Putting some skin in the game...my version

After two months of discussions, online searches, research, and more, we're putting some skin in the game and officially getting things rolling.

The above is part of a post left by Chris on his blog 150 Steps...an Adoption Journey.

While we have been discussing and planning and worrying and breathing and not breathing and laughing...now we're getting serious. We're moving ahead. Committing to action.

We're sending in the application for our Home Study!

This all suddenly feels real. It's going to happen. An application completed, references sought, a check written....

And awwwaaaaaayyyyy we go...

Becoming a mom...for Sarah

I was surprised today when I discovered a rather lengthy and serious comment left Thursday night on my May 28 post "Becoming a mom...a new idea"

Thank you so much, Sarah, for leaving such heartfelt thoughts. I'm honored that you felt safe enough to share your worries here. You didn't leave a way to contact you so I'm just going to hope that you return to "In the present moment..." and I'm writing this post for you.

Please know that I am (obviously) no expert. I'm just a woman trying to sort through the journey I'm on with my husband and the prospect of becoming a mother.

Please also know that I hear you and I can empathize. In fact, it was odd reading your words because so much of what you shared sounded exactly like journal entries I've written over the years! You shared your fears about: being home all day, being lonely and bored, the pain of child birth and the fear of post-partum depression, not being able to travel, not being a good mother, your relationship suffering as a result of the stress of raising children, and money issues.

In spite of your fears, it seems to me that you are doing great things for yourself as you contemplate the prospect of motherhood - like looking online to see what other women are thinking/feeling/fearing/hoping, looking closely at your own fears and motivations, seeking books to help educate yourself and work through some of your fears, and best of all you are seeing a therapist. While I don't feel it's my place to give out advice, I would encourage you to continue doing the things you're doing - especially working with a therapist if he/she is someone with whom you feel comfortable.

You asked if I know of any books about would help a woman who fears motherhood...I have not read any that deal with the specific topic of fear and motherhood. Instead, I have focused on working through fear/doubt/anxiety in general - by working closely with a wonderful therapist who is helping me to address and understand my issues as a human being.

There are resources from which I have drawn incredible comfort, solace, inspiration and learning and they are mainly focused on mindfulness...Some of my favorite books:

Inner Wisdom by Louise Hay

The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness by Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal, and John Kabat-Zinn

Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach

Instructions to the Cook: A Zen Master's Lessons in Living a Life That Matters by Bernie Glassman

Additionally, I have found that listening to Buddhist teacher, Gil Fronsdal, on my commute to and from work has been a source of great peace and learning for me. I downloaded Dharma Talks by Gil Fronsdal and have found the following talks to be of special interest and use in my life:

1. The Five Hindrances: Doubt (11/24/08)
2. Mindfulness of Thinking (weeks 1-4 given 8/13 - 9/3/07)
3. What is Mindfulness? (4/13/08)

The other resources that have proven to be the most incredibly helpful and inspirational are, of course, the many wonderful people in my life: my husband, parents, friends, colleagues, therapist, and folks like you that I am meeting online. It's truly amazing how willing everyone has been and continues to be to share their stories, advice and wisdom. The more I share my concerns, the more kind and generous people make their way to me to help me in this adventure. I am so grateful and blessed.

What will work best for you, Sarah? I don't know. But you appear to be seriously exploring the possibility of motherhood and I imagine that if you continue on this path that the resources you need will find their way to you just as what I needed found its way to me.

As I said before, I am by no means any kind of expert, but I will always try to share what is happening on this journey to parenthood.

I wish the very best as you sort through your own journey, Sarah - whether you choose to pursue motherhood or decide that perhaps it is not quite for you. If you feel comfortable, I hope you'll keep in touch and share where you are in your process.

An adoptive dad's point of view...

My husband is a fantastic human being.

And, as I mentioned in a previous post, I just know he's going to be a great dad.

He's also a wonderful writer. Apparently, reading my blog for the last few weeks, and wanting to share some of his own thoughts has inspired him to start recording our adoption journey on his own blog. If you'd like to check out the point of view from an adoptive father-to-be, you can visit Chris at:

150 Steps...an Adoption Journey

subtitled... The ruminations of a prospective adoptive father as my wife and set out to add a child to our family.

I'm fine...really

One of my colleagues approached me today to check in with me about how I'm doing. She's been following this blog and is apparently a bit worried about me.

"I've been reading your blog," she says to me, "and I've meant to respond to you, but haven't gotten to it. I just keep reading what you're writing and thinking, 'Oh, please don't worry so much! You'll be fine! You'll be fine!'"

I laugh.

"I remember that I felt just like you," she continues, "but you read everything - like Dr. Spock and the Dr. Ferber method - and you'll be just fine. Don't spend so much time worrying about everything. I mean, I was so worried that I'd be just like my mother, who was a total loon! But I wasn't," she pauses and then says, "Of course, I brought my own kind of craziness to being a mother and you probably will, too. Now my daughter thinks I'm a total loon."

I laugh again and ask, "And do you say to her, 'You're just lucky you didn't grow up with MY mother!'?"

My colleague laughs. We talk a little more and I reassure her that I'm just fine. She provides more very lovely words of wisdom. I hope she knows that I so appreciate her concern for me and for taking the time to check in.

And if anyone else out there in the blogosphere is concerned...

I'm fine....really.

The thing of it is that, although I am not physically pregnant, I am "expecting" - in the sense that I am waiting for the arrival of our baby. And like any first-time expectant mom, I have concerns and worries.

I just happen to be sorting through my concerns and worries in this very public blog.

It helps to write things down.

Often I am not able to articulate verbally what's going on in my head and so am not able to have a conversation about my concerns and worries. Nor am I particularly good at sorting things out in my head....the thoughts instead buzz round and around in my mind driving me a bit batty.

The very act of writing out my thoughts, questions, worries and concerns helps me to bring order to them...to give voice to them...to name them...to relieve them of the power they might have if they stay in my head and become negatively and dangerously repetitive.

I truly do not want to think "What if I'm not good enough?" 500 times. Now that I've written about that particular worry in this blog, I can continue the process of releasing it and replacing it (hopefully!) with a more positive thought. That's really it - I'm processing.

So, if my recent posts have had you worried or concerned....Thank you. I really do appreciate all of the concern, but I'm fine...really.

What's next?

Although I've been posting regularly, family and friends are still asking, "So, where are you in the process? What's next?"

So my thoughts about becoming a mother, while perhaps interest to some... were apparently not informative enough.

So here's a very quick update:

1. We're fairly certain that we've found the agency that we'd like to have conduct our home study. Our next step is to send in our application to this agency.
   
2. Still in the process of researching adoption/placement agencies. Would like to interview a few more before making any final decision, although at this point I wouldn't be surprised if we went with the law center that we interviewed with a few weeks ago.
   
3. Would like to speak with adoptive parents who have utilized the various adoption agencies that we're looking at so as we move forward we'll be asking for references and making some calls.
   
4. Need to determine if we're going to pursue a domestic or an international adoption. Right now we're both leaning very much in favor of domestic.
5. Banking my salary from now on to pay the incredible adoption fees needed to adopt an infant and need to really make a household budget to see if we can live successfully on one salary (we'll continue to bank mine as savings in the future...kids cost money!)

I think after our experience with the law center interview, Chris and I unconsciously took a little break from all things adoption. I obviously used the time to reflect upon impending motherhood... Now that we've had a little break, we're hopping back on the merry-go-round and will be doing more research/interviews/etc.

So that's where we are.

As Chris said the other day to a friend who was asking the "So, where are you? What's the next step?" question...

"If there are 150 steps in the adoption process, we're on Step 6."

The Good Mother...thinking about my thinking

I think...therefore I am.

Really?

Because here's what I've been thinking for the last few days:

"What if I'm not good enough?"..."Maybe I'm not good enough."

These are not the thoughts that I want to be if I am indeed who I am because of my thinking!

Like some tiny, vicious winged insects that keep buzzing around my head and that I keep shooing away...they just keep coming back.

Over and over and over again.

Buzz buzz buzz...

Gil Fronsdal, Buddhist Vipassana teacher at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood, CA, had the following to say about thinking and repetitive thoughts in a wonderful talk entitled "The Mindfulness of Thinking":

It's amazing...it's awesome...it's awful how repetitive our thinking can be - at least mine can be. Probably some of you also. You can think the same thing 3 or 4 times, right? 10 or 20 times? 50 or 100 times? 500 times? With slight variations [each time]...just thinking over and over and over again. If someone walked next to us and talked to us as incessantly and repetitively as we talk to ourselves, we would think they were crazy. We would probably want them institutionalized...please!...we'd bribe them to be quiet. Anything!

He continues:

The world of thinking [is] really marvelous and wonderful and something to be marveled at and it's also something awful. It's something frightening. It's amazing the amount of suffering and damage that can come through the world of our thinking. So an important part of any spiritual life and certainly in a mindful life is to have some handle on the whole domain of thinking - the world of our thinking.

A good percentage of our suffering can be traced back to our thinking... for some people thinking becomes the medium through which the channels of suffering get expressed or get actualized or get felt. So if we want to become free from our suffering or get a handle on our suffering it helps a lot if we can get a handle on our thinking. And so it takes some time to look at our thoughts to understand what's happening there. The advantage of it - of learning about our thinking - is that then also we can appreciate when our thinking is not causing our suffering, but instead adds to the richness of our life.

From another Gil Fronsdal Dharma talk on "The Mindfulness of Thinking":

Many people don't realize how caught they are in the world of their thoughts...We might not even see that there is a problem or an issue...But then there can be this moment when there is a shift in the mind and the mind separates itself from being so closely tied or velcroed to our thinking. There's a kind of pulling away - a separation - and you say, "Ohhhh...there's thinking that's going on." There's a very clear recognition - "There is thinking."...To step back and realize "Oh, I am thinking" ... with the right kind of perspective - it can lead to a sense of freedom or a sense of ease or a sense of, "Wow, I'm not so caught in that world."

So apparently the annoying vicious little doubt-filled thoughts buzzing around in my mind are just one small part of the wonderful, marvelous, awful and sometimes frightening world of my thinking.

Buzz buzz buzz...

And it would seem that because I've allowed myself to get caught by these horrible thoughts about doubting my ability to be a mother -

"What if I'm not good enough?"

"Maybe I'm not good enough"

- I am causing my own suffering!

So, perhaps

• by "getting a handle on my thinking,"
  
• by not allowing myself to get so caught up in the world of my thinking,
  
• by taking a step back from thinking, and recognizing and identifying "Ohhh. This is just thinking"
  
• and by recognizing that I am not my thoughts...

then I can free myself from my self-induced, thought-caused suffering.

Or am I just thinking about this way too much?

The Good Father...

Chris is going to be a great dad.

Of this, I am certain.

Not only does he love kids, but he's great with them. Last weekend when E & J were visiting with their kids F and A, my husband was at his finest.

He and 9 year-old F grab the badminton rackets/birdies and commence attempting to keep up a string of unbroken volleys. Chris counts out loud with each hit of the birdie. F laughs and giggles each time that she and Chris keep the birdie aloft and laughs even more at his mock cries of distress when one of them misses.

"Seven...Eight...Nine....Ten...Eleven...OH NO! We were doing so great! Let's try again!...One... two...three..."

4 year-old A watches from the safety of our hammock, laughing also at Chris when he lets out a cry at a dropped birdie. E, J and I watch from the deck and share in the laughter as well. The game goes on and on and on with neither player - adult or kid - showing any signs of tiring. They eventually put together an impressive string of 28 unbroken volleys.

I fall just that much more in love with Chris while watching him interact so naturally with the kids.

He has so much patience and kindness in him. Our Little One will be so lucky to have him as a Dad.

But, of course, I wonder a little...underneath that confident and caring exterior, does Chris have the same worries that I do?

Does he wonder if he's good enough to be a father?

Are all fathers assailed by doubt?

Post Script

This morning before we leave for work I mention to Chris that I have written a post about him. He is syncing his iPod to his computer and so makes a quick foray to "In the present moment..."

Upon reading this post he turns to me and says, "Thank you."

I ask him, "So, are you worried about being a dad? Do you have doubts?"

"No," he replies, "I don't have any worries about being with our kid or anything to do with being a dad that way. The stuff I worry about is the money and if our house is big enough - you know - the practicalities. That's the stuff I worry about."

Do all Dads worry about the practicalities?