Tag Archives: family

Remembering…

Posted on by
13

The fire roared and crackled and spat and warmed, soothing me as I thought hard about the last pages. I don’t want it to end, this journey I’ve walked with Sabrina Ward Harrison through her “The True and the Questions.”

My hands and heart are frozen in her last chapter, the one that turns my face to the family that birthed me and then gently tilts my head forward to the family that Drew and I are hoping to create. These pages are soft like cotton on my tender heart, bare for all the wishes and wants that suspend me between two families.

Remembering what it was. Hoping for what it could be. Holding neither.

Staring into the fire, I see the sand fly off the heels of my dad’s 80′s flip-flops and onto the endless trail that would take us to the tea-colored water of the Ohoopee river. This river so shallow and so slow and so perfect for summer Saturdays.

I see myself holding onto the front of his wheeled egg gatherer that crawled down the center of each long and slender chicken house.

I see the sunken stump holes in our woods, filled with straw and leaves—he said the Devil lived down there.

I see the two of us laughing outside the packed and noisy house where I snuck out and we toasted the quiet. Laughing at what I just did. The secret we had that nobody would ever believe. I see us making a memory that I should’ve written down for everyone and no one. The memory I should’ve written down for me.

Replaying memories from childhood to present left the biggest stump hole in my heart. A hole where a moment once stood. A grand moment. A moment worth writing. The moments had passed—uprooted and burned by the years, floating light as smoke rising from that fire. I couldn’t hold on to them.

I should’ve written it all down when it was still a part of me.

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

Posted on by
22

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

Posted on by
18

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.

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

Posted on by
22

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.)

Info: Mandy & Drew Plus One or Two

Posted on by
53

Thought it might be helpful to answer a few questions about what this adoption process will look like for us, since some are asking!

NOTE: This is all subject to change. I’m just giving a “projected path,” to use a bit of hurricane/meteorological language. ;)

Ready? Here goes:

1) Are we adopting internationally, domestically, or what? We are adopting through the state DFCS foster program–this does not mean we’ll be foster parents. The plan is to jump right into adopting. There are foster kids who are waiting to be adopted into a permanent family.

2) Are we adopting a baby? Before we ever looked into the state adoption process, Drew and I decided that we’d be open/favorable to adopting young kids–namely a sibling set. woo!! Then we found out that the majority of children in DFCS’ care are kids/siblings. And siblings are hard to place with families because there’s more than one of ‘em, but the State doesn’t want to separate them. We don’t wanna separate ‘em either. Sooo, hey, we’ll take a few!

3) Where will the kid(s) come from? It’s very likely that the child(ren) we adopt will be from somewhere within the state of Georgia, although probably not from the Glynn County area. I think we will also be accepted by other states as well.

4) How does adoption work in the state program? From what we understand, it’ll look something like this:

  1. go through state adoption/foster parent training (graduate tomorrow!!)
  2. complete our paperwork (finish today. wow.)
  3. home evaluations with a case worker (4 to 6 weeks from now)
  4. DFCS approves our application (couple weeks after evals are done)
  5. wait for placement.
  6. meet the kid(s) to see how it goes–yes, it’ll be something like having a play-date with our future child(ren)–I can’t even wrap my mind around this.
  7. hang out again.
  8. move ‘em in!!!

5) Are we raising money for this adoption? GREAT question! I have two answers for you:

  1. Nope. Believe it or not, your tax money has this covered, as far as the application process and any legal fees. So, what’s not reimbursed by DFCS will be covered by the nice Adoption Tax Credit thingy.
  2. Sorta. It’s my understanding that they literally show up with a bag of clothes (cue the tears), and the rest is up to us. So, we’ll have a few extra expenses as we prepare our home for some Tiny Thompsons to come and live and sleep and play and eat. Because of that, let’s just say we ain’t gonna turn down any “baby” showers.

6) How long will it take? 3 months to 2 years. As the DFCS case workers say: they’re not doing this to find kids for families, they’re doing this to find families for kids. Amen to that.

Feel free to ask more questions in the comments below. And if you’re wanting more on the state adoption process in general, hit up THIS LINK for their FAQ page.

Y’all are awesome. Thanks for the love and support!!