important.

So, the meeting to present us/our home study to the committee will go on as planned tomorrow. Then the adoption worker is going to try to get himself, this person, and Smiley's worker together this week and figure out what is going on. As he told Smiley's worker, "This isn't fair - we are playing with these people's (our) lives."

I can't believe this. I was not even remotely prepared for this.

The Countdown Begins

I got a call from the adoption worker yesterday.

One week from today our home study will be the one presented to the committee handling Smiley's adoptive placement.

One week from tody, we'll know if we have been chosen to be his parents.

One week from today.

Anyone have the magic formula for making time fly?

Playing With Fire

It’s been a promising few days around these parts.

The adoption worker (let’s call him Andrew) was supposed to take a look at our home study on Tuesday when he got back into the office.

Tuesday afternoon I got an e-mail from our worker, J, who said that she’d received a voicemail from Andrew. He’d reviewed our home study and had a couple of questions, so he’d requested our entire file from the state office, but wanted to let J know that he was still pursuing us for Smiley.

I saw that as a very good sign – that he hadn’t seen anything thus far that was a big red flag for him.

I was also immediately concerned that they wouldn’t be able to find our file. That had happened once before. Someone had “checked it out”, hadn’t returned it, and it took awhile to track it down.

The file WAS located and put in Andrew's mailbox at the state office on Thursday. He was going to request that it be mailed to him but if that didn’t happen, he would pick it up when he was in the office on Tuesday, the 26th.)

Yesterday morning, I was driving my mother-in-law to see O’s uncle who is in the hospital a couple of hours from our home, and my phone rang. It was Andrew. I pulled over the first place I could find, and sat and talked to him for probably 20 minutes. He had a couple of questions that I was able to answer for him.

The first was if we’d had updated physicals. Ours in our file are expired. I told him we’d done that in November and that J had our paperwork. (It was sent to him yesterday afternoon.)

The other one was about my episoded with Reg***lan a couple of years or so ago. He asked if I minded telling him more about that. I told him I’d be happy to. I explained that I’d been put on Reg*lan for some problems I was having with reflux – that it was a medication designed to speed digestion. I told him that within a few days I was in the ER with paralyzing anxiety and was fortunate enough that the ER physician recognized the problem and immediately took me off the drug. I explained that even after I stopped the medication, I was still dealing with a lot of anxiety and immediately decided to go to a psychiatrist instead of letting my family doctor (who put me on Reg*lan in the first place and didn’t recognize the problem) treat me. I told him about the psychiatrist saying that Reg#lan was an evil drug that should be removed from the market – that he’d had a lot of patients have complete mental breakdowns on the drug and that I would have undoubtedly been one of those people. I explained that once the psychiatrist put me on something to treat the anxiety, it was a few-month process to wean me off, and that I hadn’t had any problems with anxiety or depression before or since that time. He seemed appreciative of my honesty and said he’d needed to ask because, of course, adding a child to our home would bring a lot of stress and anxiety. I laughed and said that I didn’t have a problem with stress and anxiety – that I had a problem with Reg@lan. He promised that none of the kids he’d send us would bring me Reg&lan. We both laughed at that.

We talked about Smiley, his history and background, his current situation. We talked about the fact that there was no guarantee as to what behaviors/problems may emerge in the years to come, or on mental capacity, or if he’d be “college material”. I told him that that was the case with any child – biological or adopted – and that while we’d have dreams for whatever child we adopted, we also knew that our role was to give them the love, support, and opportunities to succeed in their life, whatever that looked like for them. He asked if we were able to travel for visits, and I told him we were – that O and I were always up for a road trip.

So basically this is where things stand. He is in the process of reviewing home studies to find a family he thinks would be a good candidate for Smiley. Once that happens (and let’s say it’s us), he will set up a meeting at the state office with J (who will go on our behalf), himself, Smiley’s caseworker, and two other adoption workers from around the state. They will review Smiley's case and our home study and if they feel it is a good match, they will offer to let us adopt Smiley. If we accept, we will begin visits and start transitioning him to our home.

I feel really good about our conversation. I liked Andrew and he seemed to like me too. I very much wish I hadn’t been parked on the side of the road, with my MIL listening to every single word, but all in all I think it went well.

So, we go back to waiting some more. We’re starting to play with fire, though, talking about what we’d want to do if we got to bring Smiley home – paint and redecorate his room and ask our next door neighbor to build a swingset.

DANGEROUS area – chock full of potential heartache – but here we are once again. I wouldn't have it any other way.

My Very Best Shot

Since the adoption worker is supposed to look at our home study tomorrow, I decided to sit down today and spell out just how committed O and I are to educating ourselves to effectively raise a child of another race. I crafted the following e-mail which I sent to our caseworker J.. I requested that if it is appropriate, she please forward it along to the adoption worker.

I feel like I gave it my best shot and if we're rejected, it won't be because we didn't do everything we could. So, here goes . . .

Hi J,

Over the weekend as O and I talked about hopefully being chosen as adoptive parents for Smiley, it occurred to us that since (evil social worker MIA) did our home visits and began our home study, you might not be aware of all we were prepared to do in raising a child of another race, so we wanted to share some of that with you. Hopefully it will give you and the caseworker(s) considering us for Smiley (or any child of a race other than our own) some additional information in helping make their decision.

I went online and quickly looked up the racial make-up of our zip code. 16.1 percent of the population is (Smiley’s race). Because we live in a fairly rural area, we will have to seek out playmates for any child we add to our family. Regardless of our child’s race, it is our intention to seek out programs, playgroups, classes, and hobbies that would expose him or her to a racially diverse group of playmates. That would be a big priority and as a stay-at-home mom, I would have the time to do that.

As I mentioned to you, our child will go to school in (nearby town). It is one of the best school systems in the area. The schools Smiley would attend are:

Blah School (19% Smiley’s race)
Blah Blah School – (17.3% Smiley’s race)
Blah Blah Blah School - (16.9% Smiley’s race)

We don’t currently attend church but once a child is placed in our home, O and I both think it’s important that we attend church together and expose our child to religion as he or she grows up. One major factor in finding a church will be our child’s race. If we are chosen to be Smiley’s parents, we will specifically seek out a church with a good percentage of (Smiley’s race) members in the congregation, and preferably in the (nearby town’s) school district so he can attend church with his schoolmates.

Regardless of the race of the child we adopt, we plan raise him or her in a very racially diverse home. I have compiled a list of children’s books reflecting characters who are Hispanic, African-American, Asian, mixed-race, and who may have various physical challenges. Our purchases will, of course, lean towards the race of the child who is placed with us but there will be a broad mixture in our library, including books about adoption.

Additionally, I have the name of a website that sells craft supplies (paints, crayons, felts) that reflect the skin tones/hair colors of all races, so our child can really SEE himself and his friends in his artwork and crafts.

Our child’s room will, of course, be decorated to reflect his tastes and interests, but we plan to honor his cultural heritage not only in his room but throughout our home with books, art, and photos. We would also attend festivals, learn songs and poems, make foods, and go on trips to learn about and honor his cultural history.

(Personal information deleted)

I could go on, but I hope this gives you an idea of how much we’ve thought about this and how prepared we are to do whatever we can to offer our child every opportunity to be loved, well cared for, and successful in his or her life.

Please let me know if you have any questions!