A Short-ish Update -Written By My Sinuses

I have had some requests for updates on our adoption process- so sorry that I haven't updated in a while.  Life duties won out over blogging and my sinuses have been really messed up this week.  It's hard to feel witty or creative when your face feels like it has shards of glass in it.  This post comes to you courtesy of my sinus infection- it may make a lot of typos and babble on, since sinus infections generally don't write blog posts. 

So, where do we stand in the adoption process now?  Same place we stood last time I wrote.  Waiting waiting waiting.  In less than two months we will be on the LMHL (last minute hospital list) which means it will be a year since we went live, because you get added to that list at 12 months.  We will not be defying any average wait times apparently.  In the meantime, we have been making ourselves busy as usual. 

Today marks day 17 of the 30 day yoga challenge.  Last night was working your way into splits and I literally laughed when I saw the title.  Surprisingly though, I got a lot closer (with right leg forward only) than I thought I would.  The left side of my body must be tighter than the right.  I am loving yoga, even if I whine my way through some of the sessions, I feel so amazing afterward that I keep going back to it to relax and feel good.  I recommend it for anyone who is in a stressful period of life.

John is about to start a new season of league curling with the Atlanta Curling Club.  It starts in September, so they are doing all of the prepwork over the next month.  He has a trip to Charlotte, NC for another bonspiel coming up, but I can't go, since Tech classes start right after and I have orientation sessions to work.  We start getting a little busy right before classes start each fall.  I really wish I could go with him! I keep picturing next year's bonspiels with a baby strapped to my chest, all bundled up and warm.  Our little family exploring a new city while the other teams curl. 

Things to look forward to: Another yoga challenge that I am adding to my current one starts August 4th.  The overlap should be interesting.  Ladies night out with other waiting adoptive/adoptive moms at a painting studio.  We are all also trying to organize a picnic for the families who are waiting to adopt or have already adopted through IAC's Georgia office, just for some fun and support. John and I think it is really important to have an adoption network even after we adopt.  For our sake and our child(ren)'s sake. Fall is coming, which means 5ks again.  I don't like to do them in the summer,  because my lungs have a serious complaint with Georgia humidity. 

So, here we sit, waiting for our family to grow.  Busying ourselves with distractions and prepping the nursery as usual. We are ever hopeful that our baby is on his or her way to us.  Thank you to everyone for the ongoing support! 

Pretty in Pink

A little warning.  This is a reality post.  I wrote it last night after letting the stress of it all get to me and does not necessarily represent John's views on things.  This morning, after talking to friends and support people, I feel the same, but with more strength. Day 3 of the yoga challenge helped, because it was awful... I know that doesn't make sense at first, but the point is that I felt like I was failing, but I did it anyway.  A metaphor for the whole adoption process?  Because we are stronger than the struggle.  We all are.  Whatever you are fighting right now, you are tougher than it is.

What I wrote last night:

I realized today that I am trying to power through #100happydays on Instagram and chipper blog posts during what has really turned out be the darkest time of my life.  I don't mean that every waking moment I feel depressed, but with so much uncertainty, things just often look so grim.  I am a member of many adoption groups on Facebook and Yahoo.  I rejoice as people get matched with an adoption situation and become parents, I grieve for them when it doesn't work out.  I mourn for the women who have had to make the decision to place their babies or are in the process of making it.  As much as I feel for these people, the real darkness I feel comes from fear.  It is fear that I am reading about my future in these posts.  Fear of the unknown.  Failed matches, reclaim of the baby after it is in our arms, scammer after scammer (that one we have experienced to a smaller extent) are all distinct possibilities.  I often want to scream at whatever higher power exists "WHY IS THIS SO HARD?!"  Not just for John and I, but for everyone involved. 

Could we wake up tomorrow and become parents and have the perfect open adoption?  Absolutely.  Could we be waiting years and accept a situation that does not bode well for openness (not ideal)?  Sure.  Somebody please give me a crystal ball.  I need to know the future.

Ok, it is out of my system.  I spilled it. I was negative on the blog.  We can only go up from here!

It is going to be a long day.  My work friends are all off today and I forgot my lunch.  I have a doctor's appointment at 3 that I would rather not attend.  I think though, that I saw a good sign this morning.  I really wanted to stay in bed and forget about responsibility, but we all know that can't happen (often).  After some pep talk from my friend in Sydney, Australia, who is like 14 hours ahead and therefore has already conquered this day, I headed to the car and saw this:

 The sunrise was making the clouds pink and creating a "world tinted pink" effect on everything.  I felt like it was a sign to start seeing the world a little rosier.  I know this adoption will have a conclusion.  I know it will happen for us.

Repeat after me.. everything is going to be okay!

We Could Insist On The Impossible

Keeping busy during the adoption wait is vital to our mental stability.  I have mentioned in previous posts that John is in the Atlanta Curling Club (it is an ice sport, not curling like with weights... ahem..LJ, I am looking at you.)  John also sorta kinda has a band... long story?  Or short story that I don't actually know?  No story at all maybe?  Music is occasionally played in our basement.  That is all I know!

I have tried all sorts of things to keep busy.  I started yoga a couple of months ago, but not in a class setting, though I would love to find the right class. For now I am using doyogawithme.com and Yoga With Adrienne on Youtube.  Yoga isn't easy people.  Maybe it's just me, but I can really work up a sweat with these videos.  I just found a 30 day yoga challenge on Youtube, so I am going to challenge myself to stick with it for 30 days straight.  You know how there are those days where you get home from work and you just want to eat and watch TV in your jammies?  Or you want to sleep that extra 30 minutes after your alarm goes off?  Yeah, that isn't going to happen for 29 more days!  I can't wait to feel the difference from day 1 to day 30. 

Once it cools off a little, I want to restart C25K or "couch to 5k" for those of you who aren't down with the lingo.  Man, I do love my couch though.  I think next time we should buy a less comfortable couch, so I don't feel the magnetic pull of relaxation.  There is a 5k that I like to do in Smyrna in October called the Spooktacular Chase.  This will be my third year and I would love to cut my time down a little.  John doesn't like to do 5ks, but he works on his feet, so I get it.  He goes and hangs out with our nephew while the rest of us do the race.  This 5k winds around my brother's neighborhood and I will admit that jogging past his street on that last stretch is the hardest!  You picture the couch, the air conditioning, the bathroom!  I have forced myself to finish each time though. Finishing a 5k as someone who would have considered herself disabled by kidney failure only a 5 years ago, feels amazing.  Walking, jogging or running, it doesn't matter. It is all about finishing.  

I also have been working a little on the nursery.  There isn't a lot I can do until we know boy/girl, single birth/twins etc.  I do get tired of buying gender neutral everything, even though I don't really believe in enforcing gender stereotypes.  There is only so much yellow, green and gray you can buy!  Why must so many blue things say "little man" and pink say "princess".  It's 2014 after all!  What I did do lately is add a nightlight, Peter Rabbit to go with the crib bedding.  Thanks Pottery Barn Kids coupon!  I also bought a basket to store diaper related stuff that will go the changing station dresser.  I washed everything we have so far, just in case!  Do any other waiting families do kind of superstitious things?  Like, I thought to myself one day that if I wash the bedding and newborn stuff, I will demonstrate to the world that we are ready and baby will find us.  Or when we were going on our last trip, I was at the grocery store getting road snacks and I just felt the extreme need to buy something for baby and in my head it was like a lucky charm or something.  I bought a bottle and it wasn't lucky.  Obviously, impromptu baby supply shopping will not make it happen, but you start letting those thoughts slip in.

Corner of the nursery.  Details to be added once baby is here Extra furniture will be gone too..

It's so easy to start playing games in your head.  The wait will do that to you... make you a little weird.  You start thinking things like, of course we haven't been matched yet, we have dishes building up in the sink... we have yet to prove that we are good enough to be parents!  Silly things like that.  Of course parents let their dishes pile up sometimes.  Everyone does.  Of course there are no adoption gods watching the size of our laundry pile or measuring the amount of veggies we eat.  The truth is there is no rhyme or reason as to when that fateful day happens and you meet the woman who will trust you enough to raise her child.  There is no agenda for this process, just an outline with many variables.  There is no visible finish line ahead, just a lot of hurry up and wait.  Hurry up and get cleared by the FBI, the GBI, sex offender registry, child abuse registry, doctors, human resources, references from friends and family and then.... wait.  Just wait.

Ugh, waiting.  Not my strong point.  John is so laid back and patient.  I don't know how I got so lucky as to marry someone who is my exact opposite.  Believe me, that is a good thing.  If we both worried and let our type A personalities out as much as I do, this house would be full of anxious preparation and intense conversations.  He is indeed the yang to my yin, the sweet to my salty, and the calm to my storm.  I wouldn't say I am overly uptight, but I like things to be more predictable than this adoption process. 

Ok, onward and conclusion-ward.  We have basically nothing coming up.  Perfect time for a special arrival AMIRIGHT?!  I leave you with something that I posted on our adoption Facebook page that got about 50 likes (thanks guys! it was totally spur of the moment and straight from the depths of my aching, childless heart)

I wrote a long blog post about infertility and how people say the craziest things. About doctors and ultrasound techs and learning how to bite my tongue. I wrote about darkness and the light I see ahead.

But after sitting in a room full of newborn babies today, all I want to say is this:

Dear Future Baby, Your parents are ready for you now. We have your room ready, some pretty awesome name possibilities, and serious amount of love to give. We feel lost without you. We feel you are close and we know we are all meant to be together. We want to watch as you eat your first cookie, use your first crayon and help you dip your feet in the ocean for the first time. We want to kiss your boo boos, make up silly songs with you and teach you right from wrong. Don't stay away too long, as we have adventures to go on.

Hopelessly hopeful. 

Musings of a Future Adoptive Mom

So, I have been trying to put myself in the position of a woman who is having to make the choice to parent, terminate her pregnancy or place her baby for adoption.  Of course I have never been in that position, but when I was a college student, I had people close to me who did have to make those difficult decisions.  I believe that a woman should be able to choose whatever is best for her and her baby at that given time in her life.  I have come to the conclusion, as someone who has yet to have a viable pregnancy, that I cannot and will never be able to fully understand the emotions that go along with such a decision. All I can do is make our family available in the case that a woman wants to place her baby and finds our type of family suitable.

What makes a family suitable?

I guess first of all, we have to pass a bunch of health and criminal screenings every year for our home study, so there is that, but can that really be it?  I don't think so, only being healthy and having a lack of a criminal past does not a suitable parent make! (Though we have squeaky clean pasts and that certainly is good!)  There are other factors as to what will make us the family for our future baby.  There is so much that brings people together.  Think about how you met your best friend or your significant other.  What sort of predestined things occurred to create that scenario where you first met or saw each other from a distance?  When you first talked to him or her, what made you feel connected?  I think the woman who will be our baby's birth mom could very well be brought to us in the same serendipitous way.  I often wonder these things:  Will she be drawn to us based on our geographic location?  Our love of music?  A look in our eyes in the profile?  A tiny detail we mentioned in the profile or in this blog?  Will she see something in us that just calls out that we are the right people to raise her child?  What about us will she find suitable?

I have had so many adoptive parents tell us that when it is the right person, she knows and you know.  Just like when you meet the other most important people in your life.  I can't say that I have heard that all of the situations turn out like that.  Some are last minute, so you do not have that time to get to know her beforehand.  Sometimes she wants more privacy, but she still has to decide that we will parent her baby.  Something about us has to pop out at her.  It's like you want to include every detail about yourself just in case she loves UGA or Frank Turner or curling or even cats.  Does she want her child's parents to take him or her on vacations around the world?  Does she have dreams of her child playing musical instruments or joining sports in school?  Do our dreams for our children align?  I personally just dream of giving our child the opportunity to do any and all of it if they choose to.

I guess we wont know until it happens.  For July, we have very little going on after this weekend.  We went to two housewarming parties this weekend.  We are partied out and over-filled with tasty food.  John has some time before the next curling bonspiel and the beginning of the upcoming curling league. I have taken up yoga and am looking into possible kickboxing classes.  I have to decide this week if I want to take a class for my master's program in the Fall. I feel like I have nothing to lose, but the cost of books, if baby comes and I can't hack both, since my job pays tuition.  I do hate to waste any resources they may be putting towards it though.  I have a tendency to try and juggle a lot at once to make the wait feel less excruciatingly long.

Well, here we sit, waiting for our baby as always.  Hoping for the right phone call, email, or text (YES! We can be contacted via text now! 408-414-7245) .  Google voice had absolutely no Georgia numbers, so we had to be assigned a California area code.  Odd.  Anyway the texts go straight to my cell phone and also our email sarahandjohnadopt@gmail.com, so I can get them immediately.

Check out the cover photo with our contact info that I made for our Facebook page!

That is actually the inside of our crib! So ready!

 

I leave you with a series of photos I found of John and I over the years.  I was looking over old pictures and thought, how lovely it is to be with someone for so long and  still get excited to see his face day after day.

Our one year dating anniversary 2002!

Graduating from UGA- 2003

At our wedding reception - 2007

Playing rock band with my brother Noah -2009

2014!

Excuse Me Ma'am, Your Personal Life is Showing.

First up, I had a dream last night that I went to a Mongol Horde show and Frank Turner got too into it and punched me in the face. I woke up with a sore eye socket...someone tell me what this means!!!  Imagine my confusion upon waking up.

Oh man, the feedback I have been getting from keeping an adoption/life blog is surreal. You love me, you hate me, you think I "TMI" a little too often, you want more, you want less. Well, I have made a choice to share our adoption process - good and bad.  I think that being real is extremely important in life. I am always real with people, I see no point in pretending John and I are people that we are not. That being said, yeah, it's a little weird for me too. I know one day I may wish our faces weren't plastered all over the internet and it would be fruitless to try to remove every picture and personal note ever posted.  I am okay with that. So... onward to the latest updates.

It has officially been 9 stinkin' months of waiting live with the Independent Adoption Center.  That is long enough to have had a full-term baby, if my body would have allowed such growth of human life. Let's all remember one thing though, 9 months is still not that long to wait to adopt. I would feel incredibly lucky if our baby came to us at 9 months. Our home study renewal has been written and submitted, so now we just wait for the IAC to approve it. We continue with life and wait and wait- distracting ourselves with trips, yoga, records, seeing bands play, free HBO preview weekends and nights out with friends. Most days are filled with positive thoughts and optimism, others are really just hard as hell to get through.

We traveled to Wilmington, NC over the weekend for another curling bonspiel and some much needed beach time. This was a one day bonspiel, as opposed to Knoxville's two day event. I have to say I was pretty unimpressed with the city of Wilmington. There were some pretty sites, the beaches were nice, but mostly we sat in a lot of traffic. For a city of just over 100,000 in the summer (meaning UNC Wilmington was not so crowded), the roads sure were slow moving. The time spent at the beach was fabulous. I got a little beach cabana (because us pale people burn in like 2 seconds) and we made it our home base for half of Sunday.  Here are some pictures of the weekend, because what is a blog post without pictures, right?

Yep, they are all curlers.

John and his team getting ready to curl

Us at Wrightsville Beach (Siri calls it Riotsville which is kind of awesome)

John in our little cabana

Sarah in our little cabana

Carolina Beach- super crowded

Us on Carolina Beach

That really sums up the trip. No good pictures of food, because we didn't really have any unique meals whilst vacationing this time around. We all know I like food pictures too, so it is a quite a shock that there are none.

On the life agenda for the next little while is to keep up the hope that we will become parents soon and to not forget about the women out there who are having to make quite possibly the hardest decisions of their lives- to place their babies or to parent. The big plan is to be grateful that we do have this option, no matter how long it takes or how difficult it feels sometimes. Shall I end this with the usual?  We are ever so hopeful to become parents through open adoption, though our strength waivers, our hope never does.

Summertime (and the livin' is easy)

Let's talk about vacations and luxuries while being in the midst of the adoption wait.  I think it is absolutely necessary to still enjoy some of life's luxuries, even if we are a little nervous about the costs we are enduring for the adoption. We can't sit at home and think about nothing but waiting.  Distraction is the best coping mechanism I have found to get through this ever dragging process.

We do not have a "real" vacation planned for this summer, but we just went on a long weekend trip to Knoxville, TN for John's curling club.  For those who need a reminder or who for some crazy reason missed the winter Olympics, curling is an olympic sport that is played on ice. John is a part of Atlanta's first curling club and they happened to get into a bonspiel in Knoxville called the "Rocky Top Open Bonspiel" which is hosted by the Great Smoky Mountains Curling Club .  I had never been to Knoxville and I have to say I was really impressed.  It was a smaller city with big city features.  We ate some of the best food I have had in a while.  I would really recommend the French Market which is downtown on South Gay Street. We had some delicious crepes for breakfast our last morning there and got chocolate croissants to go! Did I mention they had free refills on iced coffee?  They know the way to my heart for sure. I thought I had more pictures from around town, but they turned out to be mostly food.  Shocker!

Chocolate croissant, fresh out of the oven!

Crepe!

John out on the ice (note the curling pants)

Spielin'

In a little over a week, we will be traveling to Wilmington, NC for another bonspiel.  The good news is that there is a beach in my future! The bad news is that I need to find a bathing suit (just about every woman's worst shopping nightmare).  We will pack up an emergency baby bag (because we can hope right?!), some SPF "insanity level" for the beach (because I basically glow in the dark), and some winter gear for the ice rink!

In super awesome adoption news, all of our home study renewal stuff has been turned in and our home visit is complete!  We now wait for our home study to be re-written/copy and pasted/tweaked a bit and wait for approval for another year of waiting.... good lord, please no!  My zen state only comes easy when I picture baby with us.  On that note, let's all share our adoption Facebook page ! Hey, good idea! I promise to better about making update posts.  I know it is pretty boring at times.  OR here is an idea, follow us on instagram where I am attempting to post 100 days of happy stuff.  I thought it would be really easy and it would be IF I could just post cats, Frank Turner mega-fan stuff and coffee. I guess I could, but it might run some people off.

On the topic of life's luxuries and cutting back, I am doing living room yoga rather than going to a class, but hat could change if I find the right priced studio. I will also be attempting to make my own iced coffee with this recipe from the Pioneer Woman- rather than purchasing one every day (which I am so guilty of).  My apologies to my local coffee joint, which I single handedly keep in business.  I promise to visit you on special occasions and when I have friends to meet up with.

Everyone, please send our kitty Spike good vibes.  He hasn't been well and was still acting a little off this morning. The vet wants x-rays and blood work.  He means the world to us and we hate when he isn't in tip-top cat shape.  12 years old and still my baby.

A few more pictures from Knoxville.  The skies were beautiful the entire time.

We attended a party at the Concord Yacht Club

A rainbow greeted us as we drove in to Knoxville

Thanks everyone for reading and demanding more! Love getting comments and requests from everyone!  I am open to writing about topics that people want to hear about, so bring 'em on!

Struggling

I am not going to lie, some days of the adoption wait are just hard. There really is no rhyme or reason to which days are easy and which days are hard. I don't want to lie to those who are considering adoption to complete their families. Some days you wake up and feel like your baby is so close that you almost expect a phone call or email that day. Other days, like too many of my days lately, you wake up and see no end to the waiting in sight. Adoption and the quest to parenthood in general changes you. It makes you reevaluate your past, present and future choices.

I had such an amazing weekend and thought I could fly happy off of it for months. I finally got to meet my favorite musician, Frank Turner. After his show at the festival we went to, he played a surprise sidewalk show in Little Five Points. We found out about it on Twitter and rushed over immediately. I was in heaven (my swamp feet from the monsoon that nearly washed out the show were in hell, but I was on cloud nine). After the sidewalk show, which only had about 75 people in attendance, I weaseled my way over to him and said "Hi, can we take a picture together?" He said "sure"! Then he talked to John a bit about hardcore, because John was wearing a Botch shirt. Apparently Frank really "botched" Botch's tour in England years ago (see what I did there?) I didn't say much, as I was just kind of in shock that he was so cool about talking to us and taking a picture. Regrets! But really, what would I say that he hasn't heard? Your music rewired my brain? I may be either a better or worse person because of said rewire? Anyway, here are a couple of pictures from that evening.

Why yes, we are BFFs now... right?

Just completely amazing. But here is the thing, I just couldn't keep that sense of excitement and energy the following day. I woke up feeling empty and anxious. Not because Frank Turner isn't really my buddy, but because life was back to worry worry worry. Back to unanswered questions and uncertain timelines. Back to a job that really just doesn't cut it as far as making a difference in anyone's life. I know, I know, students need transfer credit applied to finish school and graduate and become engineers that advance humanity and save lives! (or whatever. yada yada yada). I'd much rather wake up each day and impact those around me on a much higher level.

The thing I am noticing is that I never had these feelings of uncertainty about my life path until I decided to become a parent. How can I make myself the best version of me so that my child has something to strive for and be proud to follow? How can I ensure that the struggles I have overcome so ferociously give hope to others and impact their lives in a way that helps them to keep going and never look back? How can I ensure that a woman who is looking to place her baby can also see that I am not a weak person who was once sick, but a fighter, survivor and mentor?

As much as I only want to show strength, this adoption journey is hard! I could not deal with it today. I tried. I actually tried multiple times to man up and deal. Instead, I retreated home and thought about how to make this process easier, quicker, happier, and less anxiety ridden. I am still working through those thoughts, but with John as my anchor, we will get through it. My calm, solid anchor who keeps me from floating away into the depths of the sea of stress that swirls about constantly. As much as we are stressed over everything, there is a woman out there who will one day find us, who is in a much more stressful situation than we are. Having to make a choice no one should ever have to make. It isn't just about us and our family. It is about her, her baby, her family, her life. Keeping that in mind, we trudge on. We know our lives will all mesh one day and a new leg of this crazy journey will begin. So for now, we have bad days, we have good days, we even have apathetic days, but each day that passes is another step closer to the wait being over and the next chapter of the story to begin.