Silver Linings

I just posted a status to facebook. Josh didn't get into the school across the street and it was full of complaining and 'woe-is-me-I-have-to-drive-my-kid-to-school-this-year-blah-blah-blah'. After about 6 minutes of it sitting out there in cyberspace I was overcome with remorse. Who am I to complain about this? So, my kid didn't get into the public school across the street. So what? In the grand scheme of education in the world, he has access to schools. And not just schools, but good schools. I have to drive 4 minutes across town? Well, we have a car to get him there. He doesn't have to walk an hour by himself on a dangerous road to get there.

Shame on me. Shame on me for thinking that my frustration was even near worth complaining about. There are millions of children all over the world who don't have his opportunities, who have never been to school and may never go. Parents who would do anything to give their kid a shot at learning but they can't because of their finances or the way their country provides or doesn't provide education or because their children are girls and not boys.

Selfishly, I wanted exactly what I wanted. I wanted our hours of research to give us exactly what we planned for. I wanted him to have a 3 minute walk to school to make my life easier. I wanted out of the carpool line. I wanted the brand spanking new building with the huge gym and lovely art room for him. I, I, I.

Well, I took that status down. I am grateful this morning that our silver lining is quite bright. He got into a school down the street that is rated just as well (if not better), that has a very nice principal, that has smaller class sizes and, I'm sure, will be just great for us. And even if those things weren't true of it, it's still a school, still a place where my kid can go and be cared for and taught and given crazy opportunities. Above all, I am thankful that I was able to see my own selfish nearsightedness in the midst of the disappointment and that God is big enough to forgive me for it and even give me excitement for a school on which we didn't plan.

Silver linings do have a way of setting our priorities back on track, don't they?

The "Good Enough" Thing

A few weeks ago I woke up tense and nervous. There was the house to clean, the child to get out the door to "Wacky Wednesday" at soccer camp which involved lots of hair gel, face paint and, of course, giggling, the cookies to bake and the final checks to make sure the paperwork was in order. You see, it was home study day. Again. And though all the case workers I've had assure me that there is nothing to be nervous about in this process, the bottom line is that your whole life is on display. And the biggest question I'm usually stuck with in and through it all is "Am I good enough?"

Do we have good enough communication skills as a married couple?Am I a good enough parent?  A good enough Christian? Daughter? Wife? Am I good enough to be trusted by a birth parent to become her child's real parent? Are we a good enough family to be picked? Am I good enough?

They say in this process that you really get to know yourself.  People talk about how any old person can go and get pregnant- there are no tests to pass, no background checks involved. No one is looking up whether you've ever committed a felony or asking how your sex life is after 10 years of marriage. No one cares if you have date nights or if you have the emotional capacity to be unselfish enough at least some of the time to be a decent parent. No one cares if you have a theory of discipline in place or what your relationship is to your own parents. Or at least, if people are questioning those things, they are rarely questioning them to your face, right? But to be allowed by the state or the federal government or another country to become a legal parent to someone, you get asked all these questions and more. I generally consider myself to be reflective person- but sometimes, sometimes, it is just too much to always be looking, always be asking, always wondering what someone else will think of the answers to these questions. Because, unfortunately, the bottom line is that these answers do matter. We had to be approved by someone. We had to pass a home study.

So a few weeks ago when I woke up with my stomach clenched, it wasn't a foreign feeling. For almost two years, it has felt like our life is on display. Knowing that birth parents are looking at our book- and passing us over- does not help. You begin to ask questions about "why". Why did they choose someone else? Why didn't they think our family would be a good fit? Is it because we already have a biological child who is the spitting image of his dad? Is it because we don't have a pool (I'm not kidding!) or because we have a dog or they don't think we are good looking enough? Why not us?

And when you combine the questions of "Why not us" and "Am I good enough?" you begin to get into dangerous territory. It's easy to start to question every little thing, to try to change yourself in ways that might seem more attractive, might seem like what you think an agency or a birth parent might want. You are tempted, like in so many other areas of life, to heed the voices of man over the voice of God. To rethink the whole process, even, because if there is one thing I've learned, it's that you have really got to want this. Adoption isn't easy. It doesn't happen quickly. It's messy and complicated and completely exhausting. And it means that you are constantly being questioned, assessed and, yes, even found wanting.

The bright spot in all this "good enough" junk is the way it sends me running back to the cross. Running back to the reality that actually yes, I AM not good enough. That's the point. If any of all this, if any of life in general was about being good enough, well, then we're all all in trouble. None of us are good enough. There is no measure out there by which we can say we're passing- no parental yardstick or spouse ability scale or spiritual checklist that can even begin to really label us as good enough. The point is that we are not good enough but God loves us anyway and gives us what we need to parent well or be a loving spouse or kind neighbor. I need to return to that truth every morning in this process. And for someone like me who takes a lot of the weight of the world on my shoulders, who is skilled at carrying around guilt, expert at condemning myself for any little mistake, this truth needs to hold primary focus in my life. I can't be good enough. I can't. Only Jesus can. And that, my friends, takes the pressure off. If I'm not trying to live up to some impossible and vague standard, I can just rest in the fact that all God needs from me is to receive His love and live in it. And I won't be nearly as affected when we are, yet again, passed over for another family. I can learn to rejoice that that baby has found a loving home rather than see it as our loss in the situation.  

So, when I talk to my case worker tomorrow about a possible birth parent match, I need to go into that conversation with this reality permeating my soul. That God is good, that his timing is perfect, that if this doesn't work out it has nothing to do with anything I could've done, that the only thing I can do in this wait is continue to seek God, love my family and neighbors well and wait for the moment, in all its beauty and chaos, when we finally bring that child home.

An Only-Child Mama

I see you watching us at the park. You are wondering if he's my only child or if I have older children in school somewhere or perhaps a baby that's home napping with a grandparent. I don't. He's it. And it's ok. 

I hear you on the playground at church, "Is he your only one?" and I know you don't say it with any kind of judgment, but in a culture where baby-making seems to be everyone's Saturday night hobby, it feels like it. Like having only one kid is somehow an affront to American Christianity. And maybe it is. But I'm pretty sure it isn't to God.

I feel you wondering what I do with all the extra time I must have with only one kid. Oh, you mean that time outside of my job, parenting a six-year old, assisting with Sunday school, leading worship, coaching 17 6-year-olds in soccer, volunteering in kindergarten, driving carpool, studying for my psychology class, taking adoption trainings to keep our home study updated, being a wife to a husband writing a dissertation, executing a move to Wisconsin and figuring out how to plan a family menu when I'm sugar-free and gluten-free. Right. Oh, well I guess I just sit around and gaze at my navel all day long.

I don't write that to sound snarky. I actually write it to say that my life is pretty full. I didn't choose to have an only child. Some people do and that's great. Some people, like us, have it thrust upon them due to circumstances beyond their control like disease or loss or infertility.

But here's the deal. Each day that goes by without another child in our house is another day I get to treasure with my little man. It's another day I can be involved in his life with less distraction than I would if I had a newborn in my arms. That's not to insult parents with lots of kids, it's just reality. I wish I were you. But I'm not. So I'm finding my own ways to savor the different path our life has taken from just about everyone around us. It's hard to find other moms of only-kids, at least in America. I suspect I would not feel as alone in this in a place like Europe. But, until my husband gets an amazing job at Oxford or something, America it is.

So I will continue to plan long car trips to fun places knowing that I only have to worry about one kid who is actually a pretty darn good traveler. I'll continue to structure my day without worrying about naps and sign him up for whatever I want to sign him up for because I'm not trying to juggle 3 or 4 kids' schedules. I'll continue to enjoy multiple hours in every day where we get to talk and giggle and read and build legos without someone else needing me, other than our ridiculous dog who seems to think he is, indeed, a human child. I'll soak in our bedtime ritual, where all four of us cram into Josh's little twin bed to read and pray and cuddle and talk about our day together. I'll take it one day at a time and revel in the uninterrupted time I have with my first born.

Some day, I hope in my heart, that this time when we are just three will be a memory, albeit a sweet one. I will have spent much of our time together wishing for more children and my son will know about some of that. He wants siblings just as much as I want him to have them and we talk honestly in our family about the waiting. It's alright for him to see his parents desiring for our family to grow and for him to express his frustrations with the process. But I never want him to believe that we had to grow because he was not enough. The grand truth is that no one person, nothing in this world is really enough for us except God. But in the smaller scheme of earthly happiness, the son I have been given is enough. I am so grateful for my little man and if it were ever time to give up fighting for another baby, we would do it. We would move on in thankfulness for the gift we've been given in him. We would still be a complete family even if we looked out of place in church. We would not be lacking.

So, this only-child mama is going to grin right back at you on the playground. I'm going to be as nice as possible when you ask me intrusive questions about my family, but I may be more honest with you than you are expecting. Maybe you'll know in the future that not every family needs to look a certain way and that having an "only" is not necessarily a bad thing. I am going to look you straight in the eye and tell you that I'm happy, that I love my son, that I don't know if there are more children coming but that no matter what, we are a family with a life that's full and chaotic and joyful, just maybe in different ways from yours. 

I am an only-child mama and it is good.    

Ten Years of Life As We Know It

I sit here surrounded by mountains of boxes as it pours outside. The fridge is almost down to bare bones. The child is finishing up his last day of kindergarten. The other child, my sweet honorary 18 month-old niece, is asleep in the nursery that has still never been used for our own child as her parents travel to a wedding this weekend. I am glad she is here, the house feels fuller. Later, we will meet friends for lunch, say goodbye (again), go to J's doctor to get some adoption paperwork done and then meet different friends for dinner tonight to, you guessed it, say goodbye. My son and husband have a prior fun overnight engagement so I will sleep alone tonight. On my 10th wedding anniversary.

This is life. There will be no fireworks today or any fancy dinners out. There will be no dropping of the child at a distant grandparent's home to take a quick weekend away to celebrate. There will just be a quiet remembering, even in the midst of packing that 100th box and probably being cranky with each other or, for the first time in years, changing diapers, cutting up grapes into tiny pieces and wrestling into car seats. There's a quiet buzz in the air. 10 years.

I can remember those couples we met early on who were past the 5 year mark and thinking that they seemed like experts and now here we are at 10. Yet, we are clearly no experts. I can remember what we thought ten years would look and feel like and what we'd do to celebrate. Things generally don't turn out anything near what you expect, do they? Instead of flitting off to have a second honeymoon, we are in the midst of moving across the country. A different kind of adventure. I thought we'd be settled by now, in the house we would be in for the long haul with lots of (read 2 or 3) children around the house. But as I've grown up with this man, the excitement of his adventure has rubbed off on me. Settling, after all, is vastly overrated. I may not be moving to Wisconsin to pursue my own dream(since I'm still not sure what I want to be when I grow up), but it's definitely a chance to continue to explore, continue to figure what the dream even is. And, frankly, to do the figuring in much lower humidity. No small thing, my friends. No small thing.

But here is why we don't need the weekend getaway or fancy dinner tonight. Those are definitely perks, certainly fun and good and, hopefully, eventual celebrations to recognize this landmark. But for today to look like any other day, and to be, in fact, slightly more chaotic than usual with a second child in the house and too many events in our schedule on top of moving, gives us the chance to remember the day we said "we will" as we live out what 99% of this marriage thing actually looks like. Most if it isn't glamorous. Most of it is waking each day, choosing the "we will" for the 10,000th time, knowing that without God we'd make a huge mess of it anyway, confidently mucking through even the days that are filled with tension or anger or chaos because we've chosen to muck through it together, good or bad, settled or adventuring, whether we get to celebrate the big moments when they happen or not.

So, love, happy anniversary to you on this warm, rainy summer day. We were married on a day just like this in Richmond ten years ago, full of questions and hopes and knowing we were saying yes to the hardest thing we'd ever do. As we move into this new adventure, I can only dream of where we'll be ten years from now - it's all too uncertain. I can hope that maybe, just maybe, we'll get to go somewhere fantastic to celebrate that anniversary. But what I do know is this: I know that we will still be making that quiet choice each morning to turn towards each other and fight for the vows we made so long ago.

The Silent Loss

They call it the Silent Loss. The Invisible Death. You can go through it without a single person besides yourself having any idea it's happening. And no one can possibly warn you about how hard it will be until you experience it. Possibly we think it will be an easier loss because we've bought into the lies of our culture that tell us it's "just a fetus." That dehumanize what from the instant of conception is unequivocally life, and beautiful life at that. For many people, the minute the little stick turns pink, that child is a baby, a little life on the way, with cribs to plan for and maternity clothes to buy.

Perhaps since I've been so honest on this blog about our own story of miscarriage and infertility, I find myself often aware of people who have gone or are currently going through the loss of miscarriage. Just in this last month, my heart has been broken three times alongside friends who have shared this news. And you know what people say? It happens all the time. It's common. Which unintentionally, or possibly intentionally, communicates that we should recover quickly from it. Get on with our lives. But you know what I say? There is nothing common about death. Every loss is unique, every baby has the right to be mourned. There is no such thing as "getting on with" something when you've lost a child. That loss will always be a part of your story.

I daresay the stats would support that if you are reading this you fall in one or both of two categories: someone who has experienced miscarriage for yourself or someone who knows someone who has. And let me be frank: if you don't think you know someone, you do. That's where the whole invisible thing comes in. Someone in your life has been through this. And after 4 years of processing, reading, ranting, praying, talking, listening and hoping, I've come to some conclusions about this silent loss. I share them today to stand in grief with my friends who are currently going through this. I love you, God loves you and I wish with all my heart you didn't have to go through this.

(1) You are never ready for how hard it is going to be.  There is no other way to say it. It's death, it's not expected and it hurts a ton. It doesn't matter how "early on" you were nor should you let people tell you it should hurt less if you were "only" a certain number of weeks along. It's real and painful loss.

(2) You and your spouse will likely grieve it in very different ways and wanting said spouse to grieve the same way you do will only add conflict and pain to your grief. Let him or her grieve their way and try to move towards each other as best you can even if you can't understand the other's process.

(3) Don't try to "get over it." Accept that this loss. Just like if you have children who have lived, this little one will always be a part of your family's story. Ignoring it in the vain hope that I'd eventually stop being sad didn't work for me and I doubt it works for many people.

(4) Don't try to replace that baby. Sometimes when we lose a child we rush back into the "trying" phase again under the false expectation that another pregnancy will heal that pain or fill that void. That is a unique child you lost - no other child can or will ever replace him and you are setting yourself up for even more pain and confusion if you expect a pregnancy to solve your problems.

(5) Expect the due date to be a hard day. You may have lost your baby at 5, 12 or 20 weeks. No matter how early it was, that loss is valid and that due date will feel like a sucker punch.

(6) Know that social media will be a minefield. Seriously, you can't swing a cat on facebook without hitting a pregnancy announcement or a photo album of a wrinkly, red newborn. Some days it won't affect you and you may even be able to rejoice with your friends, other days you will feel like someone is dancing on your heart and shouting "look what we have that you don't!" Try not to take it personally, shut down the computer and go for a run. Or sing 80's music at the top of your lungs. You know, whatever works. 

(7) God's sovereignty is tricky and people who try to comfort you with it maybe don't have it right. People might say "she is in a better place" or "God must be causing this to teach you something." Um, yeah, that's not helpful. None of it. Do I believe that anyone who is already in eternity is categorically in a better place - sure, God's a pretty awesome being to be around. Is that a comfort when I want my baby in my arms? Not really for me. Maybe for some people, though I can't say. Is it true that God caused this to teach me a lesson? Nope. Is it true that God caused this to teach me a lesson? Nuh-uh. Is it true that God caused this to teach me a lesson? No freakin' way! Can you tell this was a particularly hard lesson for me to learn?  My God is not vindictive or manipulative. He is love, he is good, he is life abundant.

(8) Church is hard. It just is. Most churches seem like baby factories, pastors talk about being fruitful and multiplying (can we PLEASE talk about context with that one!) or quote passages about God closing or opening wombs and everyone on the playground asks intrusive questions about how many kids you have. And nobody talks about miscarriage in public. Ever. We church people don't know what to do with it when our whole lives we were told that babies are blessings and God wants to trust tons of them to us to raise. But what do we do when we don't have them- what does that do to our understanding of blessing and God's role in fertility? Boom. Yes, that was the sound of my head exploding. There are no quick answers here. Sovereignty is tricky and since about a bajillion books have been written about how it works, many of which differ in their conclusions, I will not attempt to write the final word on it here.

(9) You are not being punished. This didn't happen because you parented a first child wrong or because you didn't learn some lesson God wanted you to learn. God is good. Satan is not. God hates death. Satan loves it. Bottom line.

(10) Life's not fair. You can't expect to only go through a miscarriage once - it could happen again or it could be followed, like us, with years of unexplained infertility. And it's fruitless and petty to keep score with other people on who has had this whole thing the hardest or easiest. If you could, I'd be mad at every woman I saw in Target who had 4 kids trailing her. It is my firm belief that Satan is having a field day when it comes to the fertility question. Miscarriage, stillbirth, infertility, abortion, SIDS. None of those are from God. Not one. But trying to ask for fairness in the world is futile. We live in a broken world and no one, NOT ONE OF US, is guaranteed justice, fairness or freedom from pain while on this earth.  That is only reserved for eternity.

(11) Remember it. Some people get tattoos. Some have memorial services. I got a necklace with our daughter's would-be birthstone and wear it almost every day.  On the 4th anniversary of the miscarriage I named her because I could no longer bear to call her an 'it.' Not everyone needs to do this the same way- but if you choose to remember, you won't try to replace her. And if you don't try to replace her, you might actually find yourself starting to heal.

I could probably go on and on. If I'm totally honest here, I wish I hadn't learned these lessons or that I had learned them through research rather than through experience. I wish we hadn't gone through it. I'm certain that God has remained present and taught me amazing things as I have clung to him but I will never be, nor do I have to be to remain a God-honoring believer, thankful that it happened.

What I am thankful for is that I didn't stay silent. Oh, I did at first as many of you know. I hid it, I ignored it, I insulted my friends by not trusting them to love me in it. But eventually, I let people into it. Some of them didn't say the right things. Most of them did. We can't expect those around us to respond perfectly all the time. But we can risk letting them (maybe one person, maybe ten) know that we will not suffer our loss silently or, perhaps more importantly, alone.

Enough, Already!

Where am I today, you ask? Well, not in Madison with my husband looking for houses where I should be. No, four hours before our flight was scheduled to take off on Thursday, my son fell ill with a stomach virus. Two hours later, after rocking him back to sleep and falling back to sleep myself, disaster struck me, too. Poor husband, trying to clean up stuff all over the place, on the phone with the airlines pleading for mercy to change our flights to Friday without a ridiculous financial penalty (please don't anyone lecture me about travel insurance) and, ultimately, deciding to get on the plane because we could not think of another time possible to travel out there in the near future. Leaving his wife and son behind to the care of my mom who had flown in to watch Josh while we traveled.

I am finally out of bed today. Josh is back at school, having much more quickly recovered from his little attack than his older, immuno-challenged mom. He spent most of yesterday bounding around the house playing legos with his Nana and wondering why the heck his mom was still sick, occasionally bringing me huge glasses of water and asking me if I was planning on staying in bed all day with an accusatory note in his voice. So sweet. Yes, baby, mama's not going anywhere anytime soon.

So today I'm staying close by my phone and computer. Because my husband is in Madison, Wisconsin, touring around the neighborhoods I have tried to envision for the last 3 months with our realtor, walking through the houses of which I've seen pictures, and trying to make a decision that we'll both be able to live with for the next three years. And I am waiting for extra pictures, verbal notes and lots of questions along the way. The last time my husband looked at places to live without me it was when we were engaged and he was looking for apartments for us to move into after the wedding. The reports I got were like this:

Me: What was it like?
R: It was nice.
Me: Was it one story or two?
R: Um. One?
Me: How many bedrooms?
R: Um. One? No, two!
Me: Bathrooms?
R: Ahhh....

So, yeah. I'm a little worried. Of course, that was more than 10 years ago so I trust the whole "growing up thing" and knowing me a ton better than he did then will increase his level of observatory thoroughness, but still. What a mess. I wouldn't want to be in his place with all the pressure of deciding alone.

I know what I should be saying in the midst of some kind of all-wise moment here. Hahaha, clearly I am not in control. You can't plan on anything in this life. Hold everything loosely. Blah, blah, blah. But, you know what, I've already learned that, thank you very much, about a hundred times over. I KNOW I can't plan on anything but it sure would be nice to plan on something once in awhile. How many times does one person need to learn the same lesson? Enough, already. I get it. Life is unpredictable. Nothing is a sure thing. 

Can we move on to the next lesson, please?

Get the Word Out

Dear Blog Friends,

We have been on the adoption waiting list for 14 months now with just about nothing to do to help move things along. A friend recently suggested I ramp it up. There is only so much waiting a person can do without being able to take action.

So, blog friends, I have created a blog site with all our adoption information. I have put links on this blog to get to that site and directly to our video and our profile with our adoption agency.

Why am I posting on here?  Because you can help!You have overwhelmed us with prayers and support during this waiting.

Why not overwhelm us with some mass support via social media?

Networking is the best way for birthparents and adoptive families to find one another.

• Would you consider posting our adoption blog or adoption profile on your facebook account or on your own personal website?
• Would you think about people you know who might be a good connection and let them know about us?
• Would you let us know of any connections that would be helpful for us to follow up?

We really appreciate anything you can do to help. Your support means so much! 

Thanks, Carolyn