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.