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Saturday, June 29, 2013

A different kind of waiting

     So a typical question among adoptive families is "How long did you wait?" Usually referring to the amount of time between the completion of your home study and your match.  Today I want to talk about a different wait. The wait for the child we had been matched with to be born.  Three very long months.  Three months filled with excitement, and hope but also anxiety and fear.  Since we got the call at the end of December, we were pretty busy until the second week of January.  Even then, throughout this time we kept pretty busy with our 3 kids.  It was during the quiet times I would think about our new daughter and would wonder things.  Of course some of them were things I wondered when I was pregnant.  "What will she look like?", "What will it be like to hold her?" "How are the kids going to handle a new baby in the house?"   Some of the thoughts were unique to the adoption "Will she attach to me and my husband OK?"  "Will she grow up wondering why her birthparents chose an adoption plan?"  But it was a constant barrage of  whats? and wills? And I finally had to learn to let it be. To remind myself this was God's plan for our family and whatever it looks like in the end is all a part of it.

     In January it seemed so far away. We had plenty of time to prepare, get the nursery ready, pick a name.  In the three months since we were matched our daughter's birthmother and I spoke frequently by email.  I have saved and printed all those emails to go into a folder to give our daughter.  I often wondered what our relationship would look like afterwards, how it has turned out is a different post :)  One of my big concerns was how to tell our children.  You might be questioning why we didn't tell them right away.  In a way we wanted to protect them.  See the process itself is really an emotional roller coaster.  I tell people adoption is like a pregnancy of your soul.  Just as a physical pregnancy stretches your body to its limits so does adoption to your emotions.  It will have you doing things you never thought you could do, things you never thought you could feel and in some cases, leave evidence of itself on your soul, much like stretch marks.  In many cases, over a longer period of time than a physical pregnancy.  So we had decided not to tell our kids up front because we did not want to have this huge discussion and then something happen and her birthparents change their mind and decide to parent the child.  We were afraid of how it would affect them if we told them this thing would happen and then it didn't.  We didn't want them to have any anxiety or fear about it.  How little faith we had in our children.  Now we had discussed adoption with them, they understood what an orphan was (remember we were initially seeking a child with special needs from China) and they completely understood we felt God was calling our family to be a family to a child who needed one.  So we discussed it with our adoption worker and she convinced us to tell them.  She stated it would be better to work through the aftermath of a failed placement then to expect them to adjust appropriately without proper time to work through it emotionally and prepare for another child.  So we took her advice and went out to a family dinner.  We told the kids we had some exciting news.  I was super nervous, trying to anticipate all the questions they might have.  We kind of went halfway and told them we met with some birthparents who thought they wanted us to be a forever family to a little baby who would be born in a few months.  We told them we should pray for their family as they chose what to do.  That way it still left an out if minds were changed last minute.  So here I was ready to tackle the life changing questions and all they said was "OK.  Can we order some cheesesticks?" That. was. it.  To them it was so simple and pure. It just....was.  No concerns, no questions, just complete and utter faith in what was to be.  Oh, what a lesson in faith I took away from that night.  To this day, with the exception of a brief discussion on babies in birthmother's tummies and which child came out of which tummy, there has still been very little discussion on the matter.  It just "is".  I'm sure the questions are coming, and maybe they never will, but we want to be as open as we can be about all of it.

     So then we had a little more waiting to go.  We already had everything saved from our last child, so there wasn't a rush of going out and the excitement of buying new things.  What we didn't have we borrowed or found at a reasonable price and we waited.  We packed a bag of lots of different things because we had no idea of what she would weigh and we waited.  We packed an entire Suburban full of things we had no idea of whether we would need because we did not know how long it would be before we could return to our home state with her.  And we waited a little more.  During this time I worried a lot about if I would bond with her.  I think up to the second she was born I kept a little emotional distance as a safety net in case the placement fell through.  I tried to guard my emotions for self preservation, I realize that now.  I think it was also a little difficult to fall in love with her during those three months because we didn't have an image.  I saw a few of my friends who were working through international adoptions with pictures of their children they had been matched with and I envied them.  They had something tangible to love.  They carried around those pictures, stared at those pictures and fell in love with the children in those pictures over a period of time.  We had an ultrasound picture (which touches my heart that her birthmother thought of sending to us, so cool) but come on, how much can you really see in one of those.  So I worried that it would take me a while to fall in love with her.  And the next thing I knew, time was up, our waiting was over and we were heading to her home state where she would be born the next day...

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

They chose us?!?!

     So after taking a break from blogging world, I am back to continue our story.  (Major kudos to those who blog everyday, wow!)

     If you remember the last blog post, we had met some birthparents.  Well after that meeting we were told they wanted to meet with two other families, that it would be well after the New Year before we would hear anything.  So there was a break from the anxiousness, I knew not to expect anything so the holidays were relaxed and we just focused on family.  A few days after Christmas I was driving our three kids from a doctor's appointment when I got a text from our worker.  It simply said "Hope you had a great Christmas. By the way I have some great news for you" I read it and I swear when it comes to stuff like this my mind goes into warp speed.  My first thought was "No way!!!!" "But we weren't planning (see, there I go planning again, you think I would know better by now) to hear anything." "Maybe that's not what she's talking about"  So before I panic I text her back "No way".  She texted back "Yes way and it's a girl".  Talk about shock.  I think it is also important to note at this point we had decided not to tell the kids about any of this.  We had discussed adoption with them, sure, but didn't want the potential continuous ups and downs to get to them.  So while I am finding out that birthparents have chosen us to be their child's forever family, I am trying to hold myself together because my 4,6 and 12 year old who have no idea are in the car.  So I quietly asked her about the other families they were supposed to meet, I felt badly they didn't get the opportunity to meet them and be considered.  She replied it was a good fit and they really liked us.  I let her know I would talk to my husband but we would let her know if we agreed to be matched (Duh, yeah!).  So I then called and woke up my husband who had just come off a midnight shift and whispered "Six words".  It took him a moment to wake up and wonder what in the world I was talking about.  So he was like, Umm OK what are the six words.  I whispered to him "They picked us.  It's a girl"  I must say it took about 20 seconds and me repeating myself two more times before he got it.  And boy was there some hooting and hollering when he realized what I was telling him.  It was the best Christmas present we could have gotten.  So there we were.  We were matched.  What next??

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

My Plan


     I need to let it out.  Just for one night, let the confusion and anxiety out.  Don’t get the wrong idea, the journey is a great and happy one.  But that doesn’t mean there won’t be challenging times or difficult times and I think it’s OK to talk about and acknowledge that.  Otherwise everyone is just fake happy all the time with rainbows and butterflies.  There have been days I was so full of joy I couldn’t stand it and there have been nights I have cried myself to sleep.  But the story of Noah teaches us there must be rain for the rainbow to come.  So here goes, and hang in there, it has a happy ending.  

     The closer we get to placement, the more family and friends ask “How are you going to make it?”  For some it’s just passing conversation, some are genuinely concerned and questioning.  In my head I answer “I have absolutely no idea” but out of my mouth comes “Oh, we’ll be fine”.  I do this for two reasons.  One, I don’t like to lose it in front of people, Two, I think if I let it out, the tears will never stop.  First it’s the deciding, then it’s the choices, then the paperwork, then the preferences, then the waiting (granted in our case this was not very long, prayers for those who continue to wait), then the financing, then paperwork again, then planning.  I am starting to learn that planning is a futile effort, because God does not follow our plan.  He has His own plan and guess whose is more important? That’s right J .  So I need to learn to follow His plan which is usually off on a tangent from mine.  So I have been planning this last week and today just came and whapped me upside the head with change.  Change that I was not expecting and was not in my plan.  And I let it beat me.  The worry, the stress, the unknowns got to me and got me down.  Really down.  It diverted my attention from this.
 
 
      This is the important thing.  This is our daughter.  She is the reason we are on this journey God has destined for our life.  So I realize “How are we going to make it on our own?”  We’re not.  Nor were we ever meant to do this by ourselves.  The only way we will be able to do this is with His help and guidance.  When we lean on God for help and understanding, only through faith and dependence can we accomplish what He is truly calling us to do.  And this is our calling, of this we have absolutely no doubts.  So tomorrow…..it’s on to more paperwork.

Monday, February 18, 2013

The (Not So) Scary Birthparents


     Like I mentioned before, in our whole journey, nothing has had the impact on me that one little paragraph did.  Basically states “Just as a parent has the ability to love more than one child, so does a child have the capacity to love more than one set of parents”  What a joyful proclamation this is.  (I’m sure someone could insert some awesome Scripture here to back this up.  Any takers?).  What a view of openness in adoption this gives us.  Now understand every adoption journey is different, and for some openness is not the way their journey is meant to be.  Who knows if ours will continue to be, but for now this is part of our journey.

      Before God opened my heart to openness, I had decided it was not for us.  One of many reasons I felt drawn to international adoption was there was a less likely chance for birth parent involvement. I thought lack of a participating birthparent would make raising an adopted child easier, and would be a less threatening task.  I realize now how selfish that was.  It started with a few of our adoptive families who have both open and closed adoptions.  The discussion of birthparents honestly made me uncomfortable.  But when we changed to domestic adoption, I knew birthparents, on some level, would become a part of our journey.  Of course I was willing to send updates and pictures periodically but was not at ease with any communication back.  That started changing during our mandatory 2 day training.  Most of the first day was discussing birthparents and let me tell you, it is hard to dismiss someone’s feelings when you meet a birthmother and listen to her experience.  All of a sudden, the birthmother became a person.  A person with feelings and hope for their unborn child.  They have dreams for their child that they realize they can’t provide at this time, but that doesn’t make their hopes and dreams any less viable.  And the love, wow!  The love that is evidenced by a birthparent’s decision to choose life and an adoption plan for their child is so profound, it still just makes my heart full.  We left that training and I remember bursting into tears in the parking lot.  My husband (kind of sort of used to it at that point, sheesh what is wrong with me) asked what I was feeling.  I distinctly remember telling him “I think God is going to give us an awesome birthmother who wants an open adoption and we are going to fall in love with her”  and that scared me.   A little (OK fairly big) part of me was anxious and was rebelling saying “no, no, that’s not what I wanted “but He was whispering right back “I’m going to stretch your heart until it can’t possibly contain all the joy and love that I want to bless you with”.  So that day I grew a little more open to openness.  It grew a little more as I realized our family dynamics were extremely well adjusted in our familial and parenting relationships and I think our kids could adjust fairly easily to openness in our adoption.  So on our application we put we were willing to providing updates and were possibly open to more communication down the road.

     So I told you how the referral happened and then came the meeting.  I was so nervous I didn’t eat breakfast because I thought I might throw it up.  See I didn’t think anyone would pick us.  I thought there were a lot of strikes against us.  We both work so our children are in before and after school care, we didn’t struggle with infertility issues, we already have 3 children.  But they wanted to meet us so here we were.  Do I wear my hair up or down?  If it’s up I might look too rigid, if it’s down, it will drive me crazy and I will look too young.  What do I wear? I want to appear put together (but not high maintenance), young (but mature), worldy (but small town).  And if you know me and know that I spend around ten minutes getting ready for work, it makes knowing all that really laughable.  So we went to the meeting and they were late and not answering their phone, which made our worker nervous, which made me nervous.  Before we went in I just prayed the one thing I could.  I prayed that God would give me the words to say what they needed to hear, whatever that was.  Whether we were or weren’t the ones for them, I just prayed He would have us say whatever would help make it clear for them and give them peace to know for sure.  Then they were there, and they walked in.  Haha, awkward.  So we sat on opposite sides of the table and looked at each other.  (I can laugh now, but it was nervewracking).  Thank goodness for the facilitating skills of our adoption worker and their advocate (same agency, just different jobs).  So we got to talking and it was obvious pretty fast that everyone relaxed and it was just like a pleasant conversation with friends.  I didn’t feel the need to censor anything I said although I was aware of sensitive topics.  Soon it was time to go and we were saying goodbyes.  We walked out and my husband and I looked at each other and both said, “wow”.  We liked them as people, we liked them as parents.  It didn’t surprise me as much as I thought it would.  We walked away knowing whatever and whoever they chose, it would be OK and we were better for meeting them.   I was just happy someone liked our profile enough to meet us J.  But I thought there were shared values and a connection, so I dared to hope a little that they might pick us.

     Once again well beyond proper blog length I’m sure, I will end our story here for now.

Saturday, February 9, 2013

A Race to the Finish


Finally a moment to catch you up on our family.  See after our Homestudy took a little longer to complete, we kind of rushed through the rest.  Within about a 45 day period, we were matched.  But let me start at the beginning of this part of our story.

 

     The profile (or as I call it the “pick us”) book.  Imagine someone telling you to describe your life, your immediate and extended family, your values, our hopes, your house, neighborhood, city, joyful times, your job, your interests and oh, you have to accomplish this with about 60 pictures within a 20 page photo book.  But 4 of those pages are just words that need to be good enough to capture someone’s attention, entertaining enough to keep their attention and brief enough so that you don’t lose their attention.  In adoption world, this is called your profile book.  It is shown to perspective birthparents along with other family profiles whose preferences match.  Imagine picking one Christmas photograph to represent 10 years of Christmases.  Until I actually sat down to do it, it seemed like a piece of cake.  Thought I would just sit down, pick a few pictures, write some nice things about our family, and be done with it.  After about an hour of creating ours, anxiety had crept in.  I began analyzing every picture; me in my husband’s boxers is not flattering as bedtime attire, this one is great of our family but my right eye is shut halfway as it is prone to do, does this picture make us look too silly, does our Christmas picture with family gifts make us look pretentious, our backyard is a big pitiful sandpit.  I finally had to take a step back and remind myself that whoever picks us, will pick us, for being us.  Our family is not perfect, we are not Better Homes and Gardens, heck we are lightyears away from Leave it to Beaver.  Our family is messy, ornery, fun, affectionate, tough, crazy, stressful, but we have love.  When we are hurting, we have family.  When we are stressed out to the max and raise our voices, we have family.  If God can see us in all our glorious mess and still love us, then we can be OK with not being perfect.  We are real and real is exactly what I put in our profile book.  Yes, I included the picture of me in boxers because in that picture I was reading to my kids.  I also put one in there of me sticking my tongue out because once in a while, I can be funny (my husband is responsible for most of the fun in our house) and I put in a picture of my husband sitting amidst a pile of dirty laundry because in that picture he is painting our daughter’s toenails.  See those are the important things, it ended up being an affirming moment for me.  Life isn’t about what you’re wearing, where you are or what you have, it’s about those little moments in day to day life. 

      Whew, that’s enough deepness for me in what was supposed to be a lighthearted post.  So about our final profile book……..that’s right, I never actually had a chance to finish it.  See I was sitting at home one day, our daughter was sick at home, when my phone rang and our adoption worker’s name popped up.  See after the home study is complete, there really are only 2 reasons they call you.  Either it’s a good thing or something is wrong.  I had fantasized for months about how I would react if/when she called with good news.  Would I burst into tears as the happiness poured into me, would I faint with excitement (hey it could happen), or would I play it calm and collected and just say “that’s cool”.  Ends up I had total brain lockup and really didn’t say anything for a few (very long) seconds.  Apparently it takes me a while to totally process things.  So I was in the middle of something when she called and thought to myself, I’ll call her right back.  Then I thought why is she calling and instantly a thousand thoughts filled my mind, the first of which was “no way” (it’s funny how fast your brain can think, I answered on the third ring).  So with my heart absolutely pounding I answered the phone.  She was wondering how our profile book was coming along (normal question, heart slows down), how far along in the book were we (heart calming, brain not overanalyzing too much), because the other worker was meeting with some birthparents the next day and wanted to show our profile (WHAT? Heart back to racing, self doubt sneaks in).  I let her know I had all the important stuff I wanted in there, but it hadn’t been prettied up yet.  She said to send her what we had and assured me whatever we had was fine.  Now to someone whose greatest fear is that no one will ever pick them, showing a half done profile book that surely had misspellings and hadn’t been “edited” was a daunting thing.  But we knew everything was in God’s hands.  I sent up a quick prayer that whoever was going to view it would just be blessed by it.  I prayed they would be confident in their decision and I prayed for peace for ourselves whatever their decision may be.  Then I clicked “send” and it was off.  Surprisingly, I really didn’t think much more about it through that night or the next morning until we had a message in our adoption portal that went something like this “book looks good.  Oh and by the way the expectant couple wants to meet you.”  There goes my heartbeat again.  Reread it and make sure you are reading it correctly.  Should I email and ask her if she’s sure?  Could she have misunderstood?  Why on earth after seeing the unfinished profile would they want to meet us?  So with my shaky hands (from a huge adrenaline dump) I called my husband.  As an aside can you imagine the physiological impact this continuous emotional up and down kind of thing can have on your body?  Sorry that’s the nerd in me.  So we agreed to meet the birthmother and birthfather of an unborn child.  Their circumstances and details are part of our child’s own adoption story to share themselves so I won’t be putting any of that out there in cyberland.  Think that’s enough for one post.  Believe me, meeting a birthparent is a blog post in itself…
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