a big favor to ask...

There isn't anything going on around here. Unless you count the major yard work that my husband is in the midst of, or the computer project I'm working on at my job, or the painting I'm planning on doing in the house. It is spring break, and I am totally enjoying the prospect of a little vacation, sleeping in and painting my kitchen. Mom's giving me a pedicure for Easter and I'm thrilled about that.

This photo is from our trip last year to New York...we stopped in Philadelphia. I just thought a photo makes a post more fun.

Here's something else I want to talk about. Or, ask about, rather. If you didn't read my other blog much (or didn't even know I had another blog) you may have missed that I wrote a book over the last year. A YA fiction book. It has not been published but I am hoping that maybe in the near future it might be. Would any of you be interested in reading some of it and giving me your thoughts? I was thinking I might create a private blog for those that might be interested, and post some of the chapters online. I feel like I need some more feedback before I send it out places.

If you liked Twilight, I think you might like this. No vampires or anything, but a paranormal romance, as they call it in the BIZ. Whatever. If you didn't like Twilight, then you might try it anyway and give me your feedback. (And no, Mom, I'm still not ready for you to read it. ) :)

Would you comment and let me know if you are interested in reading any of it? That will give me some idea if I really should go ahead and create another page. Let me know!

more tears

I had a moment this week where life seemed very heavy. Incidentally enough, it was during the Bachelor, but the point isn't really that I watch reality television, but that sometimes, we are like reality television. As much as we don't want to admit it.

So, this week, one of the four remaining contestants was told by her job she needed to come home or be fired. She didn't want to leave. She liked Jake. But in this economy, a job is important, so she left. And before she left, she CRIED a lot.

I started crying at the whole thing, because I am in job limbo as well. Nothing as dramatic as the whole Bachelor thing, but there might not be enough money to fund my job next year as the school's full time librarian. I was told back in September, so I've known about it and have been looking for something else, too. But the fact that the adoption is in limbo too, since who knows when anything will actually happen, is stressing me out.

Two huge portions of my life are at the end of a yo-yo.

Yikes.

I try so hard to deal with it well. God grants me grace every morning to smile at babies and love the pregnant people around me. He makes it easy. It's a gift from Him, just to me.

But the stress of all of it together is making me tired. TIRED. We just had three days off due to snow, and I don't feel rested. I was crossing my fingers that it would snow again so I could have another day off. Nope. It all went about three hours north and we got rain.

So Monday night I cried some when I was going to bed. Tuesday morning I cried some when a coworker asked me how I was doing. Then I cried when I typed an email to my husband telling him about all the times I cried. He sent me the sweetest email, and then I cried some more.

He bought me tiramisu. All is better now.

Do you ever have those moments where it just seems that it's all too much? If I didn't want to be a mom so bad, I would just give the whole thing up, but the nursery is ready and so are we.

What do you do when you want to give up?

your perspectives were interesting

I thought your opinions on the whole bipolar thing were interesting (if you're curious, see the previous post below.) Most of you said that it would not matter to you, but that it was a personal decision. My friend Tonya, especially, know that anything can happen once you bring a child home, even one that's your biological child.

My own personal experience is from school. We have a set of boy/girl twins here and the girl is bipolar. In k, 1st and 2nd grade she was almost impossible to handle. The school finally stepped in and now the student has a full time aide with her. All day. Helping correct her behavior and helping her make the right choices. It's not an easy job. This is what I think of when I think of bipolar. That made me pause.

But, that all being said, the fees were just too high for us, so I never indicated any more interest to the facilitator than the first email, trusting God that she would contact me if she thought we could be right for them. After checking the adoptlink grid today, I see that two sets of parents have applied to have their profiles shown. Maybe God just wanted me to pray for them. I may never know.

Thanks for your perspectives, though. It was interesting to see what people said about the situation. I felt much better about the possibility of raising them, and intervening early if need be. Hopefully one of these other two couples will get chosen and love these babies to pieces. If not, the facilitator knows where I am, I guess.

I also signed up for a adoption network board, but I don't expect much to come from it. I don't know that I would be able to really believe a girl on there who was looking for adoptive parents. I guess if someone did contact me, I would refer them to our agency to have them checked out. Again, I'd love to hear your thoughts on these forums.

ups and downs

This weekend we were blessed with about seven inches of snow and a snow day today. I was so glad that school was closed this morning, allowing me some extra rest and a day to myself, since Charlie had to do into work.

I was sharing yesterday with a friend that the past couple of weeks have been hard. My job situation is in flux, since they told me back in October my position may not be available next year. The school is collapsing a couple of positions and wants to combine my librarian position with the technology position. But then last week they told me they aren't sure how exactly it will happen, since they really haven't found any good candidates for the job. Now they are thinking they might replace the technology position and keep me half time.

It's hard for me to think about finding a new job, and sit here and wait for a baby. It's two huge things on my mind. I find it hard to relax and just let the worries go. We didn't have church yesterday because of the snow, and I probably could have really used some worship time. But today offers me some quiet time to rest and veg and just be.

I was talking to my assistant principal the other day and she was sharing that they still didn't know what they wanted to do with the position. I was telling her that it would be nice to keep my job, since the health insurance is so awesome. It really is awesome. And working part time for my school might be a great solution if we had a baby at home. And, still being staff there, I would automatically get a place for our child when they enter kindergarten if I work there that long. It's a great school. But again, my mind has been set on having to find another job, and now there might be a chance that I could keep the job. It's like a big YoYo. As is adoption. It's a huge rollercoaster that we're on right now.

Ups and downs. It's all about ups and downs.

like a tortoise

It's the slowness that drives a girl crazy, I think. I mean, the beginning part of adoption, when you're filling out all the paperwork and hoping you get approved. There's cranky fingerprint people and courthouses to go to and endless questions about everything. But it all adds up to something I can do. Things to check off.

In our case, our match came around rather quickly. We weren't even done with our homestudy before we were matched, which is really rare. But our agency loved us so much to show us, and so Vanessa chose us for her little girl. It was thrilling to think that six months after calling the agency we would have a baby. It was fast, but it was all coming together. Then it all fell apart, but that's another story.

But now it's been another nine months and I'm getting a little antsy. The first couple of months I thought about the baby a ton and prayed for her and basically just tried to get past it. And I was embarrassed. It wasn't my fault at all, but I felt like I had lied, saying she was coming and getting all this attention, just to have to contradict myself. I hated that feeling.

After a while my husband just said...we need to move forward. We had never taken ourselves off the list, but we talked to the agency anyway, just to make sure we were still being shown. We're on the website (click over on the sidebar and you can see us under Waiting Families.) I want my phone to ring and it to be the right number, saying "you're matched!" I remember the moment we first found out about Vanessa and I ran out of my office and started jumping up and down with the woman next door. She didn't even know why we were jumping. Finally, I just said "baby."

Will it be as thrilling the next time? Will I want to jump or want to hide it? Will I want to be so forthcoming, or reticent about the details? How much will I share?

I don't know.

It seems like, knowing myself, that I would be open and share, but the fear of looking stupid twice comes over me and whispers to me to keep it to myself. Keep praying I get past that, okay?

As for now, we wait. Like little tortoises on the road to parenthood. But I want to be the hare.

feelings from a failed placement

Today I popped over to a site called For Birthmothers By Birthmothers as recommended by another blogger (I now have the birthmother blog on my sidebar.) It was a blog I needed to find. Not in the sense that I was looking for it, but in the sense that it helped round out my feelings on our failed placement.

I don't know if many of you out there have experienced an adoption that didn't go through. I know Maria did (plus a couple of you bloggers I don't know well), and I know some of you have been through a miscarriage (or two or three) or a stillbirth. All the situations, while similar, are very different. In a miscarriage or a stillbirth, I imagine women feel physically responsible, like maybe there was something they could have done to make the baby healthier. I didn't have to go through the physical pain of the miscarriage or deliver a baby only to watch them die. And I'm sure the pregnancy hormones don't make it any easier.

It was not like that for me. I just felt rejected, and not by the birthmother, really, but by God. Well, not even Him so much as LIFE. Reality. Murphy's Law. Like I wasn't good enough to get the baby. Or good enough to get pregnant in the first place. Why didn't he choose me for that? Why did he choose me for this? If he intended me to adopt, then why didn't it go through? In the months following, most of that has faded. I don't blame God or even feel like he doesn't see me or hear me, I just want to move forward and begin my journey as a family of three.

Anyway, to get back to my original point, was that this birthmother site is maintained to provide support for each other, and for others that support adoption. The posts were so interesting and provided so many insights into what birthmothers feel as they are making an adoption plan and placing their child. It helped me to better understand what our birthmother (I call her Vanessa on the blog) was thinking about before she changed her mind about placing. They were doing a question and answer post today, talking about the five highs and five lows of placing a baby for adoption. Some things came up that I wouldn't have even thought about. It's too much to go into here, but I encourage you to click the link and explore the site. Suffice it to say that I found myself clicking through many of the posts, feeling like I was taking an adoption class on birthmothers. I think some of you have talked about your adoption classes before and hearing birthmothers talk, and I think that would be awesome.

We only met with Vanessa once, and weren't able to talk to her after she decided not to place. In fact, she only text messaged the agency to let them know she'd changed her mind. It was all over and done with so quickly, although she did tell them to apologize to us. We even went ahead and had them give her the clothes we'd bought for the Interim Care family to use with the baby. I didn't want them back. I'd bought them for that baby and they needed to be with her. I just think I needed a little more closure. One text and it was over.

Okay, so I've shared more than I intended I think, but that's how I tend to be with my blogs, I guess. But I was so impressed by the honesty and perspective offered in the posts that I read for a long time. If you are considering adopting, I suggest you read some of the entries. It will give you some much needed insight into what the process is like for the moms. We tend to think of it all about us, and how we want babies. And I am like that a lot. I can admit that. But I also like to think that the baby I adopt will need a home, and a mom and a dad. It doesn't mean it won't be a painful experience for the mom. It will be, and I think I understand better all the emotions involved. I do plan to go back and check up on the blog, as I want to keep learning.

trying to trust

I have spent the last few days popping around different pregnancy, infertility, adoption and foster care blogs. I am constantly amazed at how much is out there and available to read. I ended up adding lots of links to my sidebar, so I now I have lots of people to keep up with and follow their journeys.

But, one theme that seems to unite all these blogs is the wanting: wanting to be a mother, wanting to help children in need, wanting to find a good home for a child, wanting to follow God's will. So many of the women blogging out there are Christian women of all faiths, from Catholic to Protestant to LDS. Women who trust God with their families and their lives. Each woman may be going about it in the way they believe, but underneath all the differences in faith are the prayers sent up. Many, many, many prayers.

I know that I often feel like I'm whining about the waiting. And the waiting is hard. I feel like I'm supposed to be mothering someone, and so I often end up mothering my dogs. Lucy, especially, since she tends to be more cuddly. She'll often end up in my lap, and I'll talk in babytalk and call her the baby. I kiss on her and love on her and tell her that she'll love the baby when he/she comes.

Somewhere out there may be a woman who is thinking that bringing up a baby would be too hard. Or that it just isn't something she's ready for or can handle. Hopefully, God is touching her spirit, whispering that He can take care of that baby. There's a way. It doesn't have to be a death...it can be a life, for her, for the baby, and a dream come true for couples like Charlie and me. I pray that in these moments, God is there and that hearts are opened. I pray that these honest whispers fall on receptive ears.

I believe I was meant to be a mother. It wasn't always this way, but more and more each day I know that this is God's calling on my life. Charlie is meant to be a daddy. That I know. I can see it in how he acts with his nephews and niece. It will come so naturally to him.

These are the thoughts for today, I guess. Those are my prayers and my prayer requests. Add them to your list, if you can, if you would.