pronoia

T minus one day

I didn't think there was an equivalent to TTC freak-outs in adoption, but I was wrong. It's called home-study freakouts.

Will she look at our baseboards? Will she freak out about the wood behind the upstairs bathroom door that needs to be scrubbed down after some water damage? Will the newly-aquariumed turtles still pose a problem because people think they have salmonella and they're a hazard to toddlers who manage to be unsupervised for the length of time it takes to get a chair to the aquarium, fish out a turtle who doesn't want to be caught, and stick it in their mouths? Will the basket of unmatched socks make her think we're unorganized? What about the cardboard box of hanging files -- does it suggest we're not really grownups? The trash people didn't pick up the dead recliner we left out for them -- will sticking it at the far end of the driveway be good enough, or should we try to haul it into the basement? Do I need to weed around the compost bin? Should we have repaired and repainted the front porch? Do I need to scrub the bathroom floors tonight? I definitely need to do a few loads of laundry and wash not only some clothes, but the bed linens the cat threw up on and the cotton shower curtain. Do I need to make sure there's no dirty laundry anywhere, even in the laundry basket?

I was pretty sanguine about everything until yesterday, upon which time I proceeded to freak right the fuck out.

In some ways it's like comps were in graduate school -- even though you know your advisor isn't out to get you, even though you know they want you to succeed, even though you know you're studying your ass off, freaking out is still part of the process, and the exams themselves are anti-climactic. And in some ways, the exams are anti-climactic BECAUSE of the freaking out.

Both sets of friends who've gone through this are doing the email equivalent of patting us on the shoulder and kissing our foreheads, telling us to breathe and calm down because it will be fine, really it will. They're laughing ruefully about the crazy things they did before their first home visit (and we aren't alone with the baseboards, no sirree!), and knowing that the things they freaked out about didn't matter, because the social workers aren't going to be concerned about the fact that dogs shed; they want to know that any kid would be safe and loved and taken care of. And my rational, logical part knows that. But my emotional part, oh, it's terrified.

It's just that it matters so. much. Ms. P and I were talking about it at dinner last night, and it's not just that I want a kid desperately, that I've wanted one and waited for one for years upon years. It's also that, in some way I can't explain, parenting is part of What Is Mine to Do in this life, it's part of what I'm here for. And so the infinite delay is maddening, like I'm being teased repeatedly by the universe.

There are only three things in this world I've ever wanted this way, wanted in a way that was unchanged by time or distance or reality: Ms. P, a kid, and spiritual communion. And so tonight I'm going to wipe down the baseboards, do laundry, scrub tubs, clean floors, and pray.

Purple and green don't go together

It wasn't strictly necessary, but along the way to making the house all spiffy for the social worker's visit on Thursday, we painted a wall in the front room dark purple and we painted the back foyer bright spring green.

I love it.

We've also gotten rid of extra furniture, shampooed the carpets, tidied various rooms, and reorganized a little bit. We took last night off because of aching bodies, but tonight we're going to tidy/shampoo the upstairs, vacuum downstairs, and otherwise get things in order. And in two more days, that part will have begun.

Reentry is a bitch

This last week and a half hasn't exactly gone as planned. We've both been feeling low energy and sluggish, and then I got my period on top of that, so my weekend of getting things done was severely curtailed. A limb fell off the big maple tree while we were gone, our a/c went out, and L&S's new kitty needed an emergency run to the vet while they were out of town. It's just one damn thing after another.

So here I am, working from home so the a/c guy could come and fix things for us. You know, now that the weather has broken. But the working from home is helping me settle, ground in a way I really needed. I need periods of solitude, periods of quiet, and I haven't seen much of that lately. However wonderful vacation was -- and it was awesome! -- it didn't give me that.

We've emailed the social worker to reschedule the home study visit for Tuesday or Thursday evening next week. Not ideal, but we've had such a week that I don't think we'd be at our best on Saturday, and so we thought we'd ask. The urgency is lessened, though, since the opportunity for the private adoption has disappeared. She's chosen to go with an agency there that specializes in open adoptions, which I think is the right choice for her, and we're more centered about it than we expected to be. It got us moving, got us plowing ahead, and that's been invaluable. So we keep moving forward, getting fingerprinted, searching out a notary. One step at a time.

And right now, the big step is finishing the house projects -- tidying the yard we've ignored for far too long, organizing the leftover piles of stuff that should leave our house, finding ways to store and keep the things we have so they aren't overwhelming. And so, amid editing articles and fact-checking articles and writing articles, I'm going to do little bits -- finish the laundry, vacuum, tidy the dining room, clean the kitchen. Keep us moving in the right direction.

Return

I'm going to assume that you've never had a 70-pound dog wrap herself around your sleeping head in fear -- and let me tell you, you haven't missed anything.

Gracie is terrified of the chirps smoke detectors make when they're dying. They make her droolingly, shiveringly, pantingly terrified, poor thing. On Sunday night, after we'd driven eight hours to get home, after we'd had a little dinner and watched Finding Nemo to destress, we went to bed. Since we were finally home, I had lists and lists and lists in my head, all the things we needed and wanted to do, so I was taking a long time to fall asleep. And then the power went out.

For reasons we don't understand, this made the one smoke detector that's wired into the house (and so shouldn't have had any power!) -- and that's right outside our bedroom -- chirp. It chirped once, waited four or five minutes, chirped again, waited four or five minutes, chirped again, and then went silent. Grace was apoplectic after the first chirp, climbing on the bed with her pointy toenails and trying to slink behind me. After it finally went quiet, we were able to get her calmed down, still taking up all of my pillow, and I tried to go to sleep. And just as I was about to fall asleep again, the power flickered on and flickered back off.

And we did it all again. This happened several times, and Gracie's ability to calm down got smaller and smaller. When the damn smoke detector just started chirping every minute without end, she pretty much lost it.

I tried sleeping with the dogs in the ritual room downstairs, which was as far away from it as we could get, but since we had no power and thus no white noise, we could still hear it. Meanwhile, Grace crawled under Ms. P's altar, trying to get as small as possible. When I went back upstairs, she climbed into the bathtub and scratched at the floor, trying to get underneath it. Finally, I stood on a bench while Ms. P held the flashlight and we managed to disconnect the detector from the wiring (without electocuting anyone!).

It chirped once then, and I grabbed my robe and was headed outside to stash it in the car when it finally quieted down. We still don't know why it -- without a battery we could see -- was making noise.

Somewhere around 4am, we were able to fall asleep with both dogs and both cats on the bed. It made returning to work a little bit tough.

Other than that, though, vacation was wonderful. We got lots of lovely beach time and pool time and napping time and reading time, and I managed all of this without getting a sunburn, which is quite a feat for this pale-skinned redhead. We saw lots of great wildlife, too, and I'll post some pictures when I get them uploaded from the camera.

But it might take awhile -- we got a note from our social worker scheduling our first meeting for the home study, and she wants to come to the house. We have less than two weeks to do all of those projects we thought we'd have more like two months for, so while Ms. P studies for her biology exam, I'm going to be frantically checking things off of our list. We're in better shape than we've been in for a while, but there's still plenty to do (*cough* piles of random things in the bedroom *cough*).

Why I've Been So Quiet

Last week, the inimitable Frog forwarded me a posting from a hippie parenting forum she's on. The post was from a woman whose 15-year-old niece is pregnant and wanting to place in a private adoption with specific parenting philosophies: gentle discipline, attachment parenting, anti-circ. Frog checked to make sure they were open to a lesbian couple, and Ms. P and I got down to business.

Our first thought was that it was too early -- that we just weren't ready. But our reactions -- excited, nervous, hopeful -- told us differently.

We asked Frog to forward our email to the aunt, and when we got a short note back from her, we proceeded to write and send a letter of introduction: our parenting philosophies, a little bit about us, a brief bit on our relationship. The aunt sent back a lovely note saying we are exactly the kind of families she wants on the list. She planned to compile it for a few days, then close it and forward everything to the niece.

This morning, I sent an email to the aunt asking for a quick status update. The young woman is visiting her grandmother and considering her options. The family, contrary to my fear that they're pressuring her into doing this, is trying to convince her to see a counselor so she can really think through her choices and how she might experience them.

And we're still in limbo.

We don't really know what happens next. We're assuming she's going to whittle the list down and interview the couples/people she resonates most strongly with, but the timeline is unclear. It's possible she'll decide to parent, and if she does, I'll be sad for us but glad for her and for her child.

But even now, we can't just wait. Because there's really only 20 weeks left until her due date, we're going to go ahead and get the home study underway, and we're going to start me on the regular adoptive breastfeeding protocol. Home studies typically take three to six months, after all, and unpregnant bodies need time to get used to the idea, much less the reality, of producing milk. And if this one doesn't work out, we'll join the agency pool in the new year.

Whether or not this particular situation works out, it's clear to us that this is the path we're supposed to be on. We never got confirmation like this -- on our anniversary and on a full moon, no less! -- when we were trying to knock me up. And if it does work out, it will be so us -- going from plan to execution in fewer steps and less time than anyone, including us, would expect.

We're even more excited about the adoption plan than we were before. It didn't become really real until we got that email forward, but yes, we want this, we want to be parents, with all of the stress and challenge and sleepless nights. Yes, yes, a million times yes. Even if this situation doesn't result in us bringing home a child, one situation will. We know that now.

Jumping In

Saturday morning we set off for an adoption workshop at the agency we like, a kind of Adoption 101. You know, why you might consider adopting, questions to ask yourself, different options, figuring out your own boundaries and limitations, etc. We didn't expect to learn anything particularly new, but we wanted to be moving forward, however glacially.

It was a typical conference room: white walls, long rectangular tables set up in a long rectangle, grey-upholstered chairs that look more comfortable than they actually are. But the difference was the artwork: pictures of smiling young people, professionally taken and framed, each labelled carefully with their names and vital information.

We were one of six sets of people. One older couple is looking to adopt a sibling group out of foster care. One couple is vacillating between a domestic infant adoption and international adoption. A middle-aged, single woman is looking to adopt a school-aged child. One couple is agency shopping. One man was there alone, as his wife was in Baghdad. They've been trying to conceive, and it hasn't been working, and he was clearly still grieving and frightened for his wife. We were all white, all privileged. Most of the pictures on the wall were of black children.

We were right that we didn't learn anything particularly new, but we were reassured about this agency in particular. The facilitator, who before working as a social worker with this agency worked as the addictions counselor for pregnant women at a local hospital, was very clear that if a woman's decision to place seems based on a lack of resources, they help her find those resources so she can parent. This wasn't comforting to most people, but it was conforting to us.

Despite not really learning anything new, we left energized, excited -- and impatient. And we've decided that we're going to put our application in when we get back from the beach in August. We have the money for the application, and we get the final bit of the inheritance from my grandmother in January, so we should be covered even if we get chosen very quickly, which we're not anticipating happening. The average wait is one to two years, and since international adoptions have been closing right and left, the pool is bigger now than it has been in a while, so the average may extend itself a little bit.

But the bottom line is that we're ready. We're ready to do this, and we can do this, so we're going ahead. Paperwork, here we come!

Because No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

I found out tonight that my sister has been trying for a year to get pregnant, that she's had two positive pregnancy tests that didn't make it long enough for a beta, and that's why she's having this surgery, so she can proceed to IUIs under a doctor's supervision with insurance coverage.

Oh, and not only had she not told me or our mother (which was definitely the right move), she only recently told her best friend, the woman she's been best friends with since they were nine, the woman who lives down the street from her and whom she talks to every day. She told no one. How crazy is that? How is that even possible?

So once again, I'm sitting here feeling kicked in the gut. I'm simultaneously marveling at the cuckoo-craziness of my family of origin because wow, there's some fucked-up shit going down. Getting lapped on both sides of the family is going to suck something awful.

Insensitive

On Sunday mornings, Ms. P and I go to the local hippie coffee house. She does homework; I read the NY Times and do the crossword puzzle. We get there around 8 or 9 at the latest, and L&S will often join us later in the process. It slows down the work considerably, but usually we've gotten enough done that it's fine.

Today, they spent the whole time ranting about how long this whole adoption process is taking them. I mean, the social worker can't meet with them for 10 WHOLE DAYS. In the end, it will have taken four or five months for the home study instead of three.

Two. Hours. To us. Whose process from decision to putting in the application (never mind the home study or waiting in the pool) will be measured in years.

We're both just drained and in tears. We're going to say something to them about it, but right now we can't see exactly how. Right now we're just nursing our wounds.

Insensitive

On Sunday mornings, Ms. P and I go to the local hippie coffee house. She does homework; I read the NY Times and do the crossword puzzle. We get there around 8 or 9 at the latest, and L&S will often join us later in the process. It slows down the work considerably, but usually we've gotten enough done that it's fine.

Today, they spent the whole time ranting about how long this whole adoption process is taking them. I mean, the social worker can't meet with them for 10 WHOLE DAYS. In the end, it will have taken four or five months for the home study instead of three.

Two. Hours. To us. Whose process from decision to putting in the application (never mind the home study or waiting in the pool) will be measured in years.

We're both just drained and in tears. We're going to say something to them about it, but right now we can't see exactly how. Right now we're just nursing our wounds.

Listening

When L&S first started really looking into adoption again, I told them how much reading blogs had been valuable to me in thinking through the process. I was thinking about Shannon and Dawn, Nicole and Jenna. I was thinking about issycat and Jae Ran Kim.

Two weeks later, L told me that she didn't know what blogs I'd been reading, but all the things she'd learned on blogs about the home study process were dead wrong.

It's a small thing, really, but it's illustrative of our different journeys to this same place. I know that the adoption agency will answer all of the factual questions I have about the home study, the fees, the forms, the process, and the wait. That's what they do.

But what they can't answer -- no matter how progressive they are, no matter how much they believe that the best choice for most women considering placing their children for adoption is parenting those children, no matter how much they advocate open adoptions -- is what that experience is really and truly like for the people involved, because at the end of the day, adoption agencies serve adoptive parents. Not children. Not expectant parents considering adoption. And I want to know how people have really experienced adoption, in all of its complicated facets.

That's why I read blogs. I read blogs written by women who placed children for adoption, some of whom have open adoptions and some of whom don't, some of whom are very angry and some of whom aren't. I read blogs written by women who have adopted children, some of whom are parenting transracially. I read blogs written by people who were adopted. And as I read I'm conscious of the blogs that don't exist, so far as I can tell: narratives by fathers, first or adoptive; narratives by people who have no issues whatsoever with their position in the triad and so don't talk about adoption.

I know that none of these blogs is representative -- none of them can stand in for the whole. But I'm not looking for the one Truth of adoption. I'm looking to understand the range of experience, the range of what people go through when they become part of the triad. I want to know what goes unsaid in everyday life because everyone's afraid of hurting everyone else's feelings. I want to know, from the perspective of first parents and people who have been adopted, what adoptive parents do wrong, what they get wrong, where they go wrong. I want to know where some of the obvious and common landmines are, knowing as well that every adoption has its own landscape born of the specific people and moments involved.

Sometimes reading adoption blogs is painful, given my strong desire for a child. I have spent a fair amount of time questioning the ethics of adoption itself (more on that in a later post), and yes, sometimes I've flinched away from the raw pain I've come across. Sometimes I don't want to hear what people have to say, because I, too, want to live in the fantasy. I want to drink the Kool-aid.

But I'm conscious of the fact that, as a prospective adoptive parent, I'm the one with the privilege. I'm the one the system is set up to support and respond to. And because I have that privilege, I have a responsibility to question it, to listen to and take seriously the voices of people who don't have the privilege, to use what privilege I do have in ways that dismantle the privilege and address the oppressions that are part and parcel of privilege. To do any of that, I have to listen. And so I read blogs, which, although always and forever partial, are also in many ways more honest than any lecture, workshop, or face-to-face conversation could ever be.

I'll be more stressed out about the logistics when we're dealing with the actual application, I'm sure, and to be fair, that's where L&S are. But I'm suspicious of a tendency among adoptive and prospective adoptive parents to ignore the voices of first parents and adoptees. I'm suspicious of the sugarcoating, the whitewashing, the assumption that if you just don't look, everything is peachy-keen. I'm suspicious of the assumption that agencies can provide everything one needs to adopt ethically.

At some level, all of that is about the desire to pretend on some level that adoption is "just like" birth, that first parents aren't part of the equation, that we don't need to know or understand any of the messy undersides of a difficult and complicated situation. I can't be part of that. So I read my blogs, keep up with the stories, the heartbreaks, the triumphs, and the struggles, because it's in the best interests of the child I hope one day to parent.