Three Years

The beginning of June brings us to our three year waiting mark. We have had some contacts, some scams, but nothing has blossomed to a meeting or a match.
We are still waiting anxiously to become parents! Maybe it will happen soon...

Rainy Night

It was raining on our way home this evening. As we were stopped at a red light not too far from our home we saw a little dog running across the big street in front of us. She then ran into the opposing traffic side and there were cars that were fast approaching. We saw that the one car was not slowing down. I had to turn my head because I could not bear to see the car hit the dog. I looked back and saw the poor thing laying in the street and the car that hit her just keep on driving, even though they tried to swerve and not hit the dog and looked in their rear view mirror to see if they hit the dog.

I was livid. I told Adam I was going out to get the dog. I ran over to where she was laying with my hands up to make sure no one else would hit her. When I got to her, she was not moving and I thought she was dead. But then I thought I saw her chest move, so I touched her and she practically jumped up! I picked her up, hoping she would not bit me. I went to the sidewalk and by this time Adam had made a u-turn and was there. We decided to take her to the emergency vet around the corner from our house. The poor thing was holding up her one leg and then she seemed started breathing really hard and fast so I was so worried about her lungs, but she then calmed down so I think she was just freaking out from the pain and just being scared. Our dogs by the way were in the car too and they were so good even though there was a strange dog in the car! I bet they knew she was hurt.

Anyways, we get to the vet and I see she has a collar and tag on which made me happy. We brought her in and they took her and called her people. They told me they were on their way. I said I would wait so I could let them know what happened. They arrived about 20 minutes later and they had a little girl, about 7, and her face was so sad and full of worry since this was her dog. The vets did not tell them Snowy's condition on the phone so they had no idea what to expect. The vet told us all that Snowy was extremely lucky, that they only think she had a broken leg! We were all so happy!
I just had to write about this since I was so emotional afterwards and just so happy that that family was not going to be sad tonight because their dog had ran away and got run over.
-Kammie

Update

So I have not been on here in about 7 months. Quite frankly, even thinking about writing a post, or thinking about this blog made me angry. I felt like it was someone that kept asking me "what is going on with the adoption?" And since I had nothing to say about it, I started to resent this blog. Does that make any sense?

So in June, at our 2 year waiting mark, we redid our profile letter. In August we had our first contact from an expectant mother. It was a Saturday, and I had had one of the worst migraines ever the night before, so I was really not feeling my best. Adam was out getting dinner, and I was on my cell phone with my mom and the house phone rang. I hear someone leaving a message and I told my mom "I think it is someone calling about adoption!" I hung up the phone, but she had hung up by that point. I tried to calm my nerves, and this is where I really messed up, I waited till Adam got back and ran out and told him about the call. By the time I had screwed up my courage to call her back, a half hour had passed. It went to her voicemail. I found out later, that she had picked 3 families, we were the first one she called, but she went on to the next one, and they were did not answer, so she went on to the third one and they answered and really hit it off. Most people have said "well it wasn't meant to be." And really that does not help. I should have called right away, and if we didn't hit it off, then I could say that it wasn't meant to be. But I am really not one to dwell, or regret things so I am not sitting around beating myself up, but I have trouble with this whole, the baby you adopt is the one you were supposed to. Maybe I will change my mind if we ever do adopt, and we have our baby in our arms. I will let you know :)

In past postings, I had wanted a contact so badly, I was upset we hadn't even got any scams. Well, we have had quite a few scams now and it really is comforting in a very bizarre sort of way. It means that we are not invisible! Most have them have been very obvious as scams, but we did have one that contacted us through our agency site that seemed real at first. We emailed quite a few times one night, but I started to become suspicious when it seemed as if she agreed with me over everything. Come to find out that my instincts were right. She had emailed several families and gave different stories. She told us she was in Oklahoma, but since she signed up with our agencies website, they saw her IP address was in Arizona. She gave everyone different locations and due dates. To me it seemed as if she was looking for attention. Has anyone else had any experiences like that?

In October, we put a profile up at Adoptomist.com, and we had a contact through them, but I will go into that in a later post. Check them out. I really like how they have an adoption diary, so you can post new entries about your day, or your thoughts on adoption, or your dreams for your child and your open adoption relationship. I feel as if it makes your profile from getting old and stale.

So we are at 2 years and 8 months waiting. I need to go to open bloggers and find some new blogs of waiting families, since most of the ones I had followed have adopted. Which is wonderful seeing the "after" to compare to the "before" baby. Any recommendations?
-Kammie

I know it has been ages...

I know I have sorely neglected my blogging duties, and I am not going to write anything tonight. But I was thinking about my blog, and feeling bad that I have not written anything in so long. I will come back tomorrow and do a proper post! I promise.
I hope you all have been well!
-Kammie

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.