Tag Archives: adoption

Adoption Update: While We Wait

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I went to a baby shower on Sunday. Most of you who know me well will know that I haven’t done much of that in the past few years. I’ve had my “excuses.” This time was different. This time I feel on the cusp of motherhood, just without all the cravings and crazy hormones. And I’m not sure when I’ll become a mom. Or to what age child(ren). Or to what gender.

So we don’t paint any kids rooms. And we don’t buy kiddie-clothes. And we aren’t showered with gifts every-other Saturday for months.

Watching her open all those presents caused a bit of a panic attack for me. And I know y’all wanna rush down to the comment box and say “oh mandy, y’all will be fine” but lemme explain. :)

Although we have one more step in finalizing our application papers, I’ve got this feeling that it could happen quickly. I don’t mean “quickly” as in the next few weeks. But quickly as in the next few months. Pre-summer?

Maybe?

Good grief, hopefully…

And, while my ready-to-pop friend is opening an hour’s worth of gifts, I’m comparing. (And I know that’s the one thing that women aren’t supposed to do—compare themselves with other women. But I was at a baby shower, for crying out loud.)

If the adoption process goes as it may, we’ll have about a month—maybe six weeks—from when we hear about the kids until we bring them into our home. If we are spending weekends getting to know them, when in the heck am I going to have a half-dozen showers? That was my panic point right there: Knowing there’s a wonderful community of people that are sitting on go and ready to help us bring these kids into our homes, but not knowing how we can cram the “getting ready” part of it into just a few weeks.

Thankfully I had a wing-man at the party, and as we drove home afterwards she reminded me that we won’t be able to make the adoption public until just before they are moving in. See, as it works with the state, you sort of “date” the kids and if everybody likes everybody, they move in. So the “yay we’re adopting these kids!” moment comes just before we bring ‘em in. By which time we’ll already have beds and books and maybe even bikes. (eee!!!!!)

Oh and then there’s the other possibility, which is the newborn at the hospital who needs a home and we have a few days/hours notice.

Either way, I ain’t got nine months to figure this out. And I ain’t got no “What to Expect when You’re Expecting” manual to read, either.

So what do we do? We paint our living room tomorrow. And call it “nesting.”

I mean, seriously, what else can we do? Wait.

Thank you so much for reading attentively. Now I unleash you to leave those “oh Mandy, y’all are going to be fine” comments below. I could use a few today, because I’ve got two hours to get this house ready for our last home visit. The one where we need to have our knives out of reach and our poisons put away. Oh and she’ll look for a fire extinguisher and carbon monoxide detector, neither of which we have at this current moment.

Ah. Time to wake Drew up.

Somebody could’ve warned me that adoption triggers “The Pregnancy Panic”

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It’s December. Just a few days into the month. And any day now we could get a letter saying that the State has approved us as adoptive parents.

Maybe we should throw some sort of Letter Party to celebrate. Celebrating is good.

And then maybe we’ll get some official news about some kid or kids out there who need parents.

And then we will want to know more about them and maybe get to maybe meet them.

And we might really get to do this adoption thing. It might be time. It’s December. She said we’d get a letter in December and it’s December which means it’s time to expect the letter and then all the rest will maybe fall into place sometime soon in the next few months or years or something.

It’s time.

It’s time.

it’s time…

oh my gosh are we sure we want to do this and what are we doing trying to adopt and have we lost our minds thinking we can jump from zero children to maybe two children who are old enough to talk and tell us that we are not their parents and we cannot tell them what to do–even though we love them and they are stuck with us because the state says so and the court says so and their edited birth certificates say so?

and what if they both get screaming mad at the same time and what if it happens in the grocery store when it’s me versus them and all the people that can hear them crying “you’re not my mama you can’t tell me what to do!?”

and what if they hate everything I cook except for all the nasty processed foods that Drew and I have sworn off and don’t want to bring into our house because no human being can thrive off of boxes of “it’s the cheesiest” for long before their bones bend and their brains break??

and if we’ve lost our minds then surely our parents think we’ve lost our minds and how do they get any sleep at night when they know from experience that our whole world is going to flip over and we have no idea what’s coming and no way to prepare for it and definitely don’t know what we’re doing or else we would’ve thought twice about this?!??

So I tell myself that this must stop–all this mental madness and heart-pushing panic. It has to stop. It’s unfounded (maybe) and it’s unreasonable (maybe) and it’s late at night and I’m just having an episode where the chemicals get upside down in my brain and it’s better if I just stop listening to myself and try to fall asleep and then I do fall asleep and I’m having a wonderful dream about journaling with colors and papers and glues and letters and words and images and then Drew climbs in the bed and steals one of my (many) pillows and it wakes me up and

yes

it starts all over again.

down in my marrow

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The A/C remained broken. The windows were open. The unseasonably-warm pre-Thanksgiving night wrinsed clean but not so cool by 4am rain.

With each blink of my eyes, I begged the cold air back into the room. And my mind danced over the day’s scenes of waking and journaling and meeting and planning and laughing. And another story about kids who may or may not need parents. We hear these stories often, someone telling us about some kid somewhere or something. Often hypothetical. And often just out of reach.

Like her second-hand mention of those “little blonde girls” that might need a home someday.

I stood in the sun and said without thought: “Well, we’ll take ‘em!”

As always, I dismissed any potential for potential. It’s easier that way. It’s always that way. I placed that mention on the shelf with the others that have come to nothing. My friend and I returned to the casual work of our hands and casual talk about life. Casual. And so the conversation moved on.

But at 4am my mind returned to that warm mid-afternoon moment and then reached back four years to the Wednesday we found out we were pregnant.

Remembering how I shook with fear.

And the Thursday after.

Remembering how I shook with love.

Never have I felt so convinced of anything in my life: I was maternal to the marrow in my bones. That little life inside me birthed a fierce and fiery mama-love in my heart.

It was overtaking.

And I wondered if that maternal instinct will rebirth in me over babies born by another woman… Will I have that same burning “If you hurt them I will kill you” feeling like I had in those days of pregnancy? Will I be so certain to give my life for the sake of theirs? Is that same warm love still down in my marrow, waiting for a reason to be pulsed through every inch of my body?

I tell myself it will, I will, I will, it is. I tell myself that at the handing over of those little lives into the blankets of our hands, I will be so taken with love that I won’t be able to stand myself.

I tell myself that they will be mine and I will be theirs and I will love them with an unquenchable love. I tell myself. And I listen to the rain some more. And I push the covers aside and push away the truth that I won’t really know until that day comes.

Adoption Update: Waiting to wait.

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The room was light and safe and full of friends. We were surrounded by good music and sugary things and fun ideas. I was in a beautifully outgoing mood, feeling socially inspired, probably because the whole house buzzed with ladies that I know and love and respect. And we were there to celebrate the first birthday of a dream come true.

“Waiting to wait.” That’s what my friend said when asked what’s going on in the adoption process. She was answering for her family, but I ditto’d her answer as mine as well. Kinda cool that we have friends who are doing this State adoption thing right alongside us. I felt so very not alone.

Waiting.

The word greeted me like an old familiar friend stepping into the kitchen. Waiting has been my word all along, reaching all the way back to our infertility story. (Read it backwards here.)

And now, we’re waiting on December to deliver a letter saying something like “Hey Thompsons! We think y’all are awesome and we’re going to put you on the Potential Parent list and we’ll let you know if any kids come through who are in need of a loving home.”

And then we’ll wait some more, until the call when the case-worker says there are kids in the system who need a home and are we interested in finding out more about them.

Well, we don’t have to just sit on our hands and wait. We can do a few things in the meantime. We might go to a “matching event” where we get to meet DFCS case workers from other counties who have kids that are waiting as well. Or there’s this website we can go on to see if any kids are waiting, look at their pictures and profiles and all that. (Can you imagine!?)

Or we could get a call one day, from someone somewhere who knows a young woman who is looking for a family for her unborn/newborn child. There are OB/GYNs in the area who have us on their mental list. There are public workers who do as well. And then there are friends who know. And we can rally the troops in a matter of hours and have diapers and formula and onesies ready. Thatisnotaproblem.

Let me say this with unmistakable clarity: We are open to a private adoption.

And I want you to know this because… well, you might just hear about a girl out there… and The Thompsons might cross your mind… And the words might come out of your mouth: “Hey. I know a nice family on the other side of the country who would make great parents for that unborn one.”

Who knows, we might all be waiting to hear from you.

Thank you for supporting us in this process. I can’t wait for us all to see where this is going.

“Piling” is a perfectly acceptable form of organization, no matter what the Social Worker says.

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It’s time that I just come right out and admit that I’m a pile person. And Drew is a pile person. And we get along just fine. And my mom, the mind-reader, knows this about us and gently reminded me that I needed to clean up all the piles before The Social Worker came for our home evaluation because most people don’t consider “piling” to be a legitimate or effective form of domestic organization.

I have no choice but to accept that the world is not ready for Piling, even though these piles have worked for me my entire life.

They are quite helpful when used correctly. For instance, there’s the Adoption Pile on the other side of my dresser (you know, in that place that’s dim and dusty and hidden if someone nosily glances in from our bedroom door). And there’s the To Do Immediately pile that’s got my “Happy Birthday, now go renew your license” postcard from the DDS and also both of our physicals to be added to our inch-high-and-already-turned-in-folder (ding! ding! organized!) of adoption paperwork. Yes, my dear dear Type A readers, please ignore the fact that these two adoption items are not in the Adoption Pile, lest you break out in hives. And, for the sake of argument, we will also ignore the fact that this To Do pile has migrated from coffee table to kitchen to coffee table in the past week or so, without diminishment.

Immediately–ok, I will admit that was a poor choice of word. All better? Even so, this pile is necessary because as soon as I come up for air I’ll get my almost-33-year-old self over to the DDS office and smile pretty for the camera. And this migrating pile (almost typed migraining) helps me remember that The Social Worker is coming and My Birthday Clock is ticking.

Nevertheless, like a good daughter, I did get rid of some piles. Por exemplo, the Flip Flop Pile that usually grows outside our bedroom door. And the Digital Camera With Gear Pile that somehow escaped from the guest room storage and set up residency in front of my dresser.

Confession: By “get rid of” I actually meant “relocate.

And where did these piles relocate?

If you guessed “The Floor of Mandy’s Stumble-In Closet” you are absolutely correct! And possibly a mind-reader.

Speaking of mind-readers, my mom didn’t remind me to clean out my closet.

The moral of the story? I hope I will grow to read the minds know & love my future son and/or daughter as well as my mom loves me.

(Home Eval is scheduled for Thursday. And I’m ready. Sort of.)