Less please

This week has been insanely busy.  Monday there was something but I already can't remember.  Tuesday nights Apollo works so I fly solo that night with Moonbeam, trying to put in some work OT after she goes to bed.  Wednesday another flying solo night while Apollo fulfilled a friend obligation that night; meanwhile I watched Moonbeam and made/iced 3 dozen cupcakes for a friend's bday.  Thursday I had an adoption workshop that Aurora and I were attending together, so she came over at 5:30, we had dinner then spent a couple hours at the seminar followed by a debrief drink at my house with Apollo.  Tonight was dinner with friends.

In the midst of all this, two more adoption calls.  We said no to both - didn't require a ton of deliberation and neither of us got emotional at all.  We're getting so used to them.

But used to the calls does not mean this is a decent way to live.  The social workers don't like calling us with sad sad situations, I can tell.  They seem almost apologetic.  The thing is, there are more than 140 other families in the list...  Why us?  I saw a couple that have been waiting 2.5 years for a call...  They sounded like their parameters are similar to ours...  And they've only had three calls in all this time.  So why us?

We're trying to schedule a meeting with a social worker to sort this out in the next short while.  The sooner the better.  6 months and 6 calls... And it's all been dicey.  We need a little more stability, less up and down.

Feeling better

I'm feeling calmer this weekend than I have in a lot of weekends. 

Things have been crazy over the past couple weeks.  We got yet another call two Fridays ago from the agency (call #4...  we'd been through the same rigamarole only two weeks earlier) asking if they could show our profile to an expectant couple who were 37 weeks along in their pregnancy.  We got the details, said yes, then waited for a week and a half to hear if we were chosen.

That week and a half was awful.  It's been the longest wait we've had between first hearing of a situation then finding out the results.  We had limited details of the situation, so were having a hard time even grappling with whether it was one we would say yes to in the end once all information had been gathered.  I had a lot going on in other parts of my life - community stuff, home stuff, work stuff.  Even though I was so busy (distractions are usually good), I could barely focus let alone get anything done. 

In the end, the expectant couple chose another family.  We were one of four families being shown, so we knew all along that there was only a 25% chance (or less, if you consider they have the option to choose a private direct adoption with someone outside the agency, which has happened to us before, and that they can always choose to parent themselves, which happens too).  This is the first time that we weren't the family chosen (that we know about anyway) - I knew this would probably happen at some point and didn't know how I'd feel about it.

I touched base with the agency on Tuesday morning and got the news that we weren't the selected family.  Honestly, the only thing I felt was relief.  I'm pretty surprised that this is how I felt.  I didn't even feel a little bit sad, which I still find interesting.  I found out at 10:00 a.m. and met with a client at 10:10 a.m. without missing a beat.

So now we're back in waiting limbo again, but this time I feel different.  Any other time we've been called and rattled to the bone, it's taken me at least 2 weeks to recover.  This time I feel settled.  Like it's really going to be ok.  Like even if I have to wait for a long while before another baby comes, I can handle this.  I've got one hell of a great kid already who amazes me every day and keeps my life rich and full.  Yes, another baby would be awesome.  Really, really awesome.  Yes, having this waiting/expecting part of my life over with would be a huge relief.  But for the first time in months, I'm feeling settled.  Content, as my friend Lori would say.  And for this, I am so thankful.  I need this feeling.  I've needed it for awhile.  It's been a bumpy road for the past few months and I'm looking forward to a bit of calm ...  before the next baby storm.

#MicroblogMondays - Effects of 12 years

We've been trying to build our family for 12 years - a helluva long time if you ask me.  For all of these years I've been looking forward to the next step in a long sequence of unanticipated movements.  In all these years, I've never been entirely settled.  I feel it's only a matter of time before our family is complete...  And then what?  Have I trained my mind, my body, my whole existence to feel unsettled?  Will I be content with my two kids, my regular job, my normal family?  What have 12 years of waiting done to my psyche and my ability to be present?

Still we wait

I don't know if it's easier or more difficult to get adoption calls as compared to getting none until "the one".  It's been a week since hearing about the last baby and pretty much every minute of this past week I've had my cell phone glued to my body, waiting with anxious anticipation in the event that we get another call.  The chances of this happening are incredibly minute, but I can't seem to stop myself.  I pretend to myself that it's a form of "intuition", as though I can "feel it" that we're going to get a call any day now, but I know I'm just fooling myself...  It's obsession and anxiety that are driving this behaviour.

On the other hand, I think I would be depressed if I'd received zero calls.  I know lots of people in this situation and the wait is just as hard for them as it is for me.  Maybe harder?  As someone pointed out last week, we at least know that our profile hasn't been forgotten.  

And still we wait.  I've been concentrating on distracting myself with home projects and planning Moonbeam's birthday party.  But my mind is still somewhere else.