The Waiting is the Hardest Part

Note: I just found this post that I wrote last summer and never published but it was interesting to read now that Zora has been home with us for almost 8 months so I thought I'd share it. As it turns out we were really only waiting for 3 months until we got matched and then about 5 or 6 more weeks until she was born. In retrospect, once we were matched that time did not feel long at all. But in the middle of that wait, when you have no idea if you will be matched next week, next month or next year, the wait feels impossibly long. So here is a glimpse of what was on my mind last summer.

That old Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Song suddenly has a whole new meaning for me. All of our paperwork is finally in. It has been a long process. First we went through all of the paper chasing for our dossier to adopt from Ethiopia. Then just as we were ready to send it in I decided that maybe international adoption was not right for us (I think Ken was ready to strangle me when I announced this to him). It wasn’t easy to turn our backs on all of that work we had done towards an adoption from Ethiopia and shift gears. But the more I read and researched adoption, the more I felt like I wanted our child to have the opportunity to have as much information about their first family as possible, and hopefully be able to meet and have a relationship with them in the future if that is what he or she wants. This was something of a 180 for me since when we initially started talking about adoption I was fearful of the idea of open adoption. So we started to look at domestic adoption. After researching many agencies, we finally sent our paperwork in to the Family Resource Center in Chicago, IL. In mid-June we submitted our profile, which is like a photo album and letter introducing our family to expectant moms and sometimes dads considering adoption. It seems a little like a sales pitch and I really struggled with it. But now we are on "the list." Which means that our profile can be presented in any situation that matches our criteria and where we match the potential birth parent(s)’ criteria. So now our part is done and we just wait. I think this is the first time I've started to feel a little bit antsy in this whole process. We have only been waiting a month, which intellectually I know is not very long. Some days I don't think about it at all and other days I feel like it is all I can think about and I start thinking we will never be matched. I remember being antsy towards the end of my pregnancy – I was ready to meet the new little person and be done with being pregnant. And although you never know the exact moment it will happen, you have a due date and you know it will only go so far beyond that so there is a definite end in site. This waiting has no definite end. No date on the calendar to circle or count down to. It could be next week, next month, or next year. But I think the most difficult part of this waiting is that it is completely out of our control. Before, the hold up was always us as we gathered documents, filled out paperwork, researched agencies, etc. We were basically in control of the process then. But now it is out of our hands and all we can do is wait. When I was pregnant, I felt like I at least had some control because everything was taking place in my body. But even towards the end when I was waiting for my water to break or the labor pains that would signal that the wait was over, and I realized I didn’t really have control, I didn’t feel like anyone else did either. And somehow that was easier to accept. But this time, our fate, as it were, is in someone else’s hands. Some expectant mom has to make the heartbreaking and difficult decision not to parent her baby and instead make an adoption plan. And she has to look through who knows how many profiles of loving potential families for her baby. And she has to pick us. So I wait and wait and wait for the phone to ring and right now the wait feels impossibly long.

Rock and Roll

Owen went to a birthday party on Saturday. It was a Wiggles themed birthday party so they had cut out guitars that the kids all decorated. Owen played with the guitar all weekend. Now he has a real kid-size guitar with strings and the whole nine-yards that actually makes sound that he likes to play, but this weekend he was quite happy with his "paper guitar". He did tell me that Ken and I could share the paper guitar since he had a real guitar (but if we started fighting over it, he is going to take it away). He took it with him when we went to the store yesterday and he sang his new song - "Rock and roll, rock and roll, rock and rock and rock and ROLL!!!" When we got home, we were playing his favorite album of late - Pop Fly by Justin Roberts (who happens to be a classmate of mine from Kenyon College)- and I looked up to see Owen rocking out with his paper guitar. I caught some of it on video.

Tastes of Summer

Every summer we say that we are going to have a garden, but most of the last 6 summers we have moved at some point in the summer and so it never really happened. Owen's first summer, when we lived in Missoula, we had a garden but between trying to figure out the whole parenting thing and taking 2 weeks off to go to Michigan, we grew more weeds than anything else. Well, this year, we got a plot in the community gardens near our apartment. We have had a good time getting things planted and Owen really loves working in the dirt. It has definitely been a learning process though and we don't always do things the right way, or even the way we would like. We have to keep reminding ourselves that it is as much for the experience and learning as it is for anything else, like when all 6 broccoli plants went to seed before we got any broccoli. Now we know broccoli is a cool weather crop and should be planted and harvested early.

We went to our garden plot this morning and much to Owen's delight (and my surpirse, I have to admit), there were vegetables to harvest. We picked 2 large bags of lettuce and many, many carrots. With each one Owen would declare that it was the "biggest carrot in the world." And one large head of cauliflower. We have lots and lots of green tomatoes. Our tomato plants are so big that I'm not sure the cages we bought at the garden store will contain them. Our beans our climbing and our cucumbers (planted a little late) are coming up. We even have some very small peppers. Ken was tying up the pepper plants when he knocked off a small green pepper. It wasn't ready to be picked yet, but there it was. He handed it to Owen to put in the bag with the carrots. When I turned around, I saw Owen happily munching away on the pepper. That was the biggest proof of our success in this gardening adventure. Watching Owen happily eat the pepper that he had helped plant and water.

And while I missed the picture of him eating vegetables straight from the garden, I did get a picture of him eating the popsicles we made this morning. They weren't ready yet after lunch so I promised him one after his nap. He woke up from his nap and as he was walking down the stairs, still half asleep and rubbing his eyes, he was saying "are they frozen yet?" Aren't those the taste of summer - veggies fresh from the garden and popsicles straight from the freezer.

Blueberries for Owen

Owen loves blueberries. He loves all berries, really, but blueberries might be his favorite. And who could blame him? He started young, picking wild blueberries at G.G.'s and Grampa's. Then there's Grammy's blueberry pies. And blueberry pancakes for breakfast almost every morning. No, I don't get up early to make pancakes every morning. We make one big batch on the weekend and then reheat the leftovers all week. He loves reading Blueberries For Sal and he has been telling me lately that he can't wait to go to G.G.'s and pick blueberries right off of the bush.

Earlier this week we went to the grocery store and they had blueberries on sale. Now in my opinion these blueberries pale in comparison to wild blueberries, but Owen had to have them. So I gave him the carton and he happily ate them as we wheeled our way around the store. I wasn't even to the checkout line when he had the whole carton gone. So I paid the clerk for the empty container. Part of me wanted to tell him not to eat them all - I mean blueberries aren't cheap. But how can you complain when your kid is filling up on fruit?

Then yesterday, we were back at the grocery store (a day would hardly be complete without at least one trip to the grocery store, right? When it comes to shopping and meal planning we are not very organized. Well I guess we are not all that organized when it comes to most things.) We walk into the produce section and right there, more blueberries. Of course Owen wants another box. We get a box but I tell him he will have to wait until we get home to eat some - we are going to make this box last at least a day. We continue through the store and over in the deli/bakery area they have samples of cookies. So Owen and I have one and they are quite tasty. As we head to the car, I ask Owen "If you had a choice between a box of cookies and a box of blueberries, which would you choose?" "A box of blueberries and a box of cookies" he says. "No," I explain, "you can only have one." "A box of blueberries today and a box of cookies tomorrow" he answers. "No, you can't have both. Only one." "A box of blueberries" he finally decides. I really wasn't sure which way he would decide, but I'm feeling pretty good about his answer. So I decide to give him the box of blueberries for the car ride home. It is literally 5 minutes or less to our house from the store. He can't possibly eat the whole box in less than 5 minutes. We get home and I open the back door to get him out of the car seat. I was right, there are 8 blueberries left in the box.