Wow, adoption is a long road no matter which way you slice it. We seem to be presented with "possible" scenarios fairly regularly, but nothing pans out... I think it must be like dating, you just know when you find the right one, the one in this case being a birth mother, I guess.
The matching process is a tough one. It makes me a bit jealous of our friends who go international. They have someone who does the matching for them. Still, as I have often been told, If you took all your problems an layed them out with anyone else's side by side, chances are you would take yours back. I guess I have no real complaints, only minor grumbles :)
Well that's it from this neck of the woods! Just three and a half weeks till I leave for a trip to China... I will post some pics as I go.
Well, it was the end of the school year... and since I had the urge to finish this, my third and final evaluation year, (before two glorious years of not being evaluated) as amazingly as I could, I worked my tail off by day and snoozed on the couch by night.
All the while, though, things they were a-changin'.
Matt and I got approval last night to switch our agency. I first must say that the agency we were working with is a wonderful agency with many fantastic services and a heart of gold. They are just not the right ones for us, but we are very glad to be able to call them neighbors and we plan to continue using them for our post placement services.
We opted to switch to an agency with the ability to work in more than three states and one that does the bulk of the advertising for you... although my cute little business cards and fliers are the bees knees, I am overwhelmed at where to begin in sending them, and since I don't have an advertising background, I didn't feel up to leaving something as important as finding our child up to my lack luster skill set!
When we first looked at our old agency they talked of having an upward limit of 2 years wait, but that seems to have grown to 3 years. They have a pool of 70 waiting families and only do business in DC, MD, and VA.
So new agency works across the country,with only 50 families at a time, but does not work in MD, or PA. I have to breath a tiny, self centered sigh of relief there because the 30 day period of"will the birth mother change her mind" that is part of the process in those states sort of turns my tummy to jello.
I have amazing amounts of respect for birth mothers and plan on honoring our own with what ever visitation, recognition, or privacy she desires... I simply know my own nature well enough to know that I would not do well for 30 days of not knowing if the baby in my house got to stay my baby. Maybe I'm a wimp, but it is what it is.
So new agency, hopefully shorter wait, and the very real possibility that when the mini-mystery Ravenstahl crosses our threshold, it will be as a legally permanent member of the family. *sigh*
I have also had the fun of catching up on all the blogs I link too and am amazed by all the lovely stories pictures and new additions!!!
It feels good to be back :)
And yet, there is very little to report! Both Matt's parents and mine have been for visits, and we have had some nice gatherings... we even built our own lower level deck with no help... but really life just ticks along with no real drama
**Dear God, let me not have just cursed my self!!**
Two and a half weeks left of school and then we get a week off before summer school, I am looking forward to it! (the break, rather more than summer school, but both will have their good bits)
I am also looking forward to my brother and his wife coming to stay in July, and my own three week trip to China in August with my friend Laura.
Ahhh, summer. Bring it on!!
So I was visiting our agency about a week ago and was spying, er, looking at all of the other waiting family albums and I was getting really down hearted because they are all so cool and I just couldn't get happy about ours.
I am missing that essential female gene for scrapbooking. This is odd because I am an elementary school teacher and construction paper, glue and stickers are my life! C'est la vie... nothing I can do about it.
Just when I was about to give up hope on ever attracting a birthmom to our family through my photo album wiles, I was introduced to an amazing, FREE, downloadable software from www.blurb.com . It is a way to make you own books with very easy templates that can be manipulated in just about any way you can imagine. I am now proud to say that we have one of the spiffiest waiting family albums out there. My zero-talent album making will no longer hinder our ability to find offspring. *sigh of relief*
As I was imagining what I might blog about this week, this seemed like it would be the highlight of the week, surely nothing more interesting than free album making software could appear in my suburban environment!
Well, as I have learned again and again, never underestimate the power of a Ravenstahl to "shake things up" Typically these shake ups are in the form of surprise head injuries, stitches and broken bones. Most often it is Matt, a danger magnet, but sometimes it is the boys. Still a general rule is that the more catastrophic injuries will be acquired by Matt...
Just goes to show where generalizations will get you.
Seth decided to take first prize as the most seriously injured Ravenstahl ever (a difficult mantle to get, especially if you consider my beloved and very accident prone mother in law)
He was running through the woods and an evil stick jumped out from behind a tree and shanked him... or he tripped and fell on a stick... whichever version you like best...
Anyway, our youngest boy was the new proud owner of a large and horrible abdominal stab wound. Braver than any 11 year old has the right to be, he gets his buddies to walk him home and collapses on his moma's stairs.
Whisked off to the emergency room by Matt and Laura (and met there by every other family member in the tri-state area), Seth spends the next five hours at Reston Hospital undergoing various tests and needle jabs to ensure that nothing life threatening has been punctured, before he is ambulanced to Farifax Hospital at 10:00 pm for a consult with the pediatric trauma surgeon.
After hours of tests and exams, it is determined that he managed to avoid all major organs and that this is just a really nasty, ugly, non-life threatening stab wound and he is stitched up and sent home by 2:00am. The most amazing thing about the entire night was that he consistently turned down the offer of pain medication... I cannot imagine!
So he began a marathon of sleep, donuts and video games that ensure a rapid recovery for a wounded little boy.
I am not sure I ever want to see the inside of a hospital again after this week, but if I had to go to one with a child, I would say that Fairfax Hospital is the most amazing place for an injured child. We are very lucky to live near such a good hospital!
For now I am just very grateful that everything turned out the way it did. Tough stuff, those Ravenstahls! All the same, Seth is only going to be running through open fields from now on... trees are scary.
The Sunday Morning Broadcast of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
Mountains, mountains, everywhere!!
Matt inside the Tabernacle
*** The following is written in loving acceptance of my beloved family, friends and animals. It is a humorous, hyperbolic interpretation of what would otherwise be a ridiculously un-funny day... sadly; animals and people were harmed in the making of this Blog post.
***** Please do not turn me in to PETA. I love all animals, especially my own, I sometimes just need to laugh to keep from crying!
So when we were in Salt Lake City (which I promise to write a picture filled post about soon) we got a call letting us know that our Golden Retriever, Miles, had mysteriously escaped the yard and found a dog that was outside in his own invisible fence enclosure. Miles is typically a friendly, slobbery, loving creature so, of course, he practically ate the dog and we came home to an emergency vet bill for $1300 and a strangely unfriendly neighbor...
I now hate that dog (Miles), almost as much as that neighbor hates me. I hope he chokes on the next peanut butter jar he steals off the counter and consumes in the center of the living room floor. Frankly I am only refusing to consider having him put to sleep because I don't want to spend $200 on Miles right after spending $1300 on someone else's dog, and after (I cannot make this stuff up) the lawn mower burst into smoking flames when Matt tried to mow the lawn this afternoon.
Still, we could not figure out for the life of us how he managed to escape, unless some neighborhood mischief maker had opened one of the gates... Matt went out at midnight last night (as soon as we got home) and checked every inch of fence and gate and just could not imagine how he could have broken out without help. Matt has been assiduously maintaining and fixing every little thing that goes wrong with that fence like it was a second job.
Well it turns out that Maris forgot some things at our place this weekend... big surprise there... so Laura brought him over to grab it. He went in through the back door and out through the front and, you guessed it!, didn't shut the gate, so when Ariana let the dogs out, off they all ran (except Gobby who evidently knows which side his bread is buttered on)
As per my usual dog-related humiliation, my former babysitter and now backyard neighbor, Christina sent her daughter to alert Ariana that the dogs were out. She leashlessly wrestled them home, still unaware of the fracas that had just occurred. As a testament to Ariana's skill with dogs, Monroe bit her on the arm for her trouble. In his defense, I have also been tempted to bite Ariana from time to time. When you love someone like a sister, they can get to you, ya know?
So what to do with the walking mass of absentminded hormones and puffy hair who is my beloved oldest stepchild??? He is going to bloody well come with me to drop the check of to the neighbor and apologize. I am also going to make him get on all fours and apologize to the dog. I was given a full color 8.5 by 11 digital picture of the wound site with the itemized bill, and I'm going to tell you that I am not going anyway near that oozy mess with all six of its stitches and its shunty-looking thing... did I mention I hate Miles?
So that is Maris's recompense for the ill done to random neighbor with stupid electric fence that offers no protection and only keeps their dog in like some form of mobile, canned dog treat for larger, more evil canines. (apparently my silly, slobber-faced, tummy-rub junkie is one of these)
But what about the damage done to my bank account? Did the child not know that we lived in a house with three large dogs who often go outside, therefore necessitating the shutting of the gate? They are rather hard to miss, Miles weighs in around 70lbs... Matt and I decided he will either be our personal unpaid lawn boy for the ENTIRE summer, or that he can sell one of his four guitars to contribute to the financial hit. Personally I would rather have the free lawn service, but he seems to think that selling a guitar is the more painless of the two options. Apparently sweating away at mowing the lawn while your step mother sits on the deck, reading a book in a floppy sun hat while sipping iced-tea does not seem like the softer option! ... go figure.
You know how, if you are me, the second one of your friends tells you that they (or their wife) are going to have a baby, you have a list of automatic questions you need the answer too? One kind of like this:
Oh, my gosh!! When are you due?
Are you guys going to find out what you are having?
How long are you going to stay home?
How do you feel??
Do you have any ideas for names?
See it is a nice little list, and for people like me (those with the obsessive need for the answers to questions) it helps me mentally prepare for this new little addition to my friend/family world.
So, I have posted in the past from an "outside-looking-in" perspective on what "we the adopters" experience in this process, but have you ever considered what it must be like to be the friend of an adopter??
*We cannot with any real accuracy tell you when the little person will arrive.
*If you are with my agency, gender preference is not an option, so no dice there.
*I don't really know how long I get to stay home... my guess would be 6 weeks-ish unless the MMR (Mini-Mystery-Ravenstahl) shows up in the summer (yay, teaching!). I do, however, know that Matt has WAY more leave saved up than I do, so he will get to stay home longer. I am not really very bitter about this. I sort of hope that he will bring the MMR to lunch a couple times a week though.
*I feel fantastic! This one is a total bonus of adopting. I am sleeping great, my ankles are in full view and the scale is still a close friend of mine. I have been wearing the same size jeans the entire time we have been expecting!!
*Of course someone as obsessive as I am has names ready to go!
So, friend of adopter... I have some info, but no end date. There will be no pre-baby shower. We can plan an introduction party instead. I can't give regular updates because I don't get them. I live in the limbo of waiting. It isn't a bad place. There are lots of us here, and we have some fun while we wait, but it can't look very interesting to you from out there.
Stay tuned, though. You never know where this wild ride will take us. And your support and friendship does count... more than you know :)
