Waiting is waiting

We are agency approved! Our adoptive parent profile books have been ordered (after much hand-wringing and editing from me) and will be delivered to the agency by the end of the month. At that point we will officially be waiting for our match!

I am indescribably happy that the first part of our journey has come to a close. I don't even know what to do with myself! We made it, we survived. The road thus far has been at turns terrifying and frustrating and unending. Yet here we are: waiting.

I feel a little like we left the infertility waiting room of unknowing, took a long winding walk, and now find ourselves in another, very similar, waiting room of unknowing.

"Will it be today??" Variations of this question are bound to crowd my brain in the coming months. Logically, I know it is unrealistic to expect that we will match quickly. Not because there is something wrong with us, but simply as a result of the process that we have no control over. There are only so many expectant women looking for families with our agency, and only so many of them will even look at our book based on their situation. These things take time. And yet obviously, the blooming hope and optimism within me is all "But you never know, you *could* match quickly!!" It is difficult to want to stuff that hope down when I lived in despair for so long. Hope is sunny and warm and bubbly - I love that feeling! I just need to temper it with enough reality to not feel disappointed when we haven't matched by the end of the year. We simply have to wait.

I am hopeful that this version of waiting will be easier than the on-again, off-again roller coaster of infertility cycles. I think some people want to be as informed about their profiles views as possible, but I am not one of those people. I don't want to know when a woman is reading our book unless she has chosen us. Because rejection sucks. I'd rather hear about it in detached statistics: "Over the past 4 months, we showed your profile 3 times". That is a kind of rejection I can handle, it is over and done with, no agonizing.

I've been holding off on a few projects because I knew they would be excellent to fill some time while we wait. I want to thoroughly research cloth diapering, I need to get a handle on how much breast-milk I can realistically expect to source on a regular basis, we need to choose a pediatrician. Also we can start researching every major baby device purchase (God there are so many things one needs!) so we know exactly what to get when the time comes. I'm still not comfortable with the idea of buying things (or receiving baby items as gifts), but I think I am going to have to suck it up and learn to be okay. My sister has been saving a LOT of stuff for us from Bear (the 2.5 y/o nephew) and she is sort of begging me to get some of it out of her house so she can re-claim her craft room. Plus, several people have told me they were just waiting for us to be officially waiting before getting us a gift of some kind. I have to figure out how to not be anxious about the existence of baby stuff in my house or I will be committed before we match.

Oh, one other project that will help pass the time: I have drafted a proposal with persuasive arguments for my employer to update their parental leave policy! I'm so political, LOL! I was honestly crushed when I learned that I would get 3 weeks of leave for my adoption, but had I managed to conceive I would have received 6 weeks. It continued to trouble me over the months and I brought it up at a staff open forum last month. I was encouraged to pursue a policy change and next week I present my research, arguments, and proposals to our staff advisory council! I'm really excited about it and I hope I can get their support in lobbying the administration.

What did you do during your wait? I would love ideas and advice!

Wildly Vacillating Emotions

I am so excited to be a mom! Wheeeee!!!

I am so terrified of introducing an infant into our daily lives! Aaaaaagh!!!

We're gonna have a baby! Eeeeeeeee!!!

We're going to ruin our marriage! Heeeeeelp!!!

That kind of sums up for you where my head is at these days - which is to say limitless joy and bottomless terror and all points between just for good measure.

I know I can't be the only person to look at impending parenthood and feel this see-saw of emotions, but I still feel alone in it. We worked so hard for this, so long for this - I must *really* want it, right? I must be nearly desperate for that baby, for motherhood, for my life to make a 180 degree turn and look nothing like my current existence.

Well, no. I rather like my current existence, actually. If I've had a bad day at work, I get to come home and binge-watch Stargate episodes if I want to. I sleep in until 8 on Saturdays. We can have sex whenever we want!

Half the time, I am so excited to be matched and placed. I can't wait to be a mommy and do all those parent-y things. But the other half of the time I am gripped in terror that I am inviting big trouble into my life. What if M and I start fighting all the time? What if our baby just has one of those temperaments where they cry all. the. time. What if M only *thinks* he wants kids, but then, when we have one, he doesn't want to change diapers, do bath time, or car pool to Little League?  I am so scared that right now my life is perfect and I am about to destroy that perfection forever. Literally so scared that M need only say the word and I would probably drop this whole adoption thing.

Is that okay? Is that normal? I sometimes think I must not want children that much if I'm having these thoughts...but then I insist to myself that other people probably feel this way too and they just don't talk about it. Infertility and adopting both give you soooo much time to sit and think about all the things that could go wrong. I hate that ::sigh::

I will just keep working on our profile, and enjoying the way our life is now because it has a term limit. And I will breathe and remind myself that that is okay.

Our Home Study Experience

Wow, that was quick and painless! ....Did I miss something? Wasn't that supposed to be intimidating, invasive, and take forever? M and I might have gotten extremely lucky and had just about the best (and fastest!) experience possible with our home study!

Admittedly, there is probably great variation from state to state and even agency to agency within the same state. A home study is very much a "Your mileage may vary" kind of experience. Ours was a veritable cake walk. Mmmm...cake....

I had planned on not going crazy with cleaning because I knew there wouldn't be any white glove test. I thought, let's clean the bathrooms well and the kitchen, but other than that just vacuum, pick up clutter, maybe dust if there is time (haha, no, there wasn't time). But then I started breaking out with my second poison ivy rash in a month and so instead of cleaning like Jesus is coming because of the home study, we did it to try to wipe out any lingering trace of poison ivy oil that might be on the dog, furniture, carpet, *wherever*! I was very pleased with the state of our home by the time the social worker arrived - not like she was going to disapprove us from a lack of dusting, right??

I am so proud of how M handled the home study, there aren't sufficient words for how well he did. He is such an introvert, like not socially awkward just not a joiner in any way - he is a watcher and a listener, not a talker. In my family, we call him a cat because that is seriously the way he behaves. But with the social worker he was relaxed, spoke easily, didn't give weirdly vague or too short responses, and he even came up with some really clever ideas for handling discipline and for handling a closed adoption situation - completely on the fly! It was pretty much how M acts around me when it is just us, so I'm not saying he behaved totally unlike himself, just unlike himself when around strangers or large groups. I know he had to put a lot of conscious effort into it, so I made sure to acknowledge it with him later.

The questions were pretty straight forward and I didn't feel like they were overly probing. I answered the very long question of how we came to adoption over the past 4 years. M fielded the question of how we met and ended up together (an oddly long story, actually). There were general questions about our families, our relationships with them, our experiences growing up. Then there were adoption/parenting questions such as "How do you plan on handling discipline?"; "What level of openness are you comfortable with?"; "What if an expectant mother chooses you, but says she wants no contact?". None of the questions took us by surprise or were anything we hadn't already discussed at length with each other. Our answers came easily and honestly and we were able to provide some amount of detail to the more hypothetical questions, proving we'd thought things through.

The walk-through of the house had me nervous because we live in an almost 100 year old American Four Square. It was pretty much gutted to studs and remodeled in the late 90's, but the owners maintained the original aesthetics and craftsmanship of the house as much as possible. All that is to say: we have an old, quirky, and definitely NOT standard kind of home. Child-proofing will take thought, trial and error, and some creativity. We tried to demonstrate we are already thinking about those concerns, even if we haven't actually installed much in the way of child-proofing (and honestly, that comes down to me refusing to put anything in my home that is baby exclusive when we could wait 2 years to match). But apparently, it is a good thing that our old door knobs don't lock and that the original, double hung windows are a pain in the ass for an adult to open. We didn't get dinged on a single thing - whew!

Our social worker was with us for just under 3 hours and at the end of it all, pronounced she had everything she needed and saw no need to schedule a second visit! Wow! I felt like we were getting away with something, like cheating! She has all my contact info of course, so she said if any other questions come up while she is writing the report, she will just email me. The feeling of relief as she left our house was amazing. We passed! Someone thinks we could be safe, decent parents and will make that recommendation to the state for us! Not all couples can say they are state-certified parents ;-)

So now I need to really start working on the Profile book, writing out drafts of each section, researching layout options on Shutterfly. I guarantee the home study report will be submitted and our infant care classes completed before I finish the profile. I want to be very methodical and purposeful about the content because I want us to match with someone who feels a connection with us - the real us, not a stripped down/sanitized version of us. This is so exciting! We are SO close to be approved and waiting!!

Homestudy!!!

We have a social worker!!! I had just commented to my friend that I was hoping to have been contacted by our social worker by now, but I didn't want to bug our agency about it - and then lo and behold, I got a phone call on my lunch break from our social worker! And even better than that, she had room in her schedule to come see us next Thursday which is a day both M and I were taking as vacation from work anyway! (because we are seeing a live show Wed night).

We have our first homestudy visit in exactly 1 week!! I am so excited!!!

And you'd think I'd be freaking out because OMG homestudy, must clean like Jesus is coming to dinner! But actually, no, I'm totally cool about it. I'm going to vacuum all the rooms really well, dust (which is something I do about once a year), and make sure the kitchen and bathrooms are cleaned, but I am not going to go crazy and wash all the windows or anything. Just normal clean, not second coming of Christ clean.

So I really think we are going to be approved and waiting by mid- to late summer! Isn't that crazy?? We could be matched by the end of the year! Or not, but I guess there's no way of knowing. I will just be grateful when there is nothing left for us to do but wait for a phone call :-)

Meditating on Loss

"A child born to another woman calls me 'Mommy'. The magnitude of that tragedy and the depth of that privilege are not lost on me." - Jody Landers

I keep coming back around to the thought that our joy will be at the expense of someone else's loss. It is surreal to know that somewhere in this state, there is a woman who, in a few months or a year, is going to find out she is unexpectedly pregnant. And that crisis, coupled with conditions unknown, will cause her to seek out options.

I mean...think about it! Very few situations in life put us in the position of praying for someone else's loss. The only other one I can come up with right now is war. You pray for the other side to lose and that probably realistically means they will sustain more casualties.

And then, there is the other loss that can occur. Our loss. We might match with an expectant mother only to have her choose at some point to parent rather than to place. Which is entirely her right, her decision, and we will have to respect it. But how to manage the pain and sorrow we feel with the understanding that we essentially feel bad that a child is *not* losing their first family, their biological identity. How can you mourn that? I guess we have to figure out how to rejoice in what is retained for that child, while grieving for the loss of our own hopes and dreams, however inexplicable. If we have a failed match, I pray it happens early on. A failed match at the time of placement would be...like a death.

I think I keep coming back around to this because it is useful to keep things in perspective. If I am deeply conscious of the *loss* involved in adoption, then I pray I can honor the birth parents in a meaningful way. I pray it will give me more than sweet sounding words for my child whose first life experience will be losing the only familiar person to them. It's not just a sad idea to be ignored, it is the reality of the situation.

Somewhere out there, right now, is a woman who has no idea the trajectory of her near future. A woman who God might lead to M and I. That pain, and crisis, and loss can be the foundation of a healthy life is so baffling.

It Won't Be Long Now

Being a task oriented person, there is nothing I love more than to check off items on a long "To-Do" list. We have finished our adoption classes! CHECK! We finally got fingerprinted! CHECK! The last few papers required before our homestudy are printed and signed! CHECK!

Tomorrow, I'll mail a fat manila envelope to our agency and we should soon be assigned to a social worker for our in-home interviews :-D That is crazy exciting! My fingers are crossed that by the end of the summer, we will officially be waiting to be matched.

I even started an outline for our profile book after reading about 27 articles on what to say and what not to say. I took some time at my sister's house to scroll through 3 years of photos she has on her computer to pull out potential pictures for the profile. I still need to look through what my mom has on her computer. Writing the profile doesn't feel quite so terrifying now, but it is still a *major* task to accomplish.

We are also very nearly done saving up for the bulk of the adoption expenses - the big stuff that requires us to write a check for several thousands of dollars at once. The little stuff (Ha! Listen to me, "little stuff" - cause $400 ain't no thang, LOL! In adoption expenses it isn't.) we are paying for out of our regular budget because I know we can absorb those costs and adjust for them by eating out less or planning cheap meals for a week, etc. I double checked our savings against the fee schedule outlined by our agency and we are so close! Of course, there may be additional, unplanned for costs, such as renewing our homestudy or paying for 2 sets of birthmother expenses if we have a match fall through. But we will have time to save up those funds again if it comes to that and I have decided to think positive.

In a few weekends we will take our CPR certification and then in June we have "infant care" classes. The items checked off the mile long list of things to do are quickly outnumbering the unchecked tasks. At times it felt like we would never get to this point. Can I throw a party when we are officially a "waiting couple"? Because I think we will deserve a party after 6 months of hard work :-D

I Calmed Down, I Promise

I feel bad for leaving up such an angry post for so long with no follow up. I always have a very strong initial reaction to change (whether good or bad) and I always calm down and move on, even if it isn't obvious in my blog posts ::knowing smile::

The car situation actually worked our really well - the best it possibly could. We made a smaller down-payment than we had planned at first, and that meant we didn't have to "steal" money from the pursuit of our future baby. We also got an AMAZING interest rate on our loan (thank you, Daddy, for teaching me about managing my money). So our monthly payments are within our comfort zone. Saving will be slowed, but it's not the end of the world.

God had to get in an extra little dig about me not trusting Him, though. My mother-in-law has committed to helping us save for the adoption expenses by using some of her inheritance from her aunt. Her aunt was more of a second mother for her (especially after her mother passed away), and MIL took care of her aunt for years after she developed Alzheimer's. She was the most devoted niece I know of and has well earned her inheritance. I told her she didn't have to give us one red cent, but she is very certain this is what she wants. See how I really need to learn to just trust in God's plan?

We still have a lot of saving to do, this process is just so darn expensive. But I'm so grateful that the necessity of a new car wasn't the huge, devastating set-back I worried it might be. We are so incredibly blessed through our family and friends who are being just amazingly supportive. I could never put in words how lucky and thankful I am.

Also - Adoption classes have started! And we need to finish our paperwork STAT! So much to do before we can be approved as prospective adoptive parents, but nothing is scaring me as much as "The Profile". You know, the self-designed, autobiographical scrap book that all agencies show to their expectant mothers? Like, no pressure or anything, just sell yourselves as parents! O.O I am completely terrified of this project. And we can't be presented to expectant mothers without it...

Anyone have advice for how to get through it without editing, re-editing, re-re-editing, starting over from scratch, and generally making myself insane?