Labels

When I die, am I going to be labeled H's adoptive mother and CC his mother? I don't begrudge her that title. She is truly his mother and gave him life. I would never recognize her as anything else.

But I'm his mother too.

(It was this article that made me write this.)

Paperwork

H slept over my parents' house so I could try to get some paperwork done for baby #2. This paperwork is so awful. It makes me want to cry. I hate doing it SO MUCH. I'd rather go to the dentist, and if you knew me, you'd know that means something. I cannot stand the dentist.

I'm sitting here trying to complete this crap and not cry. I just cannot stand all this intrusiveness. We are not that organized and getting all this information is really difficult. I just hate it. I HATE IT. I hate doing this. I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it.

But every night I feel guilty that it's not complete. I need to complete it. I will feel so good when it's done.

It's just so very difficult. So difficult. I hate it.

Most days

Most days I love being a stay at home mom. Most days I feel remiss for not having completed the paperwork for another adoption. Most days I feel tired, but know what I don't do today will not hurt anyone and can be done tomorrow. Most days I can find a little patience. Most days I feel okay.

Today is not one of those days.

I must be nuts to think I can take care of another baby too. I feel like I'm going to explode.

Also, I want to kill my cat. Seriously. I think I'm capable of breaking his neck. He howls like a banshee CONSTANTLY. I cannot get a moment of quiet. Henry has a cold and has already woken up from his nap once. I got him to go back to sleep, but the f*c&ing cat keeps howling and won't shut up. I need to do some cleaning but all I can do is try to get the animals to leave me alone. They both whine and make noise and follow me around. I want them to LEAVE ME ALONE. Let me do something while Henry is asleep.

Also, I cannot believe that 3 might be more of a challenge than 2. I am losing patience.

This has not been a good week. I hope next week is better.

Not much to say

Still haven't done the paperwork and I'm feeling guilty about it every day. We really, really need to do it. I feel I am doing a disservice to myself by not completing it. I need to light a fire under my a$$ really, really quickly. Sigh.

On the evil FB, I'm part of an Adoptive Families (a great magazine) group, and the people on that group talk about God so very much.

I just want to announce that personally, I feel that God had absolutely nothing to do with my son's adoption. When you talk about adoption and God together, I no longer want to talk with you about adoption.

You may have whatever your beliefs happen to be, but leave me and my family out of it.

Thanks.

Heard from them

I heard from CC and O. I don't feel like I can go into details here, but they are still interested in the sibling thing, they just can't do it right now. They will probably approach the idea again in November or so, though possibly before. But it's not 100% out the window. Not sure where that leaves our paperwork. I still should just get it done.

Feeling a little weird about other parent friends recently. I'm finding it semi-easy to get along with people and have our kids play, but pretty difficult to be really close with anybody and to be on the same page about most things with other people. It's difficult to explain without going into specifics, but I'm not good at being lonely. Today I'm feeling a bit lonely. Today it's mostly because I'm a planner and I'm finding that people, or at least parents with young children, are often not very good at planning. I find this frustrating.

Anyway, things in general are pretty good. It's hot and that wipes me out. I'm not good at keeping up with my chores when it's this hot out.

Here's Henry and his grandad on a recent sleepover there. He really, really loves my dad. It's so cute.

I feel like I should post

I've been thinking about my abandoned blog lately. I don't feel like blogging anymore, obviously. I am busy parenting and I'm not sure I have any useful insights about adoptive parenting or parenting in general or whatever.

We never heard from CC and O. about the potential next baby. I will call them within the next month or two, but I no longer think this will happen. It bums me out a little, but it's fine. Regardless, we need to complete our paperwork for kid #2. Doing so while parenting is proving more challenging than anticipated. It's also bringing back some emotions I thought I was rid of. I'm angry that I have to do all this paperwork. I'm annoyed that I need to have a notary to have a kid. I'm frustrated by the financial aspect of this all.

I need to put aside some time to fill out the paperwork, but I'm just having a difficult time. I need a kickstart.

On the positive side, I have the absolutely best almost 2 year old ever in the whole wide world. Really, that's objectively true. His grandmothers agree with me, so it must be.

Five years

Lavender Luz reminded me that it is my blogoversary. It's been 5 years since T was diagnosed with a balanced translocation and since my first miscarriage. I cannot believe that much time has passed. It truly boggles my mind.

My family did not end up where I expected it to at the beginning of this journey. These days I sometimes wonder if I could go back and not endure infertility and wonder if I would. I have always said that I wish I didn't go through all of our trials and tribulations, but I honestly believe all of our trouble has made me a different kind of parent than I would have been had my family come easily to me. I wouldn't be completely different, but I don't think I would be able to as easily take a step back during the tedium, minutia and frustrating moments of parenting and realize how lucky I am.

So, here's to appreciating the wonder of children. They're exhausting but so very worth it.

Lucky

A woman who is 7 months pregnant told me today that I was "lucky" to not be able to be pregnant and give birth. Happily, at this point I mostly just get annoyed at comments like that. I simply told her that being an adoptive parent has its own distinct difficulties.

But I'm still thinking about it and am still annoyed. People have no idea.

That being said, I am lucky. But not for the reasons she thinks I am.

Not a blogger anymore

I'm not sure why I'm not into blogging anymore. I just rarely feel like blogging my emotions and happenings. Occasionally I need to get something out I suppose, but in general it's been feeling like a nuisance lately.

We went to FL to visit my parents. Henry had a lovely time and it was nice and relaxing. We did go to see CC and O. We had agreed (I thought) to meet at around 1pm. I called at 2 an they said they were an hour (!) away, so we had to entertain a busy toddler in the middle of nowhere for 2 hours while we waited for them. We were quite annoyed at how long we had to wait for them, but once they arrived, it all went well. They were happy to see Henry. Henry and O. got along quite well. CC was a little more distant. We got some pictures and they each held him. I was glad that we were able to get together and see each other.

We did discuss the possibility of a sibling while we were with them. They are still interested in doing it, but they want to do it sooner rather than later. Our agency found a social worker and I have spoken to her twice and sent her phone number for CC and O. to contact her and set up a time to talk. I don't know if the talk will really happen, but I will call CC and O. next week to follow up about it. I have a feeling that this might actually happen. I still feel a little tentative about it sometimes, but I still can't think of a reason to not do it. It's still really freaky, though.

Would this child's birth story be too weird?

Me and my H man.

Now that the weather has changed, things with Bdog are much better. The rescue did eventually call, but I told them we decided to keep him. She pushed a little for me to return him, but in the end he's still here. He seems to be doing well.

Bdog

So the rescue totally hasn't gotten back to me and Bdog has been being really good. Even though he drives me crazy sometimes, at this point I am preparing to keep him here.

Today Henry was right next to Bdog as Bdog was eating (H finds the fact that Bdog eats VERY interesting) and Bdog didn't care or even bat an eye.

I had a playgroup this morning with H, an 18 month old, a 3.5 year old and a 4.5 year old. Bdog was excellent.

I think for now I'm going to bring in a trainer to see if we can get a way to teach Bdog to be able to be in a room by himself when there are people home. If I can remove him when he bugs me too much and he'll behave, then I think I can cope.

And I think he can cope, too.

I hope keeping Bdog around isn't a mistake, but I feel like the lack of response from the rescue is a sign that I was having a bad week and most of this was insane cabin fever.

------------------------------

Nothing is happening on the CC and O. front. I haven't heard from the adoption agency yet for info about counseling. I guess I'm going to have to call again soon.

-------------------------------

Today Henry is 18 months old. Happy half birthday, beautiful boy!

My brain won't stop

So I've spoken with a few people about my ethical dilemma and I think I'm comfortable enough with it to talk about it here. I've done a small amount of footwork and we're exploring the idea to see whether it can be done in an ethical and healthy way. I don't know if it will happen or not, but we're thinking about whether we might be able to make it work.

I emailed CC and O. as I usually do, quarterly. I like to keep them up to date about what happen's in Henry's life. I sent pictures and I mentioned that we were starting the paperwork to get Henry a sibling. I did this because when we adopted Henry, both CC and O. wanted to make sure that Henry would NOT be an only child. This was very important to both of them.

You're probably suspecting where this is going, but just hold on.

O. called us with some excitement in his voice. He asked if we had a match with any expectant parents or something like that. I said no, we're just doing the preliminary paperwork like the fingerprints and CORI checks and stuff like that. (His response was, "You have to do that AGAIN?!?" Glad it's not just me. Anyway.)

I know what you're thinking. Wait for it.

So then he said something like, "We think it would be great if Henry could grow up with a full, biological sibling. We really love you guys and were thinking, what if CC and I have a baby for you?"

I was stunned. (To say the least.)

I didn't know what to say. I must have been muttering because then he said, "Did I just blow your mind?" Yes. Yes he did.

I did muster up enough cognition to say something like, "I have to talk to the adoption agency to see if something like that is even possible," because the ethics of it was already springing to mind. I wanted an 'out' that wasn't me saying that I didn't think it was ethical. I also told him on some level that's every adoptive parents' dream.

So, I've been thinking about it. I spoke to the adoption agency and my therapist. Nobody has ever heard of birth parents TRYING to get pregnant in order to place with their bio sibling. Yes, birth parents have found themselves expecting again and wanting to place with the same family, but CC is not yet pregnant.

The more I think about it, the more I think it might be okay. I mean, it's sort of a type of surrogacy. CC and O. could still choose to parent after giving birth, if that's what they decide to do. I truly believe they are not wanting to do this for the money and authentically and genuinely want Henry to grow up with a fully biological sibling.

Now, I haven't spoken to CC about this. I'm not sure how she's feeling. I know that they have discussed it, but I don't know her thoughts without O. around. O. doesn't get pregnant so it's 'easier' for him to say he wants to do this.

So, both the adoption agency and my therapist recommended counseling for them before we discuss this further. I called CC and O. and O. thought it was a really good idea. We have CC's health to think about, plus all the other issues. I reassured him that we would never ASK them to do this, and if they really think about it and decide it is a bad idea for whatever reason that is OK and they will always be Henry's first parents and we love them no matter what. He seemed to appreciate that.

So we're figuring out how to find someone for them to talk to about his, hopefully both together and separately.

So, yeah. Along with my Bdog issues, this is going on.

I am so very tired and looking forward to my vacation in FL. Needless to say I haven't told my parents about this. I just need to know if Bdog will be here while we're gone and I need to hire a dog sitter or not. I really wish the rescue would just tell me. I'm fine with him staying with us for another month or two. I just need to know.

*sigh*

(Did I just blow your mind or what?)

I want somebody to tell me what to do

I keep feeling like I'm making a terrible mistake. I feel like B is getting better with time, and aside from the back stairs issue (which will never be resolved unless we redo the back stairs) that I could be making a bigger deal of this than it really is.

B is getting used to not having two walks every day. And when all this snow melts, I'll be able to take him out in the afternoon more often. And the back yard will have more room for him to run around.

He's still not used to having other people in the house, and he doesn't know how to remove himself from the chaos. I am still not sure how I will manage keeping H away from him when there's a newborn that needs attention. I do fear disaster and that is the main reason I'm planning on him living elsewhere. I think Bdog would do better in a house without small children.

But maybe I should make this work.

My fear is that I will try and fail and we'll have to rehome him later, which will be much, much worse for Bdog.

I'm trying to convince myself that what I'm doing is in Bdog's best interest, but all I feel is selfish.

I want somebody else to tell me what I should do.

Sad

I feel like Bdog is an innocent victim of my poor decision making.

I talked to the rescue. They're making inquiries about what we can do with him.

I feel both lost and a sense of relief. But mostly, I'm sad.

Dog decisions

The rescue hasn't called me back as of yet.

Bdog just made it up the back stairs.

I feel stuck. On one hand I want to send Bdog back to the rescue to find another home while he's still young and pretty rescue-able. I love him and I want the best for him. I fear that once we have a second child I will absolutely not be able to handle him and that if I wait another year or two before sending him back, things will be worse for him. I fear that as H gets more and more active, the dog will have less and less tolerance for him. Bdog has growled at both H and a 3-year-old visitor at our home.

On the other hand, I want to push through this. When the snow melts, things won't be as bad. I'll be able to walk with a stroller again and being outside with Bdog and H will be much more pleasant.

I don't want to be one of those people who takes a dog into her home and then gives it back. I've always felt those people are irresponsible and I consider myself very responsible. I made a commitment and I need to see it through. I should enlist a behaviorist and possibly put Bdog on some medication to make him less anxious.

But honestly, I don't want to put that much work into a dog. It's difficult enough for us to have a child. Why should having a dog be this difficult? I just feel like I want to be free.

I still don't know what I'm going to do.

Dog

The dog now outright refuses to come up the back stairs. I just left a message at the rescue to see what bringing him back would entail. I can't handle having a dog anymore.

Ethics

I have an ethical question that I'm even too afraid to ask here. I scheduled an appointment with my therapist next week to discuss it. I'm feeling confused. I feel like I can't talk about it with anyone but T and my therapist. I don't even want to talk to my mom about it.

What do you do when you're in a situation like that? Is there anything that feels so secret to you that you're afraid to even talk about it anywhere?

How can that not eat you up? I'm a talker by nature.

In other news, we're going to FL the first week in March. We're going to be able to visit with CC and O., most likely. I'm a little nervous but mostly excited about that.

Also, we've had enough snow here, thanks. I'm ready for spring.