150 Steps...In the Present Moment

What am I learning about adoption? It's complicated. More complicated than I could ever have imagined. When I set out to write this blog, I thought I would be posting mostly about the process by which Chris and I would become Plus One...you know, "we sent in our application today" "the social worker came for her first visit" "things are moving more slowly than we would like" "we're so excited" etc. But what I'm discovering - thanks in large part to the beast that is The Internet - is that there is SO much more to this world of adoption to consider than just timetables, applications, social worker visits, and our happiness. This process is about more than Chris, me and our Little One. So much to consider. So much to discuss. So much about which to be mindful. For our consideration: the Birth-mother the Birth-father if he is involved will we meet the Birth parents? or not? will the Birth-mother want us there for th...

Sometimes I wish that I had never discovered the Internet and that I could just live my life in blissful ignorance. No...not really. But sometimes having access to so much information is not always a blessing. I've been exploring a plethora adoption blogs - adoptive parents,  birth mothers  and  adoptees . My explorations have certainly been illuminating... There is so much intense emotion expressed by the various adoption  bloggers  whose words have appeared on my computer screen over the last few weeks (especially this evening.) So much regret. So much determination to find out the truth. So much bitterness at not being able to find the truth or being rejected by one family member or another. So much fear. So much pain. So much anger. So much grief. So much loss. So much. So much. So much. I want to write more about this. I want to address some of the issues about which I've been reading. I want to question and to process, but the truth is th...

In one of my favorite movies of all time, the cult classic, "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension," the leader of the evil Red Lectroids  exhorts his minions  as they attempt to escape Earth: Lord John Whorfin:  Where are we going? Red Lectroid Minions:  Planet 10 Lord John Whorfin:  When? Red Lectroid Minions:  Real soon! I feel like we're living that right now as Jennifer and I finished speaking with B, a friend of a friend, this afternoon, except that our version goes more along the lines of What the hell are we doing? Adopting a kid When Real soon! B and her husband used the domestic placement agency that's been on the top of our list, the Adoption Network Law Center, and with only a few minor issues, had an extremely positive experience. Most notable was how fast it all went. Two months after completing the paperwork, they were offered a placement and accepted and one month later had their newborn daughter ...

We may be a bit closer to identifying the next piece of the puzzle. In one of those "small world" moments, we learned that close acquaintances of Jennifer's best friend G adopted two children through the same domestic agency that is currently the leader on our list. Conveniently, Jenn met them at G's wedding and after a quick flurry of e-mails, they've graciously (and apparently enthusiastically) agreed to talk to us this weekend about their experience. I'm a firm believer in using consumer review sites like Epinions as a resource when it comes to making a purchasing decision. While we haven't found anything similar for adoption agencies, we have discovered that the broad network of adoptive families is, by and large, a very open one when it comes to sharing information with people like us who are just at the start. Agency marketing materials are all well and good but having a chance to speak with people who worked with that agency (and aren't neces...

Please describe your infertility problems. The above sentence appears in one of the adoption applications that we have in the house. It is followed by the questions below: Do you have a conclusive diagnosis of infertility? Are you currently being treated for infertility? Why do you wish to adopt a child? ( Please explain in detail ) Here's the thing...We don't have an infertility problem...well, at least I don't think we do. We could be totally fertile or maybe we are infertile. Just don't know at this point because we've never actually attempted to conceive. And in that I guess Chris and I are likely quite different from many adoptive couples. So, why adoption? Why not try to conceive? To start with - I'm 41, which automatically puts me into a higher-risk pregnancy category than a woman in her twenties or thirties. Even with the miracle of modern science and women having children well into their forties, there are more considerable risks for mo...

After two months of discussions, online searches, research, and more, we're putting some skin in the game and officially getting things rolling. The above is part of a post left by Chris on his blog  150 Steps...an Adoption Journey . While we have been discussing and planning and worrying and breathing and not breathing and laughing...now we're getting serious. We're moving ahead. Committing to action. We're sending in the application for our Home Study! This all suddenly feels real. It's going to happen. An application completed, references sought, a check written.... And awwwaaaaaayyyyy we go...

While we are probably 85-90% certain that we'll choose to pursue a domestic adoption, it's not yet set in stone. Following her  post on domestic vs. international adoptions , Jennifer received some wonderful comments on her blog from folks around the country with words of encouragement and wisdom, including some speaking very highly of international adoptions. Personally, I'm finding that making that choice is tremendously difficult as I swing back and forth with each new piece of information to plunk itself on our kitchen table. Truthfully, there's a 6-of-one, half-dozen-of-the-other feel to it. We find the international adoption route appealing because of the sense that once the adoption is complete, it's over and done with, leaving little if any chance that someone from our Plus One's birth family would appear in the future. Friends and family members have successfully completed international adoptions and have no regrets. On the other hand, internationa...

Tomorrow morning we take our next significant step in the adoption process as we submit our application to our agency of choice for a home study along with a non-refundable check. After two months of discussions, online searches, research, and more, we're putting some skin in the game and officially getting things rolling. While we'd work with a different agency for placement, provided we go domestically, we're looking forward to working with Alliance for Children to conduct the initial assessment as well as the pre-adoption paperwork. And if we do elect to pursue an international adoption, they're well positioned in the countries of interest. It feels good to be taking concrete action.

I was surprised today when I discovered a rather lengthy and serious comment left Thursday night on my May 28 post "Becoming a mom...a new idea" Thank you so much, Sarah, for leaving such heartfelt thoughts. I'm honored that you felt safe enough to share your worries here. You didn't leave a way to contact you so I'm just going to hope that you return to "In the present moment..." and I'm writing this post for you. Please know that I am (obviously) no expert. I'm just a woman trying to sort through the journey I'm on with my husband and the prospect of becoming a mother. Please also know that I hear you and I can empathize. In fact, it was odd reading your words because so much of what you shared sounded exactly like journal entries I've written over the years! You shared your fears about: being home all day, being lonely and bored, the pain of child birth and the fear of post- partum  depression, not being able to travel, not being...

Say it with me now...practice practice practice. I think that's the overarching mission of our cats right now -- to give us as much practice as possible in the art of parenting and living with interrupted nights' sleep before we ever get around to having Plus One join our family. 19-year old Annabel, also known as the Grey Bullet, routinely starts howling at 4AM every night. It's not that she's hungry. It's not that she's hurt. Basically, she's awake and wants attention. Plus, if she crouches at the head of the stairs, the reverberations down the stairwell are positively operatic. So I roll out of bed, shuffle down the hall, scoop her up, and carry her back to bed where she immediately falls asleep. And then there's 15-year old Cecilia, who thankfully doesn't do too much besides be grumpy, with the notable exception of last evening when she walked into our family room with a decidedly awkward gait. As I turned to watch her, she promptly put her...

One of my colleagues approached me today to check in with me about how I'm doing. She's been following this blog and is apparently a bit worried about me. "I've been reading your blog," she says to me, "and I've meant to respond to you, but haven't gotten to it. I just keep reading what you're writing and thinking, 'Oh, please don't worry so much! You'll be fine! You'll be fine!'" I laugh. "I remember that I felt just like you," she continues, "but you read everything - like Dr. Spock and the Dr. Ferber method - and you'll be just fine. Don't spend so much time worrying about everything. I mean, I was so worried that I'd be just like my mother, who was a total loon! But I wasn't," she pauses and then says, "Of course, I brought my own kind of craziness to being a mother and you probably will, too. Now my daughter thinks I'm a total loon." I laugh again and ask, ...

Although I've been posting regularly, family and friends are still asking, "So, where are you in the process? What's next?" So my thoughts about becoming a mother, while perhaps interest to some... were apparently not informative enough. So here's a very quick update: We're fairly certain that we've found the agency that we'd like to have conduct our  home study . Our next step is to send in our application to this agency. Still in the process of researching adoption/placement agencies. Would like to interview a few more before making any final decision, although at this point I wouldn't be surprised if we went with the law center that we interviewed with a few weeks ago. Would like to speak with adoptive parents who have utilized the various adoption agencies that we're looking at so as we move forward we'll be asking for references and making some calls. Need to determine if we're going to pursue a domestic or an internation...

When my wife Jennifer informed me that, after 8 years of marriage and many hours of discussion, that she was ready to expand our family and pursue an adoption, the research began in earnest. Books -- some purchased by us, others handed off by friends and family who had adopted children -- began to pile up on the kitchen table and nightstands. Websites were Googled and bookmarked. We began to have the first of many conversations with professionals in the field, adoptive parents, and friends who were adopted. Jennifer promptly ID'd multiple blogs written by moms about their experience either with adoptions or just as parents. I tried to do the same thing but ran into an interesting little problem -- I couldn't find any blogs by prospective adoptive fathers. Actually, that's not quite true. I found a number of adoption blogs written by guys but virtually all of them were (or are being) written by gay men about their quest to adopt children. I applaud their efforts and wh...

I think...therefore I am. Really? Because here's what I've been thinking for the last few days: "What if I'm not good enough?"..."Maybe I'm not good enough." These are not the thoughts that I want to be if I am indeed who I am because of my thinking! Like some tiny, vicious winged insects that keep buzzing around my head and that I keep shooing away...they just keep coming back. Over and over and over again. Buzz buzz buzz... Gil  Fronsdal , Buddhist  Vipassana  teacher at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood, CA, had the following to say about thinking and repetitive thoughts in a wonderful talk entitled "The Mindfulness of Thinking": It's amazing...it's awesome...it's awful how repetitive our thinking can be - at least mine can be. Probably some of you also. You can think the same thing 3 or 4 times, right? 10 or 20 times? 50 or 100 times? 500 times? With slight variations [each time]...just thinking over...

How do you figure out which adoption agency is the one you want to work with? When we were thinking about an international adoption, it seemed pretty straightforward -- we knew a number of people who had successfully adopted children from different countries. Plus, certain agencies specialize in certain countries. Therefore, we just needed to figure out the country we'd be interested in, talk to the people we knew who might have dealt with agencies supporting that country, and then interview a few agencies to decide who we wanted to work with to find a child for our family. It got a bit more complicated when we shifted our view toward a domestic adoption. We only know one couple who adopted domestically (twice and very successfully) and they spoke very highly of their experience with their agency. However, my call to the agency revealed that we weren't going to be a good fit due to the agency's Board of Directors-mandated mission to place children in Christian household...

Chris is going to be a great dad. Of this, I am certain. Not only does he love kids, but he's great with them. Last weekend when E & J were visiting with their kids F and A, my husband was at his finest. He and 9 year-old F grab the badminton rackets/birdies and commence attempting to keep up a string of unbroken volleys. Chris counts out loud with each hit of the birdie. F laughs and giggles each time that she and Chris keep the birdie aloft and laughs even more at his mock cries of distress when one of them misses. "Seven...Eight...Nine....Ten...Eleven...OH NO! We were doing so great! Let's try again!...One... two...three..." 4 year-old A watches from the safety of our hammock, laughing also at Chris when he lets out a cry at a dropped birdie. E, J and I watch from the deck and share in the laughter as well. The game goes on and on and on with neither player - adult or kid - showing any signs of tiring. They eventually put together an impressive string...

My father-in-law, upon learning the news that we are planning to adopt, says to Chris "It's the most important thing you'll ever do." Of this, I'm certain. However, I do - even in the midst of the joy I'm feeling now that we're on the road to being Plus One - have that one really niggling worry... What if I'm not good enough? For a lot of years (more than I'd care to recollect or admit) I had no confidence in myself - professionally or personally. The story I told myself over and over: I'm not good enough. I was (and sadly sometimes still am) plagued by fear, doubt and a rather unfortunate tendency toward perfectionism... not an ideal combination of qualities because they most often seem to result in the "If I can't do it well, I just won't do it at all" syndrome. Over the years I turned down several promotions, ran from relationships, sabotaged myself in grad school (twice), and certainly didn't take the kinds of ...