Pink and Blue

     Hello folks. This blog post is not exactly about adoption, but rather more about our journey to becoming parents and some of the stuff I have noticed.
     
     We do not know if we will adopt a girl or a boy. If I am totally honest, I want a girl. I want to be able to help raise a strong, independent woman that does not feel she has to conform to what society says. As a woman myself, this of course is dear to my heart. Shopping for gender neutral clothes for babies has really opened my eyes on how much society makes boys conform to a "manly"ideal.
First off, most of the baby clothes are pink and purple for girls, blue and brown for boys. Flowers and butterflies for girls, trucks and sports for boys. I find myself of course gravitating towards the few items in yellow, green and orange. But I do find myself also getting blue, as if it is a girl, who cares if she is wearing blue? This is where things get really confining for boys. It is ok for girls to dress like a tom boy, but put a boy in a pink onsie??? I can only imagine the reaction from people!
This of course reminds me of that Madonna song,
What it Feels Like For a Girl:
"Girls can wear jeans
And cut their hair short
Wear shirts and boots
'Cause it's OK to be a boy
But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading
'Cause you think that being a girl is degrading
But secretly you'd love to know what it's like
Wouldn't you
What it feels like for a girl"

     Somehow it is degrading for boys to be seen as feminine, in the way they dress, or act. It is seen as weak to show emotion, or to "throw like a girl." I hope things may be getting better, as homosexuality is becoming more of a non-issue. But I do know many guys that would still be insulted if they were thought of as gay, or girly!

     All of this starts off at birth, when you buy pink or blue clothes for your newborn. Really, the scale of this is so daunting to one that wants things to be different. For one that does not want their child to be defined by the color they are wearing, or the fact that there may be a flower on their shirt. (why are flowers girly anyways??? Who made up these rules?)

     I think I have always known that this is how it is, but in preparing for our child to come home, it is so "in your face" that I cannot help but express my sadness that we put girls and boys in these roles right off the bat.

Anyways, thanks for reading my rant.

Two Years!

June is here and we have reached our two year anniversary of being "on the books." Still, we have not had any nibbles whatsoever. I use google analytics, so I see our profile site has had some good traffic, but no takers.

I have been in a "nesting" mood lately. I inventoried all the baby clothes that we have accumulated, and then went shopping to make sure we have the basics for a newborn. One observation on baby clothes. It really is annoying how everything is so gender based. Why does everything geared towards girls have to be pink or purple? I find the lack of other colors to be so limiting. And so much pastel! So suffice it to say, we have a lot of yellow, blue and green. I then washed it all, and organized them by size and type and put them in plastic baggies. So now they are all ready for baby. I am still in the middle of painting the tree mural in the nursery as well, and I really am happy with that so far. It feels good to do something creative. Now I am trying to wade through all the information out there on car seats and strollers. I don't know why, but every time I start to look for those items, I just get overwhelmed. Does anyone have any advice or recommendations?

I know some folks may be wondering why I am doing all of this washing and organizing if there has not been a match or even the prospect of one? Well our agency does a few things for those of us waiting for certain lengths of time. I believe it was at the one year mark that we went on the last minute hospital list. So if our agency gets a call from a maternity ward saying that there is mother there that wants to place their baby for adoption, our letter is one of the ones that they may see (as long as we meet other criteria that the mother is looking for). So this means we may get a call from our agency that we need to get down to so-and-so hospital and see if we are a match. Or put another way, we could suddenly become parents within a matter of hours! So I figured being prepared for such an event would be a good idea. Now granted, we have been on that list for a year now, and nothing of course has come of it, but still, you never know.

At 18 months, our letter went to a committee at our agency for them to go over and suggest changes. So we have totally redesigned, and updated our letter. I just ordered it though, so it has not been sent to anyone yet, but hopefully that will help. Also, the agency has put up a google ad for us specifically, and that too has seemed to have gotten some good traffic. We are also now in the top 50 families waiting, which means that if there are any birthmother intakes where they are due in less than 6 weeks, she only gets the letters from those families that match her criteria.

So there are a few things that have been going on that will hopefully help us, and I think that is why I have been feeling more optimistic. I hope everyone is doing well. I know it has been a long time since I posted anything, but really how many ways can you say nothing new to report?

sigh

Still waiting. No contact whatsoever. Depressing.

Beagles!

Watson already playing with a toy!

Not sure if anyone has seen on the news about the rescue effort that the organization Beagle Freedom Project undertook recently. This organization rescues Beagles from research labs after they no longer need or want them. On the day before Thanksgiving, their biggest rescue yet arrived in Los Angeles. 40 Beagles were flown here from a lab in Spain. We had volunteered a while back to foster one while they get adjusted to just being a normal dog, and then they will be adopted. So we went there on Wednesday night and what a sight it was to see 40 Beagles running around a backyard! It was such cute chaos!

We called our little guy Watson, as I really like to come up with literary names, and I thought it sounded good with our original Beagle, Marlowe. Watson is adjusting so well. He is sweet and lovable and pretty sharp, as he picked up his name quickly! He really loves food, and if you know how Beagles are, you know they love food. He likes to jump up on his hind legs to get your attention and ask you to rub behind his ears. We are trying to train him to not jump up on people. It is pretty amazing to see his curiosity and how quickly he just enjoys doing dog type things.

If you want to know more about fostering, adopting or donating check out their website.


Marlowe, me, and Watson

A favor...

Hello everyone. I have a favor to ask. My sister is a student at USC and she is doing an anthropology paper on adoption and parenthood. If anyone is willing to help out we would really appreciate it. She would like to interview (waiting or already) adoptive parents, birthparents and adoptees. This can be done through Skype, phone or perhaps in written form if that makes you feel more comfortable.

If you would like more info or are interested in helping please let me know in the comments and we can arrange some contact info.

Thank you so much!

Waiting with sniffles.

So we have been waiting for about 15 months now, and still not one contact. Becoming parents really does not seem real to me anymore. Family and friends don't really ask for updates anymore, and in a way that is good since there is nothing to update. But it makes me feel like they don't believe it is gonna happen either.

Maybe I am just feeling bad because I have a cold and have been on the couch for the past three days. Yes, that must be it.

Crazy

I was reading a waiting families message board in which a woman answered how she was spending her summer with " doing all the usual things etc. Dealing with scammers, which seem to come out during the summer months."
So am I crazy to feel bad that we haven't even had one scammer that wanted to contact us?