Seeking God Knows What

My least favorite thing- I have a sore throat
I hope it is not a sign of things to come because I also feel kind of icky in general.
Widget has a runny nose and the start of a cough. Crossing my fingers that she doesn’t get an ear infection.

On the subject of sickness, my older sister told me today that my sweet nephew CP (who is 4 in four weeks) has pneumonia after having been diagnosed with mono two weeks ago. I didn’t even know that little kids could get mono.

CP is my special buddy. He lived with us (along with my older sister and my neice Miss A) from the time he was 9 months until 13 months and then I saw him a lot while they still lived in MI as my sister’s husband was in Iraq with the army. It was also when I quit working due to depression and stress so I had lots of time to spend with CP. I would often get up with him in the night so my sister could have a break and we would cuddle and it was wonderful.

Poor kid. She said he was very good getting his finger poked for a white count and holding still for the chest x-ray. One thing I am glad about is that my sister got her kids a pediatrician outside of the military health system. She was never able to get them into the clinic, so they always ended up waiting in the ER which was not in the best of shape and took hours and hours. She said the pediatrician is very thorough and great with the kids. Very important to me considering my own health history of childhood cancer because unfortunately her kids are at a slight (but only slight) increased risk of developing the same cancer. I’m already cautious with Widget, even though there doesn’t seem to be any history of serious medical problems in her birthfamily. Then again, there is no explanation as to why I had Wilms’ Tumor over anyone else in my family considering the fact that there has hardly been any cancer diagnoses on either side, even as family members have aged.

Awhile back I posted on the panel questions I am being asked to think about for a childhood/young adult cancer survivors conference. I must admit I have kind of avoided the questions for a bit because I realize they make me think about stuff I haven’t wanted to really tackle. But I need to do this so I can feel somewhat prepared for the conference.

So here goes the rest of them…

I left off with the biggest challenge question, which has been definitely been emotional over physical. The next question is:

How have you coped with this challenge? What strengths do you find are helpful to have in order to cope? What supports, i.e. family or faith, etc. have also been helpful?

Coping… hmmm… well, I haven’t coped well with the depression and anxiety. I have spent so much time trying to tell myself I was fine that when the “world” collapsed around me last summer and fall, I think I was actually in a state of shock and did not even know where to start to climb out of it.

I have such an antipathy about therapy that I only went reluctantly for about 8 times and then, well, finances “helped” me to quit going (we couldn’t afford it).

My saving grace really was having a physician who cared enough to “listen” to me express what was going on in my mind through a volley of emails. He also latched on to something that I probably would not have- the lack of a true relationship with God. He recognized that I believed in God and had the “fundamentals” of Christianity but he challenged me to wonder if that was enough and if the things I was doing to my financial situation, my relationship with T and my life, in general, were an attempt to fill this emptiness and loneliness I had been dragging with me for years, aggrevated by depression and anxiety.

With his encouragement, I began to read the New Testament of the Bible and other books like Blue Like Jazz and Searching for God Knows What (yes, I played on his title for my blog title )by Don Miller and he answered my questions or made me answer them myself. He told me where he went to church and said I was welcome to check it out, which T and I did and we both really like it (it lacks a few things as I have said before but no church is perfect). I also attended Alpha, for the first time, in a womens’ only group on Tuesday mornings. And he came with me when I decided what I really needed was to talk to the pastor, and he was there when I did realize that I was missing that relationship with God and that I truly wanted it and accepted Christ into my life.

Without his faith, I’m not sure my faith would be what it is today…

Okay, that was a bit of a tangent but I can say the faith I have now is helping me cope with the emotions that arise related to my cancer history because they haven’t gone away. I am just learning to handle them in a new way.

T’s job involves programming and installing point of sales systems for restaurants and other hospitality type places. Lately he has been working on installing a rather large system in a local non-denominational church, what I would call a mega church. This has gotten me to thinking about mega churches…

Mega churches, to me, seem to be those that spend a lot on themselves. This particular church is building an auditorium for about 4500, capable of being expanded to double that. It has also built a complete cafe that seats about 150 people. Its youth rooms feature multiple flat panel tvs, a smoothie/light snack bar, video games. There is essentially a teen dance club as part of the youth area. It has a gift shop. A giant sound system, multiple screens, highly technological system in place for use in the auditorium. They have coffee kiosks like mini Starbucks’ outside the auditorium after services.

Is that what Christianity should be portrayed as? Seems rather the opposite of who Jesus was. I don’t mean that churches should be poor and scraping by but it seems extravagant to be spending so much money on that kind of thing- and not only that the cafe, the coffe, the teen snack bars all charge for the product (they would have to in order to keep going). What about the story of Jesus throwing the market stalls/sellers out of the temple and off the temple grounds and his anger about the idea of selling products on church ground?

The church I attend is large, yes, but they do not seem to be intent on becoming some sort of over-the-top mega church. They definitely want to increase the number of people attending and becoming interested in Christianity and turning their lives over to Christ but they don’t seem to be intent upon doing it through technological prowess or the “coolness” factor. To me, commercialism does not belong in a church and makes a church seem rather hypocritical.

Widget has become a pusher (and a puller). She particularly enjoys pushing Rosie or grabbing her by her shirt collar and pulling her to where she wants to go.

When I grab her hands and tell her, “No, we don’t push people”, she just grins, runs away and tries again later.

I do try to give her individual attention when Rosie is here because I’m sure that having Rosie here is partially what is behind her ‘naughty’ behaviors on those days.

But I don’t know what else to do and I have these visions of having a constantly misbehaving child…

I’m playing off N’s post about guilt in adoption.

As an adoptive parent, I think it is nearly impossible not to feel some sort of guilt about your happiness being brought about by a life-altering decision for the birthparents, their family, and in essence, the child you now have in common with them It has been said over and over again one of the best and worst days of your life as an adoptive parent is the day you take the child from the birthparents (for some literally, and others figuratively) and bring him/her home. You are all going home to a changed life, a presence added and a presence missing.

However, as an adoptive parent, I do feel that you cannot let the guilt over the placement take control. I think it makes the situation all that much harder to cope with. Whether the child is a newborn, toddler or older child, bonding needs to be done, new routines have to be developed and everything you were used to is thrown completely out of whack after the homecoming.

The other ongoing issue is guilt over whether the placement was done in as ethical a manner as possible.

There seems to be an overwhelming tendency for adoptive parents to say “What am I supposed to do? If I speak out about how things are handled, I’ll be ‘blackballed’ by the agency I’ve paid thousands to and our wait will be longer” I know that desparate feeling of wanting to parent a baby/child so badly, it controls everything you say or do.

But to me, the answer is obvious. Research, research, research and be very discriminating when making your choices about an agency or attorney or facilitator. Any agency that won’t give you a set amount in fees should be doubly researched. Any agency or attorney that promises you a “Fast-track” adoption or placement in X number of months I feel should be completely disregarded because no one knows how long the process will take. Same goes for an agency that seems to discount birthfathers’ role in the adoption. Don’t match with a birthmom that doesn’t want to name the birthfather for whatever reason (well, other than rape situations- to me, he already gave up his rights when he violated hers). Don’t match too early in the pregnancy. Be very careful in dealing with agencies that offer to birthparents “all expenses paid, etc.”- that seems like an awful lot of pressure to me on the expectant parents to place. There should be programs in place to help with rent, maternity clothing, food, etc., not coming from the adoptive parents’ pocket.

And to me, it goes without saying that you shouldn’t fight to keep the child from his/her birthfather. Once he says he wants to parent, it is custody issue between the two of them and as adoptive parents you don’t have a role in that. If a judge were to decide he was unfit to parent, then you could reenter the process if the mom still wants to place. I know that is hard to even think about having to return a child placed with you back to his/her birthfamily but I can’t imagine down the road telling your child your birthfather wanted to parent you but we fought to keep you. To me, that just doesn’t show your child you respect and love his/her biological roots.

So far today is turning into a no nap day for Widget. Well, she took a maybe 30 minute nap earlier but not the nice 2 1/2 hour nap she usually takes from around 11 to 1:30. We dropped down to this one long nap a day from two 1 1/2 hour naps about 6 weeks ago, a minor adjustment for me, but with the one long nap, I still have a nice amount of time to get things done around the house, shower, read, have some time to myself. I’m not quite sure what I will do if she decides to give up napping for good.

But without a decent nap today, she is easily tearful. At the moment, she is enthroned on the couch watching “Baby MacDonald”, her favorite Baby Einstein video. I keep hoping she will just close her eyes and fall asleep, but I highly doubt it since she never falls asleep for me unless she is in the car or in her crib.

This may be a long day!

If only the timing were right and money was not an issue…

Today in my e-mail inbox was an e-mail from the woman who was our adoption coordinator for Widget’s adoption. She has since left the agency we used and is working as a family law lawyer and for an agency that primarily does China adoptions but has had several calls lately from expectant moms considering adoption and she, along with a former pregnancy counselor from the agency we used, are helping these moms consider their options. They are developing a crisis pregnancy part of the agency that focuses on primarily helping moms-to-be get the resources they need to parent but if the moms want to consider adoption, they will help them with that aspect as well.

She was e-mailing us, along with other families, because she had a mom-to-be who wants to look at profiles this Wednesday and is due in April. Apparently, she felt we would be a good fit if we were interested. Since they do not have an infant adoption program in place, they have no waiting families and would like to gather some for her to look at. Fees really weren’t too bad, less than Widget’s adoption fees. But we aren’t in a place yet where we could even contemplate figuring out how to pay for it- we are still working on paying off Widget’s fees. Plus, we planned to wait a while before plunging into the adoption rollercoaster again.

And of course now I shall be thinking about that mom and wondering what she decided to do and praying for her that she is getting the support she needs while she makes this huge, life-altering decision (both ways- parenting or placing).

I have to admit that it makes me sad to have to say no, not right now. We waited so long to be parents and to have this come along so soon after….

I missed Ash Wednesday. Growing up in the Episcopal church, the one things I always liked was the celebration of the church year. Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost along with the various special days, All Saints Day, Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Ascension Sunday, Pentecost itself, the Transfiguration ( I do know my church calendar).

The church we have been attending, while I love a lot of things about it, seems to “skip” over the church year as if it is not as important. Sure, they celebrate Christmas and Easter but the rest seems to be left behind. I guess I don’t follow why those seasons are not important when it seems to me they should incredibly important, because they follow the life of Christ throughout the year.

Advent should be reflecting on Christ’s coming to this world, Lent should be reflecting on his coming death and resurrection. Being a “new” Christian (or a committed Christian now), I want to be celebrating and learning about those things in church, as well as at home. Instead, I’m hearing about being a good steward, which is all well and good but seems to be something we should be focusing on after Easter, after we remember His death on the cross for our sins and His resurrection. That should be inspiring us to want to be good stewards of our money, resources, stuff for Him.

2004 did not start well…

Shortly after our match failed, we found out a couple we are friends with (I’ve known her since preschool and then, we reconnected in college) had a miscarriage. Very sad since she was almost to the end of her first trimester.

T started a new job, so we had the “stress” of that to deal with.

The first week of January, we found out the couple we are closest to, she was pregnant (due September).
The third week of January, we found out T’s brother and his girlfriend, she was pregnant (due August).
The beginning of March, we found out my older sister was pregnant with her third (due November).
Mother’s day we found out my younger sister was pregnant with her first (due January).
End of May, early June we found out the couple who had the miscarriage, she was pregnant again (due in December).

All that time, nothing, no profile showings, no phone calls, not even that many expectant women interested in adoption were coming into our agency office.

I tried desparately to be happy for everyone and really, I was but it was so incredibly hard for me to hear over and over again pregnancy talk.

The depression I had been struggling with kept weighing me down and I was angry with God and I pushed myself further and further away from my church upbringing.

For the most part, I quit going to church, only going on when I felt guilty that I hadn’t been there in months.

We moved that summer about 30 minutes from my family and closer to our friends (not sure if that was the smartest idea but it was closer to T’s new job).

By August, underneath I had completely fallen apart. I kept up my “surface” self and smiled, bought baby presents, went to baby showers and wondered why no expectant mom/couple was choosing us- we were on the web, we were willing to match out of state, we were willing to be far more open than we had originally said, but still nothing.

When our friends’ baby was born in September (Rosie who I watch now), I remember getting off the phone with her dad, calling our CW and just bursting into tears. She did help but still said that there was not much happening in terms of placements. Not a bad thing, since women were finding themselves capable of parenting, but still hard for me (well, really us).

T and I started to talk. Did we want to switch agencies and try somewhere else? Would this be a good decision or should we just wait out where we were? Finally, we decided to at least research a couple of agencies we did not look at before because they were not where we had lived.

I opened the phone book to jot down the number of one agency we thought we would look at and the ad for another one jumped out at me. I thought, “Oh, it is another small agency. We won’t have much luck there.” I called the number of the first agency, and well, felt unimpressed and not interested in that one. I honestly felt something pulling me to call the other agency. Finally, after debating with myself for nearly an hour, I thought, “It can’t hurt.” So I called.

I got the adoption coordinator/CW, who said they were incredibly swamped with moms looking to place. They had three who wanted to pick adoptive parents and only had a couple profiles available to show them. I explained our situation, that we had had a failed match but had an active homestudy we could transfer. She then explained the basic circumstances surrounding the pregnancies of the three moms and wanted to know what we thought about open adoption because she was a big advocate for it- the more open, the better.
I said I would talk to my husband and call her back but we were interested in an open adoption if that was what the mom/couple wanted.

So T and I had a long talk…

It wouldn’t cost us much more to transfer than we already would have to pay the current agency if they matched us and we had a placement that finalized. Of the situations the new agency had, only one was what we considered the “ideal” situation, another was close and one was not an option for us. We hemmed and hawed, played phone tag with the adoption coordinator. Finally, we decided that even if we didn’t match with either of the two that we would be open to having our information shown to, we would only be making a lateral move and they had fewer families to “compete” with if other moms looking to place came in. We arranged a meeting for October 28, which also turned out to be the day my older sister had her third child.

The night before the meeting, I got a call from the adoption coordinator wanting to know if we would like to fill out their profile form prior to coming in and possibly bring some pictures so they could show our information as soon as we were ready. We said ok and hurriedly filled the forms out and threw some photos in a photo album. Our profile was still at our old agency but we did get a copy of our homestudy to take with us.

We get to the meeting and it goes really well. While we were there, the pregnancy counselor comes in to meet us and to talk to the adoption coordinator. Turns out one of the expectant moms was coming in that afternoon to look at the profiles they did have, the pregnancy counselor wanted to be able to show ours too. The problem was in order to be able to show us, the adoption coordinator had to physically come to our house. We set up for her to come at about 3:30 that afternoon, since I was off work that day anyway. She comes and walks through the house- we are good to go.

At 6:30, I got a phone call…

The expectant mom, L, (who was actually the “ideal” situation) chose us and wanted to meet us. I just about fell over in shock because I never considered that it might actually happen that way. We arranged to have dinner at her parents’ house the following week. We found out the mom was due on my Grandpa’s birthday, November 21 (and I’m born on my mother’s grandpa’s birthday) and the baby was a girl.

We met her and her stepsister for dinner, and we also met her dad and stepmom that following week. Then another week later, we had them to our house to see where we lived and what kind of environment she would be raised in. We talked about names and told them the first name we liked and asked if she would like to pick the middle name. She chose her own middle name, which I thought was sweet and wanted to use the first name we picked on the birth certificate, even though we told her she could name her whatever she wanted.

Then on Sunday morning, November 21 (right on time), at about 6 am we got a phone call that L was in labor and at the hospital. Once the baby was born, we would be called. We actually went to church that Sunday because it was a “special” service my dad and brother were a part of. T and I drove back home waiting for that phone call. Finally, about 3:30 pm, we got the call that Widget had been born an hour before and we could come to the hospital and see her.

We got there and saw L first. She was so sweet and looked pretty good for having just been through a long night and day of labor. I hugged her, we chattd for a few minutes and then her dad came in, so we let them talk (he had been on his way to Oklahoma and turned around when he heard she was in labor) and went to see Widget. She was an hour and a half old. We watched her first bath and another check over. Then we held her and sat in awe of this little baby we might be going to raise (well, since I’m calling her Widget we do get the thrill of raising her!).

And that is how she came to be in our family, along with her birthmom and her family.

Well, maybe I’m making some progress in coping with the underlying emotions surrounding being a cancer survivor.

One of the things I struggle with when it comes to health issues is worrying that things are “worse” than they really are. Example, starting around Christmas, Widget got sick with an ear infection that lasted and lasted. Even after the antibiotics were done, she was still lethargic, running a fever off and on, not eating, just not herself for almost a month. After making a doctor’s appointment (not with PH because he didn’t have any that day), I sat at work and my mind began thinking of what the appointment might involve. I went from mild worry to complete and near panic that she had something like leukemia all from wondering if they would run any bloodwork.

Last Friday, my younger sister calls me and tells me she found a lump in her breast. While I did mildly worry about it and hoped that her ultrasound would go fine (which it did, they think it is just an infection), I didn’t go straight to the panic of her having breast cancer.

And since my sister found the lump during her monthly self exam, it is a reminder to do my own monthly exams- which I never do, mostly because I forget.

Progress? Maybe…