Two

This post is for all who are interested in what Audrey is up to these days. For the most part, she's pretty much keeping herself (and me) busy with the wonder-filled life of a two year old. She keeps us laughing and our hearts melting. She's a tiny tempest with all the best and worst of what it is to be two. Willful and sweet. Terrible. Tender. Both shy and unabashed. Endearing. Infuriating. Smart as a whip. A keen observer. A mess maker. A ham.
She's a lover of the moon, babies, Elmo and Big Bird. A dweller in the time-out spot. A dancer. A climber of everything. A chanter of mommy, momma, mom, momma, mom, mooooooooom.... She prefers a clothing-optional lifestyle. Would be in heaven if someone would just chase her all day long. Wants to try to do everything herself ("Audi fwy it.") . Can have her coat, mittens, boots and hat off in the heartbeat that I turn around to open the door. She refers to herself in the third person. Will give any word a try (Ed's working in words like "conglomeration" and "Sri Lanka"). In our bedtime prayers we've started praying for the little baby who will come and be in our family some day, so in the past week she has started to talk it over. For example, saying things like "Audi share pillow, baby sister," or "Maybe...maybe...maybe...(x10 more maybes) baby sister go outside, eat snow."*

* Gender yet unknown, but Audrey has chosen to refer to her future sibling as a girl. She's very ready to be a big sister.

The Lifeline

Back in 2010-11 while we were waiting to be chosen by Audrey's birth mother, my support group came in the mailbox every other month in the form of Adoptive Families magazine. Many issues were half read before the magazine even made it into our house. I remember more than one occasion sitting in the driveway, weeping over the pictures or words, a mingling of longing and fear welling up and over, looking at a life that seemed like an unobtainable dream. Each magazine brought a cascade of emotions but also a wealth of information and discussion that I was so hungry for. It was a tangible link to the unseen world I was living in as a waiting adoptive hopeful.

In Audrey's first year I reluctantly cancelled our subscription . Now that we are living the dream, I don't have enough time to consume the material. I also don't need it as much, emotionally speaking. But here we are waiting again. And though heartache is tempered by the pitter-patter of Audrey feet, it is still part of the process.

Enter a great strength of the LSS adoption program. I have had my issues with LSS at times and wondered if we made the right decision, blah, blah, blah. Especially when it comes to how long it can take to get placed with a child. Sometimes it seems like this waiting may go on forever. BUT, that said, given the opportunity to go back and change course, I would stay where we are. What we received through the LSS training back in the spring of 2012 is invaluable. First, we learned so much in those 5 days of classes. Stuff we wished we had known the first time around. And second, in those sessions we bonded with 4 other families who were also beginning the domestic adoption process. This is now our support group.

We have been getting together a few times a year since the completion of our training. In between, we email with news and/or frustrations. Last night was our first get-together with the good news of an immanent placement. A couple in our group has been chosen by a birth mother who is due to give birth at the end of October. It is so exciting to have this shared joy. With our group, we will be celebrating 5 adoptions, not just one. A baby girl on the way had us gathered around the chosen ones to hear the scoop on how they were chosen and how they've been preparing. We absorbed details of their visits and discussions with the birth family, collecting tips for when it's our turn. As they enter into parenthood next month we will all be watching with joy and hope.

Our adoption group is a treasure. In each other's company we can talk about our worries, concerns, frustrations, and hopes and know that we are understood. We are all standing around in the same shoes. We (the girls here) swap infertility war stories and laugh over the crazy and inappropriate things some people say. We talk preparations: to buy or not to buy the baby stuff, to set up the nursery or wait, baby showers?, pediatricians, childcare, diapers and diaper bags, strollers. We discuss the letter we all received announcing the pregnancy of our social worker. We talk about the things that really get to us. We agonize over our portfolios.

When hear each other's stories, we feel a little less crazy.

Right now, Audrey and Nathanial (4) are the only children in our group. I like to think about their circle of friends that is about the expand. As Audrey gave out hugs and kisses on our departure, I got to looking forward to a lot more hugs and kisses going around this circle in the future.

It's that time of year...

Ok. It's been a year. I know I promised back in January that I'd be posting a Salsa Party update "soon." I have no good excuse aside from the fact that blogging - for me - requires a willingness to give up some sleep. These days, sleep is a precious commodity. I am reluctant to skimp. But with the anniversary of the salsa party upon us I am embarrassed that I have yet to get this post together. We've had inquiries as to whether we'd be hosting another party this fall. We're tickled that people had a good enough time to want to come back again. However, our current policy is one salsa party per adoption. So, no party this year. But now it truly is time to give a report.

We have lots of great news to share, though we don't have the ultimate news that everyone has been waiting for. Not yet. We are still waiting for that call. But in the meantime it's been a good year. We're having fun looking back through our pictures, remembering what a great day last year's salsa party was. Our friends, community and family came from far and near to celebrate our first adoption, anticipate our second, and help us put together some savings for when those final adoption bills come due. The weather got a little crazy on us a couple times, but we all had fun anyway. We chopped, we ate, we scavenged, smithed, played and sang with more than 200 most wonderful guests. Audrey, at 14 months, was having the time of her life, running around the farm with a trail of attendants in her wake.

The photos below tell the story of the day. To get a closer look at any of the photos, just click on the image.

 

 

 

 

Thanks to Bethany Fancher and Karin Svenson for most of these pictures. And thank you to our many friends, neighbors and family members who came together to make this day so special and such a success for us.

In all, we received $6400 toward our adoption fund! What an amazing gift! And that's not all. Over the winter we applied for a few adoption grants. We were so excited to get word this spring that Katelyn's Fund approved us for a $1500 grant and Show Hope has awarded us a $6000 grant. We are exceedingly grateful for God's provision through the generosity of others.  We anticipate our expenses will be somewhere between $16 and $20,000 to complete this adoption. The gifts we have received take the financial burden out of our adoption picture and we can freely look forward to holding that sweet little baby someday. Hopefully someday soon.

p.s. If anyone has any tips on how to manage multiple (unruly) pictures on a blogger post, please drop me a line. I could use some help.

Looking back, looking ahead

We're starting out 2013 with what seems like our very own indoor tornado.  At 18 months, Audrey is on the go and into every sort of mischief she can find.  I'm trying to teach her how to pick up after herself, but this lesson isn't sinking in so much.  She's starting to use a few words.  Papa.  Mama.  Meow.  No.  Some of her favorite things to do are feeding and harassing the cat, trying to ride the dog, climbing everything, and making her arm magically disappear.

Taking stock of our current adoption progress, we've come a long way since a year ago.  2012 brought us to the completion of one adoption and the beginning of a second.  We see God's goodness and mercy woven through every step.  Here's a quick look at where we've been.

January:  Finalization of Audrey's adoption.  We got accepted into Lutheran Social Services 2012 domestic adoption program by the skin of our teeth.

March and April:  Weekly education and training sessions for 5 weeks with our training group of 4 other couples...we couldn't have asked for a better group of people to work with!  This was the highlight of our LSS experience so far.

May and June:  Paperwork and the monster scrapbook project.  By the end of June we were approved.  Our resume letter went into the binder of waiting families' letters that birth parents peruse when looking for adoptive parents.  If someone likes our letter, they can ask to see our 24 page scrapbook.

September:  Salsa Party! (Salsa report coming soon).

June to the present:  Waiting.  We just hit the 6 month mark.  Even though they tell you to be ready for a 2 year wait, I can get a little jittery.  I suppose it might be natural to hope to be chosen sooner rather than later. When you start out with an adoption, sometimes friends like to encourage you by saying you'll probably be chosen quickly.  It's easy to cling to something like that, even when you don't realize you are.  But all that kind of thing does is make the waiting worse when it turns out to be, like, 2 years. 

This second time around the waiting is easier, as Audrey is keeping our lives full.  And yet, it is still easy to fret some. It's easy to start asking the same questions as before. Are we too _______ to be chosen?  (old, square, rural, pale, etc.)  Is our scrapbook too blah?

Last week I asked our LSS social worker how many waiting families there are in the book for minority adoptions.  She said she thought there are nine families right now, and since the time our letter went in the book, there have been 2 placements, and 2 more families added.  That was a surprise.  I had this notion that our letter was pressed into a 3 inch thick binder with hundreds of other letters and that it might never be seen by a birth parent.  Nine.  Okay.  Never mind that worry about never being seen.  I'm glad I asked.   

Next year, at the turn of 2014 I hope that our status is something other than still waiting.  But I am working on being o.k. with it, if that is what it is.  I'm trying to get my expectations set to a 2 year wait with the possibility that it could be even longer.  

I know that God knows our next child -- who, when, where -- and that his timing really is perfect despite what I might wish for. So this is what I aim to satisfy myself with while we wait.
God knows.