Reinventing What Waiting Is

Hey, is anybody still out there?

Well, it's December 3rd and I haven't blogged in over a month. I've gone back and forth about whether I'm ready to get this going again. There were a lot of positives about taking some time off of adoption. I mean, you never really take time off from the adoption wait, we were still waiting, still hoping, still doing some networking here and there. I guess it was more like taking time off of the extreme emotions that come along with waiting to adopt. A month of pushing it out of my head as much as possible.

Updates? Ok. We had a couple of contacts that appear to have fizzled out. It's hard not to overthink everything you said, wondering if something came across wrong, wondering if you ruined it. I mean, I don't think that is the case, but it's always something I will wonder about. The fact is though, nothing can be done about it. I'm pulling myself up and moving on.

We have about 300 pass along cards if anyone is interested! Email me sarahandjohnadopt@gmail.com . I mailed out about 200 to friends last month (thanks friends!).

Enough adoption news. ENOUGH! Let's get to the fun part.

We have spent the last month having adventures. I've done some of them without John, because the holidays generally mean he works A LOT #producemanagerlife. Yep, I just hashtagged in the blog. What is happening to me!?!?!

Waiting to adopt doesn't have to be sitting around wondering why not us? When will it be our turn? Waiting can be a time to do all the things that will be too hard to do once you have baby demanding your every minute

Without further ado, here are the tales of adventure.

I saw Free Throw (link to their site) at the Masquerade with our friend Stephen! A) Free Throw is awesome. Clangy, buzzy, emo, punk-ish. I just made those descriptors up. Opinions may vary. B) Stephen is also awesome. He is one of our #1 supporters in this adoption process. He was the best man at our wedding and is a friend extraordinaire.

Also, someone puked at this show. Front and center. The crowd parted like the red sea. No thanks.

We ate at Ponce City Market beforehand at Farm to Ladle, which was delish. Fresh, fast, unique. Important to note for Atlantans or people visiting, King of Pops does pops (that's KOP for popsicle) dipped in chocolate at Ponce City Market.

John and I saw Glen Hansard (linky) at the Buckhead Theatre. This was sort of a dream come true for me. My favorite movie is Once, which is how Glen entered my music library. He has come through Atlanta a few times, but never when we could go.

A maybe too jolly opening act, t-shirt purchase, and one gin and tonic later, we had our minds blown by Glen himself. He opened unaccompanied by any instrument, in the dark. Chills. I do love me a musician with a beard and guitar.

Let us not forget what the Buckhead Theatre used to be.. Goodbye Roxy, you will not really be missed. Sticky, old, metal folding chairs... Nope. You even made Henry Rollins screaming about republicans less fun, which is hard to do! The Buckhead Theatre is nicely redone- comfy couches, unique touches all around. Would return.

Just this past Monday (11/30) we saw David Bazan (linky dinky doo) .

We saw him in a random living room in Marietta. GA. Let's just say I only felt the pain of sitting cross legged on a wood floor a few times in the hour plus that he played. It was simply one of the best musical experiences of my life thus far.

He would play a few songs and the open it up to questions from the audience. Obviously, being in someone's living room, the audience wasn't that big, so it was very intimate. John asked two questions. There were cameras filming for a documentary, so we may end up in it!

I guess this happened before my little hiatus and I may have already written about it. I can't even remember! John and I went to our friend's wedding. We got all gussied up and ate like 4 kinds of cake. Superb.

Congratulations to Carla and Scott! May your life always be filled with cake buffets and ice cream sundae bars!

I spent some time having taco and margarita nights with friends. Luckily, just about every friend I have is up for tacos and margaritas. Some of which are waiting to adopt as well. Visit http://www.iheartadoption.org/ to see our profiles. Ours first though ok? We've been waiting the longest. Seems fair (in my head). Of course, so far we have learned that adoption is not exactly fair. To anyone. We do the best we can.

Jalapeno margarita anyone?

Yeah... sorry about the random depressing thought!

In happy news, my dad and I did our annual Turkey Chase (And yearly terrible selfie. It's a tradition now). We hadn't done a race together since last year's Turkey Chase. Usually we do 3 or 4 a year, but we both had a lot going on.

This race is one of my favorites, because it's colder in November and I kind of hate sweating and it's fairly flat and scenic. The lazy person's race.

Our extremely talented friend, Katie, made another hat for our future child. She knows my weak spots- cats and tiny baby things.

Katie is another super supportive friend as far as our adoption wait goes. You may remember her from our trip to Philly over the summer.

We made it through living together in our early twenties, so I think it's safe to say we are friends for life.

I'm sure I left some adventures and fun stuff out. I wasn't planning on writing today, but I finished my grad class for the semester and I'm all caught up at work. I figured why not get it out there.

Our tree is up (yeah, we went fake, despite my declaration of wanting a real one). Our stockings will be hung shortly. We are having a small holiday party with friends we met who are also waiting to adopt in just over a week.


OH MAN. How did I forget... my friend Jessica (also waiting to adopt) and I are driving to Nashville next week to see Frank Turner! I mean, did you really think I could have a come back blog post without mentioning Frank. hahaha! Silly people! I CANNOT WAIT. Capslock level excitement.

So there we have it. Updates. Busying ourselves. Hoping that since hardcore networking has not brought us a baby that possibly ignoring it will? Is there magic in booking nonrefundable trips and buying tickets to shows? If you want to see something bad enough, will the adoption happen to thwart it?  We can only hope.

I want to be a mom. John wants to be a dad. I never thought those urges would become so strong. We are ready! As always, thanks for reading. We are hopelessly hopeful as ever.

Donate Life Month: How Organ Donation Is Helping To Make Me A Mom!

Here is a semi off topic post. But really it is also about adoption in a way.

You see, April is Donate Life month and I am a two time kidney transplant recipient.Thanks to two living donors, my mom in 1999- when I was only 19, and my brother in 2010, I will get to be a mom through open adoption some day. In fact, I have three friends who are transplant recipients AND adoptive moms! Talk about motivation! I guess this is kind of a "me" centric post, but for a good reason. To put a face to transplantation. To show what kind of life you can give someone by being an organ donor. Being a living donor, or by registering to be an organ donor after your time is up, saves lives.

Thanks to two living donors, I get to live a healthy and quite normal life. Without them, I would be sick at best. It would be really difficult to pursue adoption and be a mom. Could it be done? Of course, but without having my health it would be more of a struggle. Without them, John and I would not be where we are today.

My mom, me, my brother Noah at the 2014 NKF Kidney Walk

Our first walk ever as Team Walking Beans in 2008!

I love organ donation and all things transplant. I love donors and their families, recipients, people waiting for transplants, and the people willing to be educated about transplantation and being an organ donor. And.... I  really love stats! Here are some stats, taken from donatelife.net:

Currently, nearly 124,000 men, women and children are awaiting organ transplants in the United States. For specific numbers visit unos.org

• Approximately 71,219 Multicultural Patients*
• Approximately 1,911 Pediatric Patients*
• 28,953 Organ Transplants Performed in 2013
• 14,257 Organ Donors in 2013
• More than 47,000 corneas were transplanted in 2013
• More than 1 million tissue transplants are done each year and the surgical need for tissue has been steadily rising.
*as of January 2015

Because of organ donation, I have a chance to be the best version of myself. To show that transplant doesn't stop you from being a regular human being, but it does motivate you to be an exceptional human being. To show that you can accomplish just as much as anyone, if not more, after transplant. That giving up is never an option. Because you can go on to finish college, have a career, ADOPT A BABY and live an excellent, fulfilling life.

You can:

Graduate from school

Run races!

Look at old pictures of you and your donor and think "wow, that kid grew up to do something wonderful!" (nom nom nom ...hand!)

Get married!

Do your part to help other transplant recipients and raise awareness! (My dad!)

Show off your awesome scars! (If you can't tell, that is my lower left and middle abdomen and hip bone).

Fall completely in love with being an aunt!

And dream every day and every night of when you get to put your own little one down to sleep in this nursery.

I am thankful. I am overwhelmingly happy that I get to be a mom soon, because I am healthy. Thanks to organ donation, my dreams will come true and goals will always be met. 

This year's NKF Kidney Walk is on May 30th. It takes a very small amount of your morning to come out and walk with us. Join our team, Team Walking Beans here: My personal walk page! All funds raised go to the National Kidney Foundation. Their programs educate the community and support patients with kidney disease.

What I am saying here is, you can make a difference by signing up to be an organ donor. You can change lives and even save lives. For more about how I feel about kidney transplant and our adoption read You have a what? Whoa.

The Truth Is In The Turkey

Repeating in my head, attempting to convince myself: I am thankful, I am thankful, I am thankful. 

It is happening. Thanksgiving is upon us and we are still baby-less. Some deep breathing and then some searching for things to feel good about. Our family, check. Our home, check. Our jobs, check. Ok, those things feel good. Really good.

Repeating in my head: We can do this. We can do this.

It is really difficult to process how we should feel in this time. This limbo carrying over into the holidays. Last year we did our best to enjoy what we hoped to be our last holiday season as a family of two. We did the same the year before that. And the year before that. Do we set ourselves up for that thought again? THIS is the last holiday season just the two of us? Setting ourselves up for disappointment perhaps? It is basically impossible to celebrate without taking these thoughts into consideration.

Repeating in my head now: Relax Sarah, it is out of your control. Relax, relax, relax. 

Ugh, nope, still feel tense. My chest is heavy and tight. That feeling that comes along with dread. How do other people who are waiting to adopt get through this time that is supposed to be all cheerful and full of family traditions, food, and fun? I know how people who haven't waited long get through it. Been there. You just keep that feeling of hope in sight. What happens when that feeling seems so distant?

Repeating in the very back of my mind now: Stop contradicting yourself.

Always. We are always hopeful. We are always sure it will happen. It is the word "eventually" that gets placed after "happen" that makes the holidays so darn hard. I can say time and time again that the hope keeps us in the right mindset. It really does. We are dependent on that hope.

So what is on my mind now? 

Well, despite all of the stress of waiting and the unknowns and what ifs, we have so much to be thankful for. We are healthy, well fed (too well fed if I am going to be honest), and have a huge network of friends and family. We have our cats, who love us unconditionally. We have each other, which is the most important thing.

Our Thanksgiving traditions are being switched up a bit this year. Usually, my (Sarah's) family gets together and sometimes John's too if they have the opportunity and we eat and eat... and eat. Either traditional Thanksgiving fare or more recently we do brunch foods - quiche, fruit, potatoes. This year John and I are staying home and catching up on some house stuff and watching movies. We feel like we need an "us" day.

My dad and I try to run a turkey related 5k every year. This year the Acworth Turkey Chase 5k was on the 22nd, so it is out of the way. I might challenge myself to try to get at least that much in anyway, since we will have the whole day to fill up with activities.

Here are pictures of my dad and I at the Turkey Chase in 2013 and 2014. Hard to tell the two apart as we are literally wearing the same outfits in both. Guess you can't call us unpredictable!

 You know, it really is going to be ok. The wait completely and utterly sucks, but it will only make us cherish our child more when the time comes. We can tell stories of how hard we fought to create our family. We can look back and feel stronger for all of these trials and say that we did it!

Baby Farrar, we know you are out there. We are saving a place for you in our home and in our hearts. Hurry up though, there are only so many 5ks, bonspiels and trips we can take to distract ourselves from waiting for you.

Everyone, have a delightful Turkey Day and make a point to truly be thankful of what you do have rather than dwelling on what you don't.