A Good Showing

We've had three people through our place in the last couple of days and have one more today (but hopefully more). Things are off to an encouraging start! We've even seen a few houses in the neighborhood that we can afford and that are in a good location. Things might come together.

The best part is hearing the feedback from the other Realtors. Most of the feedback has been what we expected. But, we got a really funny comment last night. Our place is in a great location. You can walk downtown and to one of the cities nicest parks. The inside of our place is nothing to write home about. It's updated and clean and adequate but the real selling point is our view of downtown and the front range from our balcony and bedroom. We had one realtor come back that said that her client liked the place but didn't think the view was all that great. This made us laugh. The only good thing about our place is the view. (Hopefully no prospective buyers are reading this).

On the Market

We had our first showing today and the house officially hits the market tomorrow. I'm feeling optimistic. The inventory of places at our price point and in our location is a whopping 2 properties. Hooray! The bad news is it's a crazy seller's market when it comes to houses in our neighborhood and they're getting snatched up quickly. Somehow this will all work out. I'm thinking very positive thoughts about buying and selling coinciding seamlessly. I'm sure there will be more drama to come....

The Ever Changing Second Bedroom

We are just about to put the last load of items into our movable storage unit. The last load is the crib and the few baby items that we have purchased. This is a precaution just in case we get "the call" and have to dig through a 16 foot trailer.

I think the funny part of adoption is how you must always be prepared without having any idea of the timing. I was bitterly laughing that we've been living in a one bedroom condo for the last eight months because we turned the office into a baby room. We're now moving out of our two bedroom condo and turning the baby room back into an office. How great would it have been to have had all that extra space for eight months!

I don't regret having the baby room assembled. I think it was important emotionally and psychologically for me to feel like I was actually going to have a baby. Seeing baby things and a crib and changing table made everything more real. You'd think that seeing this every day would actually be depressing, but, I think most days it just made me hopeful and excited for what was to come.

However, now that we're at moving/staging day, it feels so silly to have had a baby room that was never used that we are disassembling to move to our new place. The hopeful and exciting part of this is that when we do assemble the new baby room we know that there will definitely be a baby in it!

The Selfishness of Adoption

I didn't want to taint my very positive entry about how great my employer is about supporting adoption. However, I have wanted to blog about this topic for awhile and it came up again during the "expectant parent" fair.

It was fairly obvious (thank you genetics) that I am not pregnant when I was walking around the expectant parent fair so in the course of conversation I would let people know that we were adopting. Everyone, of course, is very supportive of adoption and responds with the usual "that's so great". There is then always a smaller percentage of people who will ask from which country will I be adopting. I then always tell them, "here in Colorado". So many people then respond with, "That's so great. It's too bad everyone goes to (fill in the blank) for babies when there are so many babies who need homes here in the United States."

I really don't have the energy to engage with everyone and it seems not worth it sometimes, but, that statement is so untrue when it comes to domestic infant adoption. If there were so many babies who needed homes we wouldn't all be waiting years to bring a baby into our homes. I then always picture an image in their minds of my husband and I strolling through an "orphanage" selecting the perfect baby.

I think the statement sets up the notion that we are "saving" a child which is so incredibly opposite of the truth. My husband and I are adopting for purely selfish reasons. We want to start a family and bring a child into our lives. This belief that many people harbor upsets me because I don't want my child to be viewed as someone who is "lucky" or was "saved". I know that I have only just begun my job of "adoption ambassador" and I have lots of good "positive" comments in my arsenal but sometimes a girl just needs to vent.

Adoption Friendly Workplace

Today my employer hosted an "Expectant Family Fair". It was exactly that- information for families expecting. I work at a large family-friendly non-profit organization and this was the first time they hosted the fair. I was really encouraged to see on the flyer that it invited "those expecting and those considering adoption". I'm not sure why they used the word "considering" but I thought that it was great that the flyer was so inclusive. There were representatives from HR as well as community partners sharing information about assorted benefits and discounts. I work for a hospital and they even offer car seats at cost and have professionals who will ensure that they are installed correctly. It was a great idea and nice to see that they were conscientious of their employees who are adopting. They also offer a $5,000 adoption credit for employees with the logic that that is the same expense that they would spend on pre-natal care for an employee. Bravo to them for realizing that many of their employees are creating families through adoption.

Home Visit Update

Our home visit was very short and sweet yesterday. There wasn't the insane anxiety of the home visit of the previous year. We're very comfortable around our caseworker so all was good. There wasn't really a home inspection since it was so apparent that we are not going to be here for much longer. She then just had to ask the obligatory questions for the agency. These included whether or not we'd been arrested for a felony or misdemeanor in the last year, had we had any domestic violence incidents or any new drug habits to report. Luckily, we've made it through the past year without being arrested and we're too focused on stashing away cash for a down payment to start a drug habit - I hear they're expensive;). Of course, it's important that all these questions be asked but it seems pretty apparent when you are sitting down with us that the answers to all of those questions would be no.

We also learned that the agency is VERY slow right now. She said that they have been trying to figure out why. She said that abortion rates are up in the state but that doesn't explain all of it. There are quite a few women who she said are currently in counseling that are due in September - November.

This will sound funny since I've been so anxiously awaiting bambino, but, I'd love to have a September call so that we had time to get settled in our new digs. We were laughing with our caseworker that the universe was going to sabotage us and a mom would come out of the blue and pick us in the next few weeks (not that that would be the worst thing that could happen). So, all is good on the adoption front. I have a feeling it's going to be a bit on the back burner for the next month or two.

Annual Home Study

Today our caseworker is coming over to update our information and perform our annual home study. The timing of this is somewhat funny as we have decided to move. The room that we had dedicated as the baby room for the last eight months is now being turned back into an office so that we can put our place on the market. Right now it is a staging area for boxes that are going into storage. I think I'd normally be nervous before our home visit, but, our caseworker is great and I'm much more comfortable around her than I was the first time. I'm also not as nervous because our house is in chaos and there is really nothing to be done about it since we are moving.

I'm so glad that we have decided to move. It feels great to be making some sort of change in our lives right now and we desperately need the space. I keep hoping that we are in the process of unpacking the last box at our new place when we get "the call". Fingers crossed.

One Year and Waiting

We have been so busy that I feel like I'm perpetually a couple of days behind in my postings. I think this is most apparent in the fact that I neglected to acknowledge our one year anniversary of being accepted into the adoption pool. On May 12, we've officially been waiting one year for bambino.

If you look at past posts, I've been plenty whiny about the fact that we've been waiting. Being matched in January has made the wait seem a bit longer. We also received a call a couple of weeks after being accepted about being profiled to a mother. I think these calls set us up to have unrealistic expectations about how quickly this process would go. We were told by our caseworker that it would take a year to a year and a half so we're well within that range.

We asked our caseworker not to tell us if we were being profiled. I couldn't handle that roller coaster so we don't really know if we've just not clicked with the right mother or if the agency is really slow. It's so hard to tell.

Celebrating Mothers-to-Be

This is a little bit belated, but, I just wanted to post a note about how thoughtful my husband and parents were on Mother's Day. We have a tradition to give corsages to our mothers and my grandmother and this year Joel ordered one for me as well. I thought it was so sweet for him to acknowledge my "expectant" motherhood. My parents also gave me a very sweet mother-to-be card. It means so much to have such thoughtful people around. It made a holiday that might have been a bit difficult much easier and more celebratory.

Mother's Day

I'm waking up to a cloudy and overcast Mother's Day. I've been a bit worried about this day for awhile. We were approved for adoption the day after Mother's Day last year. It made Mother's Day last year a happy holiday. For the last four years, Mother's Day is always a bitter-sweet day for me. Of course, I'm so grateful for my mother, grandmother and mother-in-law but it's also a hard holiday when you so desperately want to be a mother yourself. Last year I felt like I could cautiously celebrate this holiday. I also felt like I would certainly be celebrating with a child of my own this year.

I thought this day would be hard because it marks two milestones- Mother's Day and a year that we've been waiting, but, I'm not feeling particularly disappointed today which I'm very grateful about. I know my turn to celebrate this day will come. So, I'd like to wish everyone a happy Mother's Day - especially those who have had to go through so much to celebrate this day.

Number 12

We've moved up! I received our update yesterday from our caseworker and we're #12. We moved up one spot from last month. I wasn't expecting to move since I know it's been very slow, so, I was pleasantly surprised.

We're in the process of packing up and putting our place on the market so I'm pretty glad that things are slow. Joel and I keep joking that we're going to get "the call" when I'm sitting next to him in a moving van. I was anxious before for the call but now I wouldn't mind things to be stalled for a little bit.

Sisters

I was looking through some domestic adoption blogs and ran across an incredible posting on a new blog I found: http://mandmadopt.blogspot.com/. This is the first time I have read this blog and it happened to be the post in which "the call" happened and they brought their baby home yesterday. It was so refreshing and inspiring to read.

In the post about "the call" Mamma Melba writes that, "my older sister gave me a "mother rising ring" that she had clearly been keeping in her purse for a long time. The envelope is wrinkled and worn". Reading this line really resonated with me so I wanted to dedicate a post to my sister.

It really is the support of those around you that gets your through this whole process and my sister has truly been through the highs and lows of this journey with me. Only a sister would be carrying around a ring in her purse for months waiting for her sister to get "the call".

My sister has been this support for me. She has coached me through the ride back to work after repeated disappointing news every time we visited our fertility clinic, she was the first person I called when I found out I was "pregnant" and was approved for adoption and she's been there for the good news and the bad. Sisters always know exactly what you need. Following a fertility related surgery she sent me a cheese basket, sometimes it's a massage at A New Spirit (my favorite spa) or after our failed match it was a beautiful bouquet of tulips to cheer us up. Most of the time it's just being an understanding and supportive friend. I'm so grateful for the love and support of my phenomenal sister.

Moving On

I think our potential long shot was just that - a long shot. I wasn't feeling hopeful about it so it wasn't necessarily a let down. One blessing from our false alarm in January is that I'm not quite as easily excited and can try to approach things a bit more pragmatically (unless of course it is a call from our agency).

The prospect for baby is looking slow. I've talked to our caseworker and they are really slow right now with birthparents. I was feeling a little bit optimistic for this summer but I'm now not trying to predict anything. I think it's going to be awhile.

So, we've decided that there's no time like the present to move. We've been dragging our feet because we've been nervous about getting a call mid-move but I feel like we just need to do it. Interest rates are low, units are flying in our building and it's nice to be making some sort of decision, movement and change in our lives.

We're of course nervous that we're going to sell our place and not have found a house. I'm convinced I'm going to be homeless living in my old bedroom in my parents' house when we get "the call". (Not that there is anything wrong with my parents' house but that wasn't part of what I envision when I take baby 'home').

Luckily, this won't cause any issues with our adoption as our caseworker can quickly certify wherever we might be living. She told me that if it were not just a temporary situation that they'd have to reevaluate. I assured her that we'd certainly have to reevaluate as well.