23 December 2010

Waiting...additional thoughts

One of my colleagues yesterday says to me, "So, what are you up to these days? Working and waiting?"

"Yep. Working and waiting. That's about it," I reply. "And we've put up a new website for ourselves. One that basically says, 'Hey, we're really nice people. If you know of anyone who is in the position of needing to adopt out a child...look-y here.'"

She looks at me with great empathy (both of her children are adopted so she knows about the working and waiting and waiting and working.)

I end the conversation with what I usually say to end these types of conversations, "It'll happen when it happens."

When I first started blogging about adoption, so many of my posts explored topics like whether or not I'd be a good mom, fear, transracial adoption, the relationships that we'll have (or not have) with the child's first/birth family, the rightness or wrongess of adoption, etc. In re-reading some of those posts recently it hit me that I have covered a lot of ground in writing and thinking about all of this adoption stuff.

And then it hit me that as we've gotten further and further into the waiting and wondering phase that I kind of stopped blogging.

Guess I'm feeling kind of done thinking about all of this.

I'm less interested in thinking and I'm more interested in doing.


I know that there are more issues that I could explore in regards to adoption - and to our particular adoption. However, the more I just think about stuff, the more I find myself feeling a bit blue. The waiting seems kind of endless when I'm blogging and wondering and wondering and blogging. So, I'm focusing on doing...

Doing my best to be a good wife, daughter and friend.

Doing my job.

Doing my best to get rid of this stupid upper respiratory thing that I've had for two weeks.

Doing my best to enjoy Christmas and get ready for our annual New Year's Eve Eve game night.

Doing my best not to whine or complain about how long we've been waiting, but instead to be happy, to be in the present moment and to enjoy this one life hat I have to live.

It'll happen when it happens, right?

19 December 2010

Christmas again

Chris picked a great Christmas tree this year.

Well, he always picks a great tree, but this year it seems especially nice. We've gotten to the point where we have enough "special" ornaments - those that we've given each other over the last 11 years, family ornaments, and those we've received as gifts - that we don't need to add an "fillers" (you know, the plain round ones.) The tree looks beautiful. Smells great. Every time I look at the tree I love seeing the fat glass reindeer, the pickle ornament, the cheer leading moose, our various lobster ornaments (yes, we have quite a few), the felt Pinocchio characters that Chris' Gram made by hand a million years ago, the ornament that Parker made in kindergarten, and, of course, our tree wouldn't be complete without the many light-up, noise making Star Trek ornaments collected by my goofy husband.

It really is a beautiful tree.

It's Christmas again.

And yet I seem to be missing my holiday cheer.

Partly because I caught whatever horrendous cold bug/plague that was flying around the office (and very kindly passed along to Chris. I'm such an awesome wife...) and I'm feeling physically pretty lousy. But mostly because I thought that we'd have a Little One here in the house with us for this Christmas season.

Last Christmas as we were decorating the tree, I remember us saying things like, "Just think, next year the baby will be here and it'll be our first Christmas together." And I remember thinking things like, "Will she even be awake when we decorate the tree?" or "I know she's not going to remember her first Christmas as an infant, but it's going to be so much fun for us to have her here going through her first Christmas."

But here we are a year later and...

Well, here we are.

I had kind of a "moment" during Thanksgiving where I had to leave the table or risk crying in front of the whole family. Watching my brother-in-law and sister-in-law with our beautiful little nieces was really hard this year. Selfishly, instead of being thankful for our family, our health, our home, our jobs and all of the really wonderful things in our lives, I kept thinking about the fact that another Thanksgiving was rolling by with Chris and I no closer to parenthood than when we started all of this almost two years ago.

And now here we are at Christmas time again and I'm feeling a little blue.

Stupid feeling this way? Yes.

Selfish feeling this way? Yes.

But here I am trying to just move forward. Trying to remind myself that we'll become parents when we become parents and that I need to live in the present moment.

Right now.

And reminding myself to not spend so much time fretting about what is or what isn't or what hasn't happened or when it's going to happen.

Be in this moment.

Right now.

And in this present moment it's Christmas.

So, I'm off to do some last minute shopping, clean the house a bit, and try to find myself some holiday cheer. Because I really am an incredibly lucky person with an amazing husband, wonderful family, terrific friends, a nice if somewhat messy home, and a cat who we love to distraction even if she is a pain in the patootie sometimes.

Life is really good.

Merry Christmas.