2020 Vision

Hey. 

Welcome [back] to my blog!

I feel like I don't need to introduce myself, because if you're reading this, you already know a little bit (or a lot bit) about me.  Maybe you didn't know that I like to write.  If you didn't, now you do.

I'm just not sure what I want to write about yet.  Sometimes there's just so much crap going on in my mind, I need to write it all out to figure out what to do with it.  There isn't really anything I feel like I need to figure out at this moment, except what to write about.  

It's too cold to go camping, too cold to go fishing, NASCAR has been cancelled for the next few weeks so no racing to watch today, and I just got back from the church women's retreat so I'm all relaxed and happy and pensive and refreshed.  In about 12 hours, it's back to the craziness.  And even though I don't work in acute care anymore, I still feel like it's going to be ugly.  

Yeah...more or less ;).  

Alright, this has gone on long enough for now.  My awesome wonderful hubby is making homemade mac and cheese for supper, so I'm gonna sign off and do some crocheting and enjoy what's left of a low-key weekend before I can't anymore.

...and letting God. (or "The Renaissance Project")

Well...it's been almost exactly three years since I last updated this blog. And what a busy three years it's been! 

Since I last wrote in here, the boy graduated from high school and is now in his junior year of college.  That whole thing has gone much better than I'd anticipated feared.  He's thriving in his new environment: doing well in his classes (even made the Dean's List last year!) and transitioning well.  He stayed in the dorms for the first two years, but last June he moved into a rental duplex with five of his new friends.  He says he has no plans whatsoever to return to living in the little rural town we call home, because there's nothing to do here.

I'm adjusting. 

I mean, this is what we want for our children, right?  We want them to grow up and become responsible young adults and find their grooves and make their marks in the world.  And that's what he's doing.  We don't want them living in our houses for the rest of their lives.  I knew the transition wouldn't be easy.  I spent the whole summer before his freshman year prone to seemingly unprovoked crying spells.  There is just so much out there to worry about... the news is always full of stories about college kids dying or getting seriously injured.  No one is more acutely aware of this than the mother of a new college freshman.  Especially if she never had that college experience herself. 

Actually, I really am a lot better now than I was at first.  This actually does kind of tie in to the whole adoption thing, because I've had to admit that my role as a parent has changed.  "Well, duh," I hear you say, "a parent's role is always changing."  Yeah, I know; you're right.  Ready or not, here it is. 

Since I brought up the adoption topic...

I'm adjusting to that, as well.  "That" being the fact that I was so sure, so absolutely definitely positive that we were doing the right thing and that it was our destiny to become parents again and raise another child.  So. Very. Sure.  I remember the day I started saying "When we adopt" instead of "If we adopt"; it was glorious!  It was guaranteed.  It was going to happen.  We had dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's, and jumped through all the hoops, and we were just waiting on God to send our birthmom our way. 

I haven't talked about this much in real life, yet.  I wasn't ready to talk about it much in real life, yet.  But it's been a long three years and ready or not...

I bought a Prayer Journal a few weeks ago.  I haven't written in it yet.  I haven't kept a written journal since the 1990's.   At the risk of sounding narcissistic, I like the feedback I get from writing in a blog that other people can read at their leisure.  Maybe my thoughts and feelings and experiences can help others -- or, if nothing else, provide some cheap amusement for a while. 

A few days ago while driving home from work, the idea of "re-using" this blog as my prayer journal came to mind and sounded like the best thing since rearview mirrors.  I'd like a "place" to be able to document not just my insights and thoughts and feelings, but also my faith journey.  ("If it's not documented, it didn't happen" was a concept I fully subscribed to LONG before the first day of nursing school!!)

So, that's the scoop.  That's why I'm writing in here again.  Because I need to remember to "Let go and let God" in so many other aspects of my life, I'm not even going to change the name.

See ya next time!

Letting go...

Well...thank you for all of the prayers, well-wishes, happy thoughts, words of encouragement, support, hugs, prayers, and any other kind of emotional expression you have shared with us over the last four years or so, on our adoption journey.

Our journey is over, but please don't be sad.  We're not.

It wasn't an easy decision to make, but just as strongly as we all felt that we were doing the right thing four years ago or so when we started attending informational sessions and gathering information on how to be involved in the domestic newborn adoption program, know that we now feel this is the right thing to do.  We've cancelled our contract with the adoption agency.  We've pulled our portfolios; in fact, they're both sitting in an envelope, on my desk, as I write this.

I don't know why we were never "chosen", but I do know that there is a lesson in all of this.  I don't know what that lesson is yet, but I still know that we're going through exactly what God wants us to go through.  His timing is always perfect, His plans are always flawless.  He blessed us with one child of our own, and that child is more than we could have ever dreamed of having.  I know I'm biased because I'm a proud mom and all, but seriously: we are truly blessed, far beyond our wildest dreams.  Our son is healthy, happy, super smart, talented, and truly and completely the apple of my eye.  I have always felt kind of weird for wanting another child, when the one we have already was the answer to so many prayers.

Like I said to DH a few weeks ago...we tried.  We did our best, but it wasn't meant to be.  I could run through the "what if"s until I'm blue in the face, but what's the point of that?!

So, thank you again, sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, for all of the support you've given us on this journey.  Please continue to pray for those families who are still waiting, and those families who are finding themselves in unplanned situations where they aren't sure what to do next.

All of our love,
T, P, & S

994 days...

Hello again!  It's hard to believe we're closing in on 1,000 days of this journey of waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting...

I remember when our journey of waiting first started.  I jumped every time the phone rang.  I made sure I always had my cell phone with me, on, and charged so that I wouldn't miss The Phone Call.  I remember having a slight panic attack one time when I was chaperoning a band trip and my phone battery died...I calmed myself down with the fact that DH was at home and the home phone would work just fine, if needed.  It wasn't needed, but that wasn't the point.  I used to worry about making vacation plans, because what if we got The Call during that time?!

I've become quite lax in that aspect.  :)  Every so often we get "unknown name" calls from in-state numbers (I answered one today, it was a political thing) that make me think, "Maybe this is it!" but I know that it likely will not be "it".

I'm not completely lax, though; I've just kind of shifted my obsession from the phone, to my email.  When I check my email, I hurriedly scan through the list of senders to see if our caseworker's name appears at all, hoping that it does, hoping that she's emailing me about a potential match or a birthmom situation that she thinks we might be interested in.  That hasn't happened for a while, either, but you never know.

Speaking of never knowing, it occurred to me a few weeks ago that every day that goes by without a phone call or an email feels like getting another "BFN" as they call it in the online infertility world.  That stands for "big fat negative" and, as you may have gathered from this entry's photo, refers to the result of a home pregnancy test.  And speaking of my obsessions...at least former obsessions, hahaha...

I haven't talked about my own infertility here (or anywhere, actually!) all that much.  When I was going through it -- "it" meaning "trying to get (and stay) pregnant" -- I never thought of myself as infertile; I could get pregnant, I just couldn't stay pregnant.  The doctors I would see would tell me not to worry about it, that I was young and it would happen eventually and I should quit worrying about it because that was probably making it worse.  And then they told me I should stop trying because it probably wasn't ever going to happen.  And then, miracle of miracles, I got pregnant with DS (after losing five pregnancies) and had an uneventful pregnancy and carried him to term and had an uneventful labor and delivery.  It was surreal.  It still has it's surreal moments.  In hindsight, I wish I would've tried harder to find answers; to find out why I was having so many issues and then to find out what to do about it, instead of just letting the chips fall where they may, and waiting until my late 30's to find out that I had severe endometriosis and uterine fibroids (and probably had for years) which very likely could have explained why I had had so much trouble in the reproduction department.  But, no sense dwelling on that now.  None of us can change anything in the past, but it is part of my story and part of what brought me to where we are today, on the journey of waiting to be part of an open adoption.

The point I was going to make is that, during the time when DH and I were trying to have a baby, I went through a LOT of home pregnancy tests.  Every time my period was late (which was most of the time), I'd have to test.  Too bad they didn't have punch cards for those things, like a "buy ten, get one free!" deal.  Anyway, most of the time I got the BFN.  It was devastating at first, and always disappointing, but not unexpected after a while.

That's exactly how I feel now, every day.  When a day goes by that our caseworker doesn't call or email, I feel like I just peed on a stick and got another BFN.  Every. Day.  It was devastating at first, and always disappointing, but not unexpected.  I guess, like in the old days, I just acknowledge it, let it go, and hope that the next time brings better results.  Because, like in the old days, I have faith that it will happen; that "better results" are just around the next corner, or maybe the next one, or possibly the one after that.  I don't know when, but one of these days we'll get that phone call or email.  I remember that feeling of getting a positive result (or a "BFP" in the online slang), and the guarded sense of elation that followed.  I can't wait to feel that way again!!

In other news...not much.  DS only has a few days left of his junior year of high school, and I'm already having my moments with that.  He had his last piano recital this week; he's been taking piano lessons for nine years and decided that next school year he will have too many things going on to keep it up.  Part of me was super sad about that, because it's the first of many lasts that will be happening in the next twelve months, and I'm not really ready to have my baby boy graduate from high school yet!  But time, as we all know, keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin' into the future... heh.  I'm happy that he did keep up with piano for as long as he did, and that it set such a strong foundation for his forays into other musical avenues (choir, trombone, guitar, bass...). I wish I could play half as well as he does.  Or even a quarter as well.

The boy got himself a job a few months ago, too.  I wasn't ready for that, either, but now it's kind of nice that he has some of his own money!  He works in the deli of our local grocery store, and seems to be enjoying it and handling the responsibility quite well.  I'm a proud mama bear.  :)

In "OMG!" news, I found out via Facebook this week that one of DS' friends (who moved away a few years ago) just became a daddy.  That caught me a little off guard!  Of course I'm fully aware that it's possible...DS himself will be 18 in January, and when I was his age I'd already been pregnant once myself...but it makes me feel old.  And, I'm not gonna lie, jealous; but that's part of life with infertility.  Some people can pop out babies like a PEZ dispenser, and some of us can't.  It doesn't make me a bad person, it's just a reminder that we all have different paths to follow.  At least, that's what I tell myself almost every single day.  :)

On THAT note, please keep all of us waiting families in your thoughts and prayers.  Pray for patience and guidance.  Pray for the strength to handle our journeys, no matter where the road takes us.  And, of course, pray for the moms out there who don't know what to do with their unborn babies...let them find us, let them know that someone out there wants so badly to meet them and help them...let them know they're not alone.

Thanks for reading.  See you next time!!

If at first you don't succeed...try re-doing your portfolio.

901 days since we've been officially on the books as of today!  And still, we wait. Sometimes more patiently and faith-filled than others.  There's nothing quite like the barrage of self-doubt that comes along with being a family hoping to be chosen by an expectant mom.  Why haven't we been chosen yet? Are we too old? Is it because we already have a child? Did I make us sound too selfish?  Does it seem like we're not good parents?  Should we have used a different agency? Should we try to market ourselves? How long should we keep waiting??

For a few months now, I've been thinking about updating our portfolio.  I put it together in the summer of 2012, after all, and at that time the boy had just finished 8th grade.  It doesn't seem like that long ago, but recently he registered for classes for his senior year of high school, and it has occurred to me on more than one occasion that the photos of him in our portfolio are now a little out-dated.  I mean, he basically looks the same, but not really.  He's taller, his hair is longer, he looks more like a young man instead of a young teenager.  I just feel like he's a little misrepresented in our portfolio now, so I decided it's time for some updating.

I'm just afraid I won't be able to stop there.  Because I know that the "Pets" page is outdated now, too.  And I could add or change more pictures on other pages, as well.  Or maybe I should just change the whole look and feel of the whole portfolio.  I kept it simple, but maybe it's too simple.  Maybe I should add more text.  Maybe I should make it more serious and less "fun".  I don't know!!  I have a copy of it here, but haven't looked at it for a while.  I should look at it soon, to get an idea of exactly how much I want to change before I go shopping for more scrapbooking supplies.

So, that's pretty much where we are now.  I did email our caseworker last week and found out that our portfolio was looked at six weeks ago (well, seven weeks ago now), but nothing since.  Besides the fact that I'm afraid I won't be able to stop once I start updating the portfolio, I'm also more than a little hesitant to do so because it means both of our portfolios will be pulled and sent back to us.  Which means we won't be "out there".  I guess that's not entirely true, because our cover letters will still be available for expectant families to look at, and I don't plan on keeping the portfolios a second longer than necessary...but it's still in the back of my mind.  Our mom can't find us if we're not out there.

Well! In other news...since I last wrote in here, I'm happy to say that I survived chaperoning the marching band trip to Tampa! Oh my gosh, it was so fun.  And even though the sun didn't come out until the day we left, and the day we went to the beach it was in the 50's and drizzling and the locals were wearing parkas while our kids were wearing bikinis and swimming in the ocean, it was so very nice to be away from winter for a short time.  Is it too late to relocate?  Heh heh heh.  A girl can dream!

A few days after we got back from that trip, the boy had his very first fender-bender.  :(  He was driving (my awesome 2007 Monte Carlo) to school for pep band one evening after a winter storm, and as he approached the intersection where he was going to turn right, the car hit a patch of ice and spun out.  The passenger side of the Monte Carlo took the brunt of the impact.  Apparently he clipped the rear bumper of the car in front of him and then slid up on the median and into a big wooden stop sign pole.  THANKFULLY no one was injured!!  Because this was at a busy intersection and things could have gone real bad, real fast.  The other vehicle was able to drive away with no problem, but my poor car wasn't so lucky.  I was able to baby it home, because this happened just about half a mile away from our driveway, but the insurance company ended up declaring it a total loss.  It sucks, but everyone has to go through their first car accident, right?  At least he wasn't hurt, and seems to be no worse for the wear, and is hopefully much more aware of dangerous driving conditions now.

The week after that was his 17th birthday.  I still cannot believe that my baby boy is 17 years old!!  Yikes! I wish he'd quit making me feel so old.  Ha, ha, ha.

Other than that, not much going on.  The boy is busy with school and music stuff (winter drumline, jazz band, piano lessons, guitar lessons, church youth music group, besides choir and band in school).  DH and I are working and trying to keep up with the boy child.  And counting down the days until winter is over, because we are SO over cold weather!

Wish I had more interesting news to report...maybe next time!  Thanks for reading this and thinking of us.

No news is no news!

Day 832, and still, we wait.

The good news, and in the Yes-of-course-I'm-Jealous-but-in-a-good-way department, I am truly happy to announce that one of the other couples with whom we went through adoption education classes is now no longer a couple but a family!!  I feel like an auntie...sort of...in a way...but not really. I'm so genuinely happy for them, and ask you to continue to keep them (as well as all adoptive families and families-in-wait) in your prayers.

In other news, our adoption agency announced recently that they are cutting back on the number of hoping-to-adopt families they will represent next year, basically because (I've tried five times now to write this next part without making it sound horrible), well, I guess because more unexpectedly expecting parents are choosing to parent instead of making an adoption plan for their unexpected blessings.  How wonderful would it be if there were no need for adoption agencies because every child was born into this world to families who were more than ready, willing, and able to parent them to the absolute best of their abilities?!  It would be something akin to peace on earth, I believe.  Nothing short of a miracle...a blessed, blessed miracle.

It has always felt just a little bit selfish to me, for me to complain about having to "wait so long".  I mean, when you get to the bare bones of how this works, we're waiting to be chosen by an expectant parent (or parents) who probably feel that the best chance their unborn child has for a good life is to make an adoption plan with another family.  The fact that we haven't been chosen yet doesn't mean that we're not a good enough family, it just means that we're not needed, yet.  Sometime between the last time I wrote in here and now, that realization hit me like a ton of bricks.  It's almost as if our "services" are not needed at this time, and when you really think about it, that's not such a bad thing.  So, that is why I feel awkward now, complaining in the least about our wait.  This adoption journey, every bit of it, is so not about us.  It's about a child in need.  It's about an expectant parent making the heart-wrenching decision to let another family raise the child that grew and developed inside her womb.  For us to adopt a child, means that another family will be cutting their ties to an extent with that same child.  If you know me, you know that I don't like to cause another human being to be in pain.  Don't get me wrong, I still have the utmost faith that this is the path on which we are meant to be, and I have not stopped believing that God does have a plan for us to adopt a child, but this is just more evidence that it will happen when the timing is right, and only then.  In my job as an OB nurse, I'm one of the people responsible for convincing brand-new moms and dads that they have the skills and knowledge and confidence to take this newborn tiny human home and care for it to the best of their abilities and turn it into something meaningful and worthwhile...so that part of me cannot be sad that the number of infants being placed for adoption is down.

But the realist in me knows that not every family is able to handle caring for a newborn with that child's best interests at heart, even if they decide not to make an adoption plan.  I don't live in a cave, you know. I see the stories about irresponsible parents and families, and ache for the children who suffer in those cases.  I read about (and pray for, and occasionally even see for myself) children who have been hurt by their families, and I just want to scream and yell...if they had only made an adoption plan with someone like us, that pain could have been avoided.  Lives could have been saved.  It's a little frustrating.

Anyway...another realization of sorts that has occurred to me since the last time I wrote, that has made this wait much more tolerable, is the fact that if this doesn't happen, we will be fine.  I belong to a few different adoption-related groups on FB, and there's often an underlying theme of, "If I don't get to parent a child, my life will be forever incomplete."  Not in those words, but that's the general idea.  And the obvious rebuttal I have to that, is currently sitting on the other end of the couch playing on his smartphone and petting the dog.  I'm fortunate enough to have had the chance to parent one child already.  I've gone through the joys and pains of pregnancy and natural childbirth and all that fun stuff.  I have struggled with feeling like our lives won't be complete if we don't have another child...but I know that we are very, very lucky to have had the one we do have, which is something that a lot of people will never experience.  It's another thing that makes me feel selfish about complaining about the length of The Big Wait.  It's a miracle we had him in the first place, and now we're hoping for another miracle.  Is that selfish?  (Rhetorical question.)

I don't want to sound like a complete downer here, but this is what's been on my mind that I can actually share here.  Working in OB, there are lots of things that come up that I want so badly to write about, but I can't.  So I keep those thoughts and insights to myself.

It's kind of like when I was in nursing school, and in grave danger of failing one of my classes.  It seemed like it would just be the absolute and complete end of the world if I failed that class, and I didn't know how on earth I would even continue if that happened...I was sure that if I failed a class, I would not ever become a nurse, and that put my whole life in a spin because I was so convinced that I was meant to be a nurse, and I had no idea what I would do with my life if that didn't happen...well, guess what? I failed that class.  And it was momentarily devastating, but it was by far not the end of the world.  The planet didn't implode.  I wasn't ostracized from the community. I wasn't even kicked out of nursing school.  I cried for a good day or so, then wiped my tears and pulled up my big-girl panties and went after Plan B -- which was to re-take that class online over summer break and hopefully be able to rejoin my classmates on the same schedule in the fall.  And that's what happened.  And now I'm a nurse, even though something came up that I didn't think I was prepared to handle.  I know there is a huge difference between adopting a child and passing a class, but the lesson is very much the same.  Things happen that you didn't plan for, but life goes on and if it's meant to happen, it will happen.  I'm not the one in control here.  Gotta keep the big picture in focus, right?!

Anyway...in other news, in about a week and a half from now, I will be on my way to sunny FLORIDA!!  With 60-some band kids, on a coach bus.  But still.  DS' marching band will be playing at the Outback Bowl in Tampa on New Year's Eve Day, and I get to chaperone!!!  It will be so nice to escape this cold, bleak, upper Midwestern landscape for a few days.  A dream come true, one might say.  And since I haven't even seen the sun here in almost two weeks, it can't happen a moment too soon.  I miss the sun.  I'm so tired of winter and it's not even January yet.

On that note...thanks for reading, and for your thoughts and prayers and good wishes.  I wish I had news, but I don't, so you get to just hear me ramble on for a while.  :)  Merry Christmas!!

Above average?

September is something of a milestone month in our calendar year, generally speaking.  First of all, there's the fact that my birthday, DH's birthday and our wedding anniversary all happen within the first three days of the month.  (The third day, to be exact.)  That's a lot to handle in one fell swoop, but just so DS isn't left out, school usually starts for him around that time as well.  This year, we celebrated our 40th birthdays and 18th anniversary with a much-needed trip to Las Vegas.  I'll spare the details here, because I plastered them all over Facebook, but a good time was had by all.  DS started his junior year of high school while we were gone...I'm having a harder time wrapping my little head around that, to be honest.  Seems like just yesterday the kid was in preschool, and now he's 6'3" and has facial hair and is driving around in a vehicle five years newer than my daily driver!  But, I digress.  September is also the month I started working at the hospital (first as a CNA and now as an RN), and this is year #5, which I'm also having a hard time believing.  I'm not exactly sure why, though; sometimes it feels like I've been there forever, and sometimes it feels like I just started.  

September hasn't been all fun and games, though.  There's September 11, 2001, for example.  And a few years later on that same date, DH's dear, sweet grandmother left our earthly presence (in what we refer to at work as a "celestial transfer").  On September 4th five years ago, the day after our 35th birthdays, we lost one of the best dogs in the world ever.  And an occasion that I'm pretty sure I've never really made "public" is that we had a miscarriage on our 21st birthdays, exactly one year before we married each other.  But I don't want this post to be all sad, so I'm moving on now...

As you may have already surmised, somewhere in the middle of this is the commemoration of our "Big Wait" anniversary.  According to the records, our 2-year Big Wait Anniversary was technically on September 6th.  I wouldn't exactly call it "fun and games", but it hasn't exactly been horrible, either.  If I had to label it, I'd put it in the "good" category, for sure.  I mean, it is a good thing to celebrate, even though I wish we weren't still waiting!  It means that someday, some child out there is going to have a chance that it might not have otherwise had.  Someday, a life is going to change for the better because of the decisions we've made -- actually, I take that back; many lives are going to be changed for the better, ideally -- the child; the parents who have decided that, for whatever reason, they are not ready to be parents yet; their extended families; and, of course, our family.  So, even though I get impatient and have the occasional "bad day" where I don't think I can possibly wait another minute, inside I'm truly happy to say that we're still waiting.  It's better than not waiting anymore, right?  Plus, the fact that we're still waiting just means that we're not ready yet, or the expectant mom isn't ready yet, or both.  There's literally nothing more we can do except keep the faith, keep praying, and fill out the occasional stack of paperwork that gets sent our way in order to keep our credentials active.  As Lita Ford once said, "It ain't no big thing."

I originally thought that our 2-year renewal would involve another home visit, which I was both dreading and looking forward to (as a reason to declutter the house from stem to stern), but that turned out not to be the case.  (As a side note, I got to deep clean and declutter the house anyway because my parents stayed here with DS while DH and I were in Vegas! hee hee hee)  We did have to have updated background checks, medical reports, provide updated insurance information, and fill out umpteenish various consents and the like in order to have our foster home license renewed for another two years.  As it turns out, we also have to have our fingerprints redone, because there was a mix-up in when our actual "expiration" date was, and so our licensure lapsed for about ten days.  But no worries, because it is active again and it really ain't no big thing.  We found out after the fact, and it doesn't affect our portfolio exposure in any way.  

Speaking of things I originally thought...I could have sworn that, when we were going through our adoption education classes, I was told or heard that the average waiting time in our program was 6-9 months, although our worker was always hesitant to give a time frame because every situation is different, etc., etc.  On the other hand, DH -- who spent the same number of hours in the same classes as I did, sitting right next to me in fact -- says that he remembers hearing the average waiting time was two years.  (It was a fun discussion. If you've never had the privilege of hearing two emotional Virgo perfectionists who don't like to be wrong and have the tendency to remember odd details have such a debate, I'd highly recommend it.  Or not.)  I will admit that I have since read, on highly-unscientific adoption-related support groups on Facebook, that the average waiting time right now is two years.

Either way, whether DH misinterpreted the information we were given or not (ha! ha!!), we're now obviously past both of those "averages".  Which makes us...wait for it!...

ABOVE AVERAGE!!  

*cheeky grin*

Seriously.  Please continue to pray for families like ours who are waiting to make a difference...and pray for the families we will one day be matched with...and pray for the overworked social workers who are dealing with all of us...and pray for patience and guidance for everyone involved.  

And pray that we don't get too far "above average"...

An elephant's faithful, one hundred percent!

The usual gestation period for an elephant is about 645 days, according to Wikipedia.  That comes out to about 21 months, and is the longest gestation period in the animal kingdom.

We're closing in on 23 months.  So take that, elephants.

Had another "almost" moment, sort of, last week.  Our case worker sent out an email about an expectant mom with a history of substance abuse looking to set up an adoption plan for the baby that was expected to be born that very night.  It was an interesting few days, even though the birth mom ended up choosing another family.  DH and I both did some extensive research and had some conversations about things that don't tend to just come up in regular conversations.

I may have mentioned this before, but two years ago when we were in the "getting ready to wait" stage of the adoption process, we were asked to specify whether or not we'd be open to a whole list of potential "birthmom situations".  These situations can be anything from prenatal exposure to cigarettes, alcohol, medications, illegal drugs, and domestic abuse, to a family history of genetic disorders, to known fetal anomalies, to absolutely no known history whatsoever.  It makes me uncomfortable thinking about it, even now.  I mean, when I was pregnant with DS, there was no disclaimer that I would only take him home if he was perfect.  I just felt awkward filling out that checklist, and those awkward feelings come back whenever we get a notification about a birthmom situation.  I completely understand, though, why the workers put those feelers out beforehand.  Some of the situations can have significant impacts on a family, emotionally and physically speaking.  In case you're wondering, we indicated that we'd consider most of the items on that original checklist on a case-by-case basis.  The "awkward" part comes from being given the option to make that choice, if that makes sense.  It's like being forced to be judgemental.  My point with all this rambling is that it's not a comfortable feeling to have to figure out where you'd draw the line.  My gut feeling is that if there is a child out there that needs a stable home and  loving family, I want to do whatever I can to help.  I don't know what God's plan is for me, for our family.  I don't want to miss out on His plan for us by saying we're not willing to parent a child with xyz because that might be exactly what He wants us to do.

I know this is kind of all over the place, but that's how my thoughts are right now. :)  Long story short, it was a good reminder and practice of just putting everything in God's hands and accepting whatever comes about.  In this case, we weren't meant to be matched.  I have been praying for the baby and the families involved in this situation.

So...almost two years now.  It was odd, at first, but now I've lost count of how many people I know (either in real life or via FB) who have had babies in that time frame.  Families who weren't even pregnant or trying to conceive when we went "active" on the waiting list have since given birth and now have infants and toddlers.  That was weird, at first, and made me more than a little jealous.  But that's life, so I learned to deal with it and move on.  However, recently I found out that one of these same families is now expecting their second child since we've been playing the waiting game, and that suddenly makes it seem like we've been waiting for.ev.er.  And is making me more than a little jealous, again.  But I'll get over it; I always do.  Because that's how I roll.  And because one day it will be our turn, again...

On that note, I'll sign off...for now!

Adult temper-tantrum in 3...2......

Don't mind me...I'm having a moment.

A moment where I want to slam doors and throw things around.  I want to be loud and obnoxious.  I want to grab a sledgehammer and start demolishing the nearest wall.  I want to stomp my feet defiantly and stick my tongue out at the world.  I want everyone within the sound of my voice (or, errrr, within sight of this blog?) to know that I Am Here...and I. Am. IMPATIENT!!!

We got the quarterly "Review" email from our case worker this week.  I haven't responded yet, because I know I'm going to ask (as I always do) whether anyone has looked at our portfolio, and I'm just not in the mood right now to hear that no one has looked at it lately.  I could respond that there is absolutely positively nothing new with us and just skip the part where I ask if any has looked at "us"...yeah, no I couldn't.  I have to ask.  So I will.  Soon.

I'm also thinking that, perhaps joining a couple of adoption support groups on FB wasn't such a good idea; it is getting frustrating (and I hate to say that, but it is what it is) hearing about people who got matched in, like, thirty milliseconds after completing their homestudies.  Believe me when I say that I am really, really, really, really, really trying not to let things like this upset me...and most of the time, they don't.  But something snapped inside of me last night and now, I just really, really, really, really, really need to vent.

See?  I feel better already.

Sort of.

I've just never been a patient sort of person.  When I make up my mind that something needs to happen, I need it to happen NOW.  I was in labor with DS for all of two hours, and it still felt like forever to me.  As a kid, I used to get positively sick on Christmas Eve and the night before my birthday, because I could not tolerate sitting by and doing nothing (or even worse, trying to sleep!) on the cusp of such important, meaningful events.  If I had only known then that waiting to be chosen by an expectant mom would be just like 2am on Christmas morning (when it's way too early to get up but probably too late to fall back asleep), day after day after month after year...

I don't know what "then" I was going for with that "if".  It just sounded good in my head.

Anyway...I know this is all happening according to God's plan, and in His time and according to His will, and not ours.  I know that one day this will all make sense, and that His timing is perfect, and of course all the old cliche's like good things come to those who wait and patience is a virtue and all that.  But I'm only human.  I'm impatient, I want to know when things are going to happen and how they're going to happen and when they're going to happen so I can make the appropriate plans and provisions and get everything ready so things will just fall into place when they actually do happen.  I feel like a nervous racehorse crammed into the starting gate...I'm just waiting for that bell to ring and those doors to fly open so I can take off and make things happen.  But the bell isn't in my control, and this endless period of waiting and waiting and waiting can really mess with your mind sometimes!

And, if you know me, I don't have much of my mind left to be messed with...I need to preserve as much of it as I possibly can!  Ha, ha, ha.

Alright.  Time to get out of the house and do something.  DH is working today, so I think I will take the boy to get his hair cut (since it's almost longer than mine, again, and he just looooves hearing about how much he looks like his Mom when he has long hair!) and then I think we'll head into the Cities for a horse show.  Because that makes sense.  :D

Please pray for us...especially for patience, strength, and guidance.  Pray for the other waiting families, as well; especially those who have had failed matches.  Pray for the expectant parents who aren't sure what to do, and pray that whatever decisions they make are the best for their unborn babies, because that's really what it's all about.  I guess I could be glad that we haven't been matched yet, because that means there are fewer expectant parents out there who feel like the best thing they could do for their child is to have them raised by another family...but...yeah.  I'll leave it at that.

Until next time...

90 weeks...

636 days.  Nearly 21 months.  90 weeks.  15,000+ hours.  and counting...

Nothing new to report here.  Our next review is due this month, so I expect to hear from our case worker in the next week or two, and I will ask her if there's been any activity on our portfolio in the last few months.  I'm half expecting her to come back with some response like, "I'm sorry; who are you again?"
I paged through our copy of our portfolio the other day, just to make sure it still speaks from my heart.  (Well, our hearts, but since I did 98% of the actual work putting it together -- not to discredit DH and DS, who were very helpful in picking out pictures since I wanted to include every.single.one...)  It does.  I thought maybe looking at it with fresh eyes would help me see something I could change to make it "better"; other than maybe updating a few pictures since DS has grown about another two feet since the portfolio was put together (slight exaggeration!), I couldn't find anything that jumped out as needing to be changed.  I was kind of hoping to find something big that I'd previously missed, something that will make an expectant parent drop everything and say Oh my gosh, yes, THIS is The Family for my unborn baby!  Yeah, but it doesn't work that way.  It was a gentle reminder that everything happens in God's time and according to His plan.  Our portfolio is as perfect as it can be, and when "our" expectant mom sees it, it will be perfect in her eyes, as well.

But, until that happens...

:)

I guess I could back up a second and tell you how I almost had something to report. About a month or so ago, we got an email from our caseworker about an expectant mom from another region of our agency's service area, who was looking for a specific kind of family for her unborn baby.  I won't go into details, but we did fit the basic requirements specified in the email, and our caseworker asked if it was alright to show her our info.  (The email went out to many different families, I'm almost sure; it was BCC'ed so I don't know how many.  But that's irrelevant.)  I'll admit it -- my hopes were up.  I just felt that this was going to be It, that we were going to meet "our" birthmom.  There were some issues, but nothing we felt we couldn't handle -- in fact, the details we were given made me even more positive that this was going to be It, because there were some very personal circumstances to which I could relate.

Alas, we haven't heard a thing since then.  Le sigh.  DH tried to warn me not to get my hopes up, but I did.  At least they weren't dashed, just sort of...deflated.  Like a balloon.  Slowly, over time.  That's the way the cookie crumbles.

* * * * *

You know, or maybe you don't, for the longest time I was convinced that the one area I never wanted to work in as a nurse was OB.  Given my personal history of several failed pregnancies, it was something I wanted to avoid for my own emotional well-being.  From the early days of my nursing school adventure, there were girls in my classes who were going on and on about how they wanted to work in OB someday because they loved babies and blah blah blah, while I rolled my eyes and firmly maintained that I did NOT want to work with screaming moms and crying babes.  Not then, not ever.  I absolutely dreaded our OB clinical rotations; on one level I was afraid of inducing an emotionally-instigated anxiety attack, and for another, I didn't ever want to work in OB, so why bother?!

Even when I survived my first day of OB clinicals (during which I got to be there from admission to delivery, holding the mom's leg while she pushed and being one of the first people on earth to see this brand-new person make their entrance into the world) without even the faintest sign of a breakdown, I stood firm.  I remember that passing phrase, "I could see myself doing this!", going through my head at one point.  (Disclaimer: in nursing school, I had that thought at some point in EVERY clinical rotation!)  Yet I still stood firm: OB wasn't for me.  Moms yelling their heads off, nervous new parents, fragile and totally dependent newborn people...nope.  Not my cup of tea.  Not even when I practically aced all of the exams in those chapters with VERY little studying.  Nope.  Not gonna do it.

So, when I got hired as an RN at my hospital, I still maintained that I would do med-surg, and eventually one day, ER.  But not OB.  I was a part-time nurse working full-time hours and waiting (im)patiently for a full-time position to open up.  It took about a year and a half, but then a full-time position opened up: nights in OB.  I'd never worked an overnight shift before then, and you might already have an idea about my aspirations to work in OB.  But I did want a full-time position, so I searched my heart and soul and decided, OK; I'll try OB, since it's apparently my ticket to a full-time position.  It can't be that bad!  And I did ace all those exams, probably for a good reason, so...

Here I am, 2 years later, still working in OB.  (Well, I mainly work in med-surg and recently started working in the ER as well, but that's only because our little hospital doesn't get many deliveries.)  I love OB!  Not in that starry-eyed, "oh I get to work with babies and babies are the cutest things ever" kind of way.  It's difficult to explain; I just feel like that is where I belong.  And other people have told me the same thing.  It's kind of weird.  But, I digress; there is a point to all of this.

Just over two years ago, I started working in OB.  Our two-year "wait" anniversary will be in September.  See what I'm getting at?  If I thought working in OB would be a challenge after going through so many failed pregnancies, I wouldn't be lying to say I was terrified to see what it would be like while waiting to be matched with an expectant mom.  It was hard enough seeing all these healthy people repeatedly doing what I could only do once out of seven tries, and making it look easy.  Actually, it wasn't even that hard, because when I'm at work with a patient, I get in the RN zone and my personal life and experiences don't play into that at all.  Because I'm a professional, yo.  :)  And that about sums up why it hasn't been nearly the challenge I thought it would be.  I found a strength in myself I didn't know I had: the ability to put my own heartache and pain aside and take care of others.

The same holds true now that we're doing the Big Wait.  I see happy couples become new parents, and there is so much love and confidence in their situations that it genuinely warms my heart.  I was afraid I'd be struck by jealousy, but I'm not.  I was afraid I'd just want to take every single baby home, but I don't, because I know they are born into loving homes and are in the best possible place they could be.

Except when they're not.  When there is even the slightest doubt that everyone is not "on board" with the daunting task of parenthood, it is a little more difficult.  When you are leery of sending a brand-new defenseless human out of your grasp and into a world of utmost uncertainty, and you have that nagging gut feeling that won't leave you alone...it is a little more difficult.  When you hear in the news about the horrible things that some parents (or friends and family of parents) can do in a moment of anger to a brand-new defenseless human, and you realize that there is no way at all to predict who is going to snap...or when...it makes being an OB nurse a little more difficult, and being a mom-waiting-to-be-matched a LOT more difficult.

I consider myself extremely fortunate that, 99% of the time, it's not difficult.  :)

Alright, time for me to fly.  The dogs are whining to be fed, and I've got to take my "little" (6ft 3in) boy out to get some shorts that actually fit him and his too-tall self.

Thanks for reading, and for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers.  <3