Fast Forward 4 1/2 months and.....

I'm a mom!!!! A mere 10 days after my last post, I got the phone call that would change our lives forever. A mere 9 days after that I found myself in a hospital in the Midwest watching my beautiful, amazing, lovely, perfect son being born. Yes, after 5 plus years of trying to get pregnant, we wound up having little over a week to prepare. Not that I'm complaining...a long wait period probably would have driven me mad.

(I know, I know, I know, a true blogger would have been blogging the milisecond she hung up the phone and every day thereafter. I don't know why I didn't blog about it anymore than I know why I decided to write this post today.)

After all my fears (justified though they were), we had a truly amazing adoption experience. We met our son's birthmother a few hours before she gave birth. We sat with her and her family for hours and got to know each other. She graciously allowed me to stay for the birth (my husband was sent to the waiting room sans complaint!) and I can never thank her enough for that priviledge. I honestly don't know if I would have been so generous in her position. While he was in the hospital, he spent his time with us (the hospital gave us our own room) but we visited a few times with his birthmother. We also saw her once before we left the Midwest.

Those meetings were emotionally charged to say the least. Prior to going through it, I couldn't imagine sitting down with the woman who would ultimately make our dreams of parenthood come true. It was hard to see the pain (both emotion and the physical) she was going through, but I will cherish the time I had with her. Now when I talk to my son about her, I can tell him about how much she loves him and how strong a woman she is. It also gave us the opportunity to express our endless appreciation to her for choosing us to parent her son. I also believe the time we spent together helped her feel at peace with her decision.

He is now four months old and everday of those four months has been better because of him. Its strange. For so many years, I kept wondering over and over how life could be so unfair, how two good people could be so unlucky. Now I wonder what I ever could have done to have deserved such joy in my life and for such a complicated process as adoption to have worked out so smoothly as it did for us.

To Quote George Michael, “I’ve Got to Have Faith”

Adoption, we have found, is a series of choices. Domestic or International? Agency or Private? Open or Closed? Newborn or Toddler? And the deeper you get into the process, the more complicated the decisions get. It can be paralyzing if you let it – after all, the decisions you make will lead you to your child. What if I make the “wrong” decisions, will I get the “wrong” child? Okay, that might sound ridiculous but given how astounding the ramifications for all these choices are, it is hard not to be overwhelmed.

One decision every adoptive family confronts in the waiting stage is “to buy baby gear or not to buy baby gear?” Seriously, some sociologist or psychologist could have a field day studying what makes one couple fall into one group or the other. Right now, we fall in the “do not buy” camp. We have been waiting to get matched before buying the baby gear, and even then we’ll try and buy only what we need to get us through the first few weeks just in case something goes wrong. It makes me achingly sad to think of having unused baby items in the house. Seriously, what could be more sad (and more symbolic of our infertility journey) than an empty crib? But as with anything, it’s all in how you look at it. For others, that crib symbolizes the hope and faith that a baby will be sleeping in it one day.

Last night, while making dinner with the Grillmaster, I discovered that we have our own expressions of that hope and faith. We were having a rambling chat about the future – where we might live next, how long we’d be in our current house, new ideas I am having about a change in career – and sprinkled into the conversation were phrases such as “we should fix that before the baby comes” and “a space for the kids to play” and even “we should stay here through the second adoption”. Talking about parenthood as an inevitability was easy when we first started trying to build our family five and a half years ago. Then it began to be uncomfortable. Then painful. Then bordering on absurd, as if the universe was laughing at me “You?!? You as a parent?!?!. Haven’t we already put you in your place on that one?” In the beginning of our adoption journey, I had to struggle to say “when we adopt” not “if we adopt”.

What I realized last night is that I am thinking as a expecting parent - certainly not the same way as it would if I were pregnant because of the “but when?” element – but expecting nonetheless. Somehow all at the same time it seems an indulgent gift I am giving myself and natural expression of my faith that our dreams will be realized.

This Post is Brought to You From Under the Covers

Do you ever just close your eyes and wait for a bad situation to be over…maybe on a roller coaster or during a scary scene in a movie? Obviously this is not a strategy to successfully navigate the majority of challenging situations you are going to face, but god, don’t you sometimes wish you could?

We’ve crossed into new territory in the adoption process. Our profile has been shown to a few different birthmothers. It’s always exciting to take that next step in the process because it means we are even closer to becoming parents, and yet, each new step is a bit scary as well. We don’t know too much about these potential birthmothers – most of the important information will only be provided to us if we are chosen to parent the child they are carrying. There is one thing that is a given in each situation, though, that this woman is in a very vulnerable, scary and – well just plain bad – situation. Learning even the most basic facts about their situations makes the pain involved in adoption all the more real. I really struggle with the fact that another woman’s misfortune is intrinsic to my own dreams coming true.

If that weren’t complicated enough, there are a number of other thoughts, fears, and hopes that are unleashed anytime we are put in front of a birthmother. Will she choose us? Is she taking care of herself and the baby? What is the situation with the birthfather? Is going to change her mind? And the big one – is this it? Is this our baby?

I’d be lying if I said that a part of me didn’t just want to close my eyes, cover my head with a blanket and/or crawl into bed until our baby is placed in our arms, maybe even until the adoption is finalized. But that isn’t life and it’s certainly not parenthood. The uncertainty of the process is somewhat akin, I suppose, to a high risk pregnancy. Your excitement about the impending birth is tempered by fear and anxiety. Your job is to manage your emotions as best as you can and believe it is all going to work out in the end. With us infertiles, that’s a tall order because in the past it hasn’t worked out for us.

But I suppose it is easy to have faith when things go right, isn’t it?

Warm and Fuzzies

We have been told over and over by so many people in the adoption community that matches came in the strangest of ways and that we should tell everyone we know that we are adopting in case they hear of a situation that might fit for us. Honestly, it seems a bit farfetched to me. Most of the people in our lives already know our situation and we have yet to have someone come up to us and say “Hey, I just met a woman carrying a biracial baby who is looking to make an adoption plan and we thought of you!” That said, I realized it couldn’t hurt, it was a great opportunity to touch base with some people we haven’t spoken with in a long time, and to have some positive vibes sent out to the universe on our behalf.

So yesterday I sent an email with our adoption website and email address out to everyone I knew. We received a ton of emails from the fabulous people in our lives letting us know they were thinking of us and praying for us. I had the warm and fuzzies all day. Some forwarded our email on to people who have adopted and so we received emails from people we never met who sent us their success stories, encouragement and hope.

I have felt very alone with all this crap – first dealing with infertility while so many of my friends were joining mommy groups and having “baby only” parties and now navigating the crazy world of adoption - not knowing anyone else going through this process. But yesterday I felt so connected to everyone in my life. I felt their love and excitement for us and it made me feel really, really lucky – something I haven’t felt in a long time. Honestly, for the past few years I have been way too focused on what is missing from my life rather than all the wonderful things I am blessed with. I know it’s a trap we all fall into from time to time, but I’m talking about being in this mindset for the last five years. It feels like a little piece of heaven to break out of it. Everyone talks about the stress of the adoption process, and don’t get me wrong, it is very stressful, but I’m finding it’s filled with many little blessings as well. We’re meeting people we would never have met another way, hearing wonderful stories of families being built, and being reminded about how many people out there love us and want the best for us. Sometimes you just have to stop and look around for the blessings because it can get so easy to get caught up in the rest of life – which, lets be honest, can be pretty hard sometimes.

Resurfacing

I have lost count of the amount of mini-dramas I have had and major life decisions I have made since I last posted. I am not sure I have a blogger’s heart. I think a “true” blogger would have rushed to the computer for every twist and turn, but my instinct is to pull back and deal with things internally. Maybe I need more time to process things or maybe I’m just not comfortable laying it all out there for the world (or the three people who know of this blog) to read.

To catch the three of you up, after husband and I decided on the facilitator in California I mentioned in my last post, we started getting really excited. Wanting our business, they of course painted a beautiful picture of how quickly we might become parents. We got so excited that we actually started to freak out about the fact that we know nothing about what you need to care for a newborn. Then husband decided it was time to start interviewing lawyers. Two phone calls later and we had the legal consensus that it is illegal in Virginia to use facilitators to locate a birthmother.

Psychologically, I felt like we were back at stage one, but that’s really not the case as we have our home study in hand which means we are legally ready to proceed with an adoption. We can use that home study if we find a birthmother ourselves (aka independent adoption) or if we go with another agency. Still, this new piece of info did leave us with a big question of what to do next. According to VA law, we either need to use an agency (and we are very confident in our decision not to use the one we were originally signed up with so we’d have to find another one) or we need to make the initial contact with the birthmother ourselves – after that, we can bring in lawyers, social workers, or anyone else necessary to make the process as smooth as possible.

So the past few weeks have been a second wave of adoption research, looking at other agencies and learning about independent adoption – apparently we didn’t know half as much as we thought we did. At first it was incredibly frustrating, I felt like I was in the middle of a maze and my child was at the other end of it. I guess I still feel that way, but I’m dealing with it – what other choice do I have?

And if anyone reading this knows anything about my life, you’ll know that when one part of my life is in turmoil, there are other traumas on the horizon. Sure enough, as the adoption ground was shifting underneath me, I got word that my grandmother was in the hospital with pneumonia. I spent last week in New England visiting with her in the hospital, checking in on her doctors and seeing as many friends and family in the area as I had time.

So that’s where my head – and body – have been over the past few weeks when I ditched blogland. I’ve only scratched the surface of the emotional ups and downs I went through, but that’s probably best for all you readers. In fact, maybe that’s why I didn’t blog about it, to save you all. I mean, if I could have escaped my own mind, I certainly would have.

Alas

I thought this week’s post would be triumphant. We had originally scheduled a meeting for this past Monday to formally enter our adoption agency’s domestic pool. For the past few weeks, my gut has been telling me that our agency (that performed our home study) is perhaps not the right agency for us to use for placement. It wasn’t so much anything wrong with the agency, as much as they weren’t the right fit for our particular situation. So when they pushed our Monday meeting back to this Friday, I hopped on the internet and found one out in California that has a strong track record of placing bi-racial couples with bi-racial babies.

It has been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster deciding whether or not to switch (we ultimately decided to go with the new group in California). I ignored my gut for awhile because I didn’t want to reopen a question I thought we had examined thoroughly. But we all know that nothing good comes from ignoring your gut feelings. I do feel good about our new decision but I am also frustrated because this is going to delay us at least a few weeks as we have to work through this new group’s application process and redo our profile to match their format.

In the grand scheme of things, I know another month isn’t that big a deal. What’s four measly weeks after five years of infertility hell? And I know I just need to have faith that in the grand scheme of things we are doing what is best to create our family. Still, there are days that it is hard to think about having to wait even one more day to have a child in my arms.

Happy Valentines Day

I have to admit, most of my life I have been very anti-Valentines Day. The years when I was single it seemed like the holiday was created just to mock me. When I was in a new relationship, there always seemed to be so much stress involved - guys practically twitch from the pressure of trying to live up to some perceived Valentines day fantasy every woman harbors. It all seemed like more trouble than it is worth.

The first year I was dating my husband took me to an incredible meal at a local French restaurant. Given I was a starving graduate student, this was an incredibly elaborate date. Prior to leaving the house, our roommate casually asked him if he had gotten me a Valentines Day card to which he replied “no, we’re going out to dinner”. My inner sarcastic self could not be restrained and I went over the top pretending to be horrified that he was so inconsiderate as to forget a card. It wasn’t until months later that I learned he had no idea that I was joking and was very upset that he had “ruined” Valentines Day. Yeah, I felt like a total arse when I found that out – it was certainly not the first time I suffered from an acute case of foot-in-mouth disease. The next few years the holiday made him anxious. It took a few years before I could really convince him that he didn’t have to buy me flowers or candy to make me happy – that I thought it was as much of a Hallmark holiday as he did. I think I finally got my point across the year I suggested we celebrate by going to Five Guys for burgers (great burgers but basically a fast food joint for those of you reading outside the DC area).

Now, husband and I are on the same page. We both agree that it’s a nice to take some time to focus on our love for each other, but we insist that it isn’t stressful. All that really matters is that we spend a bit of time together. Sometimes we stay in and cook a nice meal together. Sometimes we get take out and rent a movie. Tonight he is working, so last night we went out to one of our favorite restaurants in DC.

But there is one thing we always do – exchange cards.

Yes, I'm Still Alive

Yikes it’s been a long time since I last posted. I can’t really tell you why - some days I’ve been too busy with other projects and other days it’s just pure laziness.

At any rate, my social worker’s suggestion of a Shutterfly book was a stroke of genius. I have been a bit too obsessive about it, but so far, I’m pleased with the results. It is much more polished than it ever could have been if I took the scrapbook approach. The only downside is that it doesn’t allow a lot of space for text so I have to find a way to say a lot with just a little. In a way, this is good because I don’t want to overwhelm the people who will be reading it. On the other hand, it’s difficult to describe our relationship, our personalities, and why we’ll make kickin’ parents in just a few paragraphs. I’ve probably rewritten the text 50 times already and it’s still not exactly how I want it. I can’t express how intimidating it is to create a way to say “I’m sorry you feel you are unable to raise your child, but if you are going to have someone else raise him or her, please let it be us” in just a few paragraphs.

Another benefit of using Shutterfly is that I learned how to use my scanner and finally scanned my wedding pictures. After 6 years of marriage, I am finally ready to create a wedding album. Yes, I take procrastination to a new level.

New recipes since I last posted: I made a cous cous with pine nuts from the Barefoot Contessa At Home cookbook. It was easy to make, tasted great, and comprised mostly of ingredients I usually have on hand. It’ll definitely be a side dish I make over and over. I also made Sweet-and-Sour slaw from the Cook’s Illustrated The Best Recipes Cookbook. It was fine but not exciting enough to be worth remaking. I also made Boston Baked Beans from The New Basics Cookbook. These had excellent flavor and I’ll definitely make them again. The only issue was that bean dishes that use dried beans are my nemesis, if recipes can be your nemesis (or whatever the plural of nemesis is). Typically, the beans wind up either incredibly undercooked or overcooked mush. This was my best attempt yet but the beans were still a bit undercooked. Mark my words, though, I will conquer this cooking technique.

Arts and Crafts

Well, I almost lost it yesterday. Thus far, I’ve been able to keep my cool on the adoption front. You want me to take a class on multi-racial issues? Parenting Issues? No problem. You want medical tests taken, forms signed? No problem. You want copies of our taxes? No problem. You want to talk to my close friends? No problem. Any piece of information the social worker thinks she needs to be able to give her word to a woman that her baby will be absolutely loved and cared for by us is fine by me. But yesterday, things got ugly. What they were asking from me now took me to a place I had no business being in. A place that made me feel deeply uncomfortable and even panicked: the craft store Michaels.

It probably goes without saying that I am not a crafty person. My mother could have earned Academy Awards for how she received my various arts and crafts projects when I was a child. So I’ve been a bit concerned about the book we need to put together which will be presented to birthmothers. Basically, it contains some pictures of ourselves, our family, and some text explaining who we are and what our lives are like. The guidance I received from our social worker was to keep it simple and have it reflect our personalities as much as possible.

Do you have any idea how many scrapbook products Michaels sells? Reams and reams of papers. Vellum. Cardstock. Cutesy stickers. Photo edgers. Photo mats. Ribbons. Buttons. Special scissors to make cute edging of the paper. Things I had never even heard of and had no idea how to use. Foolishly I had gone in two hours past when I should have eaten lunch and my low blood sugar just made my frantic reaction to the place worse. It was honestly the first time I have felt that resentment that many adoptive parents feel about having to go through some step that biological parents don’t to become parents. It is one thing to investigate every aspect of my life, but it is quite another to demand that I do arts and crafts! Indignant and dejected, I decided to go home and regroup. I had clearly underestimated the strength I would need to tackle this project.

While talking to my social worker this morning, I confessed my freak out to her praying that craftiness wasn’t high on the scale of parenting attributes they look for in adoptive parents. And thank god I did because she answered all my fears by telling me that more and more people are making their books through Shutterfly. Instead of panicking over cutting straight lines (which no, I am not capable of doing) and my horrid handwriting, I can use a template and just add my own pictures and some text!! Now this, I think I can handle. I can even do it in my jammies.

Status Report

Nothing to report on the adoption front. I need to start getting my album together this week. Yes, I did say that I was going to do that last week, but I am still pretty ahead of schedule so I’m not going to get worked up about procrastinating.

On writing: Better than the week prior. I’m getting better about sitting in the chair until my 1K words are done (not quite up to 5 times a week however but close). The problem is, I think I’m getting too concerned with word count and not quality. On one hand, I keep telling myself that the first draft can be crappy (otherwise I’d probably be frozen on the first sentence still). On the other hand, if it’s just a bunch of crap, what’s the point?

I tried two new recipes this week. The first was Gratin Dauphinois from the Gourmet Magazine Cookbook. In other words: fancy-pants cheesy potatoes. These were spectacular. It was a very simple scalloped potato dish, the main ingredients being potatoes (obviously), half-and-half, garlic, nutmeg and Gruyere cheese. How can you go wrong!?!?! The only probably was that the recipe served 8 and I didn’t think to cut it in half. It goes without saying that husband and I have no need to be eating cheesy, creamy potatoes every day of the week. It would make a great side dish when entertaining, however. This will definitely be a repeater, especially when counting calories is not a concern. The second recipe was a Chicken and White Bean Chili from the InStyle Magazine Parties Cookbook. It was good, but nothing spectacular. I’m not sure I’d bother making it again, preferring my other go-to chili recipes.

Juno

We went to see the movie Juno this week. I highly recommend it. It is well written, wonderfully acted and treats a very sensitive subject – teenage pregnancy and adoption – beautifully without falling into the Hollywood cliché trap. Ellen Page (who plays the title character) has been getting so much well-deserved attention -- there really is nothing better than seeing a young, fresh breakthrough talent. I loved her performance but I was completely captivated by Jennifer Garner’s portrayal of a woman who’s been dealing with infertility for years and has turned to adoption to fulfill her dream of becoming a mother. I won’t give away any plot points but she brought me to tears on more than one occasion. She did such a tremendous job of showing her fighting with her fear that the adoption may fall through and her growing realization that her dreams were finally coming true.

Ever since we formally began the adoption process, I find myself questioning the internal language I use about pending parenthood. We are told that as long as we are willing to wait and as long as we don’t have too many unrealistic expectations, we will become parents. The rational side of my brain understands this. And yet, I can’t get that nasty “if” out of my brain. “If” we are lucky enough to become parents. “If” a birthmother chooses us. Part of me is desperate to shed the “if” and just feel joyful that motherhood is impending. The other part of me feels that I shouldn’t be so cocky – how long did I assume I would be able to get pregnant and look how fate slapped me in the face for that bit of hubris. And face it, adoption just opens us a hornets nest of other “what ifs”. What if we have to wait five more years? What if no one chooses us? What if a birth mother picks us than changes her mind? What if, what if, what if?

It was strange seeing all that portrayed on screen. The few people who I know personally who went through infertility were lucky enough to have medical intervention work for them. I am so incredibly thrilled for them, but sometimes I feel really lonely carrying around all this pain that no one in my life can really understand. Strange as it may sound, for just a little while, Juno made me feel a little less alone. It was a bit like when you are struggling to express something and you read a passage in a novel or memoir that perfectly, eloquently and seemingly effortlessly captures your point of view better than you think you ever could. And you know you aren't crazy for thinking such a thought and that there's someone else in this world that gets you - or atleast a part of you.

Checking In

I promised myself I would report in as to how I was keeping up with my resolutions, hoping it will keep me motivated. I have been dreading writing this post because I have to report mediocre results at best. On the adoption front, I have no complaints. Our agency requires a transracial adoption class and individual meeting for anyone adopting outside their race. I don’t think many agencies have such requirements which I think is unfortunate. There are a lot of issues Caucasian couples will face as their children grow up that they might not think about when they are making the decision to adopt a baby. Not having faced racism themselves, they might gloss over the impact it will have on their lives when they become a multiracial family. But I digress. This week, we had our individual meeting completing this requirement. Next week I need to get started on our scrapbooks which will be shown to the birth family. Not being the crafty sort, I’m a bit intimidated by this one.

As for the new recipes, I’ve tried two since my last post. The first was a Brazilian chicken and rice dish from the Bon Appetit cookbook I got for Christmas. The dish was tasty but it used a yellow rice mix for the base of it which means it was loaded with sodium and felt a bit more like glorified processed food than good ol’ home cooking. Since I cook to avoid consuming too much processed food, this may not be a recipe I go to again and again. This morning we tried the Light and Fluffy Pancake recipe from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything. This was a bit of a copout in that we only tried it because I forgot to buy pancake mix at the grocery store and we both had a craving for blueberry pancakes this morning. The verdict: The pancakes were definitely light and fluffy which yielded an interesting (and pleasant) texture, but the extra effort involved in making them (separating the eggs and beating the whites until quite frothy) was really not worth the slightly better taste than just mixing pancake mix and water.

And I’ve left the worst for last: the writing. I had some good days and some bad days, but I definitely did not make the goal of 1,000 words 5 out of 7 days. I’m trying not to get down on myself, but rather just pick myself up and force myself into the chair and do better next week. I just finished one book on writing (Anne Lamont’s Bird by Bird) which was full of inspiration. I just started another by Arthur Plotnik that begins “The truth is this: writing is a bumper-to-bumper crawl through hell with an occasional jolt to the next level of anguish.” How’s that for inspiration?

Resolve

Personally I love making New Year’s resolutions. I am as bad as most people about actually keeping them, but just taking the time to sit down and think about what can make my life better is a useful exercise and one that makes my life a bit better, at least in January. I would probably have a much more productive life if I made them once a month rather than once a year. Recently, I was listening to the CDs of a self-help/inspirational guru who said that the only people who make lasting personal changes are those that believe they HAVE to make the change, not when they just think they should – like people who really lose weight and change their eating habits after a heart attack.

This certainly explains why none of my resolutions ever stick – essentially, I lack the resolve to actually make the changes. Typically, my resolutions have been to eat better and exercise more. I knew I should, I knew I could, but did I honestly believe I HAD to? Not really. So where does that leave me for 2008 resolutions? What changes do I honestly believe I HAVE to make?

Six months ago I made a major life decision. I really believed my life was off course. I had hoped – expected even – by that point in my life to have a family and a job that I loved. While I had already done everything I could to fight my infertility (to no avail) and felt I was out of options, I could do something about my professional life lacking passion. I had no idea what professional path I should be on, but believed I would find the right path quicker if I just hopped off the one I was on. So, with husband’s support, I quit.

The past six months have been really interesting. I have allowed myself some space and time to just be. I have quietly asked and meditated on the question “what kind of life do I want?” and allowed my thoughts to stew on the back burner until answers boiled to the surface. I’ve learned a lot about myself, my dreams and my life, but I know I have only barely scratched the surface. In those months, I made two major life decisions. One I’ve already written about and one I haven’t. The first is our decision to pursue adoption. The second is to pursue a dream I buried long ago because I didn’t believe I had the talent to make it come true – to write, or more specifically, to publish a novel.

When I was working and knew I was unhappy, I gave myself so many excuses for not pursuing a better more passionate life – there just wasn’t time, I had to pay the mortgage, there was no energy at the end of the day to devote to anything besides watching tv. Quitting my job has stripped me of all those excuses. It is now just me and my will power. I have the time. I have the energy. Now I can make use of this gift I have given myself or I can waste it. It’s my choice. It’s in my control. And today I feel that I HAVE to make something of this time.
And so, here are three resolutions for 2008 (okay, the third isn’t a “have to” it’s more for fun):

Resolution #1: To do everything in my power to move the adoption process further and to handle all the stresses that come along with it. I’m not worried about this one as most of the work on this has already been done. After two more meetings with our social worker, we will be on a waiting list at which point I will just have to let the universe do its work.

Resolution #2: To write a rough draft of a young adult novel by December 31st, 2008. I’ll blog later on why young adult fiction is my chosen genre. The only way I think I can reach this goal is by writing a bit every day. So I’m tasking myself with the goal of writing 1,000 words a day, 5 days a week (I know if I don’t give myself some days off I’ll crack).

Resolution #3: To try one new recipe a week. I’m a cookbook junkie and got three new ones for Christmas even though I have some books that contain hundreds of recipes and I’ve only tried two or three.

I am going to use this blog to hold myself accountable so look out for a weekly post measuring my progress. And wish me will power.