November

I've spent a few days thinking about what I wanted to blog about for my monthly adoption update post. The update is there is no update. Technically there is one more day left, but we are pretty sure we broke our streak of one situation each month.

In other news, all things not related to adoption have been pretty eventful this November.

• Jake went from working in Seattle to working in Bend. We think it'll only be a few more weeks before he is back to working in the Willamette Valley and home every night. This will be wonderful...even if I do have to start cooking again during the week.

• I'm changing jobs and will be working in Salem full time. 

• I've been kind of sick for the past 3 or 4 months and was relieved to have negative results eliminating a serious condition as being the culprit. I'm so thankful for diagnostic testing and procedures. I was very relieved when my doctor said "good news, it's not cancer and its not ______" (a scary disease process).

• We hosted Thanksgiving this year and LOVED having everyone over. One of my sisters and I both can't have milk products so I made a completely lactose free meal. It really wasn't hard and nobody probably would have known if it wasn't mentioned. Best part about having a loud and busy house full of family was having a "kid space" in the house. With the nursery having a few things in it, including some stuffed animals now, my nieces had their very own place to play. This was the first time they got to have designated-kid space. It was awesome...and they made us laugh. A lot. At one point we were so busy laughing when they came running out of the bedroom "riding" stuffed animals none of us thought to pull out a phone or camera to take a picture.

• We got to go to the Civil War game and cheer on the Beavers. Although they didn't win, it was a ton of fun to go. I forget how close and easy it is to pop over to Corvallis and catch a game. I love going to sporting events.

I'm sure I'm forgetting a ton of other things, but those are the highlights!

A Glimpse

I work with a wonderful girl on a committee at work that brings us into the same conference room about once a month. I see her at events in between meetings typically, but our paths hadn't crossed for about 6 weeks. The moment I walked into the conference room and we locked eyes I knew. She had become an aunt. Her sister and brother-in-law are in Texas with their new baby boy waiting for their paperwork to go through so they can come home. It took everything in me to not have a complete breakdown over her wonderful news. There was so much running through my head as I looked at pictures of the newly formed family and as I listened to their amazing story. I did feel a twinge of jealously, (that I'm not proud of) but more than anything I felt such joy and excitement. Adoption is just so amazing. I was vividly reminded of what a magical and exciting time we are at in our lives awaiting our first child while getting this glimpse into another family's story. So, so, so exciting.

National Adoption Month

This is the third year that this month being dedicated to adoption awareness has been on my radar. Each year I learn so much more about adoption. I love how so many of the blogs I like to read post more often throughout the month. Reading other's stories and experiences is heartwarming and reassuring.

Although we've been on our adoption journey for 18 months we still know nothing about adoption, or so it seems. Because it is such a personal thing to talk about I get how I had exposure to adoption, but had little idea of the intricacies of the process. Also, there are so many different ways to go about adoption that I only know about the process we are going through.

For us, we are adopting domestically. We work with an agency in Idaho that also does work in Oregon. Our agency networks us (shares our profile) with other agencies that they regularly work with. Adoption agencies all work a little bit differently and its important that the agency itself and their caseworkers are a good fit for you. Adoption is extremely personal and emotional yet requires competent professionals to navigate the ethical and legal territory. Our agency networks us primarily with one agency that we've chosen in Louisiana. However, only 2 of the 4 situations that we've been considered for have been from the agency in Louisiana. The other two came from agencies in Oregon and Idaho that reached out to our agency looking for more couples to find a better match for their situation.

All of the situations that have been brought to our attention have changed me. They've changed my understanding of the process, how I look at these various situations and feel about the details i.e. the birthmother's life information, the health of the baby, etc., and they've changed my heart. At the end of the day I'll never know who these women and babies are, but they've had a great impact on my life and I've learned from them.

The entire month of November has also become the month of thankfulness. My facebook feed is full of 'today I am thankful for' posts. I'm thankful that more and more people are learning about adoption this month. Adoption in the United States has greatly evolved in the past 60 years and so many of the things that weren't great about it have been remedied. There are many myths and questions surrounding adoption, but it is no longer taboo...or at least that is the direction it is headed. For this I am thankful.

For anyone wondering about adoption in general or about our experience please don't hesitate to ask. Adoption is one of my favorite things to talk about. Even on the days that I'm a bit frustrated with the duration of our wait, talking about it lightens my frustration. I'm thankful for this as well.

Like Clock Work

I seem to only provide monthly updates anymore. Won't it be fun when I have more to say? :o)

Like clock work another month has gone by and with that another situation...that we were not chosen for. That makes four. This one was completely different than the others and we could feel the difference. Not sure if what we were/are feeling is because the baby was already born or something else. Jake and I both have a growing longing to bring baby home. I think a big part of that is simply because it feels like we've been waiting f-o-r-e-v-e-r (picture that being a Sandlot forever).

a baby room

We decided to go ahead and start putting the baby room together. It's far from finished, but it was driving me nuts having a crib and mattress sitting in boxes and having the closet not organized.

 

We were mildly worried that the crib would be a nightmare to put together so we kind of joked about needing to grab a beer and glass of wine before we got started. We opened up the box, grabbed the directions out, and saw that there were only 5 steps. Could it really be that easy? Yes. It took us longer to unpack and wipe the crib pieces down that it took us to put it together...and we love it!

 

 

I looked at hundreds of cribs. I finally found this one online and read about the company finding out they are hand made by a small company in Wisconsin; just a few hours away from where my parents grew up. 

 

It really was easy to put together. Side note - Jake cracks me up. When I started taking pictures he said something like, 'Wait, you are taking pictures? If I knew you were going to do that I would have changed my clothes.' Apparently he felt his outfit was dorky and thought his future children would look at the pictures and laugh at it. He should have known better. I always take pictures.



 

 The baby room is the second largest bedroom in the house (being just one foot narrower than the master). It's a great room, but we realized not so great for crib placement. There is only one wall that doesn't have windows, heating vents, or doors. So, the crib ended up under a window. We plan to replace all the windows in the house in the next year or so and hopefully that will help with any drafts.

 





There is still tons to do in the baby room, but it is at least started and there are more projects for it in the works!

Back to Normal :)

I'm thankfully back to being my normal self. Talk about being in a funk. However, my momentary loss of optimism is behind me. I still think adoption can be hard. I still think it is hard to maintain perspective while going through this adoption journey, but it sure is nice when that perspective gets back in check. It's against my nature to not be in control of things, have things organized, or have a deadline. I have none of these things in this process and it kind of drives me nuts.

So, what does someone do when they're a control freak with no control?

Organize.

Make lists.

Clean.

Prepare.

Shop.

Okay, maybe the last one is unrelated.

Some pending-parenthood realizations I've had over the past few weeks:

1. How much control do I have really? And what little I might have will be gone anyway as baby becomes the controller of all. And I'm excited about that.

2. Moby wraps are flipping huge! Seriously. How long are they anyway? My guess is 16 feet. Or maybe only half that, but it is a serious strip of fabric (I'd measure it, but it is neatly packed in baby's go bag). Maybe Jake and I can both be strapped to baby at the same time. I'm pretty sure we'd both fit. It would be a relationship building exercise, much like riding a tandem bike.

3. I hope I like pampers. I stocked up on a few. I got a great deal on them and couldn't pass up getting some. Not such a great deal if I end up not liking them...

4. I want travel and exploration to be important to my kids. I wonder how they'll do when they are little? This has been a VERY interesting subject. We've been putting off a vacation (a much needed vacation) while waiting for baby. I want to take a vacation sooner rather than later i.e. I hope to take a family vacation before baby turns one. I'm talking warm weather, sandy beach vacation. As I've talked about this with friends there has been such a wide range of opinions. Some say leave them with grandma. Some say take them with. Some say don't take a trip and stay close to home instead. So, what's the realization here? I'm going to remain naive and leave the sugar coating on my future children. They will be perfect. They will sleep on airplanes. They will love going everywhere we go and we'll still be able to make  it to places on time. See...denial sugar coating...very healthy for all pending-parents.

three months

Three down, who knows how many more to go! October 1st marked three months of being on the wait list for us. Time seems to go by so quickly I don't really know how to feel about this waiting. On one hand I can't believe it has been three months already, and on the other it's been ages!!!

This last month, more than any other to-date, has been the hardest. Hands down, no contest, the hardest. Adoption is hard.

We spent a good portion of September thinking we might be parents soon. We made the prayerful decision to be considered for a baby with an October 8th due date. We were asked questions by the birthmom through our caseworker and up until the week before the due date we were being considered. Then we weren't. The birthmother chose a different couple.

It is such a conundrum to be considered by a birthmom. Most expectant parents get excited thinking about the prospect of their baby. We did. But there in lies the conundrum...we aren't technically expecting. We got to such a point of anticipation that it felt irresponsible to not prepare to some extent. We have what is necessary to bring a baby home, but as I walk through my home it seems somewhat pathetic to have a mostly empty room set aside in anticipation of a baby. I want to be hopeful, optimistic, positive, and graceful in this wait for our family to grow. For the most part I am. However, this week, I don't want to pretend that doing so is easy.