An Apt Analogy

I just read this on babysuereth.blogspot.com/ and I thought it was such an apt analogy in how it can feel when becoming a parent doesn't happen quite like how you expected it to.

Deciding to have a baby is like planning a trip to Australia. You've heard it's a wonderful place, you've read many guidebooks and feel certain you're ready to go. Everyone you know has traveled there by plane. They say it can be a turbulent flight with occasional rough landings, but you can look forward to being pampered on the trip. So you go to the airport and ask the ticket agent for a ticket to Australia. All around you, excited people are boarding planes for Australia. It seems there is no seat for you; you'll have to wait for the next flight. Impatient, but anticipating a wonderful trip, you wait--and wait--and wait. Flights to Australia continue to come and go. People say silly things like, "Relax. You'll get on a flight soon." Other people actually get on a plane and then cancel their trip, to which you cry, "It's not fair!" After a long time the ticket agent tells you, "I'm sorry, we're not going to be able to get you on a plane to Australia. Perhaps you should think about going by boat." "By BOAT!" you say. "Going by boat will take a very long time and it costs a great deal of money. I really had my heart set on going by plane." So you go home and think about not going to Australia at all. You wonder if Australia will be as beautiful if you approach it by sea rather than air. But you have long dreamed of this wonderful place, and finally you decide to travel by boat. It is a long trip, many months over many rough seas. No one pampers you. You wonder if you will ever see Australia. Meanwhile, your friends have flown back and forth to Australia two or three more times, marveling about each trip.

Then one glorious day, the boat docks in Australia. It is more exquisite than you ever imagined, and the beauty is magnified by your long days at sea. You have made many wonderful friends during your voyage, and you find yourself comparing stories with others who also traveled by sea rather then by air. People continue to fly to Australia as often as they like, but you are about to travel only once, perhaps twice. Some say things like, "Oh, be glad you didn't fly. My flight was horrible; traveling by sea is so easy." You will always wonder what it would have been like to fly to Australia. Still, you know God blessed you with a special appreciation of Australia, and the beauty of Australia is not in the way you get there, but in the place itself.


By Diane Armitage printed in the April 21, 1995 "Dear Abby" column.

Thoughts on baby shower

So I was wondering what your thoughts are on baby showers? Does the idea of having one while waiting to adopt feel awkward? Will the gifts serve as a painful reminder that you are still waiting? Or do you feel as if it is one of those cultural milestones for couples about to become parents? Maybe it helps to make you feel prepared for when baby does arrive? Maybe it will be a fun way to get your family and friends involved in preparing for the little one?

I must admit that I am in the latter group. Adam's Stepmom and one of our friends are going to throw us a shower, most likely at the end of August. I am so excited about this. I think it makes this seem even more real. Even though we are now "paper pregnant", it still feels as if the idea of us actually having a baby in our house is an abstract concept, I am sure many couples have felt this way with their first child, biological or adopted. Even though we might be in for a long wait, I think that these steps help us prepare, and I do not think I will be bothered by reminders around the house that we are still waiting.

So tell me what you think. I know everyone has different feelings towards this subject, and I would love to hear your thoughts.

Just a quick link....

http://www.celebratingadoption.org/index2.php

I found this link a few weeks ago on someone's blog. Sorry, I cannot remember where, as I find myself addicted to reading these and have read so many! Anyways, this seems to be a great project that was started in 2006 by a photographer that was touched by the adoption journey of a family that she photographed. Hopefully there are some photographers in your area that participate.

We are official

Yesterday I received in the mail, a letter that stated, that our file and letter(dear birthmother) have been approved! So now we will be officially waiting. I know I grumbled about getting all of the paperwork and other stuff done, but at least that was in my hands. I was actively doing something to get us closer to becoming parents. Now, I have to let go, and see if our website, or profile letter sparks something in a potential birthmother.

For anyone that knows me, they will tell you that I hate waiting. I think the hardest part is going to be the unknown time line. We can go months without any contact, or we can be matched quickly. Luckily for us, we have a lot of preparing to get done for our bedroom and the second bedroom. Since our room now will be the nursery, and the front bedroom will be our room. We need to get rid of some more stuff in the front bedroom, and redo the closet, and then paint. Also the nursery will need to get painted. We were thinking that a painting party with some friends and family might be a fun way to get a lot of work done, and also involve them in the preparation process. This weekend, we hope to purge more stuff that we do not need, and then we can go from there.

So, yep.... we are official! I am pretty excited and nervous, and Adam is calm and cool as per usual.

What IF?

What IF? A Portrait of Infertility from Keiko Zoll on Vimeo.

I found this video on another blog that I have just started reading


I like the way this addresses some or all of the feelings that couples, and especially women feel when they are faced with infertility. I have to say, I have accepted the fact that I cannot have a baby without help, and I have been fine with that for a number of years now. In fact, when faced with the option of going through IVF, which is very costly and it may not even work, I began to entertain the option of adoption. Now I have never seriously considered adoption before. I had always thought that wasn't something that fit with my personality. Meaning, as someone who can be very private, I didn't think the idea of some other entity deciding I was ok to be a mother was something I wanted to go through. Which is why I was somewhat surprised by this new openness to the idea. After discussing this with Adam, and doing research, we found that we just wanted to be parents. We just wanted to add to our family, it didn't so much matter if that addition was biologically connected to us or not. So, for us, we didn't think that even trying IVF first was the way to go. And now, having gone through the home study, I can say that I felt that our social worker is on our side, and is not sitting there judging every little thing that we say or do. The system just wants to make sure that these children are placed in safe homes.

Having said all that, this video brings up valid points in how society looks at infertility and adoption. I think a lot of women feel like infertility somehow makes them less than a woman. To me, I have always just kind of thought of it as one of those things that you have to deal with. By that I mean, everyone is not perfect, some people have asthma, some people have poor eyesight, some people have learning disabilities,some people are infertile, and everyone has to learn how to live with these obstacles. I am not trying to belittle anyone's feelings on this, it is just how I look at it. The one point of the video that I really related to was the facebook login "what if." It did seem as if everyone was having a baby at the same time, and that does make you face the fact that you are not having one.
Ok, I kind of went off on some tangents there, but I hope the video brings some attention to the fact that there might be some of your friends or family that may be feeling some of these things, and hopefully you can see where they are coming from.

Home Study Report

Last Friday, J, our home study worker emailed the report that she has been working on. Amazingly, the report is 10 pages long. Who knew there was so much to say about us! So we went over the report to see if there were any spelling errors, or anything that we didn't communicate to her during our interviews. There was only like 3 minor changes that we sent back to her. She also had about four questions she wanted to clarify, or that were left out of our interviews, so we sent those to her to. All that being said, the end of the report states
" Due to the above mentioned, it is recommended that the home study for Adam and Kammie be approved for up to two infants (0-12 months old)."
So it looks like we are going to be approved! Hopefully the revised report will be done soon, and sent over to our agency. Oh, and it says two infants because we said we were open to twins.

As for the birthletter, I made some small changes to the hard proof the printer sent us, and am now waiting for a new proof to arrive, which should be today or tomorrow. I am thinking that we may have the 150 copies by the end of next week. So everything is coming together, and we should be 'going live" soon.

Film "Mother and Child"

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/sony/motherandchild/
Monday night we went to a screening for the film 'Mother and Child' starring Annette Bening, Naomi Watts, Kerry Washington, Jimmy Smitts and Samuel L Jackson. This film is about adoption and how it affects all in the triad (adoptee, birthmother, and adoptive parents). When I say adoption, the main story deals specifically with closed adoption and how harmful it really can be, which confirms all that I am reading about why open adoption really is more healthy for all involved.
Spoiler Alert! Back to the plot, Annette Bening's character, Karen had a baby when she was 14. It appears as if her mother coerced her into putting the baby up for adoption. Karen is now 51 and it is clear that her whole life has been stunted by this event. We get glimpses of how the unknown preys on her mind in the letters she writes to her daughter but never sends, since she has no idea where her daughter is, or if she is even still alive. Naomi Watt's character, Elizabeth is her daughter, and she is someone who has distanced herself from everyone, excels at her work, and uses her body to gain the upper hand when she feels threatened. We learn that Elizabeth is not close with her adoptive parents, and there is a scene where Elizabeth is asked about her mother from someone who does not know she was adopted, and Elizabeth answers referring to her birthmother. This is where I had to cringe a bit, since I found it hard to believe that she didn't think of her adoptive mother as her mother. However, we do not really get to see into what her relationship is, or was with her adoptive parents, but clearly, not knowing anything about her birthmother, and/or maybe the fact that she was lied to by her adoptive parents about being adopted, has had a great and negative impact on her life.
Then we have Kerry Washington's character, Lucy who along with her husband is going through an open adoption. So we get a viewpoint from each of the components that make up the adoption triad. There are a few things that I really liked about this movie. First of all, it was nice to see a movie about people that are, for want of a better word, real. Annette Bening is a beautiful woman, and here she is playing a character that is her age, without tons of makeup, or digital help. Everyone just looked like people do, in your day to day life. I also really liked the pace of the movie, even though some may say the film is too long, but it was nice to let yourself go in a film that gives you some credit for having an attention span. The acting is superb, it really is nice seeing Samuel L Jackson playing a "normal" guy. Of course the other reason that I liked this movie is that it covers a topic that I am becoming intimately involved with. From what I have read and heard from others, there are a lot of misconceptions out there concerning adoption, so to have a major motion picture shedding some light on adoption is refreshing.