Back to Work

And so it is that time of year again. Time to go back to work for a new school year. I think this is the first year I am actually somewhat excited to go back. I really enjoyed being off for most of the summer. I kept myself busy, trying to make sure I had something to get me out of the house every day.Then last week I hit a wall. I ran out of things to do, especially since a majority of the world works year round. Without something to do every day, I have been completely lost and just plain getting down in the dumps. As much as I complain about work during the school year, I've realized those kids keep a smile on my face and keep me going. Even though they aren't my own, they've become my "adoptive family" until an adoption decides to work out around here. Those kids make me laugh every day, let me play and be silly, and cheer me up when I'm down... and... of course test my patience (but isn't that what being a kid is all about?)

I've also realized how much I miss everyone I work with. I am so blessed to work with some of the most kind, supportive, and lovely ladies a girl could ask for. They have been a great support these past couple of years, and I can't wait to have our lunches and afternoon chats again. I have to admit, since we don't have a baby yet, I'm pretty bummed I'm only going back part time. But, it's too late- can't change my mind now. I'm looking around for some other part time work to get me outta the house the 2 days I'm off. So send up some prayers that I find the right thing for me. I'm hoping early intervention can work out in some way, but at this point I'm becoming open to just about anything kid related to get me out of the house and keeping my mind off of the fact that we are STILL waiting for a baby.

I'm sure you will be hearing from me again in a few weeks complaining about work, but for now I'm looking forward to getting out of the house and back into the groove of things.

Life on Pause

For the past few years, I have found myself constantly planning around a baby. This child we have yet to meet has been ruling my life! I have constantly found myself thinking about getting involved in one thing or another, only to say, "Eh, maybe after baby. Everything needs to be perfect and in place for when baby comes." NEWSFLASH! Sitting around waiting for this baby isn't going to make him or her come any faster. Taking a dance class when I thought I could be pregnant wasn't going to cause any major issues, but I didn't want to "take any chances." Then we started planning for an adoption, and I never wanted to get too involved in anything because I hate to drop out of a commitment last minute. Unfortunately there is very little plan time with an adoption, so dropping out of commitments is the only way to do anything. I tend to forget that people will understand if I don't show up to something because oh, you know, we finally get a baby. I think a lot of this whole putting my life on hold has made me feel like I'm constantly planning for baby, somehow making it more of a reality than just a dream. Instead, all I'm doing is driving myself crazy and not having any fun.

So... I'm trying to change my ways. Time to press play and get on with living my life. I just signed up to be a catechist for 3rd grade religious education at our parish, and I'm actually really excited about it. Not to mention, you would never believe what happened when I asked the supervisor if I could take a couple weeks off once we get a baby... she didn't even hesitate- of course! No way, someone at church saying I could have time off to spend with a baby I have waited for years for... haha... My way of thinking is just ridiculous sometimes. So while I was on my little high with that, I thought I'd get a little crazy and check out the programs at our recreation department for a class or two to take this fall , like yoga or zumba. I know people, watch out! I'm getting out! So I've been doing good starting to break away from this giant pause I've been taking. 

Then I hit a wall. I finished the online courses for early intervention certification and will be done with the live class Friday. Then it will be time for me to actually commit and go through with the certification. This is a step I'm a little more scared to take. First of all, it's something new, and I'm often not a fan of new...unless that new thing is a baby of course ;)  More so, taking on a caseload brings me back to my discomfort of not being prepared for baby to come any day. It's that whole cancelling on people last minute and not following through with commitments. Most of all, taking on another job is filling in the gaps that I didn't think would need filling when I decided to move to a part time position at work. Blah! Don't get me wrong, I am actually really excited about the potential of working in early intervention. I've always wanted to do it, but right now isn't what was in my little plan, you see. I figured I'd turn to it once we already had kids and I was looking for something to bring in a little extra money and keep me updated in my field. I didn't think it would be filling in the gaps that I was supposed to be spending with baby.

It's funny how just about everything is like salt being rubbed into the wound.  Not a day goes by that I don't think of that baby and wonder how she is doing. Not a day goes by that I don't wonder how everything came crashing down so quickly. And not a day goes by when I don't picture myself holding her at that very moment. Fortunately, what I do know is that some day we will bring home a baby and all this will have been worth it. If only we knew the when. It's pretty overwhelming remembering how many steps we are going to have to repeat... getting a call, waiting for an eternity to see if we are chosen, meeting the birth parents, waiting for baby, baby comes, and waiting again for everything to be final. That's a whole lot of emotions and a whole lot of waiting. I think I have been pretty good about being patient, but man, I'm running low here. I guess I have to keep reminding myself that there is a pretty amazing plan for my life, one that I need to be patient for... right now, I'm just not feeling all that patient. My hope is that the wait isn't much longer, but in this crazy thing called adoption, waiting is pretty much the name of the game. And so.... I wait, but this time not on pause. I'm pushing "play" and having some fun. Who said my life can't start until we have a baby? Why can't my dream be lived out now? After all, I am blessed immensely with wonderful family, friends, a job I love, and most importantly an incredible husband. When I remind myself of all that, I feel a little greedy for always begging for a baby, but not greedy enough to stop asking :) 

Gotta Get Away

One of my first reactions when we found out we wouldn't be bringing home baby girl was, "We need to get away! Now!" So one of the first things we did was plan a trip to Florida. We have a pretty amazing family who stepped up to offer us places to stay. So first, we stayed in Hernando, FL, where Dan's aunt and uncle just recently bought a condo. It is a really nice quiet area, just what we needed those first few days. It was nice to just escape, sleep, and play word puzzles (Dan's best purchase of the trip). There wasn't much to do in town, so we decided to head out to Weeki Wachee Springs State Park. Neither of us had ever heard of it before, but Dan found it, and apparently there was some sort of show involving mermaids. So we just had to check this place out, if anything just to say we did it. The park has a short boat ride, a spring to swim in with a lazy river and some water slides, and of course the mermaid show. The show was actually pretty cool. We watched it in an auditorium under the water behind a giant glass window. They put on about a 30 minute show, never coming up for air, but rather used special tubes to take a breath of air when they needed it. The performers could not use their legs to swim, since they had tail fins of course! They also kept their eyes open the entire time and would open their mouths to speak or sing. It was kinda crazy. We saw two shows. One was kind of a behind the scenes with some tricks and how they do some of it. The second was a short performance of The Little Mermaid. We may have been the only two adults in there without kids, but it was pretty cool. We don't regret this road side attraction one bit. 

Pretty impressive, especially when you have limited us of your legs.

Little Mermaid performance. We caught her just as she was taking a breath from their hose.

Ariel in The Little Mermaid

We also found out they are in the Kelly Clarkson "Stronger" music video. Look for them at 1:24 and 2:13

Stronger Video

 So next on our list of stops was Disney World. This was just what the doctor ordered for me. I think I felt the most "back to normal" while we were in Disney. It's kinda hard to be in a bad mood there. We spent one day park hopping at Hollywood Studios, Epcot, and Magic Kingdom. The next day we went to Blizzard Beach. It was all a blast. Wait times weren't terrible, and besides it dumping rain on us a few times in Magic Kingdom the weather was fairly cooperative.

Dan hanging out with his buddy Bill Cosby. I think he has his facial expressions down :)

Taking a ride on the Backlot Tour at Hollywood Studios

The main street at Hollywood Studios

Magical :)

So next up on our trip was Melbourne, FL to visit my Uncle Aug, Aunt Sherry, and cousin Joseph. We enjoyed lots of delicious food (thanks to Aunt Sherry), a long walk on the beach with Uncle Aug, and the longest game of Phase 10 I have ever played. It was at least 3 hours long! He are some pictures from our visit. I realized a little too late that I never got pictures with all of them :( I guess we'll just have to take another trip there soon.

A crab we came across on our walk on the beach.

Uncle Aug caught these as the sun was beginning to set.

                          We had a great getaway- just what we needed!

Here We Go Again

And so here we go again... we're back on the waiting family list. I do have to say that I felt a huge weight lifted when I was told we could go back on. I was a bit worried they would make us wait even longer. I feel like now we can move forward and check out what plan God has in store for us. That's not to say that I'm not looking back frequently. The loss of our potential adoption is still a pretty fresh wound, but I do feel like I have sorted through about a million emotions over the past week and a half, from disappointment to anger to self pity to an overall sense of loss, ending with some form of acceptance. I still miss both baby girl and the birth parents terribly. I feel like over the past two months, we formed a wonderful relationship with them. I only hope that our next match will result in a relationship similar to that one... AND a baby.

During adoption, you hear a lot about the transfer of power. Leading up to the adoption, the birth parents hold the "power". We are just sitting, waiting for the baby to be born and papers to be signed. There is nothing we can do but wait, hope, and build a relationship with the birth family (and of course pray like crazy). Once papers are signed, the power is transferred to the adoptive parents. The Cradle has always made us very aware of the difficulty of this transfer of power, grief, and overwhelming emotions the birth parents go through. I realized today that through this experience of a "change of heart" that I have gotten a small taste of what that has to feel like for the birth parents. I feel this incredible loss, for a daughter we were so prepared for. I think about her all the time. What is she doing now? (probably eating or sleeping at this point :) ) What will she look like a year from now, 10 years from now? There is nothing I can do to find out either. Our relationship with them has come to an end. She is with her forever family, in this case her birth family. At the end of the day, I do truly believe that they made the right decision. I think the way everything happened could have been a bit different, for everyone's sake, but I know that they will provide her with a loving home. Pray for them. It will likely be a rough road ahead for them, but I wish them all the happiness in the world. They are wonderful people. I only wish we could continue our relationship with them through adoption, but like I said it just wasn't right for them. All I can do at the end of the day is respect that, wish them well, and pray.

Please continue to pray for us. We are already beginning to heal. It's amazing what some time with family and friends and a few days at Disney World can do for your spirit. We have hope for what is to come, but for a while we will continue to feel a sense of loss for that baby girl in our lives and our dreams for her. We know that the best way to heal right now is to keep on trucking. I will admit, we're pretty good at this. After about 3 years of trying to build our family, we've learned to cope with disappointment and to remind ourselves that something pretty incredible is up ahead. It's the unknown that's hard. Our counselor told me today that there has been a steady flow for the past couple months, so hopefully our wait for the next call won't be long. I'm ready for it. Bring it on!

Seriously?

And so we are back where we were about 2 months ago... waiting for a baby. Yesterday we got the dreaded phone call to inform us of a "change of heart". The baby girl we held only two days before, would not be coming home with us. Seriously??? That's all I can say. I feel like I just ran a marathon and came within about 5 feet from the finish line, only to have someone stop me and tell me to go back to the beginning and do it all over again. I know that God has a plan for us, and I do really trust that it will be greater than we can imagine. But right now, I just feel defeated. Why did we have to go through this? What was the point of this experience? It certainly didn't bring me a sense of hope. If anything, I'm going to be on pins and needles from day one next time. Oy...

Adoption in the Media

I have come to learn that (with a few exceptions) adoption is not portrayed very well on TV. I have felt this for a while, but the other day I found a show that sealed the deal on my views on this. I was flipping through the channels, and I came across a show on TLC called Birth Moms. I of course was immediately drawn in because I often get into reality shows about things I'm going through. (I was addicted to all the wedding shows right before we got engaged too). The description just said that it followed three women who were considering an adoption plan and their journey to choosing an adoptive family. I was immediately drawn in. I was so curious to see what things looked like from their end, and I figured since it was TLC it would be a somewhat respectable portrayal. So I started watching it. I kid you not, it only took about 10 minutes before Dan insisted we change the channel. He generally doesn't care what's on the TV. I watch a lot of horrible shows too, with terrible acting and no good story lines, and he has rarely flat out told me to change the channel. That's how bad this was.

The show did follow three women considering adoption and looking at adoptive families. Other than that, it was nothing like what I had thought it would be. One of the women decided to proudly shoplift on camera, in turn having her license taken by a police officer. She then proceeded to go out to dinner with the other two women and insist on getting drinks. I'm not talking a glass of wine. I mean hard liquor. Since she didn't have her license, she contacted the police station and demanded her license be returned so that she could drink. The "mildest" woman of the three was still difficult to watch... making fun of the adoptive family profiles and pretty much calling all of them losers and boring. She didn't even bother to read the profiles. She just flipped through them quickly and made flash judgments based on a few pictures. I honestly can't remember anything about the third woman, but she was somewhere in between the other two.

Now, I'm sure there are women like this considering adoption. I'm not here to judge these women by any means. My problem with this portrayal is that it gives people the impression that every birth mother is like this, not caring for herself, the baby, or really anyone around her. They had three women on this show. Pick at least one who can give a positive representation of a birth mother. What about the women who sincerely care about the health of their babies? What about the women who read every last word of every adoptive family profile to choose the best possible family for her child? What about the women who are dealing with this incredible sense of loss to come? What about couples, who are in this together? One thing I learned in the classes we took is that there is not a "typical" birth parent. They may be teenagers, but they may also be in their 20's, 30's, and 40's. They may be married, in a relationship, or single. They may have other children. That is why I am disappointed in this show. They show none of that. For someone who has had no exposure to adoption, look at the message they got. They got the impression that birth parents are a mess and that they don't really care all that much about taking care of themselves. Bravo TLC...we didn't learn a whole lot from your show.

I am not going to share anything personal because I truly respect the birth parents we are in a match with. I just want to say one thing. They are the exact opposite of what I have seen on TV. They are wonderful, loving individuals who are making an incredibly selfless decision for the sake of their daughter. They carefully chose a family (thank goodness it was us!), and they have shown us nothing but respect. We enjoy spending time with them and hope this relationship can continue to grow in the future. The message I want to get across is that birth parents are not just what is portrayed on TV. They are smart, loving, respectful individuals.

I said at the beginning of the post that I believe there are some exceptions when it comes to TV's portrayal of adoption. Dan will make fun of me for saying this, but honestly Teen Mom is pretty good when it comes to this. Their story of Catelynn and Tyler is good. They showed them carefully choosing an adoptive family, forming a relationship with this family, and having a true respect for their daughter's adoptive parents. They showed their struggle, including their grief and loss. It's not something that just magically disappeared. They still seem to have a hard time with it, as I would imagine most people would. Catelynn and Tyler also share their reasons for an adoptive plan and why they believe it was the best decision for them. Now of course there is the usual drama that comes with an MTV show, but overall Teen Mom's portrayal of Catelynn and Tyler is one I respect. I really wish they would show more people who made an adoptive plan. Almost every teen on Teen Mom/ 16 and Pregnant chooses to parent her child. I'm not saying there is a problem with that. I just wish they would show a few more stories of those who chose adoption to give a more positive portrayal of adoption in the media.

Okay. I will step off my soapbox now.

Happy Mother's Day

A friend of mine from the Cradle posted this article today, and I loved it! I recommend taking a few minutes to read it by going to this link:


How do you define motherhood?


I am not going to sit here and lie and say that the journey to adoption is an easy one. It is certainly something that takes time to be ready for both mentally and emotionally. It is as if God is constantly molding your heart, slowly preparing it for this incredible love. It may have taken us a bit of a journey to get to this point, but I have to agree with the author to that article. Adoption is by no means a back-up plan or a second-rate choice. I am honored to have been chosen to go on this journey. I am blessed that God gave us an up-hill battle to becoming parents. Without this journey, we would not have met these incredible birth parents. We have been a witness to true unconditional selfless love between a couple and for their unborn baby girl. We have been embraced by a family who may give us the greatest gift we could ever imagine, a precious child. As we wait for her arrival, I already know that if she is placed with us, we will love her to the moon and back. Our love will be no different than if I had carried her for 9 months. Sure, we will have some catching up to do ;) But at the end of the day, we will be her mommy and daddy. 


For now, we eagerly await her arrival just like any other couple. We have her pictures on our fridge (a beautiful Mother's Day gift from the birth mother), and we have been shopping for all of the little necessities. We hope and pray that she will join our family and will feel blessed beyond our wildest dreams. I've come to realize, a pregnancy is only 9 months (yes 9 beautiful months- I'm certainly not denying that) but raising your child- that's a lifetime. It's a lifetime of being a mommy and all the hugs and kisses, sickness, temper tantrums, and giggles that go along with it. 


I'm not going to act like I'm never going to yearn to be pregnant. I think for a woman, that is nearly impossible. It's just a part of who I am. But I can honestly say, I can see how it has slowly subsided. What is more important is being a mom. As that author so beautifully described in that article:

"Maybe I will get pregnant one day, maybe I won't, but it doesn't matter to me any more. Adoption and pregnancy bring the same results: A child is welcomed into the arms of parents who have been waiting for her, expectantly and impatiently."

I couldn't say it any better myself. As we wait for baby girl, I know we will love her beyond measure, just as much as we would had she grown with us for 9 months. Love you baby girl! We hope you join our family soon!


Happy Mother's Day to all mothers and expectant mothers, whether through adoption or pregnancy.