Finding the Words... John's Heart and Mine.

I find it next to impossible to find the right words for this blog entry. I considered not writing it all, but in the spirit of telling our entire adoption story, I feel the need to include it.  I have always said that John and I have been through so much together, that we can handle anything that comes our way in the future.  Last Monday, April 28, 2014, we were put to the test yet again.  Here is a little story of what happened, how we are getting through it and why we are yet again, stronger than ever.

I want to start with Sunday, April 27th.  John had been at an all day curling bonspiel at the ice rink and I had spent the day resting at home, having done the Run4YourLife 5k and babysitting a 2 year old the day before.  When he got home, we found ourselves in a more serious talk about the adoption and toll it takes psychologically, emotionally, financially etc.  We agreed that the stress of it has weighed us down quite a bit, that we are changed people, not who we were when we started this and not who we were when we started trying to get pregnant a while back.  I sat wondering if we were changed for the better or worse.  The fact that we feel thicker skinned, more equipped to handle the hard stuff rang through my head.  The fact that we have learned to be skeptical of everyone, thanks to a plethora of adoption scammers out there, also tainted my thoughts about this "change" in who we are.  After this talk, it was late and we went to bed.  I felt relieved that my rather stoic husband had expressed how he felt to me.  Ultimately, right before I drifted off to sleep, I decided that this change in who we are was a positive thing.  It was us growing and learning through life experience.

The next morning was normal.  John was taking a stay-at-home vacation from work and I headed into my job downtown.  It was finals week at the university where I work, so parking was scarce and I had to park pretty far away.  Around 10:30 in the morning John called me at work saying he didn't feel well.  He said he didn't want to alarm me, but he thinks he may have had a heart attack.  I went through the usual rundown of questions (have you had indigestion, were you thinking about stressful things, did you pull a muscle?).  After all, John is 35- a vegetarian, non-drinker, non-smoker, with perfect blood results at all of his physicals.  After less than a minute I realized if John is worried, I should be worried too.  I told him to hang up and call 911.

I immediately grabbed my stuff and told my job I had to leave.  Something was wrong with John!  In a rush of adrenaline, I ran to the car, pretty sure I made a 10 minute walk in 5 minutes.  Eventually, he sent me a text saying where the ambulance was taking him (a text that made assured me he was alert and okay for the moment).  I contacted my brother Noah, who agreed to meet me there.  I called John's mom and sister, my parents, and probably broke a few speeding laws getting to the hospital. 

When I got to the hospital, he was basically alert, but very pale.  I stopped in my tracks and it sunk in...MY John could be in real trouble.  They took him to the cardiac catheter lab and found that a blood clot had gone to a small artery in his heart.  They removed the clot in the lab and after a very long wait, I saw them rolling him down the hall.  His face had color, he was more alert and talking to me.  A simple tiny clot had traveled through his body to a tiny artery in his heart and caused a minor heart attack!  A little relief swept over me, as I realized that a blood clot could happen to anyone and most of the danger had passed.  Amazingly, 2 nights in the hospital and he was sent home.

John is home recovering now and doing really well.  The doctor wants him off of work until May 13th.  There is a less than 4% chance of this ever happening again, which is probably less risk than many of us have.  I spoke with our adoption counselor at our agency and of course she was more worried about John than our home study renewal.  I really can't say enough good things about the staff at the Independent Adoption Center in Atlanta.  A letter from his doctor saying that this will not prevent him from parenting is needed, which the doctor assured us would not be a problem.  

We are still clear to adopt, staying the course with our ever persevering spirit.  John will be strong as ever in a week or so.  Our relationship is renewed and more solid than ever and our drive to have our family completed though open adoption is in focus.

Life is a crazy thing.  You think you are set on a path, but something nearly always happens to derail you.  We were lucky to only be derailed for a couple of weeks.  We have been thrown off of our intended paths time and time again, but we roll with it.  I think if anything, we are better prepared to be adoptive parents, because we have been through the ringer in the last 13 years of knowing each other.  We are tough as nails and know how to fight for ourselves and will fight for our future child no matter what the cause. 

Hold your loved ones tight and don't forget to remind them of how much you love them.  Here we sit, as always, hopelessly hopeful for our intended birth mom and future child to find us.  For her to see that despite our life changing events, we are healthy and strong, caring and playful, lovers and fighters in life.

I leave you with the song I walked down the aisle to at our wedding.  R.E.M. At My Most Beautiful.

Seven Months Waiting!

As of April 23rd, we have been "live" with our adoption agency for seven months.  It has been both the longest and quickest seven months of our lives!  It is really hard to explain how that works, but that is how it feels.  I'm not going to lie, it has not been easy.  It is that constant state of limbo, the indefinite amount of time we have to wait that makes it so difficult.  Seven months is still below the average wait time, so we have that going for us. In celebration of our 7 month "anniversary" of waiting, I want to write a refresher post about what John and I do and like in life.

John is a sports, music and animal loving guy.  He has a strong presence wherever he goes and can even seem a little intimidating to those who don't know him.  He will probably not love me saying this, but even though he looks tough at times, he is a big softy.  He has a weak spot for anything small and furry, as well as babies.  Children find him from across massive spaces and flock to him like he is made of candy.  John is a musician with an endless library of music knowledge in stored in his brain (scratch that - he has a endless library of knowledge in general filed away).  He is the perfect trivia team member and will be great at helping with homework one day.  John wants to be a dad, play music, and curl with the Atlanta Curling Club to his hearts content.  Attainable goals indeed.

I am a 34 year old who still likes to wear skulls and crossbones on my clothes, even though I am probably proving to be uncool doing so.  I love music, writing (I have an idea for a book brewing and an intro started-ish), and trying to keep in shape by walking, jogging, and generally staying active.  I have a bunch of ideas for tattoos I want to get, but haven't worked up the nerve to get one yet.  I treat my cats like they are human and often find myself having conversations with them about life.  I could probably put out at least four albums of songs I have adapted to be about my cats (wow, I sound so cool...)  I am a two time kidney transplant recipient.  Transplant recipient is one title that I have- it helped form who I am, but does not define me.  I am an outspoken advocate for organ donation and kidney disease awareness.  Ultimately, all I want to is complete our family, travel a bit and focus on making a difference in this world... somehow (details to be determined).

We have three cats Spike, Moe and Waffles.  We got Spike (Spike Boatbutt Pickles Farrar) when we first lived together in college..  Spike is now 12 years old!  Can't believe he is an old man now.  We got Moe (Moe Alejandro Moseph Farrar) the following year, so that makes him 11.  Waffles (Waffy Woo Woogs Woofy Farrar) came to us in 2010 right about the time we bought our house.  I saw her at a vet's office and she was literally reaching and screaming for me.  She is my shadow around the house.  She is almost 4 this year!  Time really flies.

Our cats:

From Top Clockwise: Spike, Waffles, Moe : Cat Pile

We are getting closer to finishing our home study renewal documents.  It is quite the process.  We are still home study approved from our last home study, we just had to start on paperwork early, so there is no lapse.  I bought a rock n' play sleeper at the suggestion of quite a few friends, in case we have to travel and live in a hotel for the adoption.  It is beyond me how to put it together though...  I followed all of the directions, but parts are just not fitting.  Sounds like a job for John. 

Tomorrow is the Run 4 Your Life, Donate Life Georgia 5k.  I am nowhere near prepared, but am excited to be involved in raising awareness to the cause anyway.  John will be on the ice curling a lot this weekend, as the Spring season wraps up.  It is almost summer, so Braves games, a vacation to Wilmington, NC and seeing some bands play are all in the works.  As always, we remain hopeful that our family will have a tiny crying, pooping and all out fabulous baby in the near future. 

Gettin Clicky With It! (link heavy post)

Ok, now that blogger has decided I can finally format, I will continue/finish my plan from the last post. It is really just about things coming up on our calendar and a little nursery talk.

First up, we are probably a little under halfway through with updating documents for our home study renewal, assuming the FBI check doesn't take the full 12 estimated weeks.  Last year we got it back in about 4.5 weeks.  My physical is scheduled and the cats need their shots.  John needs to have his physical, but his doesn't expire until some time in May.  After all of the paperwork is turned in, they will come back out to our house and make sure nothing has changed.  All that has changed is that our yard overgrowth is finally gone!  Yay!  Nobody get too proud of us, we hired a company to do it.  John is freakishly allergic to poison ivy/oak/sumac etc. and I am well...who I am, so we hired it out.  I have to say that it was totally worth it.

Coming up this month, I am doing the Donate Life Georgia - Run 4 Your Life 5k Details here with my dad.  I have not been a good runner/walker lately, so it might be a struggle.  April is National Organ Donation Awareness Month, so the race is to raise awareness.  One of my favorite singers Chuck Ragan of Hot Water Music fame, is playing that night at Terminal West and I would like to go, but John has a major curling event that weekend and we may house some guests. 

In May, we have the National Kidney Foundation Kidney Walk at Turner Field here is a link to my personal walk page . In case anyone wants to join us or donate to the cause.  It really is a fun event, plus you get to see Turner Field in a way you can't when it is full of Braves fans.  Our team is slow going this year, but we usually pick up some walkers during the last month.  After the kidney walk, my favorite musician Frank Turner is playing a free show at the Candler Park Music and Food Festival... we all know I can't help but add a little Frank into every other blog post or so.  I need an intervention. But really, it is free and his music is so good, you would kind of be crazy not to go.

I found something I need need need for the nursery Octopus hook!.  I know it doesn't exactly match our Peter Rabbit bedding, but we aren't really matchy matchy people.  I am just getting what feels right to my gut.  Hopefully, our local Target has some left, since they are limited term.  The bloggers who designed the product are pretty popular, so they are selling out fast. 

This post is picture-less sorry!  I am doing an April Instagram challenge- our instagram if you want to see pictures.  It is more or less just me trying to figure out a way to use Instagram that doesn't scream "give me a baby", because I do not want to come off that way.  I believe those were all of the topics I wanted to cover when blogger went wacky on me the other day.  Sorry for the link heavy post.  Get clicky with it!

A Baby Shower and a Camel

This weekend I was able to enjoy a baby shower.  Usually, baby showers hurt, because well...they aren't being thrown for us.  Yesterday I went to my friend Amanda's baby shower.  We met in 2000 while going to school at UGA.  We have been through a lot together (and a lot apart at times).  When Amanda told me she was pregnant, we were already well into our adoption journey.  She told me over dinner during one of our dinner and Target shopping excursions.  I had ordered a glass of wine and she said she couldn't have alcohol, per her doctor's orders.  Knowing that Amanda loves a good glass of wine, I assumed the worst. Well, luckily she was as healthy as ever and had a much happier reason to skip the wine.  She told me and I was genuinely happy.  I teared up out of joy instead of sadness or jealousy (Go me!)  I am not going to say I never struggled with the fact that she is pregnant and I am sitting around with a bunch of unused baby stuff, but the feeling is different with her.  Maybe because I just want her family to be happy and she is already such a good mom to her 4 year old daughter.

So, the baby shower.  Baby showers have been hard the last few years.  I go and I smile and am happy for the parents to be, but then I go home and cry or eat as much chocolate as I can to forget that it just hasn't happened for us yet.  This time was different.  I genuinely wanted to be there, I had a good time and didn't feel sadness.  I came home and still felt good about it all.  Something that I feel made all of the difference was that she acknowledged that it has been hard and will be hard for me to be around all of the baby prep and excitement.  She called me aside when I got there and handed me a card.  I thought maybe it was a belated birthday card or another invitation to a second shower.  I had no idea what was coming.  She gave me a thank you card.  It said that she knew it isn't easy, but she appreciated the support during her pregnancy.  Just....wow.  Thank you Amanda, not many people even acknowledge the adoption to my face.  I think people are scared that I will be sensitive if they bring it up (I wont be! Seriously, let's chat about it!).  Really, it is nice to know that people think about it and think of me as "mom to be".

I have a couple of pictures from the shower to share:

Amanda and the diaper "cake"

 

Actual Cake.  It was amazing.

For your comic relief.  This happened at work: 

Camels at work. It ate poop right after this, so we are no longer friends.

 

I had some other stuff to type but blogger is being finicky and frustrating right now, so I am giving up.  Apparently the other subjects were not meant to be on today's blog post.  

As always, we are hopelessly hopeful that our baby will join us soon. 

May the Force Be With You!

Waffles sporting the Yoda baby hat

I mean, really, is a blog post needed after that picture?  I am pretty sure that sums it all up...

One of my best friends and former roommate Katie knitted our future baby a Yoda hat.  Seriously, she oozes talent.  She has a pastry degree, is artistic, is a wonderful mom to her son Xander, and now she knits.  Being the childless woman that I am, I did what any other sane person would do and stuck it on my cat.  I had to test it out right?  In the picture above, Waffles was frozen in fear or in some sort of stunned state of paralysis.  For about five minutes after, we were enemies.  Luckily, Waffles is our least intelligent cat and promptly forgot all about it.  This means I slept with 10 lbs of cat on my face again last night.

But wait!  It doesn't stop there!  She also knitted me a hat.  A grumpy cat hat.  Brace yourselves.

Nice image quality Sarah...

Um, so awesome!  Sorry for the grainy photo, I used the reverse facing camera on my phone so I could tell if I was getting the ears in the picture.  One of the best parts of these gifts is that I came home to them on my doorstep.  I love getting snail mail and packages for real.  I don't love that Katie moved to Philadelphia, but I do love that she mails things.  I was having a really hard week, really down on that old familiar stagnant adoption process feeling I often talk about.  This absolutely changed my attitude.  Who can feel down when they have friends that will do this for them?  Here is another look at the Yoda hat, sans cat.

Speaking of friends... My sister in law Heather and I had a very successful combined birthday party last Saturday.  We both made a bunch of fancy snacks, stocked up on beverages and invited some of our favorite people.  I believe we had close to 20 people at the house!  That is pretty good for a house party.  I got to show off the nursery progress to those who were into that.  I got to hold our friend Vicky's new baby Connor, good lord he is so cute!  I believe he is around 4 months old.  Nothing but roly poly baby chunk and smiles.  Love it.

Heather and I had a little too much fun with the Publix cake ordering catalog and ended up with this:

Hang in there!

Thanks for the picture Stephen!  It is a cat with a ball of yarn, apparently Heather's dream cake for years.  We got the bakery to add "Hang in there" for added confusion.  Our friends appreciate our sense of humor, so it wasn't too weird when the cake came out.  Anyway, the party was a lot of fun.  We got to hang out with people we hadn't seen in a while and I got to mark "have any party at the house" of my master to-do list.  It was literally on the ongoing list I keep for life experiences.

The adoption is going.  Just going.  On March 23, which is Sunday, we will have been active with our agency for 6 months.  Again, way under the average wait time, but it still doesn't feel great.  You can always convince yourself that you are way cooler than other people and will be chosen quickly, but the truth is that there is no rhyme or reason to being chosen by a birth mother.  Being cool or young or whatever doesn't always have anything to do with it.  After reading about how some birth mothers picked their child's adoptive parents, it can be anything from hair color to location to it coming down to a gut feeling.  It will happen, we just have to be patient.

We did have a woman (I guess, it was online so could have been a man) attempt to start trying to scam us.  Well, I don't know all of the facts and she very well may have been pregnant, but her story wasn't adding up.  The timeline was all off and she said she was already talking to a family that may not "stick".  In the end, it didn't feel genuine.  Even if she was pregnant (again timeline didn't add up on this though) another couple thought she was working with them and it felt really wrong.  The things she said contained so many of the red flags we are taught to look out for, well, because there are a lot of people who are out to scam waiting adoptive families.  Mind blowing right?  They will scam you for money or for attention.  Like this process isn't difficult enough already, you have to be on high alert for scammers?  Awesome.

So, what is coming up?  Just home study renewal stuff.  Our physicals expire in April, as do the cats vaccinations.  In May a ton of stuff expires, so that should be fun.  I signed up for the Run for Your Life, Donate Life 5K, which is April 26th.  It benefits organ donation awareness.  The kidney walk is May 31st.  We are going to Wilmington, NC in June for a curling event with the Atlanta Curling Club... assuming we don't have baby by then.  I would be willing to skip the trip for that!

It's almost time for work to start, so until next time- we are EVER HOPEFUL and excited that this adoption will happen soon!

March Updates and How I Learned to Love the South

Hello followers!  I do indeed have followers.  I have to say that the interest in this blog has shocked me a bit.  I am so grateful that people enjoy reading and sharing it.  I love feedback, so feel free to leave comments or suggest topics that I should cover.  I have a few updates about the adoption and life in general.

The biggest thing going on is that we have our big fat list of home study renewal documents to get through.  The hardest part of that is scheduling everything to be approved at approximately the same time, so god forbid if we have to renew next year, we wont have to renew pieces of it even earlier.  Our actual home study wont expire until June or July, but we have certain things like the FBI and GBI background checks and the health physicals that will expire starting April or May.  We may even be a bit late with the FBI check since it can take up to 12 weeks.  No pressure or anything! We may just have to take a day off and knock as much out as possible.  We will have to have another home visit this summer, which really isn't as bad as it sounds.  There is a lot of sitting around talking about parenting styles and relationship stuff.

So, one exciting thing happened at the beginning of the month.  Well, exciting and really really stressful.  We had a call for a last minute hospital placement.  Unfortunately, there were issues that went a little beyond what we can handle at this time.  After speaking to some contacts we have in the medical profession and sleeping (yeah right) on it, we had to turn the situation down.  It was not easy!  We both felt pretty heartbroken over it, but it just wasn't our baby.  Someone else out there who has been waiting and waiting hopefully now has that baby.  Our adoption profile is so open that we can get calls about babies that have some pretty significant health issues.  This situation kind of went beyond the examples of significant health issues they listed on the form.  It is just a matter of what we feel we can handle.   Both of our gut feelings said the baby wasn't the one for us and we weren't the parents for her either.  She was meant for someone else. I feel at peace with it. 

That being said, this gave us hope!  We are on the radar, we know that more situations will come up, if we aren't contacted by a birth mom before then.  I think it happened to remind us that we are on the right path.  It is so easy to question yourself when the future is so open ended.  We were reminded that it could happen literally over night!  We have gathered some more emergency "go get baby" supplies and I have a pretty decent looking diaper bag on the way from Amazon.  I wanted something that didn't scream diaper bag and something that John would feel comfortable carrying around.  It is red and black ... UGA colors! We also received our first non-family baby gift!  My co-worker got us a travel set of baby products in case we have to go in a hurry!  So awesome.  Picture below!

This is my excited face!  Thanks Crystal!

So about living in the south.  I was born and raised in Georgia.  Of course this left me wondering how it would be to live elsewhere- west coast or even another country.  When I was growing up, I found myself embarrassed of southern accents and typical southern things.  I just took a walk around outside and felt the warmth (finally!) of the air and noticed all of the trees swaying in the breeze.  I remembered being a kid and playing as hard as I could outside before my parents called me in for dinner.  To me, the south is fireflies, spring storms, good food and friendly neighbors.  It is about sweltering hot summers and being only hours from beaches and mountains.  It is about living where some of our country's most interesting (both good and bad) history took place.  I feel pride about being from the south these days and I even let bits of my southern accent slip out here and there.

North Ave. can even be pretty

Lake Allatoona during a run

 
Speaking of southern things, we saw Once at the fabulous Fox Theatre last Thursday (southern because the Fox is a historic Atlanta landmark- I mean really, I needed a good way to ease into writing about the show).  It was really good, I just had to let my brain release itself from the movie.  The movie is possibly my favorite movie next to High Fidelity (John Cusack for the win!).  The movie is much more serious and romantic... not between the people, but romantic towards the music and life.  I have a bad habit of romanticizing life based on music I love and then feeling disappointed when things don't turn out quite so deep and meaningful.  I kind of felt that way about the play.  It just wasn't as I expected it.  BUT it was still pretty awesome.  We got to be on stage for the first 3 songs!  They had a bar on stage and our usher said if we went straight up there, we could buy a drink and stay up there for a bit.  We ran into people we know from the curling club up there and got to be pub patrons in the show.  It was pretty cool to see the audience from the performers point of view!  I had urges to act out to get attention while on stage... my best/worst attempt at River Dance?  What does that say about me?  Glad my impulse control mechanism works pretty well.  I would like to see a day where people lose the ability to control their silly impulses.  Nothing bad like the impulse to punch someone, just the ones that make you want to sing at the top of your lungs or break out in dance in public.  Randomly meow or hiss?  Let out your best maniacal laughter? 

Once at the Fox!

 Tuesday is my 34th birthday.  It is also my mom's birthday.  Yep, I was born on her birthday and she promptly lost her birthday until I was old enough to go celebrate on my own.  We are both taking off of work and want to go do something fun during the day.  Any suggestions?  She is going to the High Museum of Art  Saturday, so that is out.  We did the aquarium and Fernbank last year, but I wouldn't rule those out again.  John and I are missing IAC support group again this month since it is my birthday.  I feel bad about it, because I really love to go and stay in touch with everyone.  Any Atlanta people want to have an adoption coffee meet up this month?  Waiting families or families who have already adopted?

I am having a little (well kind of getting big) birthday shindig (you know you are getting older when you refer to your party as a shindig) combined with my sister in law Heather this Saturday.  Her birthday is right after mine, so why not combine the two?  We just wanted to have some friends over to hang out and catch up.  Good friends and good music.  Yes please!

I'm ending this with the usual..  we are ever hopeful and excited about this adoption!  Until next time!

Grad School- With a Heavy and Relieved Heart

I have to get something off of my chest.  I am only two semesters into grad school and have already decided that I will take at least the summer off.  I am also considering withdrawing from one of my two courses this semester.  I have to decide by March 6 in order to just get a W and not a WF.  The class in question (photography in instruction) is stressing me out so badly.  I literally feel sick about it every time I think about what all I have to do in a short time.  The problem is, if I intend on finishing the program, I will still have to take it eventually.  I have really overloaded myself this time.  So here is my real confession...

I hate this program!  I spoke to the faculty before I ever applied and they assured me that the courses were intended not only for K-12 educators (which I am not) but also for people looking to get into professional development and community education, both career options that I have considered.  Well, the courses are so focused on K-12 that I find a lot of the assignments make no sense for anything I want to do.  There is a lot of applying professional standards for K-12, a lot of lesson plans with no direction on how to make a lesson plan, which of course many of my classmates do DAILY for their jobs.  I feel as if the program needed more students, so they decided to expand it to professional development, community education etc...  In actuality, you really need to have a background in teaching to really get the most out of the coursework. 

It isn't that I am not doing well, I have really good grades.  I just don't care about the subject matter and I don't see the benefit of it long term.  Now, that being said, I am going to give summer off a try and if I decide to go back fall, I will.  I am also going to keep an eye open for other programs that I could start maybe Fall 2015ish.  There are studies that show that if you have graduate degree, it is more likely that your children will too.  I just want to set a good example.  I also realized that more than anything, I try and try to prove to myself and others that people with kidney transplants can succeed and even excel.  I have always been really hard on myself to try and not appear to be the weak person.  I always feel like I have to be a role model for other people who need transplants.  The  best way I can show my strength at this point is to make this difficult decision.

How does this tie into adoption you ask (adoption blog .. yada yada yada...) Well, adoption is stressful!!!  No joke, I don't care if your skin is a mile thick and you heart is made of steel, it is hard.  Emotionally, psychologically, financially etc.  So I think right now I need to focus on the adoption.  I need to focus on getting us noticed and preparing to bring a baby home.  I need to focus on John and I having a strong relationship.  I have let my exercise routine slip and I started that whole thing to be healthy and live SOOO LONG for our child.  In my heart I know that this is the right thing to do. 

Today, my mom and I went shopping for some more baby supplies that we can pack in a "get away" bag.  Just in case we don't have a lot of notice.  Hey, you never know!  My real homework is to be the best prepared I can be for this adoption!