Learning to Let Go

One of the hardest aspects of this whole process has been learning to let go of the need to be in absolute control at all times. Anyone who knows me really well knows that I’m a planner. I like to have everything neatly organized well enough ahead of time that I can have back up plans for my back up plans… just in case something goes wrong. Even in preparing for the unexpected, I keep a tight grip on my illusion of reality so that nothing is ever really out of my control. As soon as something unplanned comes up, I can very quickly reach over and right it before anyone has a chance to notice.

I think it stems from my feelings of total helplessness during James’ first deployment and especially during his most recent… when life just seemed to be spinning out of control faster than I could keep up. Simply letting go was never an option because I was too afraid of how hard I would hit the ground when I fell. I profess that I trust in God enough to know that he’ll catch me when I start to fall… but I set up a safety net at the bottom anyway.

Learning to trust the path He’s laid out for me has not been easy, but it’s something I’m working on very hard. No amount of worrying and fussing is going to make the hard times any easier. In fact, it’ll only make them worse. And it makes me FEEL so much worse. The only thing I can do is to quiet my fears and anxieties, close my eyes, and leap. Leap, knowing that His hands are there to catch me. And while I may not land where I expected to, He will always set me right where I am supposed to be. In that, I can take comfort.

Stresses, Anxieties, and Worries

Just a note before I begin: I already wrote this blog once, but I’m a complete idiot and clicked off this page before I could save it. Just perfect. I’ll make this second attempt at writing my blog much shorter.

Home Study Update
We’re finished with the home visits by the social worker. Since then I’ve been busily trying to compile the following items:
-Copy of our marriage license
-Copy of our 2008 tax return
-Copy of James’ pay stub
-Three notarized letters of reference
-Medical clearances
-Detailed worksheet on our finances
-Fingerprints
-FBI fingerprint clearances
-Child abuse clearances from THREE states
The fingerprint clearances and child abuse clearances still aren’t back yet. Our home study agency was given the wrong instructions for how to process the fingerprint clearance requests, so we had to start completely over. Since the child abuse clearances are coming from three different states, Lord only knows how long all that will take.

Finances Update
We’re running out of money. Not literally, as in we can’t pay our bills. But we’ve spent a lot more on this process than we’d anticipated. Costs are piling up and we’re having a hard time keeping up with some of them. James is supposed to talk to someone from the a group on base to help offset some of the attorney’s fees or maybe the travel/lodging expenses associated with traveling out-of-state to pick up Lauren. I don’t know. I’m not holding my breath. In addition to the upfront cost to the agency for helping us find a birthmother, we’ve also had to fork out our hard-earned money for:
-Home Study
-Fingerprinting
-FBI fingerprint requests
-Overnight shipping (required) FBI fingerprint requests to the FBI and then back to us
-Child abuse clearance requests
-Attorney for birthmother
-Attorney for us
-Birthmother’s monthly living expenses including 5-7 therapy sessions (which I'm very glad she'll be getting, but I just wish they weren't so expensive)

Baby Gear Update
We still have next to nothing that we need, not even the barest essentials. We have a place for Lauren to sleep (pack-n-play for while we're out-of-state, bassinet for home) and a place for her to sit (car seat, baby sling, and the glider that my parents bought). I ordered the diaper bag and thank God I found it on eBay for $30 cheaper than the retail price. I’ve also ordered two cloth diapers. But that’s all we’ve got. No bottles, no formula, no blankets, no clothes, no pacifiers, no bibs, no wipes, and not enough diapers (we still need newborn disposables for while we're out-of-state). A friend from church gave us some adorable hand-me-down baby clothes from the university we both attended. But Lauren will look a little silly if she wears a too-big cheerleader outfit every single day of the week. My plan WAS to buy a little bit at a time over the course of several months to spread out the cost. But SOMEONE who shall remain nameless (JAMES!!) insisted that we wait until the home study was 100% complete. Good thing I didn’t listen to him. It looks now like the home study won’t be finished until mid-September and our birthmother will be at nearly 35 weeks by then!

I don’t mean to complain or to endlessly rant like this but I am so completely overwhelmed right now and I really need to vent. I don’t know how I am going to do this. I’m freaking out, I really am. And there’s nothing I can do to fix it. I’m a planner, it’s just what I do. Having a newborn is going to be stressful enough and there isn’t a lot I can control about that. What I can control is how well prepared I am to deal with whatever comes up in those first few weeks. Diaper changes and feedings at 2 AM won’t be nearly so bad if I have a well-stocked changing table set up and several bottles in the fridge waiting to be warmed. But I don’t and I’m afraid that I won’t have it when I need it.

I’m getting a headache. I think I need to lie down.

The Birthmother Match

So our adoptive parent profile has only been online since July 8th. About a week after that (last week), we were contacted by Mary, an Adoption Advisor from our agency, that she was going to present our profile packet to a birthmother for review. This birthmother had been working with them since June and was very picky, having already been matched twice only to have the couples back out after matching (which really makes me sad). So our profile was being presented with the profiles of 10-12 other couples. We were given a brief overview of her file to make sure we wanted to have our information presented since she didn’t exactly match what we were looking for. We agreed and Mary put our profile in the stack with the others.

Two days later, Mary called me again to say that the birthmother really really loved our profile. She had narrowed it down to us and one other couple (no pressure there, right?) but had a few questions for us (REALLY no pressure now). She wanted to know about James’ deployment schedule, whether he would be going overseas again anytime soon, how long I would be at home with the baby before starting school again, how we feel about private schooling, and a couple other questions. I gave Mary my answers and told her to let me know how things went.

No call Thursday. No call Friday. Then we had to wait all weekend. No call Monday. Finally I emailed Mary back to ask her if she’d heard anything because I was about four seconds away from a full anxiety melt-down. I didn’t care if the birthmother had picked the other couple instead of us. I just needed to KNOW! Mary said the birthmother still hadn’t decided yet, and that she’d let me know.

Tuesday afternoon Mary called me and said that the birthmother had decided on us and was ready to present us with the birthmother’s profile. So she told us about the birthmother’s history and how she got to where she is now. She told us about her family and a little about her health history, her lineage, her due date, the gender of the baby, and lots of other stuff. We discussed the financial commitment we’d have to make, including the match fee to our agency, supporting the birthmother until six weeks after delivery, and the attorney’s fees for finalizing the adoption. It was more than we’d anticipated, but not more than we could handle. So after James and I discussed it (off the phone), we called Mary back and told her that we’d agreed on the match.

So today we had our match meeting, which was a long conference call with Mary, the birthmother, and both of us. The birthfather was originally supposed to be on the conference call too, but we’ll get to him later (and oh boy is HE an interesting story). We were on the phone for a little over an hour and at the end we all agreed to the match.

So it’s official. We are expecting a healthy little girl on October 17th. We’ll have to stay in the birthmother's state for the first 10 business days after she’s born. So we’ll be bringing her home on or around Halloween (if she’s born exactly on time).

I hope everyone knows how grateful I am for all your love, prayers, and support since we announced we’re adopting. We truly have the best friends and family in the world and I hope you know how much we appreciate everything you do for us.

Webpages are Live!

We just got emailed that our adoptive parent profile webpages are up and running! I’m so excited. Our profiles are listed on three different websites. The agency's website allows us to track how many times our page is viewed. It’s already been viewed 5 times since this afternoon, but I think 2 or 3 of those might have been us. Oops. We’re still working on our home study, but we should be finished with it by the end of the month. We meet with the social worker again on Friday.

First Home Study Visit

So we met with our social worker, Amy, for the first time today. And, of course, Piper jumped all over her as soon as she walked in the door. Perfect. Juuuust fabulous. I was a little freaked out that our first meeting would be here at the house because I only had a day and a half to panic-clean the whole house from top to bottom. But she didn’t come to check out the house. The first visit (of three) was just about getting to know James and I. She asked us questions about our parents, what they were like, our childhoods, our siblings, high school, college, what we do for a living, what our personalities are like, etc. It took about an hour and a half, but it was ok. Our second meeting is next week.