The Waiting Game

I just got off the phone with the Adoption Agency and am feeling completely discouraged. She told me that our referral most likely wont happen for another 4-6 months and then we will have to wait 5-8 months after that before we will be able to bring our baby home! This has already felt like such a long process and seems like it will never truly come to be. I trust that in the end we will look back and know that the wait was worth it and timing is part of God's providence. I am such an impatient person so this is truly a test. On a happier note, she again told me that we will most likely be referred a boy, which I think will be perfect for Jackson and our family:)
And so, we continue to wait...

Baby Weight?

Over the past few months I have noticed my body starting to...how do I put it...change. Ive seen my hips grow and don't even get me started on my behind. I decided I needed to go to the dr. right away because, although I had taken several pregnancy tests (why dont they sell those things in bulk at costco?) which were negative (thank goodness since that would halt the adoption process), I thought I must either be pregnant with not one baby but quadruplets or I must have some serious thyroid condition. The dr. almost laughed out loud in my face when I explained what was going on, looked at me and said, "You're almost 30, you can't always weigh what you did when you were 20. It's nature taking it's course." Excuse me, why aren't you concerned and rushing me to get every test imagineable? I got home and consulted with my sister Kristin and she unfortunately agreed with the dr. I swallowed my pride and realized my bikini days are over and thought I guess it is just nature taking its course until I had an Oprah "A-Ha" moment-this is purely baby weight....I am "expecting" my second child...adoptive mothers are allowed baby weight right?!?!?! Im sure as soon as we bring our baby home the weight will just slip right off and I will jump into my bikini from my honeymoon:)

Livin' On A Prayer

So if you were to enter the Gaines house on any given day you would most likely hear something like Michael Jackson's P.Y.T or Johnny Lang's album Turn Around reverberating throughout the house...until today...now we are strictly listening to Livin' on a Prayer by Bon Jovi. While Jackson and I were running errands today we stumbled upon a "classic rock" station and the first song to come on was Livin on a Prayer, I found myself blaring it and singing along, to the point that I almost got into an accident because I was getting chills and "hangin on to what we got". I think even Jackson was into it because I looked in the rear view mirror and he was bopping his head around to the beat. Immediately when we got home I got on iTunes and downloaded the classic and proceeded to put it on repeat. I'll be at LA Fitness this afternoon thinking about how it was tough for Tommy because he's down on his luck...I'll be making dinner thinking about how hard Gina worked...I'll be going to bed tonight thankful that they've got eachother and are going to give it a shot for love. Such a GREAT song, if you don't agree check your pulse!!!
-Livin on a prayer-
Becky

It's Been A While..

So I'm not a regular blogger, sue me:) We have finally completely finished our paperwork for the adoption and are now on the waiting list to be referred our child. I thought I would be relieved to be finished with the paperwork but the truth of the matter is that darn paperwork kept me busy and made me feel like I was making progress, now we just sit and wait, and wait, and wait. I think about our baby every second of the day and dream of what it will be like to get the call that they have our baby ready for us. I have found while I wait I have serious bi-polar feelings about the whole process, one second I feel excitement and can't wait, and then the next second I can't shake the feeling of pure agony our babies birth mother and family must be feeling whether it be that the adoption will take place because of a lack of financial means or an illness, or any of the thousounds of reasons for adoption. I have found myself praying with more ferver than I have in a while for our childs birth mother and all of the feelings and emotions that she must be going through. I feel pain for her loss and joy for our family. I feel sadness for our baby because I will probably never be able to answer all of the questions they will have but feel confident that I will love our baby with everything I have in me and already love them with everything that I have. I never anticipated the strong feelings I would have for a woman I will probably never meet on the other side of the world. When we decided to adopt in the first place the birth mother didn't even cross my mind to tell you the truth. I have been battling these feelings internally and the came across this article in the magazine Adoptive Families that made me simultaneously laugh and cry at the same time. It is an article written by an adoptive mom about the stages of waiting. The stages start with excitement and joy and then I found myself connecting with certain stages 4-14 that go a little something like this:
"Stage 4: ETHICAL QUESTIONING: Many Ethiopian children placed for adoption are not actually orphans. In fact, a lot of them have parents, as well as siblings. The are relinquished because their family cannot afford to feed them. This is when I start wrestling a lot: "If I really cared about Ethiopia, I would take these thousands of dollars we're paying in adoption fees and donate them to an organization that would do everything it could to preserve this family." Stage 5: I AM A SELFISH JERK. My white, privileged need to have a family is much stronger than my need to help Ethiopia...I am a jerk. Stage 7: OUTRAGE: Why doesn't everyone know how bad things are around the world? Why aren't people doing more? Unfortunately, this outrage turns into self-righteousness and judgmental attitude, which send me spiraling back to...Stage 8 GUILT: I feel guilty for judging, guilty for adopting, guilty for eating. You name it, I feel guilty. Stage 9 RESOLVE: I will do something. I will raise awareness. I will start a project that will help. I will make a difference. Stage 14: DISILLUSIONMENT: This is when all of your warm and fuzzy feelings about adoption don't feel warm and fuzzy anymore. They feel messy and worrisome.
Luckily for me the list doensn't stop there, there are stages 16-17 that are: UNEXPECTED, RENEWED FAITH IN HUMANITY and JOYFUL, UNEASY ANTICIPATION. I feel these are just around the corner, the fog is lifting...bring on the joy and anticipation!
Signing off as a Debbie Downer tonight...sorry for that!
Becky

Here we go...

I never thought I would have a blog but with family and friends at a distance I have given in. I hope to keep you up to date with all the happenings in the Gaines household and vow not to take myself too seriously. How could I when just the other day, as I went about my day in my royal blue Snuggie (Ben should get husband of the year for giving me this for my birthday), hair in a greasy side ponytail I decided to get up and get some water from the fridge in the garage. I opened the door, still in my Snuggie, to see the garage door open to the public and a neighbor driving by waving to me. Are you kidding me?! Ahh the life of a working/stay at home mom is not very glamorous but I guess these things come with the territory.
I also want to keep people up to date with the adoption of our second child from Ethiopia. We are close to done with the paperwork phase of the process (we finally finished our homestudy), and now the wait begins to be placed with our child. We just finished our last class at our homestudy agency which was for Americans adopting internationally and promised to help us to learn to deal with issues of children that are adopted and how to have a healthy transracial family. We thought this would be perfect for us since we obviously are becoming a transracial family and looked forward to camaraderie with other families in our position. This excitement was dashed when we went around the room the first day to tell about our family and where we are adopting from. Couple one: Nigerian couple adopting Nigerian baby...Couple two: Morrocan couple adopting a Morrocan baby...Couple three: Chinese couple adopting a Chinese baby...Couple four: a Colombian woman and her husband adopting their Colombian niece...Couple five: My husband and I WHITE couple adopting an Ethiopian baby. Let me emphasize that these other couples were native to the countries the are adopting from and immigrated to America at different points in their life. I guess we are going to have to get that camaraderie from other places which leads me to tell you about my upcoming outing. I am heading off to Barnes and Noble to purchase a book titled Secret Thought Of An Adoptive Mother by Jana Wolff. Here is the description, "A memoir by a funny woman, and extrovert, a Jewish wife living in Hawaii offered the chance to adopt a California biracial newborn and wondering, Am I too white to be the mother of a child this black?" Seems right up my ally!

Signing off in my Snuggie,

Becky