My life is a Hallmark Movie

On New Year's Day we were at our big grocery store at 7:15 am.
Because that is how we roll around here. We drove to my hometown and back the day before to have a belated family Christmas with my Mom's large extended family. It was a good time introducing the babies to everyone. I got to see my Dad--more on that in another post. We pulled out of my Mom's driveway at 6:45 pm and the babies--exhausted from the festivities--both fell asleep by 6:47. They slept the whole way, all 175 miles. Until the last mile. I kid you not, a police offier pulled us over.

DH went mini-ballistic. I was not speeding! I am not drunk! It's 10:15 pm on New Year's Eve, why is he pulling us over and we have two sleeping babies in the back and we're almost home and we are both so damn tired and we just want to get home and people PUHLEEZE.

Here's a question for the masses: when police officers ask if they know why they are pulling you over do they expect an honest answer?

At any rate, apparently the little tiny light bulb that lights our license plate has burned out and that was reason to pull us over, on the worst night for drunk driving, when there were likely multiple other drivers out at that very moment committing real driving offenses.

When he shined his massive flashlight into the back seat illuminating my sleeping babies I half-hoped/willed that they would wake up and start wailing uncontrollably just to show him. Except. It wouldn't have shown him anything. What did he care? I would have been the one to then have to deal with their wailing, snotty nosed selves. So I quickly thanked God that they remained asleep.

But none of this has to do with the blog post title. Because if that were the Hallmark Movie, well, let's just say it wouldn't be a ratings killer.

Back to the the story of why we were at the grocery store so early. Because we didn't go out for New Year's. I could get all reflective on 2011 but if you're a reader you know it was a good year--ultimately, after some serious lows and scares--, a year that there really aren't words to describe, but it was definitely a year worth celebrating for us. I'll leave it at that.

Ahem. Back to the grocery store.
It's empty at 7:15 am which is why we like it. DH goes with me. Each baby gets their own shopping cart and they honestly act like they are king and queen of said carts--really, king and queen of the whole store. If there are other shoppers or workers around they laugh and flirt and engage them, they point at the lights, they point at the food, they babble constantly as they direct their grocery store kingdom.

I was steering my cart back towards the soup aisle, having forgotten some vegetarian broth when I saw an employee, a handsome young man, standing in the middle of the aisle, smiling broadly at me and my daughter. He kept staring, engaging us the whole time, and I thought it a bit odd, and anticipated him asking if he could help me find something.

"Hello!" he said and gave me a look like: hello, it's ME!

And then it hit me and my eyes welled up with tears and I nearly leapt at him to give him a hug.

Because it was R.

Our little brother. The one we mentored for seven years through the Big Brothers/Big Sisters Program and loved with our whole hearts and then watched as he accumulated a child, a criminal record, and dropped out of high school. Watched helplessly as we failed miserably as his mentors.

I haven't seen him in years, though we were just talking about him on the drive to my hometown, wondering what he was doing, wondering what had become of him. The last we knew he was living about an hour away, still married, with two babies of his own.
I will not go into details here, but suffice is to say that our relationship ended on a less than pleasant note and it was painful for me and the mister. And then our own lives became so much more complicated and we felt that our seven year mentoring relationship with R would just have to stand on its own, it was what it was, we did the best we could.

And there he was, bright and early in 2012, standing right in front of me, somehow in our grocery store in our little neck of the woods, returning my hug with such a force.

Note: the next parts are going to sound like I'm tooting our horn. I am not. I just want to repeat what he said, for the sake of my Hallmark Movie.

He told us he had seen us shopping a few times before but hadn't wanted to to talk to us because he was embarrassed. Embarrassed that we would be so upset with him and for all he had put us through.

I didn't want you to think your time with me was wasted. It wasn't. It meant so much to me. My life is hard and I'm just realizing how I need to do the stuff we used to talk about--go back to school, do something more. But you guys meant so much to me and I know I screwed up. Probably, if you hadn't done what you did for me, I would have been in a lot worse place. A lot worse. So thank you for all you did for me.


Or something along those lines. My head was spinning as I took him in with my eyes. All 21 years of him. He is handsome--always was.

We talked some more, hugged some more, introduced our babies to him, and exchanged numbers.

I floated out of that store.
We both instantly started talking about how we could have him back in our lives.

He's like our original kid, and he's back.

To be continued....

All I ever asked for and so much more...

Merry Christmas!

My son wanted to tell you that first I made him dress in a little tuxedo onesie and then I made him wait in a long line to see some man we kept talking about and then I made him sit on this scary man's lap and then I expected him to smile? Puhleeze.

My daughter said "meh."





My good friend and fellow IFer Larisa used to tell me she couldn't wait for my heart to be full. Ah Larisa, wise woman, it is. So full, so full.

Even without my Dad being here, this has been the happiest Christmas on record. Our babies are sleeping through the night, they're growing so fast, they're delighting in everything, our daughter is taking her first steps, I've heard them say "Momma!" and the Mister and I are trying to soak it all in. Did I mention they're both now sleeping through the night? not to keep dwelling on it, but a full night's sleep is one of the best presents I could have ever received!

But you can't hold onto anything, so you just have to move with them, through it all, and let the happiness wash over you. I wish that for everyone, I honestly do. Full and happy hearts!

Happiest of holidays to everyone!

One year ago...

One year ago today we were escape artists.

We were escaping the 'regular' holidays and going to NYC, a place that always did our hearts good and our hearts were in desperate need of some good. We were at a low point, expecting nothing after putting our entire world into our Ethiopian adoption. Referrals were slowing down, the program seemed in jeopardy, we had announced to our family that if this, too, did not work out, we were done. Plain and simple.

In NYC we felt we could hide amongst the masses, and maybe avoid some of the more painful holiday reminders of families, and the fact that we did not have one.

Of course you know the rest of the story. Within hours of arriving in NYC we stood in front of Macy's, and posed for a picture in front of their "Believe" sign. I whispered to the mister that we had to believe, but honestly I didn't.

Minutes later those precious emails came through, with those photos of our babies.

Our babies.

They were tiny, scared, undernourished and frankly kind of pitiful looking.

But it was love at first sight.

I must have stared at those pictures, cradling my iPhone, for hours during that trip. Other people take and have hundreds of photos of their newborns--I have only these of each of my children. They are precious to me.

Everything changed in those minutes after receiving those photos. Everything looked different. Everything felt different. Everything.

And now, a year later, here we are, with two healthy, hearty babies underfoot, getting into everything, challenging us in ways we never even imagined, and bringing us joy in the most amazing ways.

A whole year has passed--I can hardly believe it. This morning when I picked up our son and he nestled his curly head into my neck, the tears started rolling. How could that little photo of that tiny little baby have turned into this, my big loveable boy? How could I be so lucky?

When I picked up my daughter and she gave me her patented drooly kiss my heart felt like it would burst with happiness. Oh little girl--you have come so far.

My babies--December 21st will always, always be a day to celebrate from our perspective. For it is the day we learned of you in a real and concrete way, instead of only imagining you in our hearts.

Happy Referralversary H&H!



Unexpected tears

Why am I crying dropping DH off for his vasectomy?

That was the text I sent to my sister this morning before I backed out of the doctor's parking lot.

Yes, it's true, DH had a vasectomy this morning. It's done.

It's also true that we do not want any more children. That--if we're being truthful here--we are fairly overwhelmed with the two we do have. At their one year pediatrician visit yesterday I left feeling more like a failure than ever. Our daughter is eating too well, it seems, our son is too old to be not sleeping through the night, we are not disciplining properly, and the list goes on and on. Here I had been thinking I was doing the right thing with feeding them as much as they wanted, but it seems when babies are starved in their early days they do not learn self regulation. I knew this--intellectually--but honestly I don't want to think about my babies laying in their cribs with empty bellies when they were 0-3 months old but I know they did. So I just hoped/assumed/falsely reassured myself that my babies knew how to self-regulate and they wouldn't overfeed. Couple that with the idea that if I could just keep him full enough my son would sleep all night and I guess I really mucked things up. Sigh again. Put all that together with the continued sleep deprivation and yes, there were lots of tears this morning.

I have very strong feelings about our family being complete, about how I would never, ever want my babies to think they were not enough. This is why we knew when we completed their adoption we were done.

But watching my DH walk up to the urologist's office, alone, knowing I couldn't even be there with him to hold his hand it made me so sad. True, he's a grown man but damn, he looked so vulnerable going by himself.  I thought about all the times he held my hand, through my surgeries, and biopsies, and retrievals, and invasive tests and procedures. It is times like these I wish I had someone close by who could just watch the babies for an hour here or there.

But mostly, I just felt sad watching his genetics come to an end in such a final way. And I know you'll say, waaah? But you guys couldn't get pregnant anyway! And you always say genetics don't matter!

True, true, I have said that, and I do know that. Our odds were exceedingly low for any type of pregnancy and the whole reason he got the vasectomy was so I could confidently take some medications that I really need. Cholesterol meds. Yes, I'm vegetarian, I'm a runner, but my genetics are horrible.

But my DH? His genetics are gold. Not just from a disease standpoint (but they are) but he's a creative, talented, amazing soul. And I would have loved to have seen some of those gifts passed along but frankly, my body wasn't able to accomodate that, plain and simple.

So those tears came from a couple of places. I am overwhelmed. I am trying to encompass the fifty recommendations I received yesterday at the pediatrician's office into our routines.  I am sad for my sweet DH. I am guilty. I will always be sad for us in a place in my heart that knows that creating another human soul from two souls that love each other is an amazing and beautiful thing that we did not do. The rest of my heart is so overflowing with love for the two souls I have been entrusted to nurture and grow that I honestly do not think about the losses or sadness of infertility anymore. Until a day like today, when I came face to face with the finality of everything.

My family is complete. It was the day we received our referral photos. But tears, they come from unexpected places, and sometimes all you can do is let them fall.

What's been going on...

I have not been writing.
This much, I know.
Unless you count what I write in my head. I write in my head all the time but alas the words don't spill onto the page as easily.

I do have this complicated post I wrote the week the seventh billion baby was born. If I read it without knowing who wrote it I wouldn't guess it was from someone who pushed the limits of science in the quest for a biological baby. You all know my thoughts on zero population growth already and my thoughts on adoption are incredibly complex so the post is a doozy, to say the least. I could never quite hit publish, so it sits, marinating in its own juices in the drafts folder. Maybe one day.

I received an interesting writing assignment the other day from my mother.
She asked me to write my father's obituary now, while he's still living.

I nodded, understanding intellectually what she meant. An obituary. A tribute, a reflection on his life. My heart clenched, though, in that moment. My brain lurched ahead and started forming those words that you realistically know you will think/say/write at some point when you lose a parent but my heart stayed behind, and has remained there since. Those words are marinating, too, but I haven't yet put pen to paper. My heart isn't ready.

This was our first Thanksgiving without him present. It simply was not possible. During our Thanksgiving prayer tears rolled down my cheeks and dripped onto my empty plate. To be at once so grateful for the babies now physically present in my life and so sad for the missing presence of my father...dualing emotions at their finest.

Speaking of the babies, our daughter turns one year old today and that is an amazing celebration. When I think of those early photos, the early weight reports, the illness, the absolute lack of any control over her medical care (lack of) when she was ill and losing weight, the sleepless nights wondering who was holding her, or feeding her, the knowledge affirmed when we saw her first orphanage that there were many days she simply did not get enough...well, I can scarcely believe how far she has come. She is a glowing, vibrant child who babbles constantly, eats anything we put in front of her, is nearly walking, and currently has the most adorable one giant front tooth (to go with her two bottom ones). She loves to give kisses and hugs but is also quite indepenent. Watching her sing along with her father as he plays the ukele and sings to them during bathtime is a heart melting moment. Happy Birthday Sweet Girl!

OK so I lied: she's not always vibrant. See holiday photo below, where she pouted pretty much the entire time :)



A post dedicated to my son...

Who is now officially a one year old!

Happy Birthday, my sweet and beautiful boy, you turned one yesterday and I can hardly believe it.

You like to eat soy meatballs, and bean and cheese quesadillas, and lots of vegetables (baby food style only!) but you have ventured out and tried some edamame and even some green peas. You did NOT, however, like your birthday cookie. We are saving the cake for the actual party but alas, I have a feeling you will not like it much either. That's ok, there will be plenty of time for sweets in this family. You are walking behind a walker and can stand on your own for a few seconds but you can crawl faster than I ever could have imagined. You are happy and laugh easily. You will not, however, say Mama no matter how much begging I do. You like to smother me with very wet kisses and when we play, you check in for a cuddle at least once every five minutes. I adore it.

Your birthday is a happy but complicated day. Other adoptive mothers will get this. I grieve for myself that I did not know you on this day one year ago, that you were on the other side of the world and your birth was surrounded with complicated emotions. I grieve for your birth family. But yet I know you were loved tremendously. And I know you still are. And while that is not the only thing the matters, I think it is what matters the most. Which is why this mother did get her feathers ruffled when some comments on my 'Lucky' post insinuated I might actually raise my children under a dark cloud of being unlucky. Puhleeze give me more credit than that.

But nevertheless Happy Birthday! You didn't want to look at the camera, but that's ok. Do you see the smile on my face?

You put it there.

Cry, baby, cry

When you've got to get it out.

"Hi Pumpkin," he manages to sputter. His voice is barely audible, barely recognizable.
He only knows my name because my Mom tells him it is me on the phone.
I ask him a question.
He doesn't answer.
I hear him choking on the other end of the phone.
He chokes on everything these days.
He's labeled "comfort care" but that doesn't mean there is any end in sight.

"Have I been laying here for five years?" he asked my Mom the other day.
No, it's been two and half. But it must seem like an eternity.

"Oh Dad I miss you," I say, tearing up.
I miss the man you were, the man I wish you could still be.

You are trapped, trapped in a shell that has utterly betrayed you. You are paralyzed. You can barely eat. Your mind doesn't work anymore, for the most part.

The only thing that keeps me from wailing sometimes is the idea that a friend gave me, that maybe, if we're lucky, in his mind he is out jogging, or riding his bike, or riding his tractor, or being with his dog.

Not trapped. Not lying in a bed, unable to do anything for himself anymore. Unable to make sense of the world around him. And wondering if he's been laying there for five years. It must feel like one million years.

I was exhausted yesterday. A busy day at work, a trying time at mealtime with one baby who just.doesn't.like.to.eat and was tired and doesn't feel good and was throwing food and crying and as we pushed their stroller for our regular evening pre-bath stroll, I just felt the tears rolling down my face, recalling the conversation I had had just an hour prior with my Dad, as he laid in the hospital ER, dehydrated to the point of a blood pressure of 70/40.

I could barely choke the words out to the Mr.

"Is this what the sandwich generation means?" I want to run home and help take care of my Dad but I can't leave my children. I want to be everything for everyone and fix everything.


Cry, baby, cry.
When you have to get it out.

My children are fine. The eating issues will pass. They will sleep better. I will sleep better. My Dad will not get better and that is a fact. We have been home with them four months. My Dad has laid paralyzed for two and half years. We are planning their first birthdays. That is something to celebrate.

I am definitely feeling sandwiched. It's my new sensation I guess.

Love, baby, love.
It's written all over your face.




*I will revisit my lucky post, and some of the comments, when I can. I have so much more to say.