I had this idea in my head that reaching the one year anniversary of updating our homestudy would not be as significant with the second adoption as it was with the first.  Yeah, I was wrong about that.  I feel like I have been thinking about adoption, the wait, how infertility sucks, and so on a lot more lately than I had over the last few months.  Granted the fact that my cousin had a baby in May, a couple from our small group had a baby in June, a former co-worker of mine just had a baby last Monday and we found out T’s co-worker is pregnant at 38 after 9 years of marriage with no plans to have children, may have something to do with it as well.  It feels like babies, babies everywhere but not for us.

Widget feels it too.  She has commented with greater frequency that it takes a long time to adopt a baby and she will ask regularly “when is a baby coming to our house?”  It is hard to hear her ask and not be able to give any better answer than “I don’t know but you will be a big sister someday.”

Plus we haven’t really had any news or updates from our agency director since the end of April/early May when I found out A and Z had their son and did decide to place him with the other family.

I know it will happen when it is supposed to happen and it will all make sense why we had to go through the things we have been through on this journey to a new family member but right now, it is hard and I’m feeling sad.

We are heading north for our annual 4th of July vacation. This year T managed to get Monday and Tuesday off plus they were closed today, so I am looking forward to having 5 whole days with him!

Maybe after this, the summer will slow down and I will actually get a chance to post more often. I still have a post brewing about being at the year mark waiting for baby#2.

See you all next week and have a great 4th of July!

As I said previously, Heather at Production, Not Reproduction has created a listing of open adoption related blogs and started a roundtable discussion on open adoption.  The first topic is what one thing I would tell my past self about open adoption if I could. 

I think probably the most important thing I would share is to realize that open adoption contact fluctuates and, while having an idea in my head of what our open adoption would look like was good, expecting it to be JUST LIKE that is not really going to happen.  When we moved towards having an open adoption with visits, I expected our relationship with the mom/her family to turn into this close-knit relationship, such as what I have with most of my family.  When Widget was placed with us, and we had lots and lots of contact from L in the beginning, I really thought this was the direction we were headed.

Then contact completely dried up.  We went from hearing from L just about every week or two, to not hearing back from her for nearly 6 months, even when I would call, e-mail or send a note to her.  I couldn’t figure out what happened.  I stressed out about it every time I called or e-mailed and got no response.  I went to all my adoption forums and asked “What should I do?  Am I doing something wrong?”  In fact, I was getting so worked up about it, that it was distracting me from focusing on Widget and being her momma.

Then one day, I realized that we don’t have to have what I thought was the perfect open adoption, as long as what we have seems to work for all of us.   L is the only person that can know when she is ready for a visit.  I always include a “hope to see you soon”  or “any time you want to visit, let me know and we will set something up” whenever I send a note or pictures.  If she calls, I also make sure I bring up visiting.  And I make sure she has our up-to-date contact information, especially since we have been moving so much these last few years   This way of thinking is a lot less stress for me and that makes me a better momma!

I had a forced hiatus from the internet these last ten days or so, while we moved and then waited (and waited) for our internet/television to be installed. Good in the sense that most of the house is unpacked and I really just have pictures and whatnot to put up/away. This excludes the basement (and the garage- but that is really T’s domain). Hard because I felt very disconnected from everyone despite having a working phone and cell phone!

The move has gone well. We still have some home improvement work to do, and now after living here for a couple weeks, I am already dreaming about how we could expand the kitchen/dining area and add a half bath One of these days, I will take some pictures and show you the before and after. The before doesn’t look too terrible but the main work was in the fact that this was a home someone smoked in and it has taken A LOT of work to rid the house of most of the smell. Occasionally, we notice pockets of the smell, especially since this last week has been rainy and more humid.

Nothing is happening on the adoption front. We are one month shy of the one year of waiting mark. A blog post on that will be coming soon. Plus Heather of Production, Not Reproduction has a list of open adoption bloggers and wants to start a roundtable on different topics, so I have a post brewing about the first topic as well, though I’m a little behind on it since I was without internet.

I feel like this song Widget has on a Sandra Boynton book/cd set:

“We are very, very busy

And we’ve got a lot to do

And we haven’t got a minute

to explain it all to you!”

We closed on our new home April 29.  I have spent much of the last two weeks doing remodeling with T’s parents.  T has helped as much as he can but he has been very busy with work too.

We have to be out of our rental home by June 1st and we still have much to do at the new place.  I’ve had to prioritize my list of things to be done to what HAS to be done before we move and what could wait.

Last week was Tulip Time.   I did get Widget in her Dutch costume one day to take pictures with her cousins, A & W and we went to the big parade on Saturday but otherwise, we did not spend as much time at the festival as we usually do.

Today is A’s due date, which is apparently all I can think about. I’ve tried distracting myself by reading, playing with Widget, talking to my older sister, and I’m watching my friends’ kids this afternoon but still my mind reverts back to wondering if her son has made his arrival yet, and if so, did she end up actually placing him?

Most of the time I am okay with the fact that she chose another family but at this very moment, I’m sad because I wish we were her choice.

And it is raining, for the third day in a row, which doesn’t help my mood.

Thanks to a generous offer from my in-laws to be our “bank” for the next few years (until a regular bank will let us get a mortgage), T and I are buying a house! We did not ask or even hint about it at all, they just offered to do it when they saw what kinds of deals were out there, though we were limited to a certain dollar amount they felt comfortable with and will keep us right about where we are now for rent payments including property taxes and insurance.

The house itself is nothing exciting, just your basic 3 bedroom ranch. It is actually a foreclosure just around the corner from where we are renting but it is in great shape- only needs some painting and some serious cleaning, nothing major unless the inspection turns up something. But it will be ours

I’m so excited!!

We haven’t really been to church this year. T and I have been doing a lot of talking about our faith/beliefs and whether our church actually fits us, and the more we are talking, the more we are finding that we don’t think we are in the right church for us. There are a lot of things we do like but it is the fundamental theology of Calvinism, Christian Reformed,etc. that is bothering us.  And the more I read up on it, the more I realize this. 

So I think we are going to begin church seraching.  Not sure where we are going to end up. There are a couple ELCA churches that we have considered trying- both are very small and that would be drastically different from where we are now.  We have also talked about going back to our old church, though the service time is not exactly our favorite (8:45 AM!  We barely make it out the door to 10:30 services as it is).

I do miss going to church on regular basis, so I need to get the ball rolling on looking