150 Steps...In the Present Moment

I had intended to come home this evening to take up where I last left off on the  "Worthy..." post . However, this is not to be because I am too distracted and upset. One of our kitties - Forest - is sick. And not sick like she has a little respiratory infection. She is sick like she needed x-rays and our vet doesn't like the way her x-rays look and had Chris schedule an abdominal ultrasound on Thursday. (We'd do the ultrasound sooner, but the ultrasound guy is on vacation until Thursday...) Chris shows me the x-rays when I arrive home this evening. He points out the area that Dr. B doesn't like: some kind of mass with white spots in her lower abdominal area. This wasn't there when she was having some issues with weight loss back in July. The ultrasound was clear. We changed her meds. She gained some weight. She seemed OK. And then she started eating more sporadically and losing weight again. And now this - whatever it is - is in her belly. We ju

I've been on "blog reading overload" for the last few days. Really. I cannot seem to get myself away from my computer. Or other people's blogs. Last night I made Chris take me to a movie so I wouldn't sit on the couch all night reading blogs. And when we got home and I should have been getting ready for bed, where was I and what was I doing? Yup. On the couch again reading reading reading blogs. As a result of this blog reading overload I have neglected my own little corner of the blogosphere. Could this possibly be because the last few posts have been so serious that they require additional follow up posts to continue working through my thoughts? And I just don't want to do that right now? Have I been reading other people's blogs so I don't have to address my own? Yup. Sneaky, eh? I've been wimping out for a while on The Serious Post...and I believe that this is going to be a continuing trend for the short term. Additionally, a

I've been trying to formulate this post for a few days now. Gathering my thoughts to put into some kind of order onto the  blogosphere . There are a number of first mother blogs that I follow with some regularity. Some of these blogs - particularly those that are in open adoptions are quite inspiring. Seeing how first mothers/fathers and adoptive mothers/fathers navigate their relationships with each other and with the children who bond them together is quite amazing. These are the blogs that give me hope that an open adoption can work if all parties keep their promises and work together. Other of the first mother blogs are difficult to read because they are filled with pain and anguish - the blogs of mothers who lost their children to adoption unwillingly. Some via the social service system or others who were teen/young mothers who felt that they were coerced into giving up their children because they were considered and convinced by others that they were "too young to pa

From the book  Making Room in Our Hearts: Keeping Family Ties Through Open Adoption  by Micky  Duxbury : The gifts one inherits from birth parents do not merely form the template, with the adoptive parents forming everything else. The personalities of  adoptees  are shaped throughout their lives by their biological and cultural roots.   Many people are navigating the waters of openness not because they think that it will make the pain of adoption disappear, but because they believe that it will enhance the child's sense of self. In  The Open Adoption Experience  by Lois Melina and Sharon  Kaplan   Roszia , the authors underscore the effect of the closed [adoption] system: It gradually became apparent through research, personal accounts, and case histories that the failure to recognize and grieve for the losses of adoption had long term effects...impaired self-esteem...difficulty forming an identity...difficulty forming relationships...Not all confidential adoptions were fa

I dread it... My workplace Board of Trustees/Community Advisory Board/Staff annual holiday "do."  I'm a fundraiser, but not much of a schmoozer. It's rather embarrassing to admit that in my particular profession that I don't really enjoy these kinds of events. Still, there will be folks at this event that I actually know and the food will be good. So I hit the ladies room to "fix my face" after a long day in the fundraising trenches and then head out to our holiday decorated lobby to face the masses enjoying our little fete. A few minutes into the event I run into S - a vice president from one of my company accounts. We exchange greetings and start talking about the holidays and what our families are doing. Soon I find myself saying, "My husband is so excited about next year when we'll introduce our child to the craziness that is his family at Christmas." S lights up and asks, " Omigosh ! When are you due?" "Well,

We're at a bit of a standstill in the adoption process right now, hung up on the formalities of waiting for our long-delayed final home study report and the need to provide some additional photos to meet our placement agency's cookie-cutter profile templates. While it frustrates the hell out of me, I am comforted by the fact that these are merely hiccups and that the process we're following to bring Plus One into our family is a tried and true one with rules and guidelines and procedures to keep the expectant mother and our family safe legally. It's a far cry from the wild west of surrogacy as described in  yesterday's New York Times : Surrogacy is largely without regulation, with no authority deciding who may obtain babies through surrogacy or who may serve as a surrogate, according to interviews and court records. I feel for all of the people involved in the process and am relieved that we elected to follow another path. I can deal with the bureaucratic nitp

Yesterday's tree trim... Chris runs out to get the tree and I run out to do a few errands before I start to feel too pooped out from The Cold That Will Not Let Go. Upon my return to the house I find that Chris already has the tree set up, watered and is in the process of putting on the lights. It's a really good looking tree. Smells wonderful. A short time later while I'm bustling around the kitchen, Chris wanders over to the kitchen table and lifts up a maroon gift bag that I hadn't noticed sitting among the clutter of the table. He says slowly and gently, "While I was out getting the tree, I brought Annabel home." I think that I may utter a little, "Oh." I look inside the bag to see a smooth wooden box. The box containing Annabel's ashes. Immediately I burst into tears.  Chris is crying, too. We cry together for a while and then take the box out of the bag. In the bag is also a card from "Final Gift" - the company th

It's beginning to feel a bit more like the holidays as we decorated our Christmas tree today. Despite being in a largely non-religious family, the Christmas tree was always a big deal in my family. We didn't actually do much with the rest of the religious side of things. Sure, we had a carved creche and the baby Jesus was never put into the cradle until Christmas morning but I made up for it by putting the trumpet-playing penguin there instead to fill the space. We occasionally went to midnight mass but only if we were staying with my mom's mom, who was a practicing Catholic her whole life. The rest of us? We went because that's what you did when staying at my grandmother's house. When I was 14 or 15, I absolutely didn't want to go and my uncle took me aside and bluntly told me to stop being an asshole and go because it would make my grandmother happy. Besides, everyone told me, there would be loads of Christmas carols and it would be fun. It was horrendous