150 Steps...In the Present Moment

OK, now it's getting serious. We sent our application to the placement agency today.

When I started this blog, it was inspired by a conversation that I had with a neighbor early this summer, in which I remarked that "if the adoption process has 150 steps, we're on step 6." We just completed step 75. We're halfway there, if the completion of the home study can be considered the midway mark. We turned over the completed binder of paperwork and then plunged into a discussion about next steps with the placement agency as well as how they will coordinate with M, our adoption counselor. Toward the end as we began to wrap things up, I asked M if she saw any reasons to think that she might not recommend us. "I never would have let us go this far if I had any concerns. We would have known by the second meeting," she said. And so we reach the 75th step. There's a nice, comfy landing here where we can catch our breath. Step 1 seems so far away now, coming just days after my grandmother died as Jenn and I began to discuss in all serious...

Chris sits swearing at his computer last evening...or rather swearing at the  login  section of the e-Trade website. His  username  and password aren't working. "This IS my password," I can hear him muttering furiously as he tries yet again to  login , "AND this IS my  username . Why isn't this working???" More furious muttering and tapping at the keyboard. Meanwhile at my desk I am transferring the originals of various documents and letters from our   homestudy  binder into the binder that we are preparing to give social worker M. A few more expletives and a phone call to e-Trade later and Chris is logged in to retrieve the financial information that we must include in our  homestudy  paperwork. He completes the financial form shortly after that without any further ado. The binder is completed just a few minutes shy of midnight. The hand-off to social worker M is this evening. We're in the homestretch of this part o...

Old fear: Being isolated with a small child and slipping into post-adoption depression. Other women I know have mentioned feeling very isolated being at home with an infant or a toddler. My own mom shared with me tales of her struggles with feeling lonely and isolated when my sister and I were small. I think she worries about that for me. This is something about which I worry a bit (and used to worry about A LOT), but thankfully am no longer letting stand in the way of becoming a parent. For one thing, I finally realized that there are SO many more resources for parents today than there when my mom was taking care of me as a small child. There are more resources than there were even five or ten years ago. There are play groups and online support groups. My gym even has a lovely little sweetly  decorated  day care for infants and toddlers so that I can exercise without having to worry about getting a babysitter. One of the things that I am starting to do for myself and ...

Chris and I have now taken 4 parenting classes with 2 left to complete the required series. For the most part they are all interesting and informative, although the "Creating Your Profile" course did provoke some yawns. Why? Well, the course is geared to people who don't really write much or who are not confident in their writing skills. Being that Chris and I are both writers I can't say that we found the course as useful as someone would who doesn't write or feels very nervous about putting together a profile. I imagine that this course is a very helpful tool in the adoption process for non-writers. The course that makes us break out into laughter from time to time is " Conspicuous  Families: Race, Culture, and Adoption." Please don't get me wrong -  transracial  adoption is no laughing matter. However, part of the course involves providing strategies for parents of multicultural families to deal with intrusive comments and questions. One...

We've completed four hours of our online classes for prospective adoptive parents. Interesting stuff so far though I feel like I didn't actually see the sun on this lovely Saturday. Only six more hours to go and we'll be pros at this!

We have to go to school to learn to be parents. Really. It's true. Well, we actually just have to sit in our own home office to participate in online parenting classes. This weekend we'll be engaging in a marathon of educational activity...10 hours of parenting classes as one of the final steps in our home study process. So here's what we'll be taking... Ain't  Misbehavin ': Discipline and the Adoptive Child Creating an Adoption Profile that Works Conspicuous Families: Race, Culture and Adoption Let's Talk Adoption: A Lifetime of Family Conversations The Journey of Attachment Finding the Missing Pieces: Helping Adopted Children Cope with Loss and Grief I have the feeling that our brains are going to be VERY full by the end of this weekend. And that these classes will inspire quite a few future blog posts. Perhaps on my way home from work I'll stop at Staples to  purchase  Chris and I some new school supplies...and then on to the gr...

Steadily, we're closing in on the milestone of completing our paperwork for the home study (3 letters remain plus 10 hours of online adoptive parenting classes). There's a massive purple binder sitting on my desk containing the paperwork to hand off to M as well as copies for ourselves so that we'll have a "holy crap, look at what we went through to get you" scrapbook to show Plus One sometime in the future. Clearly, the hoops we go through now seem, at least from my perspective, to be so much more involved than if we'd had the option to go the natural route at some point in the past. But one man's complicated and involved is another person's laughably simple. I just finished Doree Shafrir's article on The Daily Beast called " 10 Ways to Have a Baby " and after reading what some couples have gone through, our efforts to adopt don't seem to be quite so onerous. Of course, the author also picked out the most sensational ones that s...

I'm a workaholic. Well, kind of. OK...yeah, I am. Here's the thing...I have perfectionist tendencies and, as such, I often work late to accommodate my need for things to be done "right." This isn't necessarily a bad characteristic in someone who is responsible for fundraising. Yesterday I worked a 12-hour day. No one forced me to do this. I did it of my own volition. And if my supervisor knew that I had put in those kinds of hours yesterday she would have been royally peeved. "Don't stay too late!" is daily her mantra to me. She doesn't want me to burn out. "How late did you stay last night?" she'll ask me on days when I'm looking a little droopy. "Not too late..." I'll say with a bit of a sheepish face on. "Uh-huh," she'll reply with a look that says that she clearly does not believe me. And she shouldn't. She knows me too well. She'll come to me today with a stern look on...

FBI background checks are in and I haven't been arrested yet so I guess they didn't find anything. Doctors' reports are in. At least one of our personal recommendations has been sent it. We're down to single digits on stuff that needs to get done before we can hand in our completed home study binder!

The adoption industry markets adoption as a way to fulfill the desires of adults. Why is it that my husband and I as prospective adoptive parents are "fulfilling our own desires," while a couple who can have their own biological children are simply "starting a family"? Are those folks who can have biological children NOT fulfilling their own desires as well? So those folks are totally unselfish? They're having a child not to satisfy their own desires to be parents and have a family, but specifically for the best interests of that child Isn't the very act of procreating something of a selfish act? Wanting to have children to fulfill that desire to have a family? To have the experience of being parents? That desire to pass on our genes and/or our ideals and/or our knowledge and/or our love? To watch a child grow and change and become a grown person? To feel the joy that comes along with parenting To love and to be loved? To give and to be given to in ...

This evening, as we gathered in downtown Providence for a  United Way  event to kick off tonight's  Waterfire  performance and raise awareness, we meet a couple who will be walking in the United Way procession with their 1-month old daughter. The dad has the baby strapped to the front in a Baby Bjorn. The mom comments how she prefers the sling that she wears. He replies, "She can have the sling. This way is more masculine, I think." Dude, you've got a baby strapped to your chest in a green Baby Bjorn. Parental? Yes. Comfortable? I guess so. Masculine? That might be a stretch. I wonder if they come in purple.

Since earlier this year, my mother has been fighting the good fight  against breast cancer . With the apparent success of her chemo treatments, she underwent surgery today to remove the platinum marker pins, previously affected lymph nodes, and the tissue around the now vanished tumors. I went and visited her in the hospital today, a few hours after she came out of surgery and was moved from the recovery room to the room where she'll probably spend the next 48 hours sleeping and recuperating before heading home for several days of quiet time. It feels like the last two years have involved a lot of sitting by bedsides, most often with my grandmother as she  weakened , then  faded , and finally  passed away  on my 40th birthday in April. There was also time spent with my father following his stroke. And most recently, my mother's fight has loomed in the background since February even as she was there at every step for my grandmother and enthusiastically for us ...

Well, our local police department apparently has no record of my criminal activities... Kidding! I'm not a criminal and now I even have official police letters to prove it! Being at the police station this morning was weird. It occurred to me as I was standing there waiting for the detective that I had never actually been inside of a police station until today. It's an experience that I don't think I'd care to repeat. The detective who ushers me through several hallways to an area full of tiny cubicles is young - maybe 30- ish . He's a little shorter than I am, very fit, carries himself ramrod straight and seems not terribly thrilled at having to deal with a lady needing letters for an adoption. As we're walking, I'm strangely aware of and disturbed by the gun in the holster at his side. He says absolutely nothing to me during our trip to the computer. As we sit he asks for my license and once it is in his possession he starts tapping away into the...

We're in this weird limbo at the moment, terribly close to completing our home study but waiting for the arrival of final documents over which we have no control. They are slowly trickling in -- a financial report from the bank here, an attorney general letter there -- but they seem to be taking a long time. It's September 1 and we've set September 18 as our target deadline to have every piece of paper necessary to hand off to M for her to complete the home study. I know they'll go by fast but 18 days still seems like a long time.