No news is... good news?

No, not really! However, that's where we're at. Starting in October we have to renew a bunch of our homestudy documents as they begin to expire. Criminal background checks, health forms, child abuse screens, and our home study report. Unfortunately that means more money, and that it will be a year since we formally began the process to adopt.

If you see me, don't ask if there is anything new. Maybe just hug me? And Ben, he always needs hugs.

PAL

Positive Adoption Language - this is something that comes up all the time. I have had friends ask me to explain the right words to use for what. It might not seem like a big deal, but words have huge power, and they will shape the way those in the adoption triad feel about themselves. Most people don't mean ill, or disrespect when they use incorrect terms, but they can be very hurtful nonetheless. Remember, you can always ask if you don't know the answer! Help to educate those around you so that the language surrounding adoption can shift, and with it, dispel misconceptions.

So (with a help from Adoptive Families Magazine) here we go:


Postive Language                          Negative Language
Birthparent                                         Real parent
Biological parent                                Natural parent
Birth child                                          Own child
My child                                            Adopted child; Own child
Born to unmarried parents                  Illegitimate
Terminate parental rights                    Give up
Make an adoption plan                      Give away
To parent                                          To keep
Waiting child                                      Adoptable child; available child
Biological or birthfather/mother          Real father/mother
Making contact with                          Reunion
Parent                                               Adoptive parent
Intercountry adoption                        Foreign adoption
Adoption triad                                  Adoption triangle
Permission to sign a release               Disclosure
Search                                              Track down parents
Child placed for adoption                  An unwanted child
Court termination                              Child taken away
Child with special needs                    Handicapped child
Child from abroad                             Foreign child
Was adopted                                    Is adopted

Mother, Blessing.

It's August! We've been active for 225 days so far. That sounds like a really really really long time, but it actually isn't. Weird.

Still waiting, no word.

I vacillate between stressed and almost forgetting that we're even waiting. Money is scaring me, not knowing how much this is going to cost, fear of the cost of travel, of staying in a hotel for a couple weeks. Adoption is an astonishing expensive thing. It is only through our families that we are able to do this - and I feel so grateful that money is not stopping us from expanding our family, as it does for so many people.

I recently had an amazing "mother blessing" hosted by some very dear friends. Some very close friends gathered in a room and shared thoughts, beads, and lots of tears as they wished us speed and luck and strength, and told me they know this will be beautiful. I felt so loved and held up that for days I was buoyed by that love. I have been to many mother blessings myself, hosted a bunch, intend to host many more. I never had one with Adeline - I wasn't at a place in my life where I had so many sisters. After the miscarriages mother blessings became exquisitely painful. Not that I didn't wish joy and blessings on my friends, just that I knew that I would never sit in that place myself, and rub my belly with expectation. But I did (although there was no belly rubbing, just a little drinking!), and it was more than I ever could have expected. And all of these women have been with us on some part of this path, and all of them know the baggage we carry around, and all of them have carried some of our pain around to help share the burden. As each woman shared the bead(s) she selected to be strung on a necklace for me, she explained why, and gave a bit of her heart. It was hugely moving, and I cried through nearly all of it. Some of the tears were just from having these friends open themselves so wide, some were from the deep significance of the beads and thoughts and words they had brought, some were from joyful and painful memories. They were good and cathartic tears.

I am a Mother, and I get to be a Mother again, and I get to bring this child into a family of women that love him or her very dearly already. I am very very blessed.

Nearly halfway?

So it's June, how did that happen?

I'm not quite sure, but here we are. Time has, mercifully, passed without incident, and I am happy to say no one in our little family has yet exploded with the pressure of waiting.

When we activated with the agency we are using they gave us an approximate wait time of 1-12 months. This is a time frame we are kind of clinging to, as the only even faintly concrete portion of this process. Soooo... could this mean that come July 1st we are halfway to meeting our baby? Or that within the average of 1-12 months (what kind of average is that anyway?) 6 months is the mean?

Clearly we are still chock-full of hope - or at least I am - because I have been knitting like a fiend for this baby. If he or she arrives this summer we will have to spend our time in overly air conditioned rooms so that the wee pilot caps and sweaters can be worn, if only for pictures. The little garments make me smile smile smile. Baby you are loved! Wherever you are.

Bad bad blogger

Yes, the last post was in February, what can I say? There has been little to report, that's my defense.

So it's April now, the month Ben predicted our baby would join us. There are still 23 days left in which that could happen, but I don't think I'm going to hold my breath.

We did have the closest brush we've had yet, with a local situation that we may have been considered for. The circumstances required us to pass on it, which was hard, and weird. I know that wasn't our baby, and so we continue to wait.

We got good news from our agency - our profile was able to be shown to over 30 expectant Moms during the month of March, which is apparently, as they put it, a "very high number". So our comfort level with different scenarios is evidently open enough that our chances for a match are increased. This gives me huge hope, because as we wait our agency warned us we would hear from them very infrequently. My pessimistic mind feared that our profile was never being shown, and it turns out we're in good shape. Just waiting for someone to decide that we are IT.

And because a friend suggested it - I'm going to do it: post our profile right here.

So, if you know anyone that is pregnant and considering adoption - they can check us out. We've got a lot of love. Lots.

I'll try to be more consistent about blogging, and maybe poke my negligent husband into doing the same. Perhaps I'll even add some pictures of the quilt I'm making for the baby, or the preparations we're making for an infant being in our home again (wow!). Or maybe, just maybe, April will be the month I turn 31, and the month I become Mama to a second child.

The Wait

So we've been officially active and waiting with our agency for 8 weeks today. I had a nice talk with a very close friend tonight about how that feels - and how we (so far) manage not to lose our minds, with all of the unknowns floating around. On one hand, she was right, it's crazy making, not knowing ANYTHING about the arrival of our baby. We don't know when, or where from, or who, or how this baby will arrive. We can't really make any solid plans about what we will do when the time comes, because there are so very very many variables at play.

But I guess that is the very thing that is helping us feel at ease with the wait. We've done what we can, and now we wait. I am making a quilt for the baby, which is coming along slowly. We talk about names regularly, knowing that the circumstances surrounding the baby may change what his or her name ends up being. I pick out knitting patterns, and debate what size to make, not knowing if we will have a wee tiny winter baby, or a chubby little spring baby, or a leggy summer baby, or some variation thereof. I poke through Ebay, looking at cute Hanna Andersson pajamas in the little tiny sizes (because if my adorable nephew looks that cute in them, our baby must also), and I do a lot of dreaming.

I won't lie, I have moments of feeling such urgency - "come baby, come right now!" and willing the phone to ring. 4 years is such a very long time to wait for this to happen, and we're not done waiting yet.

This past weekend I attended 2 adoption related events, one with my Mother-in-law. They were so interesting and relevant, and I got to meet a bunch of other families that have already walked through this path. It made me feel hopeful and so happy - to see these families in the flesh, knowing that our own will look an awful lot like that very soon. They are real, and normal, and happy, and this really will happen. It's my mantra. This will happen.

Say it with me now.

You know what's fun?

Looking at adults of all shapes, sizes, and colors and wondering if someday Ben and I might be parents to someone who grows up to look like that. The possibilities are endless, and magical. We are a lucky lucky family.