Saturday, April 30, 2011

Starting the paperwork.

So, our interview went really well! It was less like a job interview and more like a "getting to know us" interview. We were asked about our families, how we met, our lives in general. Turns out, being boring people (i.e. no arrests, no mental health issues, etc.) is a good thing for adoption. Who knew?! We went over some of the things in our application about what we are looking for in terms of our child. We're pretty open to anything, so I think that we'll be adopting fairly quickly. Apparently, they occasionally get children who are in the toddler range that are legally available for adoption, as well as sibling groups (like a 3 year old and a 1 year old), which we said we'd be happy with, too. I think that's pretty rare, but it's still an exciting prospect!

When adopting domestically, we are generally talking about adopting a newborn, and sometimes these babies come from less than ideal circumstances. In a perfect world, we'd get a perfect, healthy baby. But since this isn't a perfect world, we are willing to consider babies who may or may not be perfectly healthy and whole. As I've mentioned previously, you have to be brutally honest with yourself about your own limitations, and you absolutely cannot go into something like this looking for a charity case. But our social worker told us that they contact us and discuss the specific situation before they put us into the pile to be considered. It's win-win all around that way. We can opt out of any situation we're uncomfortable with, and they have the best chance of placing a child with a family that will love and support it no matter the bumps in the road.

All in all, we're super excited about the upcoming months. The woman we met with, (I've been calling her our social worker, but really she's the director of domestic adoptions at Barker), Cecilia, cautioned us that most families get a placement sometime in their second year. Could be month 13, could be month 20. You just never know. But given our lack of selection criteria for our potential baby, I'm pretty confident that we'll be parents in the next 12 months or less. I'm prepared to wait longer, but I think fortune will smile upon us here. And, at any rate, it's nice to have something tangible to do, even if it is just paperwork.

Last year was the hardest, saddest year of my life. This year is going to be one of the happiest.

Friday, April 29, 2011

Countdown.

Meeting at Barker in 3... 2... 1...

What am I doing telling you?! I have to finish getting ready! Wish us luck, we're makin' a baby today! (wink)

Thursday, April 28, 2011

#ohyeahonemorething

I purposely left out my twitter user name, thinking I'd keep it private. Then I realized that only friends and family read this blog. Plus, my twitter account is locked so I have to approve requests. It's dawning on me that trying to maintain an air of privacy while posting your bidness publicly on the web is maybe not realistic...

Again, long story short, if you'd like to follow my Twitter feed (and really, who wouldn't?!), I'm AutumnInDC. I'm not tech savvy enough to fancy link it. I assume anyone who cares knows how to look me up on Twitter.

I promise to try to be fascinating in 140 characters or less.

#Whatistheworldcomingto?

I joined Twitter. I kind of can't believe I did it. I tend to be a bit of a techno-phobe. I feel like all of this technology - the ability to have all information at your finger tips at all times and the ability to be connected to everyone actually hampers our ability to connect with each other.

Sure, I can get a cell phone call from anyone who has my number while waiting in line at a public bathroom in Disney World, but does that really help me connect to that person on any meaningful level? Or does it just make me feel like I am in touch with people without actually having to have a meaningful interaction with them?

I know - I'm not saying anything new. It's just something I struggle with. (Something with which I struggle?) I like the idea of walking to the neighbor's house, or having friends over for dinner regularly, or those kinds of social interactions, but I also relish alone time. Maybe I enjoy being alone more because it is so rare?

I'm not explaining myself well, so I'll make a long story short: I joined twitter.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Can I get a job where I travel?

Not a job where I have to travel for work, but a job where my job is to travel. I'll rate the hotels or whatever. I'm fine with that. I'll write up a blog post about the experience, or whatever. I'm not too picky about where I go either. Well, no third world countries, but other than that, I'm game. I also don't have much in the way of pay requirements. As long as you cover the trip - airfare, room, board - for me and a guest (can't go alone, now can I??), you don't have to pay me a dime. Just give me a credit card for travel related expenses and we'll call it even!

Consider this my letter of interest. Resume to follow.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Dreams.

Have you ever had a dream so real that when you woke up you weren't sure if it had actually happened or not? I had a dream like that last night. I was at a resort in Mexico, and I found a path down a river (literally - you had to travel by water) and through a fresh water spring that took me to a little hidden village. It seemed so real.

Except the part where Will Ferrell and I were driving along a coastal cliff in Oregon and looking at Canada as we drove by. Oh, and Canada looked like the desert cliffs in the Southwest.

So maybe it wasn't that realistic after all.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

It's happening!

I got a call from Barker this morning... We have an interview scheduled with the director of domestic adoptions next Friday! I didn't even have to call them and hound them or anything!

This is a big step forward and I'm so relieved to be finally, finally taking it. Look out, baby! Here we come!

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

In the meantime...

It's no big secret that I intend to quit my job and be a stay-at-home parent when the kid(s) arrive. Actually, I intend to quit my job before then and be a "homemaker" until then. I'm pretty excited about it. I'm also terrified about it. We certainly don't have a lavish lifestyle, and I'm a little terrified about going down to one salary. Since Allen and I have the same job, we will essentially be cutting our earnings in half. That's a big commitment. I feel guilty about leaving the income earning to Allen, partly because I came into the marriage with all the debt (student loans), and partly because I absolutely, positively cannot wait to quit my job. I am serious. I can't tell you how excited I am to have time to clean the house properly and keep it that way. How great it will be to scoop the litterbox daily instead of every few days, how much I'm going to enjoy baking bread and cooking meals for my family to enjoy. Cleaning and organizing the closets and the attic. I'm seriously stoked about these things.

My mother is horrified. For her generation, I think, the ability to get a high paying job and stand on equal footing was a hallmark of the women's lib movement. But my generation has that - well, more or less. (I guess I won't get into the socio-political ramifications of women in the workplace and how we're still paid, on the whole, less than men, and how stay-at-home moms are undervalued in society... I'll save that for another time.) My mom fought for those things and now I have them, and maybe she sees it as a kind of slap in the face to all the women who had to put up with so much crap to even get (and keep) decent jobs. But the hallmark of women's lib in my generation is choice. I am choosing to quit my job. I am choosing to make caretaking my job. I don't draw a salary for it, but I am lucky enough to have a husband who realizes the value of my work and who understands that my "job" at home makes it easier for him to focus on and achieve things in his job.

Quite a few women I have said this to are actually offended. "You aren't married to the house," one woman sniffed when I said I couldn't wait to be a housewife. I get why some women are uncomfortable with my decision, but to be actually offended is ridiculous. But I digress.

The actual point of this post is that I am slipping at work. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and it's all I can focus on right now. My intention was to preserve my good (dare I say excellent) standing at work, just in case. Maybe I'll find that housework and house-wife-ing are drudgery and I am miserable. Maybe I'll need something to do when the kids are in school. Maybe some big expense will crop up and we'll need a second (or god forbid, first) income. You never know. Plus, it's wise to not burn your bridges, in general. But I find my job odious. Completely and totally.

This is not to excuse my bad attitude. I fully own that I have a crap attitude right now and I need to get my shit together. I know exactly what I need to do to get my professional life back on track. My big problem is that we have so many other things going on right that work gets de-prioritized. Some of the things we have on our plate are fun, some are tedious, but all are things I would rather be doing instead of my job. I think that a big part of my problem is that I am already settling into my new job, at the expense of my old job. I need to realize that it isn't up to me to organize and plan everything. I need to spend these last 6 months to a year at my job focusing on maintaining a good standing. I need to prioritize my job a bit higher and let Allen help with the rest of the stuff going on. It will be my job soon enough, but right now, it's our job.

P.S. Still waiting to hear back about our application. I am trying my best not to bombard them with phone calls, but I may break down tomorrow...

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Pop music makes me happy.

I have a wide range of musical tastes. I love all kinds of music - from classics to classical and everything in between. My favorite band of all time is The Police. I lamented as a younger me that I'd never get to see them in concert since they broke up when I was a kid. But my childhood dreams were realized when I got to see them at a reunion tour concert in Boston in 2008. (P.S. Yikes! I can't believe it was so long ago!)

But the music I come back to most often, the kind that I listen to when cleaning or when I just need a pick-me-up is pop music. Like bubblegum, ridiculous pop music. Ke$ha? Yes please. La Roux? Definitely. J-pop from an anime? As long as it has a catchy beat that I can vacuum to, sign me up! I mean, part of me is vaguely embarrassed to be listening to club pop dance hits; it feels a little age-inappropriate. But this music is called pop(ular) for a reason! And it's just so damn catchy!

So while slogging through yet another workday, my iPod is blasting Lady Gaga, Ke$ha, Lily Allen, Timbaland and Black Eyed Peas (as a small sample). I am not as entrenched in music as some people seem to be - it's not the core of my existence the way it is for other people, but I do appreciate it, and I'm hoping to provide a decent musical education for my kids. But I reject the idea of needing to play only those cheesy Raffi songs or whoever is the top kids musician these days. (No offense intended to anyone who loves that kind of thing. It's just not me.) I plan on playing the music I enjoy, minus anything that has graphic lyrics, obviously. That's what I grew up with - no "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" remakes or anything like that in my childhood. I grew up listening to Jackson Browne, The Police, The Beatles, James Taylor, Carly Simon, and so on and so on. I plan to do the same for my kids. I mean, why not? It's fun, it's energetic, and most importantly, I enjoy listening to it too. I refuse to become one of those moms who look like they might get stabby if they have to listen to "Monkeys on the Bed" one. More. Time.

So, go ahead - you know you like it, too!

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Relieving the pressure.

It feels like our lives have been on fast forward lately. I mean, it always feels like we are relatively busy, but this past month has been serious overdrive. We've had so many things on our plates that it has felt like I can't even catch my breath.

When I get super stressed out, I go in to lockdown mode. It's kind of like sensory overload. Too many things attacking at once, and so I retreat. When I was younger, retreat meant dropping the ball. But now that I'm older (and hopefully wiser), retreat means prioritizing and letting Allen take over some tasks. I have a tendency to be a bit of a control freak and I have to remind myself that not only is Allen capable of helping, he also wants to help. I'm incredibly lucky that way - I know not all husbands are like that.

So that's what I've been doing - asking Allen to take over some things, reminding myself to take a moment each day to just breathe, and finishing up tasks along the way. On that note, I'm happy to report that my friend's baby shower went off without a hitch - though I was not the main driving force in planning that one - and my Chinese class is over. I rocked the final, if I do say so myself.

I really enjoyed taking Chinese, but I'll be happy to have the free time back. I'm not enrolling in the second semester right now, but I do anticipate finding classes I can take with the future kids. Even (and especially) the ones not from China. Over one billion people speak (or understand) Mandarin, so in terms of increased globalization, it's an important language skill to learn. Now that I know the bare basics, I'm really looking forward to expanding that foundation with the kids some day. That day is not today, however. I'm late for the next thing as it is, so I'm off!

Monday, April 11, 2011

What happens next.

Now that our application is at Barker, we wait. Get used to posts about waiting. There's going to be a lot of it from here on out. Barker has a committee that reviews applications - they meet on Tuesday. If we pass muster there - and there's no reason we shouldn't - they call/mail all of our references. I'm not sure what kind of things they ask our references, and I just realized there is only one couple on there who actually have a child. Hmm.

So, paperwork goes out to our references. Then Allen and I get called in to Barker for an in-person interview. Presumably that will happen in the next week or two, but I'm not sure the exact timeline. Once we have completed our in-person interview and all of our references have returned their paperwork, then we begin the homestudy.

I expect the homestudy to take a month or two, though since we are doing a domestic adoption, the process is less complicated and I think the homestudy will take less time. I'm telling myself two months so I don't get frustrated when it takes longer than four weeks, but I'm hoping for four to six weeks. Again, I'm not sure the exact requirements for the homestudy, but I know we need fingerprints and certifications from the state that we don't have any kind of criminal or abuse record, birth and marriage certificates, three visits from the social worker to our home, financial documents, things like that.

So far, adoption has been long periods of waiting in between short bursts of frenetic activity. I think that's the typical experience at least, so welcome to our new normal.

Friday, April 8, 2011

Blogging makes for strange bedfellows.

I have met so many interesting people through blogging. Not my blog, mind you. I'm not that popular. ;-)

It's just amazing that you can connect with strangers on such a personal level. I don't know any of these women personally, but I feel a connection with them through shared experience. I've even exchanged emails with a few and felt like I would be real-life friends with them if we lived in the same area.

I guess as I've gotten older I've gotten a little bit cynical about humanity in general. But through the magic of the interwebs, I've discovered that there are, in fact, many, many great people out there. Hello, world. I feel like I'm discovering you anew.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Well, that's kind of weird.

I went from being childless and having childless friends to helping plan two baby showers this month. How did that happen?! Good thing I love parties so much.

It still feels a little weird to be stuck out here in limbo, but the application went in the mail to Barker this morning - complete with photos - so I know I'm not too far behind. I know once we get into the process, things will start to fall into place. It's just a matter of getting there. But I am already setting aside photos and quilt squares and knit swatches for our scrapbook. The trend seems to be to do a Snapfish photo album. Pff. Not us. We're going old school. I'm breaking out the scrapbooking supplies and glue sticks and we are going to rock that scrapbook. No one else will stand a chance against our crafting skillz. (That's right. With a 'z'.)

Monday, April 4, 2011

In the mail.

We finished our adoption application over the weekend and are now sifting through photos. We have to include two recent photos of each of us in the application. Allen favored mug shots, I... Did not. So he is now diligently sifting through all our photos from the last six months or so to find suitable photos. Once those are chosen, we'll head out to the post office and send it off to Barker on a wing and a prayer.

This is it! It's finally happening!

::huge sigh of relief::