I'll start off with a hearty HELLO! to everyone (all 2 of you) that missed my blog. Sure, I'm posting today, but I can't promise that I'll keep posting regularly so I hope you "enjoy" this post. It's likely to be kinda sour, though, so have some sugar, or syrup, or a soft drink or something beforehand.
So, here we are. We've been waiting 4 years (officially) for a referral, and no end in sight to the wait. I will admit, I am more bummed out about this adoption at the moment than I have been at any point in the past 4 years, including the bankuptcy. I don't know if it's been the upcoming 4 year "anniversary" looming ahead (& now behind) that's been bothering me, or the fact that I've been married 18 years & am still not a mom, but it's been weighing heavily on me. We recently had a baby shower at work for 2 girls who are due within a month of each other. The shower itself was okay, but going into a kids store to buy gifts for the babies was almost overwhelming. I had to hide myself in the baby girl section to get ahold of myself, because God forbid you show emotion in public. I'm sure the kind sales-ladies would have understood, but still.... That's never happened to me in the last 4 years, I've always believed, in the back of my mind, that I'd be a mom, but now, I just don't know. Andrew is still optimistic, he still believes, and he tries to cheer me up, but nothing seems to work. I emailed the agency a couple of weeks ago, to see if they could give me a grain of hope, something that I could hold on to, knowing that they likely couldn't tell me anything. I mean, we changed our gender request to include boy or girl, so I had hoped that would have increased our chances (which it has, don't get me wrong). The answer I got from the agency, while cautiously optimistic, didn't improve my mood at all. Basically, their response was "we cannot guarantee when a referral may occur, but according to the statistics we sent out in the last update, we believe you are in very good standing to receive a referral by the end of this year". Apparently we are number 6 on their "amalgamated list", which doesn't really tell me anything. I asked them if that meant we were #6 on the list of people waiting for a boy or girl up to 18 months at placement, or if were #6 overall on the list of families (approx 60) still waiting. I never got an answer. What does that mean? We were #4 or 5 on a list of families waiting for a girl up to 18 months at placement, have we put ourselves further down the list by changing our request? I just don't know what to think. I had a dream the other night that we had a baby (it was unsure if we had adopted or had been able to have one the old-fashioned way). When I woke up, I thought, "that was cruel & unfair". A year ago I would have thought, "it's a sign!!!". Guess that's a pretty good example of my state of mind. I just can't get my hopes up anymore. I'm so tired of putting my life on hold for something that might happen.
In other news, the kitchen improvements continue. Since early December we have replaced our bottom of the line dishwasher with a shiny stainless steel dishwasher, and have done the same with our fridge. This new fridge is much bigger than the old one, which is SO NICE, and has the freezer on the bottom (fancy, I know). One weird thing about it, though, is that the front of the fridge is not magnetic (which I would think that stainless steel would be). Sure, it looks great with no magnets on it, but now where am I going to put my collection of magnets? Right now they are on the dishwasher, but I don't like that as a long-term solution. Just this past weekend we finally replaced the light fixture in the kitchen (which was a bare bulb after someone - Andrew - broke the glass globe that covered the bulb). The new fixture is brushed nickel & is super-pretty, and was chosen & installed yesterday by Andrew. Go Handy Andy!
Well, that about brings you up to date. Perhaps I'll be back soon, when I'm in a better frame of mind. Until then, don't worry about me, I'm getting by.
