Tuesday, January 23, 2007

schizophrenic much?

It's been SO long since I last wrote, and honestly 99% of the reason is that I've waffled so much on the whole family building thing that I just couldn't stomach writing yet another "we're going to do this... no this... or maybe this" post. So, true to my nature, I've just avoided blogger altogether instead of posting other stuff and leaving just that one topic alone.

But we're feeling more secure in what our next steps are going to be, and I really want to start blogging deeper than the day-to-dayness (or, lately, month-to-monthness) of my life. So, hi!

In the past month:

James has become James 2.0, the talking edition. He's learning buckets of new words every day.. "hug" and "i love you too" (I 'ov you tooooo! he says meaningfully after every "i love you" from us) are two of my current favorites. He's actually in the range of "normal" (ugh) now for speech for an almost two year old according to all the dev. guidelines.

Speaking of ALMOST TWO... wha? How did this happen? In a scant 3 weeks my son will be two. Every morning I read back in my Jan. '05 journal to see what adoption happenings were occuring. It's very moving to be reliving the last few pre-birth weeks with James' birthmom and her other child. I sent out an email this morning with hopes of being in touch with S. soon -- we haven't heard from her since May and miss her presence. We'll see... fingers crossed.

J and I actually *have* made progress on the baby-making front. We half-heartedly tracked her temps for a cycle and attended a preliminary appt with a OBGYN practice, but had all but concluded that we were mostly trying to force ourselves into a process we weren't thrilled about for financial reasons. We've ruled out a pregnancy for this baby... though I reserve the right to decide to morosely muddle through TTC if it's taken years with no success to have a baby join our family through the methods we prefer and that we're going to try. lol

So, what ARE we doing? We're pursuing straight adoption of an infant through one agency's 'special needs' program (we're open to certain risk factors in the birthfamily, to certain conditions or developmental risks, and to substance addiction or exposure) and starting foster care classes with hopes of eventually being able to adopt a foster child in our care (once the case plan changes from reunification to adoption). I've been worried about the emotional toll reunification would take on me/us/our family after bonding with a child for many months or years, but the more I research the more I feel being a foster parent and supporting RU attempts would 'fit' into our beliefs about adoption. I do believe in helping families stay together when possible, and if a child's case plan went from RU to adoption, we could offer some level of openness to the child's birthfamily too (obviously depending on why the child entered care.. but hey, I'm naive and untainted so far.... so I'm thinking best case scenario here until that changes.)

So. Luckily J and I are on the exact same page concerning the profile of a child we feel we can successfully parent. We've been careful not to extend out of our abilities/strengths due to desperation for a baby/any baby.

Our homestudy is on file with the straight adoption agency (which my all accounts is expectant parent / birthparent focused, ethical and queer friendly) and are turning in our foster care application tomorrow. Classes start on February first. We're settling in for what may be a long wait... but at least we're being financially solvent, and proactive in adding another child to our family. So that feels good.
And as for the rest of last month? Here it is in little exhuberant non-edible bites:
Christmas! Oh so many trains! James talking! Paperwork! Existential conversations about privilege and race! Snow (finally)! James' discovery of said snow! Shannon visiting! Lots of meals out with good friends! Puking on New Years Eve! Babies being born! My mom doesn't have uterine cancer!! Lots of bad reality TV! And lots of other stuff. :)
xo