Green Shoots

Watching the High Park fire scorch its way through Poudre Canyon, one of my most favorite places on earth, over the last few weeks has been a heartrending reminder of how little control we have over the forces of nature. As of today, thankfully, it is at least 60% contained. Of course, those once-forested ridges and hillsides that line the glistening and pure waters of the Poudre River, so graceful and at peace, will present a bleakness beyond words for years to come. But it’s somewhat comforting to know that nature has her way of recovering, albeit slowly. So I’ll just keep my faith in that; and I’ll take some solace in the hope that someday those green shoots will reappear, and our kids will embrace that landscape and feel the energy there pulsing through them like we always did whenever we ventured up into that majestic canyon.

Okay, so we anticipated some periods of not-so-optimistic thinking as we embarked on this journey, and there have been some. Honestly, over the last few weeks and days we’ve been in and out of emotional slumps. Along with those happy scenes of running giggling through garden sprinklers in soggy diapers, we’ve also wondered when that dream will come true for us. And we’ve had images in our minds of all those post cards we’ve handed out getting an absolute number of ZERO viewings from prospective birth mothers – they lay buried under piles of office paper or languish under a stack of dirty dishes on a kitchen counter somewhere, or maybe they were accidently tossed out the window of a moving car and are doing cartwheels down the street (hey I guess there’s at least a shred of hope in that scenario).

So, in order to offset that negativity over the last couple of Fridays, I’ve spent my lunchtime hour behind a closed door in one of my office conference rooms, calling a list of community support centers that I printed off the internet. Code named “Operation Outreach”, this has consisted of me making cold calls to complete strangers in places that, I have begun to understand, normally don’t receive calls from expectant adoptive parents, and getting some rather lukewarm responses.

…Until today. At last, there was some success on the front! It came in the form of a wonderfully warm and understanding voice. Like a breath of fresh air, one counselor at a pregnancy center in Northern Colorado was open and receptive …and even interested in learning more. Now THAT is how this is supposed to go.  

So today is a big day. We’re mailing out a post card in response to an actual request (And yes, even if I solicited that request it still counts). So yay! “Yay yay yay!” as they say. Here’s to more of that kind of response from folks who might like to hear our story, pass it along to others who will open our profile to learn about us, and then on to others and finally to the person who decides that we’re who they’ve been looking for on their journey.

The forces of nature that lead people to each other are incomprehensible, but fascinating. Every person who shares our story or opens their heart to hear it is exerting some control over the forces of nature, squelching the fire, and playing a participatory role in a beautiful story of life by bringing our family together. There are down times when it just feels like there is no movement occurring in the universe and the cards are sitting in an empty room. It’s hard to explain but we really can feel the cosmic inertia, and the stillness is deafening. Those are particularly low moments. But periods of scorched earth can result in renewal. Good news and a helpful voice on the phone are like nutrients being driven back into the ground to replenish the soil for green shoots to come. I can see them already.    

Um, Where is Your Baby?

We were warned. We knew the questions would begin at some point. We knew we wouldn't have an adequate answer. It was just something all of us and our friends and family would have to accept. We don't know where our baby is. I didn't expect the first time someone asked to be quite so funny though.

Our next door neighbors have a 1 year old and a 3 year old. We LOVE them. We've been around since they were born and we make every effort to intrude into their family life as often as possible to share in the joys of their little ones. They have been very excited for us along the way and they recently offered some retired baby gear for our preparations.

As it piled up in our entryway, I became concerned that the 3 year old wasn't going to appreciate seeing her little brother's stuff walking it's way over to the neighbor's house. I expected a very stern scolding that this stuff belonged to her family. Instead, she very pensively asked "But, um, where is your baby?" We melted. I told her simply that I didn't know. I left it at that, which I'm sure made her think we were the worst parents ever because they are so well cared for. She must know that her mom knows where she is at all times and that I, by comparison, am a complete failure. "Poor baby", she must have thought.

The other day, we received a carload of more baby gear from our friends in California. Our next door neighbor friend was there to oversee the activity of going through the loot. She asked again: "Where is your baby?" This time, I felt ready. I told her that our baby was growing in our hearts. I'm not convinced this was any more adequate. She put her hand on my chest and looked up at me like "Do you have any idea how weird that is going to look in 9 months?!" But, she just smiled.

We can't wait to introduce them!

Yard Sales and Adoption Story

As mentioned previously, we're stocking up on stuff. This will likely be a common theme as the wait time goes on. For now, yard sales and craigslist are providing hours of enjoyment as we dream of the future. (To our friends who are also waiting for any sex baby, any age and a delivery at any time, we highly recommend the discount options for keeping busy, dreaming and acquiring essentials.)

Last weekend, we stopped by a yard sale to pick up some bottles, clothes, sleepy (boba) wrap, swaddle cozy and itty bitty baby beenies (so cute and all for $30, I might add). The baby who was giving up all this great stuff was in attendance and was 6 months old. His parents were very generous and he didn't seem to mind watching us rummage through what had to be some of his favorite outfits. As we looked, his mom asked us how old our baby was. Tiffany responded that we didn't know and that we were adopting.

The dad was busy making a sale at the time, but later came up to Tiffany and said "So, you're adopting, huh? I'm adopted." He proceeded to share that he was really happy that we were adopting and that he thinks it's great to be adopted. He shared that while he's heard some adopted kids "have issues", he always felt "chosen" and that was really special for him. His parents had two biological kids after him who were a "mistake" and a "miracle", so he figured he was the only one they planned for and chose.

Also, he grew up in the same neighborhood that he knew his birth mother to be from. He said that his time working in restaurants always made him wonder if he had served her at some point. Tiffany asked if he was ever curious to meet her. He said he's curious to know what she looks like, but not enough to do anything about it.

What a great joy to have this conversation! A little real life reminder about what we're waiting for and one positive way that it could all turn out.

"It's the phone!"

Picture this, it's Sunday morning, we're lazily waking up and slowly agreeing to get out of bed. Tiffany can barely move because she literally planted 40 plants and 40 seeds in her front yard garden on Saturday. Josh is sluggishly accepting his fate of performing the annual deep clean on the chicken coop. We're not jumping out of bed. We're chatting, we're falling back asleep, we're just generally resisting motion.

As Josh is beginning to share another thought, Tiffany hears something strange...jazz music at about 8:30 am on Sunday morning, in the house. Josh's thought "wow, some one's playing jazz music, that's nice." Then it hits her, "IT'S THE PHONE!" Our BND (see earlier post) has a jazz ring that just gets louder and louder until you answer it. Said phone was downstairs, on the dining room table at the back of the house. Our bedroom is upstairs, towards the front of the house. Lots of space between us and that ringing jazz concert.

Now, it's worth noting here that Tiffany does not have a good rapport with these stairs. She has fallen up them twice (yes, up) and down them twice. It hurts. It's getting more dramatic each time. During the one leap it took her to get from laying flat and immobile on the bed to the first step, this was the order of her thoughts...

1. "Wow, we've wondered about this day and this is going to be our story of how we learned about our baby!"
2. "It's a Sunday, in the morning, this is so perfect, we'll have time to think about what they are about to tell us without having to go to work."
3. "Wow, I'm flying, I hope I don't fall down the stairs on the way to the phone."
4. "Why is Josh still laying in bed, this is the most important day of our lives!"

Josh, who was not in bed, but flying just as fast right with Tiffany was thinking...

1. "Wow, we've wondered about this day and this is going to be our story of how we learned about our baby!" (That's the miraculous part of the whole story...we're rarely on the same page at the same time.)
2. "I hope they are telling us about our baby who is due in some months though. I'm not quite ready to go to the hospital right now."
3. "She just keeps yelling "It's the Phone!"

We managed to get to the phone without falling down the stairs, tripping each other, or slipping on the hardwood floor and landing in a giant plant pot (also a past occurrence which resulted in a butt bruise, not pretty). Now, in setting up the phone, two things have bugged Tiffany that are still unresolved. The first is that it rings about 10 times. She's tried to get it changed, but it still rings FOREVER. She's had this fear that it would ring so long, the agency wouldn't wait to leave a message. In this case, it gave us plenty of time to get to the thing to answer it. Yay!

Which brings up the second thing. There is a setting for how to answer the phone, either with the "talk" key or "any" key. She's reread this section in the instructions book multiple times wondering why one would have a preference. She's considered both options, but never taken action. Now, in the crunch time, holding the screaming jazz concert, she can't remember how to answer the phone. Seriously!

And then, it stops ringing. Just as the screen goes blank, she catches a glimpse of the number that was flashing, already a bad sign as she had entered the agency's numbers in the phone so that a name would show when it rang, not a number. The number started with 727...this is a Floridian area code. All of our agency ladies live in Colorado. There was a glimmer of hope that one person has a leftover phone from a past life in Florida, but that doesn't seem to be the case. No message was left. It was likely a wrong number.

Josh considered calling them back and asking if they had a baby they wanted us to parent. But, that would take up our precious few minutes.

If you don't think about the adrenaline rush and how sweetly we were excited for this moment, the whole thing was pretty funny. It took us a while to calm down about it. In reliving it, Josh claims Tiffany managed to yell "It's the phone!" as each foot landed on a stair. Tiffany was shocked to see Josh standing there with her when the phone stopped ringing, thinking he was still laying in bed.

If nothing else, now we know we will not be calm about it when that BND rings. We're just hoping beyond hope that we remember to turn it off before settling into a good, serious documentary in the movie theater one day. That could be really embarrassing knowing our track record for containing our emotions when the thing actually rings.

Becoming Summer

The western sky is showing that familiar evening pattern, horizontal bands of alternating baby-blue sky and bright pink clouds as the sun descends over the mountains. From my perch in the upstairs office as I type this blog, I’m gazing out the window at that patch of sky framed in by the verdant green of our elm trees, now in full summer foliage.These are the longest days of the year and there’s more than enough daylight to go around. From now until the middle of June, which is really just around the corner, we can take our time to revel in these early mornings and long evening hours.
It’s hard to believe that five months have already passed since we first met with Jude. In the days after that pinky swear we made to each other when we committed to this path, there was still ice on the ground each morning. Coming out from under the winter, springtime was a breath of fresh air; the crocuses came up in the days before we met our new group of friends on this journey. And then the nest building began and still continues.

It seems apt that we have now emerged from that first phase of spring—through all the photo collecting and storytelling to at last cast our bottle of hope into the ocean—and we find ourselves now in the early summer heat. The next new season is now upon us as we wait, sometimes in the doldrums but more often, honestly, with wind in our sails.   

I was recently telling a former coworker and friend of mine about a family of blue jays that, for some reason or another, recently decided to make a home in that elm tree in the back. We first became aware of this as we lay in bed at 5.30, already wide awake as the sun rose over the tops of the eastern houses, and listened to the morning drama in the high branches. Two fully feathered blue and white adults were patiently (and noisily I might add) coaching another two stout and fuzzy little bluebirds in what seemed to be the final phase of flight lessons for the season. A few loud squacks, accompanied by fervent wing beating and a loud rustling of leaves, and they would all set off for the neighbors’ aspen. It seemed to take a tremendous amount of courage. A brave new world was only 30 feet away, but through the unknown sky and with only newly formed wings to carry them, it must have been quite the leap of faith.

In my email to my coworker I mentioned how inspiring those birds were for us. But at the time I wasn’t quite sure of what I even meant. Of course now it makes perfect sense as I type this and think it through. We can learn a lot from nature.

As I shared that story with her, she replied that she often wondered how her parents felt when they adopted her. It was the first time she’d mentioned her adoption story to me and, whether she planned it that way or not, the revelation came at the perfect time. I felt truly supported in our path once again. I love those moments.   

A particularly relevant phrase comes to mind these days. It’s something I think I must have read on a fortune cookie or something: “Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position but certainty is an absurd one.”* I’m not sure what that sky can tell us with its bands of boy and girl colors. Maybe we could tell the future if we tried hard enough to count the petals on the asters in our garden. But rather than calculate the uncertainty of the universe and try to decypher its myriad permutations and algorythms, I suppose we’ll just enjoy the wondering for now, day to day. The summer is a fine time for trying our wings out on those short, intense journeys from tree to tree. Another summer is stretching out in front of us as we walk along doing our best to hold each other as often as we can through each day together.  

*Come to think of it, I don’t know how often Voltaire is quoted on a fortune cookie. Must have been a tea bag.

Diapers and bottles and car seats, oh my!

Well, some practical decisions have been made which leads to even more stuff coming through the door. We think we're going with the prefold cloth diapers and waterproof covers system. We think we're going with glass vented bottles. And, we think we're going with a convertible car seat and skipping the infant seat to do some baby wearing. I'm careful to say we "think" for the benefit of all of our friends and family experienced with kids who think each of these decisions is nuts. "Thinking" these are our solutions gives us an out if we decide to do disposable diapers, plastic bottles and infant car seats. However, those same friends know us well and should be aware that we're pretty driven to follow through once the decision has been made.

So, deciding to go the old fashioned route to cloth diaper and use glass bottles should make this easy, right? Wrong. I have no idea how our mothers managed to diaper us at all when they only had one size cloth to wrap around our bums. At least today we have a minimum of 3 and up to 7 options for cloth diaper sizes, depending on the brand. Oh, and not knowing if your baby will be colicky and you might need a way to rid them of gas means you don't know if you want the vented or the unvented bottle options. Will we decide in the end that waking the baby to put them in our sling when we get out of the car is worth it rather than leaving them sweetly sleeping in the carry style car seat? I dunno. But anyone who thinks this isn't complicated, hasn't tried to make these decisions lately.

That said, I will add the disclaimer that I'm a waiting adoptive mom. (Hmmm, WAM! I like the sound of that. But, I guess that makes Josh a WAD. Sorry babe.) This means, I'm gonna be broke and I've got time and mental energy on my side. I'm trying to get the registry together to get a little help wherever we can, and that means making decisions before their time. I'm also trying to do something more productive and more fun that imagining whether or not someone is looking at our profile at all today.

Yay, craigslist! The great news is that having the decisions made and being open to reusing makes for great deals if you have the time (check) and patience (sometimes) to look for them. Plus, it stocks the nursery. So, we have acquired some of those essential items that are just adorable to look at before you are having to look at them all day long and at all times of the day. Baby bottles, so cute, for now. :-)

The other really great thing is that we're now a mix between American culture and Nigerien culture. We know that there are no diaper size options in the West African bush. I witnessed moms using their ankles over the sand to serve as the all mighty potty chair. It worked. They didn't have poop all over them. They wore their babies all the time and the kids are well adjusted. It helps to keep this perspective even when we're nesting within this culture of excess.

Reconnecting in an Impatient Week

First of all, New York was awesome! We had a great time. We loved Porgy and Bess and then snuck in Priscilla Queen of the Desert as well. We stayed on a lovely, neighborhood street in the West Village and had ourselves a time eating our way through the city for two days. We were both ecstatic to find the Pakistani restaurant that Josh read about and to hear the prayer from the mosque next door while we ate.

We returned just in time to attend our friends' little girl's 2nd birthday party. There were lots of fun, familiar faces there and we enjoyed getting to chat with people after a few days away. At the time of her first birthday party last year, we were in the thick of building our chicken coop every weekend and also hiding out from social events as the pain of our lost pregnancy was still circling around us. We attended, but just to be gracious. All of the kiddos playing were a little much for us at that time and we left early. Well, what a difference a year and some good decisions on a path forward to parenthood make! This year we had a blast playing with all those kiddos and truly enjoyed the time with everyone knowing that we were on our way to joining in the chaos of herding the little ones.

We rounded out the weekend with a real treat. Our adoption group got together for the first time since our training was completed last month. Aside from a few emails, we hadn't really been in touch much with anyone. Heading to the get together, I have to say I was a little timid about seeing everyone without the safety blanket of a training agenda providing something to talk about. But then, when have I had trouble finding something to talk about! It was really fun to see everyone again and just reaffirmed what we were feeling about all of them during training, they are an amazing group of people. We shared where each of us is in terms of preparing for "the call" and it was good to be able to share what has been happening in each of our lives. No one else is done with their profile book or on the website as a "waiting family" yet, so I don't think the sense of immediacy of receiving the call is weighing as heavily on them.

Remember that roller coaster ride of emotions we promised to take when we signed up for this? Well, this week provided one of those big drops in enthusiasm for which we knew to be ready. The good thing is that this is truly like a roller coaster in that the next day was better than the previous and we were hopeful again, but boy was the drop a bummer. It wasn't really based on anything but the lack of news. I guess some days will hit differently.

We have told everyone we know about our plans to adopt and even had little post cards designed to give to our connections at hospitals, churches and pregnancy care centers. What we keep hearing back is that they already have agencies they work with, so they can't help us. Our agency is open to becoming one of those they work with, but it's apparently hard to crack into an established relationship. I think the volume of people hoping to adopt in this country just hit us both on the same day. We felt like we weren't really in a position to get the word out and were just sitting ducks. Not a hopeful feeling.

The best part of our training and our philosophy in general is that we really do feel like this will happen the way it is supposed to. Our babies will eventually find us. We just have to know that and keep welcoming them into their beautiful space in our home and hearts.