150 Steps...an Adoption Journey

68 Hours

2011-09-02T15:09:00.001-04:00

(The following written on the afternoon of September 2, 2011, en route from Providence, RI, to Orlando, FL)

I'm less than 2 hours from meeting my daughter.

The jet is cruising at 36,000 feet and in a shocking turn of events, I have the entire exit row (aka "first class" on Southwest Airlines) to myself. This has never happened before and while not superstitious, I wonder if it's just another bit of the good fortune that appears to have been flowing through my life over the last two weeks.

Well, except for the hurricane and losing power, phone, and Internet for 4 days. Yet even there, we suffered no damage, no flooding, and everyone we know came through it safe and sound.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Eight days ago I accept a great job offer following an almost 3-month interview process. It offers tremendous opportunities and won't require us to relocate. Yes, it means ending my 13-year tenure with my current employer but it's time for a new challenge. I am thrilled to get the position, especially knowing how competitive the job market is right now. I give two and a half weeks notice and began to prepare for the transition.

Then Hurricane Irene hits and much of Rhode Island, including our town, goes dark. But our damage is minimal and the neighborhood gets together to help clean up the fallen trees and debris in all the yards on Monday. Still, we are cut off even via cell phones unless we leave the house and go elsewhere (not quite sure why but neither AT&T nor Verizon can deliver reliable service to our house). But my office is open for business on Tuesday and I head off to work frantically on the projects required to make my transition out as smooth as possible for my friends and co-workers.

Jennifer stays home, doing some cleanup from the storm and trying to put things to right. Unlike a normal day during which at least a few text messages will zip back and forth just to say "hi" and "I miss you", there's radio silence. My messages are going out but she's not receiving them.

Late that day, a friend in the office comes by to say hi. He's been on vacation and only just heard that I was departing. The topic of families comes up as he and his wife are due to have their first child in October. He knows how long we've been waiting and the devastation we felt when our previous adoption placement collapsed when the birth mother changed her mind four days before her due date.

"Don't worry," he says. "It will happen for you."

Ten minutes later, my cell phone rings.

"Hello," I say.

"Chris? It's T, from Adoption Network. I've been trying to reach you all day."

"We've been out of contact due to the hurricane," I say. "No phone, no power, no Internet. What's up?"

"I'm calling about a placement opportunity but it's an unusual situation and I'll need your feedback right away."

I stand up, close the door to my office, and then sit back down again, pen and paper in hand.

"What is it?"

"There's a young woman in Orlando, Florida. She came to us last week, pretty late in her pregnancy. She'd thought about abortion but decided against it because she knows there are families who want to adopt. Her due date was September 10th."

"Ok," I say, swallowing hard.

"Well, she had the baby today and we need to identify the adoptive parents tonight because the baby will be discharged from the hospital on Thursday."

I'm baffled. Can she really be saying what I'm hearing? And now of all times?

T fills the gap left by my silence. "I know how long you and Jennifer have been waiting and how hard it was back in March. K, the young woman, has already seen your profile and those of two other families as she's been completing the paperwork before going to the hospital today."

"I need to know if you want me to show her your profile again. If she chooses you, you or Jennifer will have to get to Florida tomorrow."

She rattles off some more details that I dutifully scribble down on a piece of scrap paper, the information washing over me. Key phrases stick...

"The baby is healthy."

"It's a little girl."

"Oh wow," I breathe. "T, I need to talk to Jennifer but she's at home and I can't reach her by phone or cell. However, I'm meeting her in 15 minutes for dinner. Can I call you back in half an hour?"

"Yes, of course."

And with that, I'm shutting down my computer, cramming materials into my briefcase, digging out my keys, and fleeing the building with butterflies in my stomach.

The drive to our favorite restaurant feels interminable as I get caught at stoplights, and stuck behind a succession of pokey little econoboxes and trucks.

I pull up to the restaurant and run toward the door, slowing as I see Jennifer sitting on the bench outside, phone to her ear, notepad in her lap.

I hear her ask a question and realize she must be talking to T. The voicemail that never reached my wife's cell phone at home has emerged from the void to spring upon her in front of El Parque. I realize that I'm seeing a mirror of how I must have looked at my desk a short time before, scribbling notes frantically as T relays the details. Finally, she signs off with the promise that we'll be calling back very soon.

She looks up at me.

"When it rains it pours, huh?" I ask.

And we both burst into laughter.

"Holy crap."

"What do we do?"

"I don't know. I guess we need to talk about it."

"Out here or are you ok talking in the restaurant?"

"Oh, I think I need to sit down and have something to drink."

And so we go inside. The small bowl of chips and homemade salsa are emptied rapidly, mostly by me in a fit of nervous hunger.

"I don't think I can eat," Jennifer says.

In truth, that's about all I can remember of the conversation at the table. I know we talk about the challenges that would arise due to travel (one of us would have to be in Florida for one to two weeks for the paperwork to clear) and me leaving one job and starting another (well, there goes my plan to take few weeks off to be with the baby). We have no way to do any of the things we'd need to do from home, given the current stone age situation.

And in the end, none of it matters.

We can't turn down the opportunity. Besides, K might not even pick us so all of these issues will be non-factors.

I step out and call T.

"Ok, show her our profile again."

Back at the table, my stomach is twisting and nagging sense of doubt creeps in. Are we nuts? Can we actually do this? What sane person would do this in the midst of every other change and challenge in our lives? Did we make the right decision.

"We could call her back," Jennifer says, a questioning note in her voice. But we don't.

Fifteen minutes later, the phone rings.

"Congratulations," says T.

************

The next few hours are a frenzy. After leaving the restaurant and hugging and laughing and sitting by the side of the road sobbing in terror and joy and relief together, we head for my mother's house, where power, Internet, and a reliable phone line are available.

A plane ticket is purchased for Jennifer (yay Southwest!). I will follow a day or two later to give me a chance to meet some commitments and deadlines at work.

A hotel suite is reserved for the next two weeks (yay inexpensive hotels in Orlando!).

E-mails are sent to and from T.

Documents are printed.

My mother and stepfather are informed when they come home, walking into their kitchen asking, "Hey, what's going on?"

Calls are made to a few other family members but no other messages go out. We've been disrupted before and we're not going to jinx it by letting everyone know yet.

Finally, exhausted, Jennifer and I head home at 11 PM to get her packed up for her morning flight. Conveniently, when the Universe crashed in on us in March, we'd been all packed and ready to head to Arizona as soon as we got word that the birth mom was in labor. We never unpacked the "baby duffle." I just wasn't able to bear it and so it sat, zipped and ready to go for five months. Until the night of August 30th.

There isn't much sleep to be had that night. We are both too keyed up.

Finally, I head off to work, giving Jennifer a kiss and hug. Sitting at my desk, I devour the occasional text messages from my wife as she surmounts a few unexpected challenges (I think I'll leave it to her to tell that part of the story sometime) and touches down in Florida.

And then I receive the first photo of a lovely, tiny person held in Jennifer's hands. My heart stops. More photos trickle in along with updates on her conversations with K, the adoption case worker, and the nurses. Phone calls from a few family members come in asking for updates.

Finally, I leave work and head home, planning to go to my mom's house to show her pictures and provide an update, even if I had power at the house. Jennifer and I speak again and I soak up every detail. K still seems willing and ready to proceed with the adoption. The paperwork process will begin at 10 AM the next day. And despite my entreaties, Jennifer holds off on sending me a picture of her with the baby.

"I don't feel right doing that," she explains. "She's still K's baby, I'm in the room with her and it would feel presumptuous. After the paperwork is done and we're her parents."

Argh!

There isn't much sleep to be had on Wednesday night either. By the time I go to bed, we are just over 24 hours from the initial call from T and our lives are totally upended.

Thursday morning. 36 hours into the event. I savor a brief phone call with an exhausted Jennifer who stayed at the hospital well into the night. We make the final determination of the baby's name should we be so lucky as to become her parents. I make the drive into Providence to get an updated criminal background check to prove I'm not a psycho. And then I am on my way to work, fretting as I drive, caught in traffic and knowing it's after 10 and the process is supposed to be underway.

The text messages begin their steady crawl on my iPhone.

10:36 AM (Jennifer): Give me a call when you can. I have to fill out the long form and need your social security number and some other info.

10:50 AM (Jennifer): I signed all the papers. The attorney now in with K having her sign everything. OMG. This is really happening.

11:01 AM (me): I'm at my desk. Having a bit of trouble breathing.

11:01 AM (Jennifer): me too

11:20 AM (me): Anything?

11:20 AM (Jennifer): Still waiting

11:21 AM (me): This is nerve-wracking.

11:21 AM (Jennifer): What about this entire experience hasn't been nerve-wracking???

11:22 AM (me) Bonus wracks for being so close to it happening. I'm sorry I'm not there with you.

11:22 AM (me) I'm sorry too. But you'll be here tomorrow and we will just get to hang out without anyone else around!

(In the midst of all this, other text messages from family members are arriving, wanting to know what's going on.)

11:41 AM. A text message arrives from Jennifer containing just this:

I begin to weep at my desk.

*************

And now my flight to Orlando is beginning its descent. I'm 30-40 minutes from seeing my wife and meeting my daughter for the first time.

It still feels unreal.

My daughter.

I have a daughter.

Jennifer is a mom.

I'm a dad.

After two and a half years of dreaming, of crying, of frustration, of excitement, and of anticipation, it's actually happened.

Family and friends are flooding us with calls and e-mails and comments on Facebook. Things are being ordered from our Amazon baby registry. I'm getting congratulations from people I've worked with for years and I'm glad this happened before I departed for the new job so I can share it with them.

But all of that pales in light of what's about to happen to me and to my family.

It's 68 hours since the call from T.

I'm about to meet my daughter.

Oh wow!

2011-09-01T15:41:00.001-04:00

Massive hurricane? Check. No light, power, phone, Internet or electricity for four days? Check. Switching to a new job? Check. Adopting a baby in the space of 48 hours? Sure! Why the hell not! Clearly, the Universe has a twisted sense of humor.

More details coming soon but the adoption journey is over and the journey as parents and a family begins today.

Welcome to the world and to our family, Esme Louisa!

Another Op'nin', Another Show

2011-07-04T22:57:00.002-04:00

Another op'nin', another show

In Philly, Boston or Baltimo',

A chance for stage folks to say hello,

Another op'nin' of another show.

Another job that you hope, at last,

Will make your future forget your past,

Another pain where the ulcers grow,

Another op'nin' of another show.

Four weeks, you rehearse and rehearse,

Three weeks and it couldn't be worse,

One week, will it ever be right?

Then out o' the hat, it's that big first night!

The overture is about to start,

You cross your fingers and hold your heart,

It's curtain time and away we go!

-- "Another Op'nin, Another Show"

When it comes to the adoption process, I'm feeling like the stagehands and extras in Kiss Me, Kate faced with performance after performance of one show after another in city after city, hoping to finally reach the promised land of a big hit and the bright lights of Broadway.

I haven't written much in the last few months because, honestly, there hasn't been much to write about since the disruption and there's only so often that I can write (or anyone can read) about a lack of progress.

We biked into town today for the big July 4th parade and we were both thinking "another holiday, another month" without a baby. This is our third Independence Day since deciding to embark on this journey and it's feeling like it will never end, like there will never be a kid to clap and cheer with us for the marching bands, to cover her ears with her mom when the guys in Revolutionary War outfits fire their muskets, to run out into the parade route to hug the poor people walking in 95 degree weather while dressed as Elmo or Cookie Monster.

Intellectually I know it will eventually happen. Emotionally, I have trouble staying optimistic and so, instead, I'm just trying to ignore it now. I compartmentalize it. I don't think about it. The crib and the changing table, the glider and the baby clothes that we bought in February and March -- they are just background noise now and don't really register when I walk by our former guest room/future nursery. I get up, I go to work, I ride my bike. We read, we write, we go to museums, we visit with friends and family, we make plans for future events and we really don't take into account that we might have a baby at some point in the future. It's become an abstraction, which feels both like a loss as well as a necessary step to allow us to continue moving on.

Yes, it will happen in the future. It has, too. I need to believe it will. But until then, I just need to keep hoofin' it, making the trek to Philly, Boston, and Baltimo'. Eventually we'll get the Call again and the curtain will finally, finally go up on the next act.

The Dummies Guide to Adoption

2011-04-01T22:06:00.000-04:00

In Jennifer's touching post today about moving forward, I was struck by this observation:

It's easier to wait now that just about everyone in our lives knows that our adoption placement fell through at the last minute. No more having to explain. No more saying "Chris and I will just move forward" or "I'm doing OK" or "well, obviously the Universe has other plans for us" or "It is what it is" or any other hope-filled re-frame that I can think of to make others feel better about my pain. So many people have expressed their sympathy and asked their questions (for which I am really, truly, deeply grateful - even if I didn't sounds terribly grateful in that last sentence...) and heard the explanations. So, now it's a relief that I don't have to keep talking about it.

It struck me, as I read it, that there's an opportunity for us to find some small bit of humor and a bit of adoption education amidst our disappointment and our hopes for the future.

I think I might begin sketching out an Adoption 101 guide for real people from someone who is going through the process. I remember in college that we joked about the fact that if we really wanted to leave college with marketable skills, they should teach a Life 101 class to help us understand how to deal with credit cards and health insurance and the myriad niggling details that make up our daily lives. I think we could create something like that with questions we wished we'd asked and thing we should have considered to help other people on similar journeys.

Of course, it won't all be dry text. I'm seriously considering an adoption-specific version of the scene on the bus in Bull Durham where Crash is teaching Nuke the most effective baseball cliches.

"The Universe has other plans for us."

"It's going to happen. It's just going to take a bit more time."

"It is what it is."

See what I mean? We'll be fine. We're moving forward and the Good Lord willing, it will all work out.

Thanks, Crash.

Supposed to be

2011-03-13T23:49:00.001-04:00

It wasn't until late tonight, as I was making a salad to bring for lunch tomorrow, that either of us said it.

"How are you doing?" Jennifer asks me.

"Fine, I guess," I reply in a subdued tone. "Just trying not to think about what we were supposed to be doing today."

"Yeah," my wife replies. "Me too."

March 13th.

The due date.

I hope L had her baby today and that mother, daughter, siblings, and family are all happy. I wish them well and am keeping my fingers crossed that L made the right decision for all of them.

I'm just tremendously sorry that we weren't in a hospital in Glendale, AZ, today experiencing that same joy.

It will happen. I do believe that. But until it does, I won't look at March 13th the same way for a long time.

Square One

2011-03-10T08:07:00.001-05:00

Our profiles are posted again on the adoption agency's websites. When our profiles originally went live, I remember a sense of anticipation, of imminent success, and the excitement that came with taking such a big step. Today, seeing them posted again makes me feel tired and worn out.

It feels like we're back to Square One.

When we first decided to adopt, we spent lots of time answering questions, explaining the process to friends and family. Now, we're explaining what happened and where we go from here. Returning from the gym this morning, I was standing outside and our neighbor across the street stepped outside and called over, "Hi Chris! You guys must be getting so excited!"

I expect that this will continue to happen as we see friends and colleagues over the coming weeks who might not have heard the news. They ask because they care and they're excited for us and I have to answer them because they're grieving a bit for us now, too. We are part of a wonderful community that was there for us when we made the decision to adopt and is going to be there for us when we finally do become parents.

I suppose the answers and explanations will get easier with time but right now, they just bring the reality back, front and center for me along with the realization that our profiles are now live again and we're back to waiting for someone to choose us.

Back to Square One.

Writing while Numb

2011-03-08T00:34:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I've written. It wasn't from a lack of interest in writing but rather a conscious decision not to do so as events unfolded here at home.

------

I was making chili and cornbread in preparation for our annual "New Year's Eve Eve" party on December 30th. My wife walked in at 2:30 after a short day at her office. Her cell phone rang. No one ever calls her cell phone but me and I certainly wasn't the one on the phone. She answered, looked shocked, said "you'll need to call us back on the land line so my husband can be on the phone, too."

It was The Call. The adoption agency had a placement for us, a little girl due on March 13th in Arizona. The birth mom, L, wanted a closed adoption, was asking the agency to select a good family and a good home. It was us. After a Christmas tinged with a hint of sadness that there was no child in our home yet, we were about to enter the new year with the prospect of actually becoming parents ahead of us.

------

I'm not a superstitious person by nature and neither is my wife. Still, we decided that it might be best to stay quiet about this to avoid tempting fate, angering the gods, or jinxing the whole thing. And so, there's been silence here on the blog for quite some time.

------

Of course we told family. There were calls to siblings and the parents we weren't going to see that night. At the party that evening, we told my mother and stepfather that we had a belated Christmas gift for them -- tickets to see Paula Poundstone in Boston in mid-March. I'd bought them as a Christmas present for my wife but we wanted them to have the tickets as we didn't think we'd be able to use them.

"Why not?" my mother asked.

"Because it looks like we'll be in Arizona bringing home our daughter," I replied.

Needless to say, chaos reigned for a while in our house. It felt very very good.

We told some people at work because we wanted to be sure that things were prepared. Due to state regulations, we were going to need to stay in Arizona for two weeks with the baby before we could retrn home. Then my wife was going to go on maternity leave. There was a lot to be done.

------

As we moved from late December into January and February, I really wanted to write about the experience -- shopping for a glider, clearing out the guest room and turning it into a nursery, checking Consumer Reports for car seat reviews, and all of the other activities that go into preparing for a baby. But I still decided to hold off. No sense announcing to the world until it was done and we were home.

------

L, the birth mom, was in her mid-20s, already a mom to two children, unmarried and trying to complete college, and strongly of the opinion that she wouldn't be able to parent this new child properly. Our adoption contacts in Arizona met her several times and reiterated L's commitment to the adoption. The copies of her medical records all included "adoption" written prominently on all of the pages.

The process progressed. The legal wheels in Arizona and here at home started to spin. We continued to collect items for the baby's room, for life with a child. More people entered the circle of "in the know". We politely put a stop to an initial offer to host a shower for my wife. "If there's going to be a party, it's going to be for me, too!" I said with a laugh in response. "But please, we don't want to do anything until after we're home with this little girl. We really appreciate the thought but not right now."

------

The first thing I actually wrote about this anticipated change was a Facebook post after unpacking some stuff we'd ordered:

"OK, so here's a joke. Let me see if I got this right. A priest, a rabbi, and a nun walk into a bar...no, that's not it. Ummm, a blonde, a brunette, and and a redhead walk into a hotel...nope, that's not right either. Oh yeah! A crib, a stroller, and a car seat walk into what used to be our guest room. Oh crap...I'm not sure if there's actually a punchline but we'll hopefully find out in about 5 weeks."

"No," a friend and parent wrote back. "There's no punchline."

------

The plane tickets were booked. My lovely wife found a furnished apartment that we'd be able to rent for the two weeks we expected to be in Phoenix. We began to check e-mail and home voice mail more frequently than normal, waiting for the message that said it was time to head west.

Exactly two weeks before her due date, a very sweet plan to have a surprise party at my office was stopped after e-mail invitations had been sent out. "Chris really doesn't want to have a party beforehand in case anything happens with the adoption before it's complete," explained one of my coworkers who knew how my wife and I felt. But the word was out. A few people came by to extend their preliminary congratulations or to tell me about their own experiences adopting (it's surprising how many people we've known for years are also adoptive parents).

With 10 days to go, I was sitting in the office of a colleague when my phone rang. It was my wife and she never calls me on my cell phone when I'm at work.

"L has gone to the hospital and may be in labor," she reported. "But the agency says that she is having doubts, that her family is pressuring her to call it off."

------

I'm a writer by trade. My wife is a fantastic writer as anyone who has read her adoption and health blogs will attest. Before this placement, we'd even gone so far as to create a dedicated website to help tell our story to women who sought a loving family for their unborn child. I like to think that we can tell a good story, that we can make a compelling case, and that we can entertain or influence or guide when we write.

But suddenly, with L wavering, we felt helpless. It was a closed adoption. We'd had no contact with L and she didn't want any with us. We couldn't talk to her, write to her, let her know that we were so ready to provide this child with a loving home, that she could trust us. Instead, we were bystanders and all of the words that we might have used rested unsaid.

------

After that shocking Thursday, the next 48 hours were a blur of e-mails and phone calls with the agency and our contacts in Arizona. Finally, we got the word -- L was having contractions but was not in labor; she was home resting; she realized that despite the pressure from her family, including her father who was crying at the hospital, going ahead with the adoption was the right thing for her and her baby. She wanted to know if we could be there to take the baby when she was discharged from the hospital.

Everything was going to be fine.

We continued packing our bags so that we'd be ready to go at a moment's notice, all the while telling ourselves that, yes, L could still change her mind. But the word from Arizona over the following week was still positive -- Yes, L is still committed to this; she realizes it's her decision to make, not her family's; she is convinced this is the right thing.

But there was still that niggling sense of doubt.

------

The news came this morning in writing, an e-mail sent from the west coast offices of our adoption agency at midnight our time last night. I fired up my computer for a quick check of the headlines after getting home from spin class. "Unfortunately, I have some bad news..."

------

Throughout this entire journey, we have said that until the birth mother tells us "please raise this child" and the paperwork is complete, it is absolutely, without a doubt her right to change her mind and say "no, I'm sorry, but I can't do this. I realize that I need to raise this baby."

I do believe that. I truly do. But damn it, does it have to hurt so much to have to actually prove that they aren't just some trite words on the screen or tossed off in conversation? Is this some cosmic test? Did I really piss the Universe off my with my "priest, rabbi, and a nun" joke?

------

disrupt |disˈrəpt| verb [ trans. ] interrupt (an event, activity, or process) by causing a disturbance or problem; drastically alter or destroy the structure of (something)

------

The term in the adoption world for what we've just gone through is "disruption." I can't tell if that's intended to be diplomatic, polite, or brutally honest. All I know is that it's true for everyone involved.

I can't begin to imagine how disrupted L's life is right now as she approaches the birth of a child she was prepared to give up until her family weighed in at the hospital and in the days after. I fervently hope she is making the right decision and wish L and her family happiness. This little girl, whom we'll never meet but who had started to take on such a central role in our lives despite our best efforts to stay detached until the adoption was complete, will grow up with her siblings, her mother, and a family that fought to keep her. I hope that passion and love endures. A child should have those things.

For us, we're now 16 hours post-disruption, 16 hours after I read the e-mail and bolted upstairs to my wife who was preparing for work, 16 hours after being told that the plans we'd been making with such joy needed to be shelved for an as-yet-undetermined amount of time, 16 hours during which a numb feeling has settled through us both.

We keep telling ourselves that this is just a bump and that we'll be parents someday. Our friends and family tell us the same thing. I have to believe that because to waver, to doubt the inevitability of becoming parents is just too devastating to contemplate. These things happen. Friends of ours experienced a disruption during their first adoption attempt and they now have two wonderful, lovely daughters.

We aren't the first people to go through this but it's the first time we've gone through this so it's new and raw. It's going to take a while for the numb sensation to wear off, to not walk by the new nursery in our house and wonder about the little girl who is expected to be born on March 13th and what she would have been like to hold in our arms. Instead my wife and I have just been holding on to each other today, a hug or a touch, a kiss, or a small smile to know that we're still here, that we're still together, and that the end result will be a daughter and a wonderful future.

It's just going to take time. I wonder if writing will help.

Halloween

2010-10-31T22:19:00.000-04:00

We had a ton of kids come trick or treating to the house tonight. Some were in full regalia, others (the older ones) often in just the barest hint of a costume. Then there was the kid who didn't have a costume but was brazen enough to fake it ("I'm dressed as a skateboarder but forgot my skateboard" he says). I always loved Halloween, first because of the costumes and candy, and then the fun of giving away candy. One of my favorite books when I was growing up was "The Halloween Tree" by Ray Bradbury. I even named my second cat, Pipkin, after the character who goes missing in the book and must be pursued through time and to the edge of death itself by his friends. After the paperback I'd been given when I was 10 finally fell apart a few years ago, I went online and found a hardbound copy signed by Bradbury and bought it.

Last year at this time, we were in the final stages of pulling together our profile and home study materials. We didn't know what to expect but I think we both dreamed that by Halloween this year, we wouldn't just be handing out candy to kids but we'd be bundling a little one up as a peanut or a pumpkin or a tiny Red Sox player. Unfortunately, it looks like we need to set out sights on Halloween next year. I know our profile hasn't been up even a year yet and that many adoptive parents wait a lot longer than that. But seeing the parents tonight walking their kids up to our front door, hearing the kids chant "trick or treat" without even the hint of potential vandalism if we don't hand over a snack sized Twizzler, just makes me wish even more that this would have been the year we could have started the whole costumed kid tradition.

But instead we wait. I wonder if there are any Twizzlers left?

Picture This

2010-10-09T12:38:00.000-04:00

I read a somewhat distressing article today in the New York Times about the decline in sales of picture books for kids. It's not all bad, of course -- kids are moving on to chapter books earlier -- but the idea that picture books are deemed too simple or won't help a child develop seems laughable to me. Our house is full of books and quite a few of them are absolutely brilliant picture books. Watching a child read again and again a stunning book like David Weisner's Tuesday or the more challenging Flotsam, you can see their minds working as they build the story in their mind, flipping back and forth between pages, totally immersed. I'm certainly all for moving on to chapter books but even at 41 years of age, there's a joy and a magic in a picture book that will never go away.

Making Strides Against Breast Cancer

2010-10-06T23:45:00.000-04:00

As readers of my other blog, Walks in the Marsh, may know, last year my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She fought like a trooper and with the help of amazing doctors, nurses, and medical treatments she beat it (none of us doubted that she would).

The relief at that news was overwhelming for all of us and that's why I'm walking in this year's Making Strides Against Breast Cancer event on October 24 at Roger Williams Park in Providence. Other women and other families should all be given every chance to experience the relief and joy that comes at the end of the fear and heartache that appears when cancer steals stealthily into their lives. I hope to be the father of a little girl at some point in the future and I'd like that future to be one where she doesn't have to fear this particular spectre.

I encourage those of you in the region to come out for this walk. If you can't make it, I hope you'll consider making a donation to support our efforts to raise awareness and funds to support breast cancer research and treatment for our mothers, daughters, wives, sisters, aunts, friends, and coworkers.

Old friends with kids

2010-09-12T21:50:00.000-04:00

This weekend, Jennifer and I attended a reunion of Troop 82 Providence, the Boy Scout troop that I belonged to when I was a kid. I hadn't seen most of these guys since we all gathered in December 1988 to mourn the passing of our scoutmaster, Donald C. Dewing. So it was a treat to see them all more than 20 years later, the boys I'd grown up with and almost all with kids of their own. Many were young, 6 or 7 years old, others were in their mid to late teens, and all were welcomed to the Troop 82 family. As we sat on a picnic table at Yawgoog Scout Reservation, Jennifer turned to me and said, "next time we have one of these reunions, we'll have one of our own running around." I'm looking forward to that and is just another reason I'm now eagerly awaiting the next get-together.

Fruity Holiday

2010-08-03T20:07:00.000-04:00

Happy National Watermelon Day, everyone! As my wife will tell you, watermelon is, bar none, my absolute favorite fruit and it's worth putting up with hot humid summer days to get my hands on some. Which leads me to wonder...does every kid like watermelon? I hope so. Plus One will need to learn to like it, I expect, given the amount of the juicy delectable fruit is consumed around here.

A matter of degree

2010-07-28T00:17:00.004-04:00

A thank you to Kate and Stephanie:

Thank you both for the great feedback to my In the Face of Statistics post. Your comments are extremely helpful as we think about how we want to proceed.

Part of this reassessment has been driven, in all honesty, by our own sense of impatience and a need for slightly less delayed gratification. However, the choices we made also were predicated on our desire to protect and nurture the child who will hopefully be entering our lives, even if we don't know who that child or her mother are right now.

Our initial placement profile with our agency, ANLC, included several highlights:

open to any race
preference for a girl (my wife says that she wouldn't have the faintest idea what to do with a little boy...I think she also likes little girl clothes better)
no smoking
willing to consider if the expectant mother had been drinking at some point (we figure that it's not unreasonable to expect that anyone might have a drink or two before she realized she was pregnant)
no hard drugs
no mental illness/disability or family history of schizophrenia, etc.

We're in our early 40s and I occasionally joke that we won't be getting extra points from the Russian judges based on degree of difficulty (yes, that's a joke, we know it will be challenging but absolutely worth it).

During our conversation with our new client account person, she made the observation that many of the choices above are not necessarily hard and fast yes/no or black/white answers but rather represent a spectrum of choices, a matter of degree.

As she remarked, we're already willing to consider something along that spectrum when it comes to drinking. If we said "no drinking at all", we immediately rule out the possibility of a placement with a mother who did have that beer or two before she got the news. Instead, by choosing the "willing to consider", it leaves our options open as well as increases the chance that an expectant mother who wishes to trust us will be able to do so.

We're now faced with considerations of a similar nature with smoking (neither of us smokes so like you, Stephanie, we'd be bringing our Plus One home to home with clean air) and mental disabilities (in ANLC's profile, apparently something like dislexia falls into the category). Are we willing consider a potential placement with those two factors present in some fashion? Are we going to stick to our hard and fast "no" on those?

In all honesty, we aren't sure. As part of our effort to put some "we're ready for Plus One" energy out into the world, we're beginning to talk to pediatricians to find one we trust and like. Those conversations include these topics as we try to get a better sense of what our decisions and choices might possibly mean to a baby who comes into our family.

Part of our decision is also to learn from other people who are facing the same questions, the same fears, the same brilliant and wonderful journey. Thanks, Kate and Stephanie, for sharing your thoughts. They are truly appreciated.

In the face of statistics

2010-07-21T18:30:00.000-04:00

According to our client account manager, 80% of expectant mothers who work with our chosen agency smoke throughout at least part if not all of their pregnancy in part as a response to stress. Seeing how our initial profile indicated we hoped to adopted from a non-smoking mother, we seem to have narrowed the potential number of expectant mothers who might select us pretty dramatically.

Our first client manager told us to consider loosening up on the “medical stuff” and accepting a child from a mother who is a heavy smoker because "really, the doctors we work with say that smoking doesn't really affect the babies all that much."

Our new client manager didn't actively promote this same change but she did make sure we understood the mathematics of the situation, recommended we speak with a pediatrician, and simply take this information into account in the event we decide to change our profile.

I'm curious...have other people run into this same issue? What did your placement agencies recommend? What decisions did you make?

Dog Day Thoughts

2010-07-19T22:15:00.005-04:00

It's been a while since I wrote.

I keep finding other things to do or not to do as the case may be. Either way, I appear to have gone on hiatus. I didn't really mean to do so. It just happened. Things got busy. I got lazy...or apathetic...or I don't know what. The compulsion to write anything anywhere seems to have melted away in this god-awful heat and humidity.

After we had our conversation with our new client account manager at the adoption agency, I thought I'd be all fired up to write about it.

Hmmmm...not so much.

The conversation was generally positive -- more info than we'd received in months, some positive feedback about the number of expectant moms who are looking at our profile, some thoughts on how we might want to consider altering our expectations to increase the odds -- but nothing is actually all that different on the adoption front.

Is positive news that doesn't really change anything actually news or is it just a series of statements that find no anchor and have no impact?

The act of putting oneself out there to be selected as an adoptive parent strikes me as akin to being a job seeker who never actually gets the job. You send out resumes, you even interview sometimes, but you never get the job and you never get feedback as to why not.

At least as a job seeker, you have the opportunity to put yourself physically and emotionally in front of the person doing the hiring for the interview. In the adoption process, you don't even get that level of anticipation. Your profile is out there -- your interview -- and you're being viewed and judged with no feedback on who is taking a look at you and why they aren't hiring you (as it were).

It's too bloody hot.

Bystanders

2010-06-04T07:24:00.015-04:00

An acquaintance of mine isn't a fan of flying. It's not a fear of flying or heights per se but rather the fact that someone else is in control. "How do I know if the pilot got enough sleep or isn't paying attention because he's pissed off at his spouse?"

For me, I approach it the other way. I'm fine with flying because I'm willing to put my trust -- hopefully not woefully misplaced -- in the professionalism and experience of the pilots. I'll drive my car from point A to point B but when it comes to getting from point A to point Z in the shortest time possible, I'll defer to the pilots who have the skills and knowledge that I lack. I'll simply sit in my seat, read a book, munch on the peanuts, and ignore the occasional turbulence on the journey. I'm a bystander, a passive passenger as the pilots -- the experts -- do the work and I'm OK with that.

Unfortunately, I've discovered that we've become bystanders on our adoption journey with pilots I'm having doubts about, and I'm definitely not OK with that.

The first stage of our adoption process felt like a crazy, stressful, invigorating road trip without a complete or altogether legible map. We plunged into the research, plowed through tons of paperwork, wrote checks, and participated in home study meetings and adoption classes. It was up to us to complete our tasks, drive the schedule, maintain the momentum, always knowing that we would determine where we ended up and how we got there.

But once we turned over our profile information and photos to our selected adoption agency, we suddenly had nothing to do but wait. And wait. And wait. We knew this was going to be the case. Unfortunately, we expected to be a bit more...well...involved in the waiting.

Instead, we watched as our profiles were posted and then heard nothing. No updates. No input. No news. We've had to actively seek out every scrap of information and feedback that we've received. Again, I can handle that if that was how the process had been described to us by the adoption counselor (aka sales person). But it wasn't.

(Danger, Will Robinson, Danger! Frustrated Prospective Adoptive Parental Rant Ahead!)

My first frustration...We were told that the significant number of expectant mothers in their system meant that clients were averaging a 2-4 month wait. We’re now told, but only after asking about the process four months into it, that the average wait has been extended to 6-18 months. OK, I can understand that the situation changes but there's a nagging question in the back of my mind whether or not we were sold a bill of goods at the start. If so, it's a bit like falling for a used car salesman's "only driven by a little old lady on Sunday" pitch and we have no one to blame but ourselves for believing it.

Frustration #2...Despite being assigned a client liaison at the start (and then a new one three months later) we haven't received the promised guidance on what else we might do to increase our chances of being selected above and beyond a recommendation to consider loosening up on the “medical stuff” and accepting a child from a mother who is a heavy smoker because "really, the doctors we work with say that smoking doesn't really affect the babies all that much. So, y'know, it's something you could consider." (Really?! And what doctors might these be? Drs. Kevorkian and Doom? Thanks but I'll go with the subtle guidance provided by the Surgeon General's warning on the side of a pack of cigarettes.)

And the most recent frustration...Despite being promised a detailed review and assessment of our profile after the first three months, we received no news on how our profiles were being received or feedback on how we might improve them. However, being diligent participants in this process, we took it upon ourselves to review the materials posted to our various profiles and then make minor updates to reflect changes in our lives.

Sadly, removing the mention of our three cats and downgrading to only one following the deaths of two of our kitties this winter was one of those changes. Not so sadly, we removed the cheesy statement that the agency inserted without our permission about "drinking hot cocoa, watching snowflakes fall and building snowmen" as our winter activities. WTF! I don't think my wife and I have ever built a snowman together! (Wait a minute...maybe we're missing out on something there. Do snowmen have aphrodisiac qualities?)

So we made relatively minor edits to the profiles that had already been live on the various profiles for the last five months, sent them in, and received a "Thanks! We will update your profiles ASAP!" response.

OK, standing by. Patiently.

Two weeks later...

No changes.

So I send a very polite "Hi there. Just wondering when the changes we sent two weeks ago might be made" inquiry.

The response? We were added to the schedule and it typically takes two weeks to make the changes. (Apparently the profile person missed the irony that she was responding to a follow-up message that I sent more than two weeks after sending the profile updates.)

Sigh...(ok home stretch on the rant, I promise).

A few days later, I receive an update that the changes were made and the new photos were added. So again, being the diligent person and adoption non-bystander than I hope to be, I go online to see the new versions of our profile.

Hmmm...they seem to be a bit shorter than what we submitted.

Yes, they're definitely a lot shorter. Like 20% shorter as the opening paragraph is just gone. Wiped out. Not there anymore. Like Alderaan after the Death Star dropped by for a visit.

Hmmm...perhaps it was an error. But on all of our profiles?

So I send yet another inquiry, assuming that it was an oversight.

Nope. They made the decision to lop off 20% off of the message to expectant mothers that Jennifer and I put our hearts into.

Apparently, feedback from the expectant mothers was that the letters are too long so the agency's new policy is to shorten them up dramatically.

Now, if their marketing department feels that letters should be shorter, wouldn't it have made sense to tell us this when we sent in our proposed revisions to our letters? We would have been thrilled to rewrite what we'd sent, knowing that doing so could strengthen the appeal of our profiles and increase our chances of being selected. (See...doing our best not to be bystanders.)

Instead, the agency simply lopped off the first 20% of our letters. What's even more frustrating was that the only way I knew it had happened was because I visited our profiles to see which of the new photos we'd sent had been incorporated. As a professional writer, that didn't go over too well. I try not to get overly attached to stuff that I write for work, knowing that what emerges from the lengthy review process will no doubt be different from my initial draft. But I do take a certain pride of authorship in what I write for my personal use, especially when it's this personal.

Given that we'd taken the initiative to update and resubmit our profile letters, wouldn’t it have made sense for the profile people at the agency to take a look at what we sent and then reply with a “you know, before we post these, we’ve received some feedback based on what we’re hearing from birth mothers” message? Adding to the annoyance was the fact that none of the other profiles we checked out had similar cuts. They were all longer and had opening paragraphs in a similar vein to what was deleted from ours! So if we'd never sent in our profile updates, they wouldn't have made the changes?

Arrgghh.

So I wrote to the profile person and our client liaison (you know, the "sacrifice your hopes for a healthy baby because it doesn't matter if moms smoke like chimneys" liaison). I tried to be calm and respectful.

OK, I'll admit that I did back off a bit after my wife commented that perhaps I'd gone a bit too far over the snarky line (I was tempted to use something like my "Dr. Doom" comment above in the e-mail). I just wanted them to know how much we cared about what we were doing and that it didn't feel good to be left in the dark over and over. I ended with:

When my wife and I embarked on this journey, we were told by my father that this might possibly be the most important thing we’ll ever do. We believe that he is right. Based on our conversations with your past clients and with a member of your staff, we also felt confident that we were making the right decision to work with your agency. We still do, and hope that you will help us succeed in this journey. All we are asking for is a level of communication, support, and feedback that enables us to be a part of this process, not simply bystanders.

And then my wife and I went back to waiting.

It's been 36 hours. And there's been no reply.

Standing by...

************ Update...12 hours later ************

I returned home tonight to find an e-mail from the agency and our new client liaison who wants to spend some serious time talking with us to ensure that we're happy and feeling confident and satisfied with our adoption journey. Apparently Mrs. Marlboro is no longer with the agency. I don't know the details -- maybe she left of her own accord, maybe she was let go. If the latter, I am sorry she lost her job but on the flip side, adoption facilitation seems to be one of those "customer service is paramount" types of jobs and sadly, we weren't getting it from her.

Dreams

2010-06-03T21:10:00.004-04:00

I woke myself in the wee hours of Memorial Day, starting up from a dream. In it, I had been holding a little girl of Asian descent named Molly who had just been placed in my arms. She was going to be our daughter. It felt so excruciatingly good and right and I just couldn't bear to continue. I forced myself awake. I couldn't sleep much after that.

------------------------------------------

I've tried not to think about the adoption process as much lately as time keeps passing. Apparently, my subconscious feels differently. I'm not sure where the little girl's Asian background came from (though we are open to any race in our domestic adoption) and for some reason my brain latched onto the name of my mother's cat. Who knows why. All I know is that the joy I felt in my dream almost hurt, it was so extraordinary. And it was only a dream. What will it feel like for real? Tempered with a healthy dose of fear, no doubt. That part was blessedly missing from my nocturnal musings.

Still, I'm trying not to think about it, though deep down, I suppose some some fanciful part of my brain hopes that my dream is a portent of things to come. If it was, hopefully those things won't take too long to get here.

Revisit, revise, rewrite

2010-05-15T11:20:00.003-04:00

Four months after our profiles went live on three different sites managed by our agency...spent a little time today rereading our profile answers and birthmother letters with an eye toward updating and refreshing them.

It was odd rewriting the sections where we previously discussed our three cats, two of whom sadly passed away in the time since we wrote our "birthmother letters" and other information. Other than that, not much else needed to change except a sentence that we hadn't written but our agency apparently inserted about watching snowflakes and building snowmen in winter, apparently to round out the seasons because we'd mentioned fall, spring, and summer. Yeah, that had to change. Not sure how we missed that one on the original review.

Other than that, there was a phrase here and there, some other minor updates, but in the grand scheme of things, we're the same people with the same interests, ideals, and beliefs that we were when we wrote these documents last winter. Time has simply moved on.

Not going it alone

2010-05-06T18:38:00.004-04:00

During my 1-month hiatus from writing on this blog, all manner of adoption news raced across the front pages. Most focused on Torry Hansen, the Tennessee nurse who sent her 7-year old adopted son back to Russia alone with a note declaring that she could no longer cope with the child she'd brought home, along with Russia's subsequent freeze on all adoptions to U.S. families (a freeze that was since denied/lifted).

Amidst all of the blaring headlines, panicked postings, and vilification of Ms. Hansen, I was particularly struck by this Slate.com column written by KJ Dell'Antonia, a mother of three, including a little girl from China. Her discussion of the challenges faced by adoptive parents and children, including the false expectation (myth?) that all will be happiness and light when adopted parents and children come together, is one that I found particularly powerful as we go through a similar process, though on a domestic basis rather than an international one.

Like me, Hansen must have thought she was prepared. She was screened, questioned, and evaluated. She would have sat through the mandatory "adoption education" session on institutionalized children featuring descriptions of sexual and other abuses, violent anger, and unpredictable procedural delays. She would have filled out forms, she would have been evaluated by social workers, and, because of Russia's strict travel requirements, she would have traveled there twice—the first time to meet the child she would adopt, and again, after a waiting period, to confirm her commitment to parenting him and to legalize their ties. But prospective adoptive parents are either incorrigible optimists (that was me) or people of deep and abiding faith, and it does not really sink in with most of them that things might end badly—might really end badly—until it is too late.

I started writing this blog, separate from my other "regular" blog, because I wanted a place to share my experience as a prospective adoptive dad. It's a perspective that I found to be rather rare in the blogosphere, at least compared to the avalanche of brilliant (and some not so much) blogs written by adoptive moms (here's where I insert a shameless plug for my wife's phenomenal blog) and birth moms.

But writing this blog and reading the others out there has also introduced me to a growing virtual community that helps me get a better understanding of what other people are going through, how they cope, how their lives have changed, and what we might expect. This is a powerful resource we need to take full advantage of if we're to move through this journey as smoothly as possible.

I wonder what Torry Hansen had in the way of support. Did she have resources to help her and her child? Perhaps they did but the difficulties eventually became just too overwhelming. I feel for Hansen as well as for the troubled son she put on a plane to Russia. I'm approaching our adoption in the "incorrigible optimist" camp but do so knowing that we have a remarkable support network of family and friends (both real and "virtual") who will be there to aid, advise, and encourage. I can't imagine trying to do this alone. Thankfully, we won't have to.

No such thing as normal

2010-05-05T18:36:00.001-04:00

Screw it...yesterday I said I was trying to put thoughts of the adoption aside and take a Zen "if you don't look for it, it will find you" approach. I lied.

Sure, the adoption process is not front and center as it was every day as we worked to get our home study done, but it's there, it's a part of my life and I'm embracing it. I'm just tired of it taking so long, especially when we were given indications early on that the normal timing going through our chosen agency was shorter than it's been so far.

However, there's no such thing as normal and I just need to accept that. Helping me along was this great article on Slate.com about the myth of developmental milestones and calendars for children. Things happen in their own time and wishing for it won't rush it, any more than you can rush a kid's teething or potty training.

Actually, does anyone know of a way to rush those milestones along? I'd really like to know before it's our turn to deal with them.

And we will be dealing with them sometime soon. I do believe that.

Marking Time

2010-05-04T22:35:00.003-04:00

Time passes.

...twelve months since we made the decision to adopt.

...eleven months since the adoption agency representative told us that adoption placements through their agency were typically taking three months or so

...seven months since we signed the agreement to work with the agency, spurred on in part due to discounts on certain options due to a large number of birth mothers seeking adoptive families

...three and a half months since our profiles were posted.

...a month since my last entry on this blog.

...two weeks since our new adoption advocate told us that adoptions through the agency are typically taking six to eighteen months (the same advocate who told us that we could speed things up if we accepted a child whose birth mother smoked throughout the pregnancy because, really, smoking doesn't actually affect children that much).

I'm tired of looking at the calendar. I'm tired of wondering if today will be the day we get THE CALL. I'm tired of seeing families with little children, some of whom are most likely adopted, and feeling a void in my life. I'm tired of not having anything new to tell our friends, family, and co-workers when asked I'm asked the same well-meaning and caring question.

"So, how are things going with the adoption?"
"Oh, we're in waiting mode. Our profiles are up and we're just waiting to be selected."
"Well, I'll be thinking/praying/hoping/keeping my fingers crossed for you."
"Thanks."

Lately though, things have changed. If I'm not asked for an update, I now go whole days now without thinking about the adoption process. I don't remember the last time I referred to "Plus One." I'm setting aside our hopes and dreams of bringing a child into our family because it can be too hard to have it in the front of my mind all the time. Instead I focus on trying to deal with stuff at work, finding time to deal with the gardens, figuring out just how we're going to restore our basement from THE FLOOD several weeks ago.

Instead of thinking about our aching wish for a child, I am trying to put this out of my mind. Perhaps taking a Zen approach will help. If I stop thinking and hoping and searching for our future child, the child will find us when we least expect it.

The problem is that I don't want to forget. I don't want to stop thinking about it. For many years, I was resigned to the idea that I wouldn't have children, that Jenn and I would instead be vicariously enjoying and sharing in the lives of our friends' children and of our nieces. I had comes to terms with that over time. But now, there is the prospect of something more, something that I expect will be profoundly challenging and terrifying and fulfilling.

I don't want to waste any more time.

We only have so much of it to share with those we love.

Taxes

2010-03-27T00:35:00.002-04:00

With the passage of the health care reform act earlier this week comes additional welcome news for adoptive families:

The maximum credit was increased from $12,150 to $13,170
The credit is extended through December 2011.

Apparently, it's also rather complicated so I guess I'll be reading up on the details and hoping that Turbo Tax can help out.

Real life intruding in the online realm

2010-03-14T19:10:00.006-04:00

I can't help but be appalled by the news of the South Korean mother and father who allowed their 3-month old child to starve as they obsessed over an online game and their virtual child. Yes, both parents had lost their jobs and their daughter was premature but to never have named the child? To have only stopped by sporadically to give her powdered milk? To have lost themselves so completely within an online world that they allowed their child to die here in the real world?

Tragic isn't the right word here. Sure, we use tragedy to describe events that cause suffering, death or destruction. The loss of life in Haiti and Chile were tragic situations.

But these parents and the thoughtless death of their child in favor of a virtual child named Anima?

Horrifying is the word I would use.

I think of how long and hard my wife and I have worked in the hopes of bringing a child into our family. I think of friends and family and those we've met through their stories on their blogs and their efforts, the tears, the heartache, and the joy that comes from trying to get pregnant or adopting and eventually succeeding. I think of how much I will treasure every moment when Plus One enters our lives. Hell. I even treasure those right now as we wait hopefully day after day, knowing that eventually our family will be blessed by a new arrival.

The idea that you could bring a child into your life and then be so careless, so disconnected, to permit your child to die is beyond my comprehension.

Our friends joke about the hoops we've had to jump through, the seemingly endless process, the legal maze that we must navigate to prove that we are suitable and prepared to be parents and how it's more involved than getting a mortgage and certainly not as much fun as the whole "having sex and getting pregnant" way of having a child.

But on the flip side, I see the stories about kids have babies, children who grow up in neglect, children who are abused, and I wonder if we might be better off if the act of becoming a parent actually was harder than getting a driver's license or a puppy from the pound or buying a gun.

No, I'm not really advocating that all prospective parents should be required to pass through the same legal path that my wife and I are following but I'm baffled by people who can bring children into this world and then go out of their way to ignore them, to hurt them, to allow them to pass almost unnoticed.

Sadly, accidents happen. We all know that. Horrifying mistakes can be made. I remember sitting at my desk, shaking, with tears in my eyes after reading Gene Weingarten's Washington Post story, "Fatal Distraction," a heart-wrenching look at the tragic, accidental deaths of infants who were forgotten in a hot car by busy, distracted parents and how the legal system responds.

This article was published six weeks before my wife and I decided to make the adoption journey. At that time, I didn't think that I would ever have the opportunity to be a father. I couldn't imagine what those parents were going through -- the sense of loss, the sense of responsibility, the sense of guilt, the sense of failure. All I know is that simply the thought of such a loss almost makes me physically ill. Part of me also couldn't imagine how a parent could have been so careless, so forgetful, as to have allowed that to happen. But then I see my everyday life with phone calls and e-mails and deadlines and I realize I've got no right to take on a "holier than thou" attitude and just have to reflect on how lucky we all are that horrible events like this don't happen more often.

It's because as parents and as prospective parents, most of us bring children into this world or into our families because of an abiding and profound sense of love and responsibility. We enter into an unspoken pact with our spouse, our family, our friends, and with that tiny child: we are here to nurture, to protect, to teach, to guide, and to love. And that's why the stories Gene Weingarten told are so devastating (as is his own admission) -- because those parents entered that pact and were doing everything they could to live up to it and something went catastrophically wrong.

And that's why the death of that 3-month old little girl in South Korea is so horrifying -- because the parents couldn't bring themselves to care and instead sought an escape within an online world with fake monsters and shiny awards that can never measure up to the real world and the real monsters who sit at the keyboard for 12 hours a day engrossed in the game.

And with that, I'm going to shut down my computer, ignore the TV, and go give my wife a hug and look forward to a time when I can spend time with Plus One in the here and now. I hope you'll all take some time to do the same.

82, 146, 22

2010-03-06T12:36:00.003-05:00

Wow, has it really been a month since my last post here?

February was busy and Olympic fever settled in around our home for two solid weeks (still kicking myself for missing the gold medal match in Men's Curling...you think I jest but you are oh so wrong). Work maintained its typical insane pace with occasional spikes of deadline-induced craziness just for a touch of variety. We saw friends and family, played cards, got caught up on various shows gathering dust in the DVR, and enjoyed a quick getaway to Boston.

And didn't do anything adoption-wise.

After months of effort, we finally got everything completed -- paperwork, profile information, photos, the whole shebang -- and then we were left with nothing to do. Sure, there's stuff we need to do around the house to prepare but with everything else going on, repainting the guest room just didn't make it too high on the priority list.

In truth, it's been pretty nice to just let the adoption initiative slide into the background for a little while after the intense adoption-related efforts that went on so long. That doesn't mean we haven't been thinking about it. On an almost daily basis, one of us gets asked by a friend, colleague, or family member "so what's new on the adoption?"

So far, the answer has remained the same -- we're just waiting right now. Our profiles are up but there's nothing really for us to do until we're a) picked by an expectant mother or b) three months passes and we then re-evaluate our profile in collaboration with the placement agency.

So far, zero expectant mothers have picked us and we've got 6 weeks to go before we revisit our profile information.

That doesn't mean, of course, that we aren't visiting our online profiles on a regular basis, well one of them at least. While our placement agency has posted our profile on three different sites, we have access to the visitor information for just one of them at this point. There's really nothing special about that access...the site and our profile look exactly as they would to a visitor to the site, we can't make changes, and we can't add new photos.

But we can see how many people have visited and in a lull like this, with little news and nothing to do, watching those numbers creep up is the only sign of progress, the only sense that something is happening in the adoption.

82 in January
146 in February
22 so far in March

As the numbers rise, I'll be honest that my feelings are mixed.

"Yay, someone is taking a look at us and the more people who do, the better the chance that we'll be picked!"

"A lot of people have viewed our profile...how come no one has picked us yet? Is there something wrong with us?"

Of course, we might have already been picked but just weren't told. The way things work is that when an expectant mother picks us, the agency reviews our profile and hers and if something doesn't match, we'd never know. "Oops, sorry, miss but you're horribly allergic to dogs and cats and your baby might be as well? Might not be a good fit because this couple loves to have pets as part of the family. Please pick again."

But people are coming to at least this one profile, which is a good thing. Who they are, we have no idea. Expectant mothers? I hope so. Other couples considering adoption or working on their profiles? Almost certainly (that's what we did...you know, just to scope out the friendly competition). Friends and family trying to find our profile to see what we wrote and what pictures we posted? Maybe but hopefully not many because we don't want to skew the numbers.

They're all we've got right now to measure the progress being made.

Haiti revisited

2010-02-04T18:47:00.006-05:00

Following up on my last post about concerns re: child trafficking in Haiti...

I've been following the story about the American Baptists who were arrested as they tried to cross into the Dominican Republic with 33 children. Initially, it seemed like there were just issues of communication and the general consensus was that they were trying to do a good thing, though certainly going about it in the wrong way.

Now, as the 10 Americans are jailed and charged with kidnapping and criminal association, other bits of information are trickling out that seem to raise additional questions:

Group leader Laura Silsby has said they were trying to take orphans and abandoned children to an orphanage in the neighboring Dominican Republic. She acknowledged they had not sought permission from Haitian officials, but said they just meant to help victims of the quake.

--------------------

Several parents of the children in Callebas, a quake-wracked Haitian village near the capital, told The Associated Press Wednesday they had handed over their children willingly because they were unable to feed or clothe their children and the American missionaries promised to give them a better life.

Their accounts contradicted statements by Silsby, of Meridian, Idaho.

In a jailhouse interview Saturday, Silsby told the AP that most of the children had been delivered to the Americans by distant relatives, while some came from orphanages that had collapsed in the quake.

I'm not saying that these people rise to the level I would have defined as "evil" in my last post on the topic. I reserve that for those who would steal away children to exploit them or profit by them. Nevertheless, when you read:

that Silsby didn't believe that the children turned over to her were either orphans or brought by distant relatives,
that parents have clearly come forward about their children, and
an acknowledgment by that those children without parents might be have been put up for adoption

it does send a chill down my spine to think that an act of misguided and haphazard charity could have come so close to permanently separating children from their families.

As a prospective adoptive dad, I think long and hard about how our hoped-for Plus One will join our family. Thankfully, based on what I've read and experienced thus far, the adoption process and the people who work with the expectant mother (or orphans) and the adoptive parents are, by and large, doing things the right way and for the right reason to the benefit of the expectant mom (and perhaps dad), the child, and the adoptive parents.

However, there is still an element of the wild west out there in countries like Haiti and elsewhere. It's incumbent upon us, as participants in the process, to ensure that every step reflects the highest level of honesty, ethical behavior, and truth. Without it, there can be no trust and our families will be built upon a unstable, dangerous, and tragic foundation.

Adoption nightmares in Haiti

2010-01-23T12:35:00.004-05:00

My mother called last night as she and my stepfather watched the Hope for Haiti Now telethon.

"I know it's not really what you were planning on but maybe you should consider adopting a child from Haiti."

I'm not quite sure how to respond.

"If I was 25 years younger, I think I would do it," she says.

"I'll go turn on the telethon, Mom," I reply.

-----------------------

The scope of the Haitian tragedy is, quite frankly, beyond my capacity to truly comprehend. I don't think the human mind is designed to wrap itself around death and destruction of this magnitude, even if you're sitting there in the middle of it. I see the photos, the videos, hear and read the stories, and it's overwhelming. Part of you just wants to say "This can't possibly be real." After all, we've all seen death and destruction on a grander scale in the movies and really, no one was actually hurt. But it is real. It's just so overwhelming.

But then you reduce the scope of your view, see the individual stories and the tragedy becomes far more tangible if no less horrifying. Truthfully, by narrowing your view the reality becomes almost more harrowing as it's easier for those of us safe and secure in our homes to put ourselves in one person's shoes rather than comprehend the horror inflicted upon millions.

As a prospective adoptive dad, the stories of the children and families have resonated most deeply for me. Amidst the wreckage, and death that now engulf Haiti, aid and government workers are overwhelmed as they try to cope with a flood of displaced children -- 45% of the population is under the age of 15 and UN observers estimate that 40,000 to 60,000 children were killed, orphaned or separated from their families. At the same time, adoptive parents in the U.S. and Europe struggle to find out the status of the children they'd hoped to bring home to join their families. The process is at a standstill as the country, its infrastructure, its social and government organizations all collapse.

Sadly, with this tragedy and the true agony of the children and adoptive parents comes a darker side. UNICEF and other international aid organizations are now calling for a halt to all adoptions in Haiti with the exception of those for which the paperwork was largely complete. Why? Because of the tremendous risk of child trafficking either with orphans or those children do have families and simply who hope to be reunited with them as the chaos is controlled. The threat is real -- UN workers have reported "people driving to the airport in expensive cars and putting children on outgoing flights without any documentation."

As if the tragedy in Haiti wasn't already horrific enough, these children continue to suffer due to the actions of evil men. I know "evil" is a strong word and one that can be tossed around a bit too easily but I do believe that it applies to those adults who knowingly take these and other children, whether it is to make money posing as legitimate adoption agencies or to exploit these children through the 21st century equivalent of slave labor or in the sex industry.

With time, effort, and funds, the lives of these children will hopefully improve and Haiti will be rebuilt in some fashion. Adoptive families will hopefully be able to bring their new family members home and aid will flow to the children who remain. However, it will be a long process and they need our help. If you haven't already done so, I urge you to please consider making a donation to the Haitian relief efforts now. You might not be able to make a large donation but for the people of Haiti, many of whom have nothing left, a little from each of us will add up.

And two more makes three

2010-01-15T17:15:00.001-05:00

We've received word that our two remaining online profiles went live today AND that the long-delayed final home study report is being sent to our placement agency on Tuesday!

Great progress in the last few days.

And now we wait...

OK, now it gets real

2010-01-14T22:24:00.003-05:00

Holy cats! Our first profile page is now live with photos, a slightly modified version of our "Expectant Mother" letter (shockingly, the agency's edits didn't include changing the greeting to "Dear Birth Mother"), and some profile information. We're now out there in the wide world for expectant mothers to look at, consider, and hopefully choose.

Wow, this just got a whole lot more real!

Fear and Exhilaration

2010-01-09T18:39:00.003-05:00

I've been thumbing through one of the Christmas gifts I received from my wife this year, a humorous yet extremely helpful book called "The Baby Owner's Manual: Operating Instructions, Trouble-Shooting Tips, and Advice on First-Year Maintenance". It's a perfect fit for me, catering to my overdeveloped geek side by writing about the care and handling of a newborn as if it could all be summed in a snarky manual for a cool new cell phone.

Snark aside, I'm finding it to be far more interesting and helpful than the massive tomes that traditionally pass for parenting guides, like the classic "What to Expect..." series, which I find absolutely overwhelming, not to mention tremendously boring. I'll use "What to Expect..." as a "hmmmm...I'd better look this up" resource but you're not going to find me sitting down and reading it from front to back. My tolerance for dry and dusty and, quite frankly, dull is limited.

All that aside, as I've been reading the Baby Owner's Manual and other books, I've become more and more cognizant of all that can go wrong. It's actually moderately terrifying. Diseases, household appliances, psychos in the outside world, all of them just lurking to ambush our child at some point in the future. Hell, the Owner's Manual even goes so far as to point out that you need to make sure to vacuum regularly to prevent bad things from being inhaled, licked, swallowed, etc.

Great, now I have to worry about kitty fur balls as deadly weapons.

And then there's the idea that when we come home with Plus One, it's all on us. Sure we'll have friends and family to support and guide us but really, the onus is on us to keep the child safe and healthy and I'll do whatever it takes to make certain of that. I have no doubt that luck will also play a large part in that and sometimes, it's better to be lucky than good. But I know that I'll be saying a prayer of thanks at the end of each day if major bodily, emotional, and psychological harm has been avoided.

Friends with more that one child routinely tell us "don't worry...you learn that kids bounce" and other flip comments like that. They tell of how they were focused like laser beams on every aspect of child #1's life and food, etc., but that when kids 2, 3, and more came along, it turns into "sure Johnny, go ahead and eat that twig, fiber's good for you!" But I know that deep down, whether it's child 1, 2, or 10, they must feel that same fear that their child will be hurt by something they can't anticipate or a stupid accident or, god forbid, a "bad person." Of course kids get hurt and bumped and bruised and scared. That's one way they learn. As a parent, you might understand that concept but it damn sure doesn't mean you have to like it.

I wonder about living with that fear, what it will be like to be entirely responsible for the life of a small person and constantly wondering if you're good enough or smart enough or observant enough to protect them. I also wonder if it ever stops. Did my parents lived with a kernel of fear when I went off to Boy Scout camp every summer or when I sailed over the horizon on a tall ship when I was 19?

However, I've also seen the smiles and heard the laughs that come from my sister and her husband, or my best friends E and J with their two kids and I know that I can live with that fear. I can deal with the worry and the fretting and the waking up in the middle of the night just to sneak into Plus One's bedroom to reassure myself that she's OK because the exhilaration, the joy, and the wonder of being a parent and being on the receiving end of those smiles and laughter will make it all worth it.

But I'll still keep the Owner's Guide handy. You never know when a good reference book and a healthy dose of snark might be useful.

A bright spot

2010-01-05T17:30:00.004-05:00

Shortly after returning home from the vet where I received the news that our cat, Forest, like her late step-sister Annabel, is ill with inoperable cancer, I found the following message awaiting me in my e-mail InBox:

Congratulations!

We have enough marketing material to build your three web profiles!

This will take approximately 2-3 weeks and you will be notified by email when your webpage is LIVE.

Thank you for your hard work, dedication and never losing momentum during this portion of the process.

Good luck in your adoption journey.

At least there's one bright spot in an otherwise awful day.

Progress? Maybe? Please?

2010-01-03T17:49:00.005-05:00

With the start of the new year, hopefully we've started to get back on track when it comes to the adoption process after two months of frustration and bureaucratic delays.

First, we finally received the draft of our home study report about two months after we expected it. Thankfully, upon review, there were only minor factual corrections from our end. Of course, what would the adoption process be without previously unknown paperwork requirements cropping up at the last minute. Well, they weren't really unknown...they were simply requirements that our home study agency assured us in June that they would be taking of on our behalf.

Not so fast, little buckaroo! It turns out that:

they hadn't gotten around to submitting the child abuse background checks to two states this summer or fall, and
not only did we have to fill out the forms but there were additional administrative charges to go along with them

All this came to light in the days immediately before Christmas leading to a severe case of "bah humbugism" on my behalf when it came to the whole home study effort. Now those (hopefully) final forms have been submitted and barring some additional administrative rabbit hole, our home study final report should be ready to go in the next week or so.

And on the placement agency side of things, the saga of the "we need more than the 60 photos you've already provided to us because they don't match our cookie cutter templates" may also be drawing to a close thanks to a number of recent gatherings with family and friends and a concerted effort to remember to bring our camera. A suitable number of couple photos, entertaining photos, etc., were snapped.

Of course, all were taken without any sign of the many kids in our family because as we all know, photos of adoptive parents having loads of fun with their nieces and friends' children won't actually illustrate that the adoptive parents are good with kids but will instead confuse expectant mothers by making them think that the adoptive parents already have children.

Apparently, in the eyes of our placement agency, expectant mothers won't actually read captions or the multiple letters to the birth mothers that we wrote, all of which say that we don't have kids and can't wait to bring one into our family. Go figure.

But hey, I'm not the adoption professional so what do I know?

Hmmmm...perhaps a bit of that bah humbugism is lingering.

Nevertheless, with the last of the photos sent, the home study report almost final, and the last background checks requested, it's very possible that our adoptive parent profiles could be up and available for consideration by expectant mothers in as little as 10 to 14 days.

I think that's when I'll start to get nervous because then we're really out there. Someone may read our letters, review our stunning array of photos, and decide that, yes, these are the people I want to trust with my child. That's an idea that does freak me out a bit but when it happens, my oh my but that will make for a very happy new year!

And in the meantime, we'll just keep smiling in case we need to take more photos.

Well, if you've got to take some good pictures for an adoption profile, you might as well get into the holiday spirit and strike a heroic pose when you do it

Bureaucracy isn't a bad thing

2009-12-14T19:36:00.000-05:00

We're at a bit of a standstill in the adoption process right now, hung up on the formalities of waiting for our long-delayed final home study report and the need to provide some additional photos to meet our placement agency's cookie-cutter profile templates. While it frustrates the hell out of me, I am comforted by the fact that these are merely hiccups and that the process we're following to bring Plus One into our family is a tried and true one with rules and guidelines and procedures to keep the expectant mother and our family safe legally. It's a far cry from the wild west of surrogacy as described in yesterday's New York Times:

Surrogacy is largely without regulation, with no authority deciding who may obtain babies through surrogacy or who may serve as a surrogate, according to interviews and court records.

I feel for all of the people involved in the process and am relieved that we elected to follow another path. I can deal with the bureaucratic nitpicking of whether the photos of us as a couple are suitably "formal" or not. Losing our child after going through the process of bringing her into our home and family? That is something I would not wish on anyone.

Creating our traditions

2009-12-13T22:28:00.004-05:00

It's beginning to feel a bit more like the holidays as we decorated our Christmas tree today.

Despite being in a largely non-religious family, the Christmas tree was always a big deal in my family. We didn't actually do much with the rest of the religious side of things. Sure, we had a carved creche and the baby Jesus was never put into the cradle until Christmas morning but I made up for it by putting the trumpet-playing penguin there instead to fill the space.

We occasionally went to midnight mass but only if we were staying with my mom's mom, who was a practicing Catholic her whole life. The rest of us? We went because that's what you did when staying at my grandmother's house. When I was 14 or 15, I absolutely didn't want to go and my uncle took me aside and bluntly told me to stop being an asshole and go because it would make my grandmother happy. Besides, everyone told me, there would be loads of Christmas carols and it would be fun. It was horrendous actually and afterward, I seem to recall a few members of my family apologizing for making me go. I did of course get my revenge when, six or seven years ago, everyone was at my mom's house for Christmas Eve, my grandmother wanted to go to mass, and wanted my uncle to take her. He wasn't terribly happy about it and appeared to be trying to get out of it. So I very politely reminded him of a certain conversation he had with me twenty some odd years before. Beside, I told him, I'm sure it will be lots of fun.

The big tradition in my family was the trimming of the tree. We'd either get a a pre-cut tree at a local nursery or, for a really special time, go to a Christmas tree farm and pick out a tree that would be cut down on the spot, loaded on the car, and then we'd head home, usually after having some warm cider at the tree farm's little shed. When we got home, my dad would string the lights and then we'd all start putting on the ornaments. For many years, my father made sure to tie off the top of the tree to appropriately solid sections of the walls, doors or windows, a response to a rather disastrous intersection of me at age 4, the concept of climbing the tree, and the reality of gravity. You've never experienced a fully decorated Christmas tree until it's lying on top of you.

Anyhow, while it was something of a free-for-all on ornament hanging, there were some rules. For example, ornaments needed to be hanging freely, not resting on another branch. I recall my mother enforcing this particular one on a regular basis. Then we'd go to bed and my mother would stay up hanging the tinsel.

That was fine with me. Tinsel = tedium thanks to a further expansion of the rules. Not only did the tinsel have to hang freely but there couldn't be more than one or two pieces per branch. Neither I nor my sister had the patience for that and we'd end up with big silver blobs that I think drove my mom nuts. So we'd be allowed to hang a few strands of tinsel and then head off to bed. As a result, the morning after we trimmed the tree was always something of a revelation as we'd come downstairs to find a well-tinseled tree and my exhausted mother.

Needless to say, some of those traditions have slipped by the wayside. I'm pretty sure I've seen some "branch resting" ornaments on my mom's tree and she's given up on tinsel all together.

Tinsel of course was never part of the equation once I got my own place and started having my own tree (not to mention cats who were fascinated with chewing on the tinsel). And when Jennifer and I got engaged and had our first tree together, we quickly began to invent our own rituals, largely because trimming a Christmas tree was an entirely new experience for Jennifer, who was raised in a largely non-practicing Jewish household. For the first few years, she'd worry that she was doing something wrong. But that's the beauty of the thing. It's our tree, our traditions, our rules so anything goes.

In the intervening nine years, we've established our own set of traditions. I do the tree shopping, buying, and transporting. Jenn, while all for the concept of a Christmas tree, still experiences some qualms about using a real cut tree. However, like her unbreakable rule of "no TV set in the bedroom", I have a similarly non-negotiable position...no fake Christmas trees (except for the little one we have in the basement so we can have some Christmas lights down there).

After I set up the tree and haul it inside, I set it up and take up my father's mantle as "official stringer of lights". Once the lights are on, we begin to decorate. The first ornaments to go on are the new ones for the year as we traditionally buy each other a new, unique ornament as our first holiday gifts to each other. Then the star goes on (yes, I know some traditionalists say it has to go on last but once all the other ornaments are on, it becomes that much more difficult to do it without disturbing the other items) and then we delve into the rest of the wrapped and boxed ornaments.

It's like greeting old friends when we do this. We find our gift ornaments from past years and set them aside so that we can each rehang the gifts we were given. We laugh about the odd ones (the fat clear glass reindeer; the beheaded snowman -- just the head, no body, kinda creepy but we like it; the small shark's jaw that my uncle gave me years ago; the cheerleading moose) and try to remember who gave us the other ones. All the while, Christmas music is playing on the stereo so we're joined in our small family gathering by Glenn Miller and Mel Torme, Bing Crosby and Jimmy Buffett, and the modern renditions on the excellent "A Winter's Night" CD. And when we're all done hanging ornaments, a process that takes about 90 minutes, we turn off all the lights, turn on the tree's lights (please god let them not have a faulty bulb somewhere that kills a whole string), and sit together for a while on the couch enjoying the sight with the cats curled up around us before settling in to watch a Christmas special or two.

As we went through the process today, I found myself thinking more and more about these traditions and the others that Jennifer and I have established in our nine years together. We've had almost a decade for these traditions and patterns to evolve. We've created the routines, whether it's for a once-a-year event like trimming the tree to how we typically spend our weekend mornings. They're comfortable and easy now, like a pair of well-worn slippers as we've always been a family of two.

Despite having thought long and hard about it, I don't think I really have any idea of just how dramatically our lives, our routines, and our traditions will be changing in the coming year as we hopefully expand our little family from two to three. In truth, I can't wait.

I see my sister and brother in law with their kids and for years have been envious. Now, I watch them for tips and tricks. One of their Christmas traditions has been "The Elf on the Shelf" for the last two years. The elf made his first appearance of 2009 the morning after Thanksgiving when we were staying with my sister and it was wonderful to see the dawning realization on my four-year old niece's face when she saw the saw the elf smiling at her from a shelf in the kitchen. I am so excited by the prospect of sharing this with our Plus One that I almost went out and bought a copy. Of course, we'll be adopting a newborn so there's no real rush. However, the anticipation of being able to do that is wonderful.

Tonight we watched the 1970 "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town" with voices by Fred Astaire and Mickey Rooney along with the despicable Burgermeister Meisterburger along with the classic "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer" as he discovers the Island of Misfit Toys (resurrected this year in a brilliant cell phone ad). I love the idea of introducing Plus One to these classics along with "A Charlie Brown Christmas", "It's Wonderful Life" and all of the other songs and shows and movies without which Christmas would feel somewhat incomplete.

But more than anything, I can't stop smiling at the thought of the Christmas traditions and the other traditions that Jennifer and I and Plus One will discover together. What's the fun of having traditions is you can't create new ones while passing along those that mean so much to you? Though truth be told, I'll be sorry to see the whole "sleeping in on weekend mornings" routine fall by the wayside.

OMG More?

2009-11-24T01:34:00.004-05:00

We were done. We were sure of it. Everything was in. The home study report will be finalized this week or next. All the paperwork was submitted. We sent a CD of photos of everything imaginable in to the placement agency.

What do I discover when I get my e-mail today?

A request for 16 more photos!

Good lord!

We already sent in 60!

This is getting ridiculous.

It doesn't help that the samples of the additional types of photos they need are exactly the kind of photos we typically mock because they're so cheesy and so posed. I keep expecting to see one where someone actually went in and used Photoshop to add a silvery, sparkly starburst that just shouts gleam! to these people's teeth. I'm feeling like we should just go to the local Target, distract the employees, and abscond with all the fake photo inserts of picture-perfect couples that they stick in picture frames..

It looks like all family members will be dragooned into serving as photographers over the Thanksgiving holidays. Gee...that will be fun.

Sigh.

I think I'm just tired and cranky. Good practice for when Plus One keeps me awake all night, I guess.

Say cheese!

Thumb Twiddling 101

2009-11-22T09:12:00.002-05:00

I feel like there's something I should be doing right now.

After months of effort to collect everything for our home study and then placement agency profiles along with lengthy discussions and musings, we're now simply waiting. Everything's submitted. It's in the hands of other people right now who are finishing the home study report, preparing our profile, etc., and we have nothing to do but wait -- wait to get the final report, wait to see what our online profiles look like, and then wait to see who chooses us and when.

I'm not very good at waiting.

My wife can attest to this. She has to restrain me when I get her a really cool birthday present and want to give it to her early because I'm so excited. I'm definitely (and unfortunately) an impulse purchase kind of person.

Having to sit quietly and wait while other people do their work around me? Nope, not so good at that. I'm also now faced with an entire week off as I take some vacation prior to the Thanksgiving holiday.

I wonder if I should start repainting our dark blue guest room something light and baby room-ish?

Loss and Gain

2009-11-21T09:26:00.013-05:00

Dear Plus One,

I know you're out there and sometime in the hopefully not too distant future, you'll be coming home with us to our little family. We have a house filled with color and art and books and music and cats. Especially cats. We've always had cats and I expect we always will. We'll definitely be adding a dog or two in the future but might wait on that until you're old enough to help pick him or her out.

On our placement agency application, we made sure to indicate that we hoped you wouldn't be allergic to cats and dogs because we want you to experience the joy of having pets to cuddle with, play with, curl up and take a nap with. Our cats are a little on the older side now but they love us and we love them. I think you'll like them. I'm just so sorry you won't have a chance to meet one of them.

Annabel was the best cat -- warm, loving, gentle, occasionally crazed. She talked a lot, often with a chirr-upp! sound that I've never heard another cat make. And as she got older, she started sounding a bit like my crotchety great-aunt who barked out "I can't hear you!" in the silent hall during my grandfather's memorial service. But for Annabel, it was more like "Get up! I'm hungry and awake and you're not but you should be and by the way you need to be paying attention to me because I love you!" She did, of course, say these things at 4:37 AM in the kitty version of French because that's what your Mom always said she spoke.

Other times, it might have been a mournful howl when, as she got older, she'd forget where we were until we called her. Then she'd come trotting down the stairs with a happy look on her face and promptly curl up into someone's lap. OK, maybe the mournful howl might have freaked you out a bit but believe me, Plus One, there was nothing better than to have Annabel curled up next to you at night purring through her nose and helping you doze off.

I can only imagine the giggles that would have erupted from you as you watched her shift into psycho kitty mode, dashing around the house, using the back of the couch like a NASCAR driver uses the banked curve to make sharper turns, or pursuing, without successful, the dreaded laser pointer (activities that earned her the sobriquet "The Grey Bullet"). Then of course, she would have taught you to tumble and dance, her gymnastic gyrations on your mom's drafting chair serving as an excellent example of the values of flexibility and a regular stretching regimen.

Personally, I was hoping she'd help with the whole "OK baby, it's time to eat your dinner" process as she would calmly sit next to your chair, like she used to sit next to mine, in the hopes of snagging a piece of chicken, a bit of spare rib, or a few licks of sour cream (her absolute favorite). I figured she'd keep you distracted enough, using her Jedi mind tricks, to let us get some food into you without much of it decorating the walls or my shirt.

But best of all would have been the quiet times, when she'd curl up in her bowl on the kitchen table and doze off. We could have sat at the table with crayons or finger paints or bits of colored paper and worked while she watched us through slitted eyes to make sure we were occasionally paying attention to her (because it was all about Annabel) or that we hadn't wandered off, allowing her to snooze secure in the comfort that her people were nearby.

Sadly, Annabel was 19 and a half, which you will learn, dear Plus One, was very old for a cat. And sometimes when kitties are very old (and sometimes when they aren't), the time comes when they need to leave us to go chase mice and little red laser dots and lap up sour cream and curl up in someone's lap to keep them happy and warm and loved until the end of days. And when they're gone, we miss them because they are family, as much as me and your mom and you, Plus One, and all of your grandparents and cousins and dear friends.

It's OK to miss them. It's OK to look at the extra food dish and start to put dinner in it only to realize that there's no one to eat it, to sit at the kitchen table and realize with a start that the pair of grey ears and eyes that always peeked over the table top aren't there anymore, or to lie in bed and feel like it's empty because there's no grey cat curled up next to your head purring away in her sleep. It's OK to feel like there's a hole in your family and your life because there is.

But the wonderful thing is that we'll always remember her and love her and be able to laugh about her antics. We'll bring new pets into our family and we'll love them and they'll love us. You'll be able to crawl around after them or fall asleep next to them or shriek in glee as one of them licks red raspberry preserves off your face.

I'm just sorry it won't be the Grey Bullet. Because you would have liked her and she would have loved you.

So how many of the 150 steps are done now?

2009-11-12T21:01:00.006-05:00

Finally, the last bit of writing for our placement agency profiles is complete. The photos are collected and there's even an Excel spreadsheet with captions and details for each one. Everything is printed and the CD is burned. Tomorrow the whole packet gets dropped off in the mail and shipped off to our chosen placement agency for their staff to put together and post...

our online profile
our "Adoption Spacebook" profile
our printed adoptive parent "resume"
our birthmother letter for the Adoption.com website, and
our birthmother letter for the Courageous Choices website

The only thing left is the final copy of the home study report which, according to M, is just about done and will be ready to send off to the placement agency as well.

So we're sort of done for the moment and it's out of our hands. We now wait for the profile information to be posted. Then we shift into waiting mode and hope that in time, an expectant mother comes to the conclusion that we're the right people to be trusted to raise her child in our family.

No nerves or celebration yet, really. I think the serious bout of nerves will come when the agency lets us know that our profiles are live and that expecting mothers are starting to consider us. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's when the butterflies in the stomach will start.

Argh...so close but not quite done

2009-11-11T23:52:00.002-05:00

We thought we were done. The birthmother letters were written, the "Adoption Spacebook" questionnaire was complete, 60 photos were selected, captioned, and ready to go. The CD was burned and everything was getting ready to be mailed in the morning so our profiles can be created and birthmothers can begin considering us.

And then we discovered yet another questionnaire that needs to be completed, this one for the "Adoptive Parents Resume" that is printed and given to birthmothers. Argh!

I enjoy writing but this is getting ridiculous.

Maybe we'll be able to finally finish the paperwork (or at least this round of it) tomorrow night.

Staying on an even keel

2009-11-07T12:10:00.003-05:00

I received word today that family members and friends were initiating some conversations to plan a baby shower for Jennifer and me. It's tremendously thoughtful of them and while we definitely plan to celebrate at some point, we've also decided that we can't allow ourselves to do that until our child is in our arms and at home with us.

In adoption parlance, there's an event known as "a disruption", when a placement falls apart at the last minute, most often as a result of the expectant mother changing her mind after the baby is born. This is absolutely her right and until she hands us the baby and tells us that the little girl is ours to raise, we have no claim on her. Nevertheless, knowing it and going through it after getting our hopes up are two entirely different things.

Close friends went through a disruption. They arrived at the hospital after the baby was born and as they walked down the hallway, someone standing in the doorway of the birth mother's room said to the folks in the room "Oh, they're here." Our friend turned to his wife and said "She's changed her mind", knowing instantly from the tone of voice. He was right. Thankfully, another opportunity arose for them within a week or two to fill the void.

The agency we're working with takes great pains to minimize the instances of disruption by offering the expectant mothers counseling and support throughout the process, enabling them to identify instances where the expectant mother really might not be completely sure of her decision. Still, after all the steps we've gone through and still have ahead of us, nothing is definite until the birth mother makes that final decision and we are given the opportunity to take our baby home and start our lives as a family.

Until that happens, I think we'll be asking family and friends to hold off on the showers and the celebrations. There are enough things left to be done that there's no sense jinxing it, there's no need to get everyone ramped up about it, and the disappointment from a disruption would be bad enough without coming home to an empty nursery and stacks of baby gifts for a baby we don't have yet.

There will be plenty of time to celebrate -- years of birthdays and graduations and potty training and visits by the tooth fairy. There's no need to rush right now.

Emerge into daylight

2009-11-01T12:16:00.002-05:00

October is finally over, thank God -- 31 days long and it felt at least double that.

The weather was bizarre (cold, warm, rainy, sunny, monsoon), the Red Sox lost in the playoffs, and work was absolutely overwhelming in terms of the number of projects divided by the time available. I think I saw my parents at some point during the past month but in all honesty, it's a bit blurry. There were days when my wife and I only managed a mumbled "goodmorninghaveagoodday" as we passed each other on the way out the door followed by a shambling "hi, I'm really beat and am going to bed" when we arrived home at night. Most frustratingly was the dramatic slowdown in our adoption efforts (previously mused upon here). Generally, October was brutal.

What felt especially odd was that I couldn't summon the energy to do much writing at all -- only 10 entries on "Walks in the Marsh", 3 entries on "150 Steps", and absolutely no progress on my maybe-novel, which is stalled following a promising start. After a long series of months filled with writing, everything came screeching to a halt and it felt so weird. It's not that there weren't things to write about -- baseball, football, politics, adoption, movies, TV ("Castle" is our absolute favorite TV show by the way) -- but the idea of sitting down and writing simply lost its appeal after 12 hour days crammed with meetings, writing, and editing at my office or during a weekend otherwise full of work.

Believe me, I'm not complaining. Jennifer and I both have jobs, work with people we like and respect, and get paid for it, which is a damn sight more than other folks. October simply was one of those perfect storm situations where so many things came together that you just needed to focus on getting through the next task or project in the hope that when you emerge on the other side, you would be able to slow down and get your breath (aka "downshifting to impulse speed" as described by my delightfully geeky wife).

And now, at last, October is in the rear view mirror. The major projects that were underway are now done, and there's some breathing room to finish our adoption materials, to hopefully leave work in time for dinner at home with my wife, to relax just a bit, to start taking some of that accrued vacation time that is in danger of being lost come January 1, and hopefully to let some creativity flow and enjoy the feeling of tapping away on the keyboard or scribbling in my Moleskine notebook.

Welcome to November.

(cross-posted on "Walks in the Marsh")

A picture says a 1000 words but what if you're not in the picture?

2009-10-25T00:07:00.004-04:00

Finally, after three weeks of long days, late nights, and full weekends of work, we managed to find some time to get some work done on our placement agency profile materials. In doing so, we made a discovery that may not be terribly uncommon – in the process of selecting the myriad photos required (I'll let my wife explain what is expected of us), we suddenly realized how few of the thousands of photos we've taken since we got our first digital camera 7 years ago actually have us in them.

What will you find in our photos?

Cats
Lighthouses
Our gardens
Rocky promontories with crashing waves
Cool Building
Family members
Christmas trees
Cats
Fascinating stuff in museums
Our friends
Our friends' kids
Wildlife
Interesting creatures at the zoo
Renaissance fair performers
Before and after photos of the inside of our house
Did I mention cats?

Notice anything missing? It would appear that we've been so busy taking photos of other people, places, and things that we neglected to take many pictures of us. And those that have been taken recently? Most were shot on our trips to Maine, which means that yours truly presents a stylish image usually set off by a baseball cap, tshirt, and cargo shorts. Too cool for shorts? Jeans then.

Needless to say, we scoured iPhoto and have come close to identifying enough photos. Still coming up short, we did the next best thing.

We called for help, sending e-mails to people we know regularly take photos at family events in the hope that they have some good action shots to share with us.

Otherwise, it's the tripod and self-timer for us tomorrow!

Oh...and did I mention cats?

We've tried to instill a love of reading in our cats but they prefer audiobooks

Lost weeks

2009-10-18T00:52:00.004-04:00

After the excitement of completing the home study, the adoption effort ground to a halt, not as a result of any problems but simply the intrusion of the rest of our lives. October is a hellacious month for both of us with regard to our jobs, a convergence of multiple events, accelerating projects, and long days. As a result, we've made virtually zero progress in preparing our profile materials for the placement agency.

It's frustrating to have reached this point only to come to a screeching halt to deal with other things. It doesn't help that we've both been getting home so late from work lately. Forget about writing our birthmother letters or even writing brief entries in this blog...we barely have the energy to say hello and spend a few precious moments together before passing out at night and then waking up and starting all over again. Today was a grey cold Saturday tailor-made for working on the profile but I instead spent it at my desk working on work because there just doesn't seem to be time during the week to get everything done.

Something will need to change in the future. I'm not going to work so hard alongside my wife to bring a child into our lives only to never see them because I'm at work until 10 or 11 at night. I see my co-workers and I wonder how they do it. Some seem to spend all their time at work and not much with their children. Others are committed to their jobs but also make sure that nothing gets in the way of being a part of their children's lives. I think I prefer to be the latter as I just don't understand how the former can do that.

Of course, we have to find the time to complete the process but first I think I need to get some sleep.

A name that reflects the journey

2009-10-03T21:27:00.003-04:00

Naming kids is tough. Do you go classic? Clever? Make something up? Something you don't usually associate with the name of a person?

I'm leaning toward a name that reflects our adoption journey. After all, if Gwyneth Paltrow can name her daughter "Apple" and Penn Gillette can name his daughter "Moxie Crimefighter", is it so wrong to consider naming our little one "Paper Work"?

On its way

2009-09-29T20:36:00.001-04:00

OK, now it's getting serious. We sent our application to the placement agency today.

75 Steps

2009-09-24T20:42:00.002-04:00

When I started this blog, it was inspired by a conversation that I had with a neighbor early this summer, in which I remarked that "if the adoption process has 150 steps, we're on step 6."

We just completed step 75.

We're halfway there, if the completion of the home study can be considered the midway mark.

We turned over the completed binder of paperwork and then plunged into a discussion about next steps with the placement agency as well as how they will coordinate with M, our adoption counselor. Toward the end as we began to wrap things up, I asked M if she saw any reasons to think that she might not recommend us.

"I never would have let us go this far if I had any concerns. We would have known by the second meeting," she said.

And so we reach the 75th step. There's a nice, comfy landing here where we can catch our breath.

Step 1 seems so far away now, coming just days after my grandmother died as Jenn and I began to discuss in all seriousness the potential for adoption.

Way down on the 39th step, we can see Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll looking up at us (can't wait to introduce Plus One to the joys of Alfred Hitchcock sometime in the future!).

Looking up at the remaining 75 steps, we see more paperwork, more writing, and more heartfelt conversations. And the end? Well, the end isn't quite in sight yet. Sure, we know that we're making good progress and know logically what needs to happen but the actual end of these 150 steps? I have no idea what it will look like or what our family will look like when we reach #150, nor do I have any sense of what the many many steps that will follow will bring us.

But it doesn't matter at the moment.

75 is my new favorite number.

And even though it's comfortable to relax for a minute and look back at how far we've come in this journey, there's no time to waste. Step #76, the application for the placement agency, is waiting for us and we're on a deadline.

6 more hours of teachable moments

2009-09-19T23:20:00.004-04:00

We've completed four hours of our online classes for prospective adoptive parents. Interesting stuff so far though I feel like I didn't actually see the sun on this lovely Saturday. Only six more hours to go and we'll be pros at this!

The voices that matter

2009-09-17T23:08:00.008-04:00

Steadily, we're closing in on the milestone of completing our paperwork for the home study (3 letters remain plus 10 hours of online adoptive parenting classes). There's a massive purple binder sitting on my desk containing the paperwork to hand off to M as well as copies for ourselves so that we'll have a "holy crap, look at what we went through to get you" scrapbook to show Plus One sometime in the future.

Clearly, the hoops we go through now seem, at least from my perspective, to be so much more involved than if we'd had the option to go the natural route at some point in the past. But one man's complicated and involved is another person's laughably simple.

I just finished Doree Shafrir's article on The Daily Beast called "10 Ways to Have a Baby" and after reading what some couples have gone through, our efforts to adopt don't seem to be quite so onerous. Of course, the author also picked out the most sensational ones that she can find, whether due to the sci-fi aspect, the legal aspects, the social issues, etc., but still, a straightforward domestic adoption looks like a piece of cake compared to these (an expensive piece of cake, mind you, but still relatively uncomplicated...so far).

I also found myself scrolling through the comments at the end and was amazed as the spectrum of comments and, quite frankly, how horribly cruel, vicious, and unfeeling some of them were.

"There is absolute no reason to reproduce beyond the selfish notion of continuing the family seed. And the world only suffers from increasing the number of people on it, no matter how fabulous or special one's spawn could be."

"Some people are not meant to reproduce. Sorry, but that's biology."

"I do not believe in buying children."

Would the people who write these things also say them in public to people who ache for a child or are they simply willing to make declarations like this because they are shielded by their anonymous nicknames?

I guess comments like this shouldn't come as a surprise anymore. Jenn has spent far more time than I reading blogs by adoptive parents, birth parents, adopted children, etc. (Perhaps, like our life insurance agent observed, it's a guy thing to not necessarily have that level of curiosity in this situation.) What are distressing are the sites she's found with comments, especially from birth mothers, that paint us -- prospective adoptive parents -- as evil, misguided, selfish, manipulating pawns of an exploitative adoption industry who should simply pass on the idea of adoption and get on with our childless lives.

While those words hurt and are no doubt heartfelt by people whose situations I don't know, I'm not going to feel guilty. They can have their opinions but I don't have to agree with them. As a matter of fact, I don't. I'm not going to give up, and I'm not going to pass on this opportunity. And neither is Jenn.

We are blessed to have supportive families and friends who know us, who know what we would offer as parents, and who are cheering us on.

These are the people who know us best.

These are the comments that I pay attention to.

These are the opinions that matter to me.

And of course, these are the folks we'll be calling at 2AM when we can't get Plus One to stop crying. I hope they know how much we appreciate their support!

Home stretch on the home study

2009-09-14T22:37:00.002-04:00

FBI background checks are in and I haven't been arrested yet so I guess they didn't find anything. Doctors' reports are in. At least one of our personal recommendations has been sent it. We're down to single digits on stuff that needs to get done before we can hand in our completed home study binder!

Masculine

2009-09-05T22:27:00.005-04:00

This evening, as we gathered in downtown Providence for a United Way event to kick off tonight's Waterfire performance and raise awareness, we meet a couple who will be walking in the United Way procession with their 1-month old daughter. The dad has the baby strapped to the front in a Baby Bjorn. The mom comments how she prefers the sling that she wears. He replies, "She can have the sling. This way is more masculine, I think."

Dude, you've got a baby strapped to your chest in a green Baby Bjorn. Parental? Yes. Comfortable? I guess so. Masculine? That might be a stretch.

I wonder if they come in purple.

By the bedside

2009-09-03T23:30:00.002-04:00

Since earlier this year, my mother has been fighting the good fight against breast cancer. With the apparent success of her chemo treatments, she underwent surgery today to remove the platinum marker pins, previously affected lymph nodes, and the tissue around the now vanished tumors. I went and visited her in the hospital today, a few hours after she came out of surgery and was moved from the recovery room to the room where she'll probably spend the next 48 hours sleeping and recuperating before heading home for several days of quiet time.

It feels like the last two years have involved a lot of sitting by bedsides, most often with my grandmother as she weakened, then faded, and finally passed away on my 40th birthday in April. There was also time spent with my father following his stroke. And most recently, my mother's fight has loomed in the background since February even as she was there at every step for my grandmother and enthusiastically for us as we've moved along our adoption journey. At the same time, we've all been there for dad and for mom, their family and friends. In every case though, the passage of time steadily etches its way deeper on our faces and in each of our lives.

It's struck me that our journey toward adoption...my desire for a daughter or son...has been in some small part with an eye toward that future in my own life, a desire to answer the question "who will be by the bedside when my wife and I grow older?" There's a certain amount of selfishness inherent in such a thought, a sense that it is all about me but in truth, that's not why I'm doing this, not why I'm so giddy about the thought of adoption, about being a parent, about teaching and learning and sharing so very very much.

Nevertheless, I'll admit to a certain amount of fear of being alone when I'm older or of leaving my wife alone. I saw my parents and their siblings caring for their parents. I see me and my siblings there for my parents now (though thankfully I'm a child of the freelovin' 60s so my parents are still on the youngish side compared to my friends' parents). And in the face of the march of time, the thought of a child or grandchildren to visit us and brighten our days 40 or 50 years down the road is a comforting one, a reassuring benefit to what I expect will be an amazing adventure. Do other parents feel like this or am I just tired and a bit maudlin right at the moment?

The trickle continues

2009-09-01T07:10:00.003-04:00

We're in this weird limbo at the moment, terribly close to completing our home study but waiting for the arrival of final documents over which we have no control. They are slowly trickling in -- a financial report from the bank here, an attorney general letter there -- but they seem to be taking a long time. It's September 1 and we've set September 18 as our target deadline to have every piece of paper necessary to hand off to M for her to complete the home study. I know they'll go by fast but 18 days still seems like a long time.

Phew, that's a relief

2009-08-26T20:39:00.006-04:00

Yet another in our unending string of home study paperwork arrived today. According to the Attorney General of Rhode Island, Jennifer has no criminal record. Now we're just waiting on my state criminal background check. Hopefully they don't find the paperwork from that embarrassing 1992 llama smuggling incident...

Sigh of Relief

2009-08-19T22:09:00.003-04:00

OK, everyone was right. We really didn't need to stress today's home visit. M showed up, we gave her a tour of the house (it was pretty quick...our house isn't that big), and then settled down out on the deck (cooler than the interior of said house) for a chat about how things were going in the adoption process.

Not a white glove in sight.

I didn't even turn on the lights in the laundry room to display my well-mopped floor.

Instead, we ran down the remaining paperwork and committed to having a final meeting to hand everything over for her review in 3 weeks.

It feels good to have a finish line for Phase 1 in sight.

Plus we got a nice clean house out of the deal...except for the two baskets of laundry that were artfully obscured on the far side of the bed, but who's counting?

All in all, a good day.

The law of supply and demand

2009-08-18T21:22:00.005-04:00

Even as we work on our home study, we've been making plans to apply for our actual adoption placement. One element of this process is choosing all of the options available on the "menu". Not only do we consider what requirements we have (no family history of allergies to pets, for example) but also what our preferences are in terms of gender, race, etc. Of course, those options carry with them an additional fee but this isn't really a process that lends itself well to skinflints.

With that in mind, we coincidentally received an e-mail today from our contact at the placement agency we expect to be use. It read, in part:

We currently have a larger amount of birthmothers coming on board with us and the intake calls on the birthmother side for the last several weeks have nearly doubled from the same time last year so we anticipate lots of birthmothers in the next couple of months. We are therefore encouraging more adoptive couples to begin their adoption journey now because the match times will become just that much shorter with this increased action with birthmothers.

As a result, the placement agency's optional cost to state a gender preference is apparently being cut almost in half. So, in a way, our timing couldn't be better as the law of supply and demand (and its affect on prices) is clearly working in our favor both with regard to cost and the possible speed at which we might be joined by our Plus One. Sadly, the glut of birthmothers in need of help is also a tangible and saddening reminder that people around the country are hurting, that they have few options, and that they need assistance.

No more cleaning

2009-08-18T21:18:00.003-04:00

Apparently we didn't need to stress and don't need to scrub down the house any more. Jennifer received the following e-mail this evening from M, the adoption counselor conducting our home study:

I wish you would quit cleaning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I read a little of the blog yesterday, and meant to email you last night, but I got side tracked. Whatever you have done is ENOUGH!! Its tooo hot! Go take a walk by the water.

She added as a P.S.:

I haven't looked in anyone's closet in 20 years, and I don't do basements, attics or garages.

Of course, being a somewhat obsessive person when it comes to things like this and careful not to leave anything to chance when it's this important, I did indeed go scrub out the tub this evening.

But that's it.

Really.

I'm serious.

White gloves

2009-08-16T00:25:00.006-04:00

Our actual home visit is scheduled for this coming Wednesday. Our adoption counselor, M, will be visiting for 60-90 minutes, to talk with us and also confirm that we do actually have a roof, four walls, etc.

I'm nervous about her visit even though I probably don't have any reason to be. It's not like we live in squalor or a tent. Our house is safe, comfortable, well maintained, and cozy (aka small). There really isn't a reason to worry. I know this. M candidly told us at the start that she's never "failed" anyone based on her visit to their home. The only time she had a concern was when she stepped into a living room with spotless white carpets, white upholstered furniture, and a squeaky clean stainless steel and glass coffee table. Apparently, her immediate thought was "what are they going to do when their kid brings a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in here?"

Needless to say, spotless white and squeaky clean aren't two phrases typically used to describe our home. Clean, yes in general but to be totally truthful, it's virtually impossible to stay ahead of the cats' prodigious shedding. We'll probably be diagnosed with bad cases of furry lung at some point in the future. That or start hacking up hairballs ourselves.

Even so, our house reflects us and how we live our life, the life we want to share with a child. We bought this house 5 years ago and we've made it into a home. It's filled with books and art, fun colors on the wall and fun colors in the gardens, memories of our grandparents, and pictures of places we love and the friends and family we love even more. It's often filled with music (Plus One will need to get used to Jenn's favorite house cleaning music -- Meatloaf's "Bat Out of Hell" and Journey's Greatest Hits) and laughter and, I'm embarrassed to say, apparently some snoring at night.

Sure, it's a bit disconcerting to see the couples profiled on Adoption.com with their multi-acre yards and huge McMansions. It was a huge relief when we actually found a profiled couple with a small ranch house like ours. However, it is our house and we bought it because we loved the neighborhood, only two houses from the bike path, just outside Colt State Park, and within spitting distance of the shore of Narragansett Bay. So what if the house itself is shaped like a shoebox and has no real architectural points of distinction? We've added those points of distinction through what we brought to it in our efforts to make a home.

So why am I nervous?

I think it's because M's visit to our home will be a tangible reminder that every aspect of our life is being judged right now as part of this home study process. The house -- our home -- is a reflection on us in the same way as the financial records, criminal background check, autobiographies, letters of reference, and other paperwork. M is getting a far deeper and more intimate look into our lives than anyone but perhaps our parents, siblings, and our absolute closest friends in the world. But while we know that our parents, siblings, and friends know us, trust us, love us, and believe in us, M is new to our lives and our future as parents rests on the decisions she makes.

Having her at our home, even if she doesn't give it the stereotypical white glove inspection, is just another step in opening ourselves up for someone to evaluate us and judge our fitness as parents.

I know we'll do fine. Hell, I mopped the basement today as well as mowed, weed whacked, and spent 90 minutes doing nothing weeding, pruning, and cleaning out the bird bath. Jenn completely rearranged her closet and a full scale assault on cat fur with the vacuum cleaner commences bright and early tomorrow. With the exception of the closet, all are things we would normally do. They just take on added emphasis this time around.

We'll do fine.

But I think I'll still be just a bit nervous if you don't mind.

Finicky Eater

2009-08-10T10:21:00.004-04:00

Dads are supposed to be role models. They're supposed to provide guidance and an example of how a child should live his or her life.

I'm going to have a problem.

I'm a finicky eater.

Sometimes it's a texture thing. Sometimes it's the taste. Sometimes it's the result of a prior bad experience. Sometimes it's just the fact that something doesn't look particularly appealing. When I was 16 and at Disney World with my family, my mother offered to buy me any book I wanted if I'd just try an oyster in cream sauce while at the French restaurant in Epcot Center. To this day I can still feel the sensation of that thing sliding down my throat, and I think my mother still feels guilty.

As a result, I'm the person who, when going out to a new place with friends, always gets the odd look followed by the query, "Will you be able to find something you like here?" Even after I say yes, I often get the question at least once or twice more prior to ordering, apparently on the assumption that I lied the first time and am tamping down a queasy stomach just to be polite.

Usually, it was simply an issue that affected me and perhaps friends when selecting places to eat. Now I realize I'm going to be faced with our Plus One looking to me for guidance on what's good to eat.

I might be totally screwed.

In the last few days, the degree to which I will be out of my depth was brought home to me, first as I read "Hungry Monkey" by Matthew Amster-Burton, the Seattle restaurant critic's riotously funny look at trying to teach his daughter to be an adventurous eater and the eating habits of children from birth to 4 years old. Then I watched "Julie & Julia", the tale of Julia Child discovering and teaching her love of French cuisine in parallel with a Queens, NY blogger's quest to cook every one of the 524 recipes in "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in 365 days.

In both cases, I looked at the recipes, the food being prepared, the food being eaten, and thought to myself "Ummmm...I hate mushrooms." Well, I thought a few more things than that but that's a quick and easy summation of my approach to food.

It's limited, I know, but it's worked for me for the last 40 years.

Now, things may have to change a bit. I'm pretty sure I'll need to learn to suppress my inner Calvin. If Plus One is going to need to learn new things, it looks like Dad is going to have to go along for the ride. Otherwise, when it comes time to eat dinner, I'll be reap in spades what I've sowed over 40 years of finickiness.

Distilled to 10 pages and 45 minutes

2009-08-03T23:22:00.007-04:00

This weekend saw Jennifer and I spending loads of time together at home and virtually none of it with each other. Instead, we each sat in front of our respective computers -- me at my desk, Jenn wherever caught her fancy thanks to her laptop -- and worked on our autobiographies for our home study virtually all day Saturday and Sunday.

The challenge wasn't trying to figure what to put in so much as what to keep out. We were presented an outline with detailed questions about our lives with family and friends, our careers, our marriage, our views on parenting and discipline, motivations for adoption, finances, our home, our plans for the future, and more.

The outline was 3 pages long.

We were each given a target length of 5 to 7 pages for our completed response.

My initial outline of the facts and some key observations, leaving virtually everything out, was 24 pages.

I was completely and totally screwed.

When I was in high school, I was asked to turn in a 10-page paper. I turned in a 20-page tome. I have a habit of overwriting sometimes.

By Sunday afternoon, I had it condensed to 14 pages of text. Then I resorted to an old homework trick -- I played with the layout though instead of condensing the margins, increasing the font size, and expanding the leading between lines to make it longer, I expanded the margins, cut my typeface size by half a point, and made a few other tweaks.

Now I was at a full 12 pages.

It was killing me. I wanted to answer the questions as completely and truthfully as possible. How could I possibly do so in when the outline was almost half the length of my assigned document?

I was trying to distill 40 years of experiences into less than 2 pages per decade. Sure, a straightforward list of family members' names, my career chronology, etc., would have shortened things up dramatically but was that really the point?

Our adoption counselor, M, wanted the autobiographies to assess our fitness as prospective parents, to get a sense of how we'd approach parenthood, what experiences good and bad we'd bring to the table. I desperately wanted to do well, to make the case that yes, Jennifer and I will be good parents and will love and cherish our Plus One. A recitation of names and dates would serve no purpose, provide no insight, offer no color.

In the end, I managed to get it down to 10 pages, joking that if I extracted the 3-page outline, I was right on the mark for the document length. Of course, I cheated a bit with hyperlinks out to various blog entries both here on 150 Steps and on my other blog, Walks in the Marsh, to provide greater insight.

Still, I look back over what I wrote, what I submitted to M and wonder -- did I provide enough information? is there something in there that will raise a flag? will my desire to be a dad...no, to do my utmost to be a great dad...come through? Will Jennifer's new passion to be a mother -- something everyone who knows her can see blazing from her like a beacon -- and her sublime skill and connection with children emerge from her own 10-page autobiography?

We'll find out tomorrow afternoon at 4PM and 5 PM when we sit down with M for 1-on-1 discussions about our lives, this time distilling it all down not to 10 pages but to 45 minutes.

Wish us luck.

So...let's talk about your marriage (but sign this first)

2009-07-29T23:51:00.008-04:00

Apparently, our marriage the topic of the next meeting with me, Jennifer, and M, our adoption counselor and the woman conducting our home study.

Our first meeting, held last Friday, focused on bringing M up to speed and her going over the huge amounts of paperwork we'll need to provide, among them being:

written confirmation from the Bristol, RI, police, the RI Attorney General, and the FBI that we are not bad people
our autobiographies (I'm hoping David McCullough will be available to ghost write mine)
financial reports, tax records, mortgage details
3 letters of reference from friends confirming that we are not bad people
letters from our employers confirming that we are not bad people and that we actually are gainfully employed
medical reports
and the list goes on

However, meeting #2 tomorrow is when the fun starts. "Next week, we'll talk about your marriage," M says to us as we're wrapping up our first meeting. Of course, she gives us no clue as to exactly what we'll be talking about when it comes to our marriage so imaginations have run wild over the last 5 days as to the potential questions.

Once we get through that gauntlet, we'll have at least 2-3 more meetings with her, host M during a visit to our home, and then take part in an additional 10 hours of parenting education. And this is just for the home study. We aren't even talking about the next step of working with the placement agency to get out there as adoptive parents and hopefully be selected by a birth mother!

Seriously, China would not have to worry about overpopulation if they required everyone to go through this process before having a biological child. There's more paperwork than when we bought our house, though as I noted on my Facebook page the evening after our first meeting, "Of course, you can always sell your home. Kids are forever and appear to result in a correspondingly larger amount of things to be signed."

Baseball for families

2009-07-26T16:42:00.003-04:00

I was planning to blog about our trip to the Pawtucket Red Sox game last night and how we were surrounded by parents and kids, most of whom were having a great time. However, Jennifer beat me to it and wrote such a fantastic piece that I'm going to just point you to it and say "yeah, me too." Enjoy!

Traveling

2009-07-23T22:32:00.007-04:00

During my recent 1-day jaunt from Rhode Island to Chicago and back by way of Baltimore (a trip highlighted by an act of unexpected kindness), I spent large part of the day in and around airports or on the airplanes that service said airports. For the first time, I spent time watching, really watching, the families traveling with children.

Historically, my observations of families with children in airports are usually accompanied by an internal dialogue that goes something like this: "Boy that kid is loud...How can they manage to get all that stuff in those bags?...ummm, yeah I think you're going to need to check that stroller...oh boy that baby is crying again...ah scored a moderately comfy seat by the window...oh no, I just made eye contact with the mother! Will my noise-cancelling headphones cancel out a crying baby?...oh boy here they come...ok polite smile...please don't please don't please don't...yes, they're heading farther back!" Of course, the Universe usually pays me back for such uncharitable thoughts by having a gentleman who looks like he ate all of the Marx Brothers sit in the center seat next to me, jab me in the side with his elbow, and fall asleep facing me and bathing me in a halitosis funk.

On Wednesday, however, I watched with a whole new eye. Someday soon that's going to be me. Other people are going to look askance at me and dread seeing me walk down the aisle of that plane. And so I watched these families in curiosity and with an eye toward shamelessly borrowing any pattern of behavior or coping methods that seemed to keep the children quiet or happy. What works? What doesn't? And will people forgive Jenn and me if we can't keep the baby quiet?

It's something of an urgent concern.

Odds are, we'll be adopting our Plus One from a birth mother living somewhere else in the United States. Eventually we'll have to go home. Do we drive? Do we fly? If we do, we're going to be those "getting on an airplane with an infant" parents that I'd always secretly dreaded. Not only that but we'll be getting on that plane with virtually no practice at the whole parenting thing. Usually, families head home with newborns in their cars and the relatives fly in to visit. Nope, not us.

Looking at resources on line, there seems to be a general trend towards "wait until the baby is at least two weeks old" but other sources say 3 months, some say it's OK any time just be prepared for the baby to get sick from all the people and germs in the airport. Conveniently, the TSA allows you to bring baby formula through checkpoints with you now so that answers the questions I had about whether or not we were going to have to find some way to make it once we got through the checkpoint.

We've got a lot to learn about this whole parenting thing. So many questions and every normal, familiar experience is now colored by the realization that the next time I do this, whatever this is, it will be in the company of a little tiny person who will be fully dependent on me and my wife. Nothing will ever be the same and I can't wait.

Time to get started

2009-07-15T23:04:00.002-04:00

We returned home from watching "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" this evening (see my review here) to find a message from Alliance for Children in response to our application for our home study. Hopefully, we'll be able to connect tomorrow with M, the social worker we met with a month ago, and get the first of our interviews scheduled. It will feel like such a relief when we actually get underway.

The book of fatherhood

2009-07-13T18:30:00.004-04:00

Since receiving a Kindle for my 40th birthday (an event chronicled here on Walks in the Marsh), I've been spending a lot of time thinking about my lifelong love affair with books. It was there from the start -- I was graced with all the books I could read and parents who firmly believed in the value of the library as well as owning books for yourself.

When I was young, the day rarely ended without being read to by my mom or dad. It was one way that they showed me, every day, that they loved me. I was introduced to Narnia, for example, by my parents reading a chapter a night to me in bed. I can still recite portions of "Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo" in the same sing-song my mother used 35 or so years after she first read it to me.

When I was older, I'd hide under the covers with a flashlight to continue reading after my parents told me to turn the light off. Summers on Cape Cod found my grandmother and me going to the small library in Eastham at least once a week to select books to read at the beach or in the comfy chairs by the big expanse of glass as the stars winked at us from high above the small red cottage at the end of Old Farm Lane. Even now, my bedside table is stacked with at least 7 or 8 books and our "to be read" shelf in the kitchen groans under the weight of the treasures yet to be discovered and friends still to meet.

I realized recently that this is one of the reasons I want to become a parent -- to have the opportunity to raise my child to enjoy the same love for the written word that my parents instilled in me. Perhaps you could make the case that I'm confusing reasons to become a parent with things I desperately want to do as a parent. Personally, I don't see them as mutually exclusive.

If one purpose of parenthood is to share the world and your beliefs with your child so that they can have a happy, healthy, full life and be equipped to make the best decisions for themselves, I can't think of a better path to take than to help instill in them a love for reading (being a Red Sox fan might run a close second but that's a topic for another blog post). For me, becoming a passionate reader is the closest thing to a religious upbringing that I can offer my child being as I am generally uninvolved in any actual organized religion.

A week ago, Nicholas Kristoff's Sunday column in the New York Times encouraged parents to read to their kids and to get kids to read for themselves this summer:

So how will your kids spend this summer? Building sand castles at the beach? Swimming at summer camp? Shedding I.Q. points?

In educating myself this spring about education, I was aghast to learn that American children drop in I.Q. each summer vacation — because they aren’t in school or exercising their brains.

This is less true of middle-class students whose parents drag them off to summer classes or make them read books. But poor kids fall two months behind in reading level each summer break, and that accounts for much of the difference in learning trajectory between rich and poor students.

A mountain of research points to a central lesson: Pry your kids away from the keyboard and the television this summer, and get them reading.

And with that, he offers a list of the greatest kids' books ever. My favorite comment from his list: "The Harry Potter series. Look, the chance to read these books aloud is by itself a great reason to have kids." (Hopefully you'll be able to read this column via the link...as a Times subscriber, I can't tell if this is subscriber-only content. If it is, post a comment and I'll at least least recap the books on Kristoff's list.)

Many of the books on his list are ones that I would have had on my own. I can think of so many others that I would add to the list.

This weekend, my 10-year old sister came to visit us for several days. Together, the three of us rode our bikes into town and to the newly refurbished Rogers Free Library to check out some books to read with her over the weekend. After so many years away from most childrens' books, it was like a family reunion for me as I walked among the shelves of books and found old and dear friends from my own childhood. Seeing Jennifer reading one of the books to S there in the library made me ache for the time when I'd be able to do that with my own child and give them the most valuable gift I can think of -- a lifelong reminder of how much I love her.

Abierto? Cerrado?

2009-07-12T21:20:00.002-04:00

I was among the first generation of Sesame Street viewers as it premiered only a few months after I was born. I grew up loving the fuzzy monsters and the cast members (I met the late Will Lee who played Mr. Hooper when I was 5 or 6 when he performed at the theatre where my father worked, wept when he died, and still have the autographed black and white cast photos that he sent me). I learned numbers from the Count and sang along with Oscar and Big Bird. I don't remember much of my foreign language classes from junior high and high school but, thanks to the humans and Muppets repeatedly stepping in and out of doors or opening and closing windows on Sesame Street, I'll never forget how to say open and closed in Spanish.

Abierto!

Cerrado!

Of late, I've been thinking about Sesame Street (looking forward to sharing it with Plus One eventually) as well as those long-ago lessons about "abierto" and "cerrado" as we consider whether we're going to be more comfortable with an open or closed adoption and, if open, to what degree.

When originally considering domestic vs. international, one of the appealing facets of an international adoption is that this issue largely goes away. We would have little if any information about the birth parents and there would be virtually no chance of future, unexpected contact. However, as we've moved closer to pursuing a domestic adoption, we're facing the issue again, along with all of its weighty questions about how it will affect our future and the future of our Plus One.

Seeking a better understanding of the other parts of the "triad", Jennifer has spent a great deal of time recently reading blogs by birth-mothers and adoptees and much of what she has found has been challenging. These posts, with their anger and sense of abandonment, also have made her think more about having an open adoptive relationship in which our Plus One grows up actively knowing and interacting with her birth mother.

For me, my instinctive reaction is to push back against that. Our goal is to become a family with a child. We will be her parents, we will love and care for her. We won't hide the adoption or deny our child information about her birth parents (if the birth parents provide information) but she will have one set of parents -- us. Yes, she will have a birth mother and father and I will forever be grateful that they trusted us enough to allow us to bring their baby into our lives but I am scared of what it would mean to have them actively involved.

Would it cause confusion in our child? Would it reduce the strength of the connection and bond we hope to create with our child? Would it make me feel any less a parent or be seen by my child as any less her parent? Am I simply responding to some primal fear or an irrational lack of confidence? By the same token, I've seen up close the disruption, fear, and worry that besets a family when a birth parent suddenly reappears after decades in the wilderness, even when information about the birth parent was available.

It's a decision with lasting, profound ramifications in the same way that choosing a name carries such weight that it can influence a child's entire life. How does one choose? As a prospective parent, how do I know that, together with Jennifer, we're making the right decision for us or for our child? How will our choice affect the birth parents and how will their expectations and needs affect us?

And so I find myself looking at a door but not sure how I want and need it to be.

Abierto?

Cerrado?

Abierto?

Cerrado?

Waiting

2009-07-04T22:42:00.003-04:00

Now that our home study application has been sent in and we've settled on an agency to work with for a placement, I find my compulsive need for instant gratification kicking in. When will we hear from the home study folks? How quickly can we get started? As Jennifer will attest, I am sometimes lacking in patience once I get my mind set on getting something.

Attending Bristol's 224th July 4th parade today and seeing families and kids enjoying themselves simply ramped up my desire to keep things moving, to build the momentum, to reach a point where we'll actually be able to plan how we'll attend the parade next year and where we'll be able to sit out of the sun while Plus One naps (or doesn't...her or his choice).

"Real soon!"

2009-06-28T18:40:00.004-04:00

In one of my favorite movies of all time, the cult classic, "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension," the leader of the evil Red Lectroids exhorts his minions as they attempt to escape Earth:

Lord John Whorfin: Where are we going?
Red Lectroid Minions: Planet 10!
Lord John Whorfin: When?
Red Lectroid Minions: Real soon!

I feel like we're living that right now as Jennifer and I finished speaking with B, a friend of a friend, this afternoon, except that our version goes more along the lines of:

What the hell are we doing?
Adopting a kid!
When?
Real soon!

B and her husband used the domestic placement agency that's been on the top of our list, the Adoption Network Law Center, and with only a few minor issues, had an extremely positive experience. Most notable was how fast it all went. Two months after completing the paperwork, they were offered a placement and accepted and one month later had their newborn daughter in their arms. This is a tremendous difference from the lengthy waits from other agencies or on the international side of things. After our conversation with B, Jenn walked into the living room and blurted out, "Holy crap! We could have a kid really soon!"

Yep, that's a fair assessment. At this rate, if we complete all of our paperwork, get the home study completed, and rob a few banks for the funds (ha ha, just kidding...gulp), it's not at all unreasonable to think that we could at least have a placement by Christmastime and welcome Plus One to the family in early 2010.

So say it with me...

What the hell are we doing?
Adopting a kid!
When?
Real soon!

Networking

2009-06-28T10:20:00.007-04:00

We may be a bit closer to identifying the next piece of the puzzle. In one of those "small world" moments, we learned that close acquaintances of Jennifer's best friend G adopted two children through the same domestic agency that is currently the leader on our list. Conveniently, Jenn met them at G's wedding and after a quick flurry of e-mails, they've graciously (and apparently enthusiastically) agreed to talk to us this weekend about their experience.

I'm a firm believer in using consumer review sites like Epinions as a resource when it comes to making a purchasing decision. While we haven't found anything similar for adoption agencies, we have discovered that the broad network of adoptive families is, by and large, a very open one when it comes to sharing information with people like us who are just at the start. Agency marketing materials are all well and good but having a chance to speak with people who worked with that agency (and aren't necessarily on the agency's "approved customer testimonial list") is absolutely invaluable.

More to come following our conversation later today...

How to choose?

2009-06-21T22:04:00.007-04:00

While we are probably 85-90% certain that we'll choose to pursue a domestic adoption, it's not yet set in stone. Following her post on domestic vs. international adoptions, Jennifer received some wonderful comments on her blog from folks around the country with words of encouragement and wisdom, including some speaking very highly of international adoptions.

Personally, I'm finding that making that choice is tremendously difficult as I swing back and forth with each new piece of information to plunk itself on our kitchen table. Truthfully, there's a 6-of-one, half-dozen-of-the-other feel to it.

We find the international adoption route appealing because of the sense that once the adoption is complete, it's over and done with, leaving little if any chance that someone from our Plus One's birth family would appear in the future. Friends and family members have successfully completed international adoptions and have no regrets. On the other hand, international adoptions leave us with little in the way of health or family information for our Plus One, a fact that I admit does frighten me a bit. Even with the aid of adoption doctors specializing in this area, it strikes me as a nerve-wracking prospect to agree to bring a child into our family on the basis of two sketchy pages of health information, a photo or two, and, if you're lucky, a brief video.

Domestic adoptions seem to offer the opposite -- more health and family background so you have a better idea of what to expect but also some level of contact with the birth mother and possibly the birth father based on how open the adoption is. In our conversation with one adoption center, they described the 50-page application a birth mother needs to fill out to be accepted into their program. That seems pretty overwhelming -- I'd have trouble coming up with 50 pages of health information on me! But that means, from the perspective of prospective adoptive parents, that we'd have much more information to go on, not only when making the choice about accepting a placement but also about the future health and well-being of our Plus One. Our friends K and D, who adopted two wonderful girls domestically, speak very highly of the process and of the fact that they met both of the birth mothers, a sentiment shared by other bloggers and writers.

However, I know that the flip side -- the re-emergence of a birth parent in the future -- can be a tremendously disruptive experience for the child (or young adult) and the adoptive parents. Do I want to risk putting my child through that? Do I want to risk putting Jennifer and me through that? At the same time, I believe that our pasts are so much a part of who we become. Yes, our family history will belong to our child and I hope she revels in it but with an international adoption, we wouldn't be able to share the story of her birth parents should she want to know at some point. An old friend of Jennifer's was adopted from South Korea and spent frustrating and ultimately fruitless years in her 20s trying to find her connections in her birth country.

It's a daunting prospect, like choosing our child's name. It's fraught with challenges and benefits that will profoundly affect the life and future of our family. How does one choose?

Putting some skin in the game

2009-06-21T21:43:00.004-04:00

Tomorrow morning we take our next significant step in the adoption process as we submit our application to our agency of choice for a home study along with a non-refundable check. After two months of discussions, online searches, research, and more, we're putting some skin in the game and officially getting things rolling.

While we'd work with a different agency for placement, provided we go domestically, we're looking forward to working with Alliance for Children to conduct the initial assessment as well as the pre-adoption paperwork. And if we do elect to pursue an international adoption, they're well positioned in the countries of interest.

It feels good to be taking concrete action.

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

2009-06-19T19:54:00.003-04:00

Say it with me now...practice practice practice.

I think that's the overarching mission of our cats right now -- to give us as much practice as possible in the art of parenting and living with interrupted nights' sleep before we ever get around to having Plus One join our family.

19-year old Annabel, also known as the Grey Bullet, routinely starts howling at 4AM every night. It's not that she's hungry. It's not that she's hurt. Basically, she's awake and wants attention. Plus, if she crouches at the head of the stairs, the reverberations down the stairwell are positively operatic. So I roll out of bed, shuffle down the hall, scoop her up, and carry her back to bed where she immediately falls asleep.

And then there's 15-year old Cecilia, who thankfully doesn't do too much besides be grumpy, with the notable exception of last evening when she walked into our family room with a decidedly awkward gait. As I turned to watch her, she promptly put her butt down on the tile, lifted her hind legs, and started scootching across the floor using her front legs, all the while with a look on her face that clearly said "I have lost all dignity and it really sucks." Needless to say, Jennifer and I got to enjoy a quick preview of the "Mom! Dad! Wipe my butt!" syndrome and all with a pissed-off and humiliated cat squirming for escape.

All of this reflects the experiences our friends with children have been oh so eager to share in recent weeks. There's the story about how F coated her father J with milk puke just as their bus was arriving at Logan Airport for a 3-hour flight to the midwest. Last weekend, a new friend proceeded to bring us up to speed on various pee- and poo-related incidents that occurred with her young son both in and out of the car during drives to and from Pennsylvania. I've lost track of the tales of things that end up in your hair, in your lap, in your mouth, on the walls, etc. Of course, the coda to all of these stories is that "It's absolutely worth it." That's what everyone has told us and I believe them. I'm just going to try and keep my mouth shut.

Welcome to the start of the journey

2009-06-17T21:11:00.006-04:00

When my wife Jennifer informed me that, after 8 years of marriage and many hours of discussion, that she was ready to expand our family and pursue an adoption, the research began in earnest.

Books -- some purchased by us, others handed off by friends and family who had adopted children -- began to pile up on the kitchen table and nightstands. Websites were Googled and bookmarked. We began to have the first of many conversations with professionals in the field, adoptive parents, and friends who were adopted. Jennifer promptly ID'd multiple blogs written by moms about their experience either with adoptions or just as parents.

I tried to do the same thing but ran into an interesting little problem -- I couldn't find any blogs by prospective adoptive fathers.

Actually, that's not quite true. I found a number of adoption blogs written by guys but virtually all of them were (or are being) written by gay men about their quest to adopt children. I applaud their efforts and wholeheartedly believe that gay and lesbian couples should have every right to adopt but after reading some of these blogs, I was feeling a bit left out. Where were the hetero married guys who wanted to document their quest to adopt a child, grumble about the paperwork and bureaucratic hoops, and celebrate the addition to their family? Of course, that idea might simply fly in the face of the stereotypical hetero male concept, I suppose.

Something needed to be done.

I first wrote about the start of our adoption journey on my other blog, "Walks in the Marsh". However, it was a conversation with a friend, as she inquired how our adoption effort was going, that inspired "150 Steps." When asked about our progress, I started to explain all the things we were doing and still had to do before giving up and saying, "If the adoption process has 150 steps, we're on step 6." Since it's going to take some time to walk those additional steps, I thought I'd keep a record of our progress so our hoped-for "Plus One" will know how hard we worked to bring her into our family.

Here it is.

Eenie meenie miny moe...

2009-06-17T20:37:00.000-04:00

This post was originally published on "Walks in the Marsh" on June 14, 2009

How do you figure out which adoption agency is the one you want to work with?

When we were thinking about an international adoption, it seemed pretty straightforward -- we knew a number of people who had successfully adopted children from different countries. Plus, certain agencies specialize in certain countries. Therefore, we just needed to figure out the country we'd be interested in, talk to the people we knew who might have dealt with agencies supporting that country, and then interview a few agencies to decide who we wanted to work with to find a child for our family.

It got a bit more complicated when we shifted our view toward a domestic adoption. We only know one couple who adopted domestically (twice and very successfully) and they spoke very highly of their experience with their agency. However, my call to the agency revealed that we weren't going to be a good fit due to the agency's Board of Directors-mandated mission to place children in Christian households. With a non-practicing Jew and a never-practicing Catholic/Protestant/Unitarian/Episcopalian/who-knows-what making up our loving household, I think we'd have trouble qualifying. But hey, that's cool and no hard feelings. There are plenty of other agencies out there.

And there are. And that's the challenge. Because we simply need a Rhode Island-licensed agency to conduct the home study and help with paper work, we have the option to work with any agency in any state for the actual placement. However, a simple Google search for "domestic adoption agencies" reveals 2,200+ hits. Using one of the general adoption resource sites, we find 399 domestic agencies. How on earth do we choose? Part of me just wants to print out the list and just start throwing darts to see which ones I hit. I've held off on doing this as I'm not very good at darts so I might miss them all, which would bring our adoption journey to a confused halt.

We've started to talk to a few and it's been an eye-opening experience. Jennifer highlighted one such call in a recent "In the present moment mom" blog entry. Eventually we'll figure out which one to work with but while there will hopefully be some level of comfort and confidence in the agency, part of me feels like it will simply be the result of a wild-assed guess. Of course, while WAGs are fine from time to time, it's not exactly my preferred basis for adding a child to our family.

Plus One

2009-06-17T20:34:00.001-04:00

This post was originally published on "Walks in the Marsh" on June 6, 2009

Things may be changing in our lives at some point in the future. My wife, Jennifer and I have decided to upgrade to Family Plus One by starting the journey toward adopting a baby. Over the course of our 8-year (and counting) marriage, family has occasionally been a topic of discussion but it always came down to two differing opinions -- I hoped to have one, Jenn leaned more toward the "nope, not gonna happen" side of the spectrum. As a result, it was something of a shock when, as my birthday gift, she told me that she was ready to consider it. Wow, things really do change when you hit 40!

Since that particular barrier fell, she has thrown herself into the process wholeheartedly, debating baby names, coming home with baby user manuals, and launching her own blog to record the journey. It's quite a change and in all honesty, one that I'd given up expecting to ever see.

Now the research into the adoption process is well underway, initial inquiries have been made, interviews have been had with a few agencies, and the smelling salts are always at hand to help rouse me to consciousness when the dollars start getting discussed. At times I feel like Steve Martin in "Father of the Bride" as, under stress from the costs of his daughter's wedding, he stands in the supermarket tearing bags of hot dog buns apart so he can buy just the number he needs. Want to specify a particular gender? Certainly we can do that for you, sir! It will just be another $5,800. Would you care to look at the menu of options one more time? Thank you and come again.

Unlike hot dog buns, of course, setting out to add that long-hoped-for Plus One is not the time to pinch pennies. Instead, it's a time for long, serious discussions about what we hope our family will be, how we will raise our child, and what it means for our future. We look ahead toward our jobs, our goals for the years ahead, our plans for the house, and everything now revolves around someone we don't know yet, like a player to be named later but in diapers, and it's extraordinary.

When I told my father our plans, he replied "It will be most important thing you'll ever do." I expect he's right, which raises all sorts of pressure to get it right. Like any parents, I'm sure there will be plenty of times that we don't but hopefully, the times we do get it right will matter far more in the long run. After all, I want my child to think his parents are pretty cool, just like I do my folks. That seems like a worthwhile goal to shoot for.

150 Steps...an Adoption Journey

68 Hours

Oh wow!

Another Op'nin', Another Show

The Dummies Guide to Adoption

Supposed to be

Square One

Writing while Numb

Halloween

Picture This

Making Strides Against Breast Cancer

Old friends with kids

Fruity Holiday

A matter of degree

In the face of statistics

Dog Day Thoughts

Bystanders

Dreams

Revisit, revise, rewrite

Not going it alone

No such thing as normal

Marking Time

Taxes

Real life intruding in the online realm

82, 146, 22

Haiti revisited

Adoption nightmares in Haiti

And two more makes three

OK, now it gets real

Fear and Exhilaration

A bright spot

Progress? Maybe? Please?

Bureaucracy isn't a bad thing

Creating our traditions

OMG More?

Thumb Twiddling 101

Loss and Gain

So how many of the 150 steps are done now?

Argh...so close but not quite done

Staying on an even keel

Emerge into daylight

A picture says a 1000 words but what if you're not in the picture?

Lost weeks

A name that reflects the journey

On its way

75 Steps

6 more hours of teachable moments

The voices that matter

Home stretch on the home study

Masculine

By the bedside

The trickle continues

Phew, that's a relief

Other Stories

Sigh of Relief

The law of supply and demand

No more cleaning

White gloves

Finicky Eater

Distilled to 10 pages and 45 minutes

So...let's talk about your marriage (but sign this first)

Baseball for families

Traveling

Time to get started

The book of fatherhood

Abierto? Cerrado?

Waiting

"Real soon!"

Networking

How to choose?

Putting some skin in the game

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

Welcome to the start of the journey

Eenie meenie miny moe...

Plus One