Easter "with" the children.

A few days ago was Easter, and while we haven't met our children yet we decided we will still celebrate with them anyway.

My husband and I, went shopping together on Easter for all sorts of goodies that we will put into our children's baskets. Sure it was a little more complicated, after all we aren't sure if we are getting one or two. Will we have two girls? Two boys? One of each? Just one? Will they be infants? Toddlers? Small children? We don't know, but I think it made it all the more fun!

We want some of their first memories with us to be in celebration. We want them to know how much we want them and waited for them. I don't know how 2014 calendar Easter Sunday was for them, if they celebrated or not. But we know that when we get them they will have a fun Easter... even if its in June.

The questions, the scenarios, and the waiting.

I have been having a really rough week... possibly month. If I'm being honest, maybe longer.

We have an amazing support system, and we are so unbelievably blessed to have them. Though if I'm being entirely honest, sometimes their questions suck. Why do they suck you might ask? Because they ask us me questions we would like to know answers to ourselves... When? How old? Boy or Girl? How many?! Over and over. I know some people have worse questions, believe me I've got a few of those also.... Why not have children of your own? Will you still have your own kids? Are you going to tell them? I wouldn't tell them! Why don't you adopting from another country? You should. What's wrong with you guys, can't have any the ole' fashion way?"  Though lucky for us, none of our truly unpleasant questions have been asked by loved ones. Over all when people find out they're overwhelmingly kind and have great things to say. For those people, strangers and friends alike, I am grateful.

I just keep thinking about our children. I know that they are out there somewhere, right now, at this very second and someone else is with them... I don't know if they are with a foster family and tragedy has struck or are with their birth family and tragedy is on the horizon. Whether we like it or not, our children are only going to be our children because they have lost something, because some horrible thing happened in their tiny beautiful little life. They may have been taken or abandoned or some entirely different tragedy I can't even imagine. Our love is going to be hard for them... and that fact already killing me.

Let alone the fact that in my heart I am already their mom, which may be entirely unbelievable to some, but I'm hoping it isn't entirely foreign to the other perspective/acting adoptive mommies. I mean really it's like they're already ours, and they are missing. I can't turn off the questions. Are they are cold or content, happy or scared, hungry or sad, lonely or loved...? It is so unbelievably overwhelming, and isolating. I just wish someone would tell me, that they went through the same thing. I want someone to tell me that I am not out of my 25-year-old mind...

I contacted our adoption worker, Kathy, who is currently writing our home study. She told me she is so behind she no longer has any idea how long it will be until she finishes writing it. As much as I tried to be graceful, I do understand that she is swamped, this is hard. It just feels like climbing a mountain and finding a new hill has grown on our previously sighted meadow. The meadow where we were going to sit and wait for our children... correction: where we will sit and wait for our children.

"Don't worry. It's just a long and tedious process, but it will happen soon."

soon...

Two years, three months, two days, and counting.

 This whole type of waiting thing is not for the faint of heart.

We're Adopting

It is so strange as I sit and think about this process. Right now our children are out there. We don't know if they are happy or scared, hurting or safe, hungry or cold. Loving someone you haven't met is the strangest feeling. I know I can't be the only one to have felt it, but somehow it still feels isolating.

 A staple of parenthood is knowing your child's past. Their likes and dislikes, their various favorites, simply put who they are. Sure we are licensed from newborn to 4 years old, and there is a chance we will get a baby who may not have too much of a past or any favorites yet. But we are hoping for a sibling set, meaning we know we have the potential of having to learn rather quickly what most parents watch develop.

We've been on this journey for more than two years now. It has been trying to say the least. Through it all we've had each other, and because of that fact, I know we will ride this road together wherever it takes us. We may never know how far away from our destination (adoption) we actually are, but no matter how steep it may get or how bumpy our road may become we will ride through it, assured of t
he knowledge that our wheels will never fall off. He is my rock, and I am his.

How we met, the short version.





My husband and I didn't meet traditionally. We met on MySpace. No, that isn't a typo. It was 1.) That long ago and 2.) That odd. What made it even more strange was the fact that we were both in high school, more than 2,000 miles apart. He lived in Carmel, IN. I lived in Fresno, CA. I randomly found his page, April of 2006 and still more crazy I contacted him out of the blue telling him he was attractive (totally forward of me, and so out of character).

He responded, and the more I found out about him, the more of a jerk I thought he was. HA! I am a terrible judge of character. Luckily he proved me wrong, and we talked for a year...

Me talking to him, Early 2007

Him and his sister, Laurie, Talking to me 2006






 He flew out on April 1, 2007. 

We met at the airport, had some lunch and checked him into his hotel. Where he asked me to be his girlfriend. I said yes.



Three hours after he landed we had a car accident. During the entire time he was in California, all but one day was spent with me hospitalized. He took care of me at every turn. He brought me my ridiculous requests, bought me a teddy bear and white roses.

He loved me through it...

April 6, 2007

He left back to Indy, and I felt lost. Though we still had each other, and we talked more then ever. After a month out of school recovering I returned to my senior year. 

I graduated June 8, 2007

and the next morning I was on a plane bound for Indy. We spent two weeks together.

When I left back to California, we weren't sure what the future would hold. Those two weeks had changed everything. The more days passed, the more we realized we didn't want to spend any more time apart. A few weeks later, in July, I flew back to Indy, followed by a truck full of my things.

and that was it.