2 more sleeps and I’ll be heading back to Kansas City!
Just got an email from our social worker tonight. She advised us of another situation: a biracial (caucasian/african american) boy that is going to be born in April. She advised that the birthmother does not have insurance, so the costs of the birth would fall on our shoulders. I am calling our insurance company tomorrow to see if they would cover the costs of the birth mother, but from what H.R. has told us is that those costs are not covered by insurance.
I could rant and rave about how unfair this is, that since I can’t have kids, I am forced to pay out of pocket for someone else’s expenses. I could go on and on about how unfair it is that this mother isn’t even on any type of public aid that could help. I could go on and on being mad, frustrated, and hurt.
However, I keep telling myself and I keeping telling other people, and I have to give myself the following pep talk all the time. It is so easy to be bitter, to be mad, to be angry at other people who can have kids the old fashioned way. This is what I tell myself over and over and over, and verbalize to other people:
I have committed to play this game. I don’t like the rules. I think all the odds are stacked against me. I think this game is completely unfair. I don’t like what I have to go through to play this game. But if I want to win, if I want the outcome of having a child, I have to play by other people’s rules and I have to play the game.
No, it’s not what you think.
This morning I had my adoption physical. My Dr. and I were laughing today about it because there is a question on there that asks “Do you think this person would be fit to parent?” And she mentioned that almost all adoption physicals ask a question like that somewhere in the form. How in the WORLD do you answer a question like that? My doctor told me that I shouldn’t have any problems as far as the physical goes: she said if there are any problems with me having been diagnosed with depression to let me know and she can do an additional write up on me.
It was funny how she described my depression, though. She just wrote “Depression due to infertility.” Yea, I guess that sums it up. I think that’s been the thing that’s been the toughest to deal with. I also had a yearly female exam (I guess that’s the polite way to say it). I was half naked, with my feet in the stirrups, and she’s asking me all these questions for the physical while I’m laying down in that position. I had to keep myself from giggling.
I also had another TB test that needs to be read bright and early Monday morning. Since all my previous jobs were all in some time of health care field, I think I’ve had at least 15 tb tests. Hopefully, I still don’t have it!
Hubby gets his physical on Tuesday. Then, there is the references everyone should have gotten in the mail by now to fill out. We have to get 2 credit references, fill out our budget and gather up our past 2 years of tax returns. Me and one of my team mates were talking about the irony at work: Anybody can get pregnant if they want, but it’s such a big darn deal to get approved to adopt.
This is what it is. I’m trying to stay focused and give myself pep talks: if it’s meant to be it will happen. I just feel sometimes that all this work will be for nothing: kind of like getting our house on the market and waiting and waiting and nothing is happening. We’ve done most everything we can within our control, but now we have to wait, because there is nothing left for us to do.
Hubby and I spent most of the day filling out our home study paperwork, copying our personal documents, and printing out photos. All we have left are the financial statements, which apparently we get from our social worker at our first orientation meeting. This was the meeting that was scheduled June 13, which had to be postponed due to my mother’s death. S.T. (social worker) emailed us tonight and advised she’s ready to schedule the orientation meeting, so that is exciting.
We have a pretty good draft of our “birth mother” book, but we still have to make a letter that we hand out to everyone we know advising that we are wanting to adopt. I worry sometimes that no one will ever pick us, and we’ll be waiting forever, but we’ll never know until we try. We keep talking about foster care adoption, but all the meetings we’ve gone to about foster care they bring up the fact that most of the children awaiting adoption are older. My husband doesn’t want to adopt a child that’s older than how long we’ve been married, and I guess I see my husband’s point. Maybe if we have been waiting a long time for a private adoption child and nothing is working we’ll go the foster care route, or perhaps we’ll decide just to not have kids, I really don’t know.
Once we get the social work side completed, I am not sure what’s next. I suppose waiting is what happens next. I am not sure when we’re going to work on the “we’re adopting” letter, I guess as soon as possible. Tomorrow I think is going to be a little busy to work on any more of this. We can’t find any copies of our marriage certificate, which is the last document we need for the home study. We’re planning on going to the county courthouse Tuesday morning to pick another copy up.
I hope this is a little easier the second time around. I think we spent so much time thinking and debating and hoping and waiting it feels like it’s taken FOREVER to get this done. I have been looking back in my blog posts and thinking back to when we started on this journey, and it seems like we have been taking such baby steps to get here. I wonder if it’s different for couples who are given a very straight answer that they will not be able to get pregnant. I wonder if what has taken us so long to move forward with each step is that the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong, so there is always a hope that we will get pregnant. I think I’m okay with not being pregnant, but I’m not okay with not having any kids at all.
As we’ve been waiting and praying for kids, I just keep praying that God will make me not want to have kids and make me stop thinking about it. I’ve also been praying for it to get easier. I have been thankful that most people have been supportive and given us kind words of encouragement as we’ve gone down this path, rather than judging us or telling us what we’ve done wrong. That would make it even harder if people weren’t excited for us or supportive.
A lot of my husband’s family friends have adopted children, and there are a lot of adoptive families at our church, which is good, it makes me not feel as weird. In our circle of friends we’re the only ones, so that will be interesting as our kids get older. I definitely want to be open with them and let them know they’re adopted right from the beginning, but I just worry that they will feel weird if all their other friends are not adopted. I suppose it won’t really make a difference.
Those are things I want to start researching and reading about, now that we know this is the path we’re taking, and we’re going to keep plugging along until God definitely slams the door. I want to find out more about raising kids, how to bond with adopted babies, and how to deal with these different issues. I guess it’s not going to feel real until we have our child, I know we’re going to have a baby someday, but there is no set due date, no set time frame. When we first sat down with our attorney at the end of May of 07, we asked her how long it would take. She said about 1 year. We’ve given our birth mom book to one person and we weren’t selected, and no one else has wanted to see our birth mom book (but we also haven’t sent out the letters to all the different people we know). So, we’ll see if the time frame is a year, or longer. I’m trying not to think too far ahead, just trying to take it one step at a time, one meeting at a time.
We got out homestudy emailed to us today, 15 plus pages of what I call “the extra-nosy job interview.” Except it is much more personal. Describe your childhood? What is your dad like? What are your tax records for the past 2 years? Can I get a copy of your marriage certificate? What are good and bad childhood memories?
Emailed everyone that I could think of that I have asked to be a reference for us the past couple years, since there is 1 whole page with about 15 spaces asking for references. It feels better to have it, it’s been making me nuts having to wait, I am less frustrated when I can at least feel like I’m making progress towards having a child. I am trying to not think about how “regular” parents don’t have to fill this stuff out, that’s not my journey, this is our journey. Rather than carrying and birthing a baby, we’re going to get ours with paperwork and prayer. This will be our story, our family’s story, and our kids will still be our kids, no matter if I birthed them or not. If we really are against abortion, we need to be willing to give these moms an alternative. If we (I mean, we, proverbial, as Christians) really believe that life starts at the beginning, we need to be willing to put our money where our mouth is and give children a home that need a home. We aren’t going to be perfect parents, we aren’t going to be rich, but we can give a child love and a roof and clothing.
I was going to bed last night and I’ve been thinking and praying for this baby all last night and all today. I really can’t listen to the news before I go to bed, too many terrible stories like this.
I have played phone tag with the social worker that our attorney suggested - she is super swamped but she may be able to make time for us since we haven’t bought a new house yet. A lot of the actual home study photos and evaluations can come at a later date. We need to have family and friends write references for us, so I’ve been making a mental list of all the people I need to ask to do that for us. We also need to get writing our family book to give to our attorney and gathering up photos - it’s hard to do that when a lot of stuff is packed!
There is a house I really, really like that I’m showing the hubby tomorrow - it’s right at the top of our price range. There is another house that’s cheaper that we’re seeing tomorrow as well, but I don’t like it nearly as much. It should be interesting. Today I had a surprise visitor to look at our current home - and another appointment tomorrow. I just want to get moved so we have more room to work on this home study and paperwork we need to write!
hubby and I met with the adoption attorney, G., for the first time yesterday. We were sitting in this small chinese restaurant off of a highway. It looked pretty grungy. When we sat down with her, I was thinking “Now, when I tell my kids about their adoption story, I’m going to have to start with explaining this weird little chinese restaurant…”
It was a good talk. I cried (because I cry easily) while talking about adoption and what made us decide to adopt. It’s interesting how it’s done. The birth mother looks at books you’ve made with your history and family photos, etc., and then the birth mother decides if she wants to meet you. You then meet with her (or her and the birth father if he’s involved) and if you feel it’s a good match then you move towards adopting their child.
In addition to making copies of a few life books that perspective birth mothers can read, we have to have a social worker do a home study. We’ll get physicals done, have folks write recommendations for us, and fill out paperwork. I have called one social work but we’ve been playing phone tag, and there is another one I’m going to try to reach tomorrow. We don’t have our new house yet, so we’re going to get the paperwork started and wait to do the rest of it when we have our new house.
The attorney, G., told us the social worker will check out our house just to make sure it’s got room for a baby, they aren’t there to critique and make sure we have a really ritzy house, so that was encouraging. We did tell her we’re open to a baby of any race and we’re open to considering a baby that may have any type of disability. I guess I feel as if most parents don’t get to chose, and all babies need homes. That’s how we feel right now, but I guess when we get further down the road we’ll have to see where God leads us.
We really liked G. and I think she is the way we want to go. She only takes clients by referral of other people, and she only handles 6 cases at a time. We will need to send out letters to doctors, friends, relatives, letting them know that we’re adopting in case they know someone in a situation where they’re having a baby they can’t raise.
It seems weird, I keep thinking of organ donation (isn’t that odd?). Someone has a great tragedy, which is death, which leads to other people being joyful and getting organs and hearts and getting to make a new life. I am excited about adoption and being able to be a mom and have children, but the birth mothers will be going through a very difficult time and very scary circumstances. I pray that I will be sensitive to the birth mother/father and their family, because this will be a very brave decision and a scary decision for them. I also must be willing to accept if we go down the road and someone choses not to give their baby up for adoption, even if it’s at the very last minute. I am so very glad that God promises that all things work out for the good of those that love Him, because all of this is very scary and it seems overwhelming. It seems strange that some young girl could be in a terrible circumstance, but yet this terrible circumstance could lead us to become parents.
It’s almost 11pm. I need some sleep! I have continued to run around with my realtor looking at more houses, and we’ve found a few more that are really nice. I’ll have to blog about those sometime this weekend.
Wow….sometimes things go slowly and sometimes everything happens at once!
Our house is on the market and photos were taken yesterday so we should start to be getting more “hits” of realtors visiting our house. So far, we’ve only had 1 business card on the piano when we’ve come home!
Our first meeting with the adoption attorney is May 30th. This meeting should be 1 1/2 hours and I bet we’ll have more questions than answers when we’re through. We have been putting adoption things on hold while we’ve been deciding about moving and getting our home ready to sell, so it’s nice to start moving forward on that again. It’s also nice to have settled on the way we’re going to adopt. When you chose to adopt, there are so many choices out there. International, domestic, foster care adoption, etc. It’s overwhelming. I feel at peace so far about what we’re doing. I’m praying our home sells quickly and moving won’t be too much of a bother.
Our house seems a little crowded with all of our boxes in the non-conforming bedroom and the garage, so I am tossing around the idea of getting a storage unit. It’s so hard sometimes, we’ve put out so much money here and there for new paint, carpet cleaners, organizational and cleaning supplies, new light fixtures…..I feel as if we’ve put so much money into this already it would be nice to save some money and not get a storage unit. However, I just worry the house may seem too crowded and no one will be interested!
Saturday I am going to mulch and make the front yard look a little better, so that should help. Any advice from anyone who has sold a house recently?
Two good things happened this week -
Got home last night, and there was a realtor’s card on our piano. That means, a realtor came through and looked at our house!
We called the local attorney that handles adoptions - we will be meeting with her sometime the end of may (after hubby is done with school.) This will be our first appointment. I think we have settled on domestic private adoption, we don’t care the race or the sex of the baby. I would prefer to adopt through foster care just because I think there is such a big need, but this is a good compromise. I think we have definitely decided not to adopt internationally (unless something radically changes.) It’s so hard because you see so many orphans as you research adoption….so many kids (even older kids) need good homes. It has all seemed so overwhelming, so it feels good to narrow it down.
We had scheduled carpet cleaners and they have cancelled on us THREE TIMES now. Usually, I am not the type to get all mad and call a supervisor about things but this has been really upsetting, we have been waiting to take pictures of the house until we get the carpets done, so this has been slowing us down. Any suggestions? I am going to look for another company to come over, but should I write a letter or something to them to let them know how bad their service is?
Sometimes with this whole infertility thing I am calm, cool, and collected. Take last weekend for example. Two members of our “covenant group” (like a Bible Study) are pregnant. Most of the night’s conversation consisted of breast feeding. I enjoyed the conversation, I wasn’t ready to cry, and I didn’t say anything rude. One of the pregnant ladies at the beginning of the night asked me about how the adoption process was going, which was nice. I talked a little bit about how I feel badly because China says you can’t adopt their children if you’re overweight or on anti-depressents. I enjoyed listening to their mommy stories, and I didn’t get mad and leave. I was quite amazed at God’s grace to me, because that was a particularly hard thing to do, especially since my husband was not with me.
I skip that covenant group sometimes just because I can’t handle being around people with kids, because inevitably the conversation turns to birth stories and pregnancy stories. Sometimes, I just want to scream at people and ask them what their problem is. One of my husband’s friends, after he told him he was adopting, said “So, you’ve given up on having one of your own?” WHAT? You mean adopted kids won’t be our own? Now, this friend has rubbed me the wrong way the whole time in this adoption process. When I first mentioned to him about adoption, (this was a year or two ago) he said “No, this is way too early for you to think about adoption, there is a lot of other things you need to do first before you adopt, there are lots of fertility clinics around.” Okay, Master of my universe. I will get right on that, whatever you say.
So, with him, I’m already on edge, and I am always expecting nasty things to come out of his mouth as far as adoption. I really need to pray more, because whenever he says anything, the monster in me wants to come out and just lay it on him. It’s as if he is the master of every adoption cliche that any of us have ever heard. Do you have any ideas for how to respond to this friend?
Friday I went to work and I was in a sassy mood. I have been pretty quiet about the adoption thing, only my husband’s family and a few close friends know. I am tired of listening to other people talk about their pregnancies, how they can’t sleep at night, and how they heard the baby’s heart beat, etc. (I have one pregnant lady that sits by me and another that is friends with someone that is by me, so I hear them both talking all the time.) I want people to know we’re going to be getting a baby in a year or maybe a little more! I told my boss, all my co-workers that we’re going to start the adoption process once we get moved to Olathe. I asked my boss if it was okay for me to take a photo of myself at work for our home study, he said that was great. Cindy, the same teammate who said that I should adopt a Mexican baby so I could speak with it in Spanish, said “It’s exciting. It’s like you’re expecting a baby but it’s just a little different. You’re doing it this way rather than getting pregnant.” Man, I love that lady. She’s only 22 or so but she has said some great things that have made me feel better.
Yep, I’m expecting. We’re expecting. And if I need to listen to you tell me stories about breast feeding and how many hours you were in labor, you’re going to get stories on paperwork and adoption milestones.
I don’t feel like being quiet about this anymore! We’re adopting!
I know it’s the weekend, and the adoption lawyer wasn’t in, so I went ahead and emailed her! I have been anxious all weekend, thinking about kids and babies….My husband told me that he was dreaming about babies last night as well. He dreamt that someone from work told him that they knew several moms that needed to give up their babies. I think it’s been weighing heavily on our hearts and minds, especially around the holiday season.
I feel so much better doing something rather than just waiting. I blog because I want to talk to other women (and hubbies) who have been there, from all over. I don’t feel so alone, and when I hear about moms and their kiddos it gives me hope to keep going and keep plugging away at this big mountain.
Isn’t it strange, how weeks will go by, and you won’t feel anxious and depressed about infertility, but sometimes it’s like this unbearable weight that all you can think about? This week has felt like a ton of bricks. I hate it.
Someone near my cubicle at work is pregnant, so sometimes I hear all my coworkers asking her questions “when are you due, how are you feeling?” etc. I’m happy for people that are expecting, and I pray everything goes well, but I just can’t be around pregnant people (which has always been hard at my church…since it’s so large, there is always someone or multiple people I know that are pregnant).
Also, whenever groups of women get together, they, naturally, want to talk about children, childbirth, and they compare notes about who had the worst labor, the worst morning sickness, and how busy they are with their children. I just have to walk away from the discussion. I feel like Bridget Jones sometimes, in that scene where she is the only single person in a group of married people, and they look at her as if she is such a weirdo for not being married. I guess we all go through periods in our lives where we feel odd, left out, going through life at a little different pace than everyone else.
A co-worker didn’t realize I was married, and she asked me how long I have been married. I answered “6 years in January.” Then comes the inevitable question “So, are you guys not going to have kids or you don’t want to have kids?” When she asked, it didn’t hurt as much as it normally does when people ask me that question. I just said, happily and proudly, “No, we’re going to adopt!” Then, she said something I thought was so cute. She’s on my team, and all of us speak Spanish in our job. She said “You should adopt a little Mexican baby, there are so many in orphanages, then you can speak Spanish with it!” I didn’t point out the fact that most babies don’t speak…I just was so tickled that she was just happy for me, and then she said “Man, I would love to adopt kids, I need to get going on that, too! There are just so many kids that need good homes!”
So, if you seek any babies that speak Spanish that need good homes, you know who to refer them to!
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