Filed under: Green green grass of home, She's crafty, The waiting game, Walkabout, Wide open spaces
It just sort of happened.
Sometimes I really hate WordPress. I have written posts in the past few weeks, really I have. I save them so that I can return when my mind is fresh and continue to craft them into something that I would want to read. But then I open the saved post and find…….most of it has disappeared. Oh certainly this can be attributed to my naivete as a new blogger, but that makes it no less aggravating. I just wrote a few paragraphs summarizing the year-long building renovation project of the organization I work for, the work I had done to completely revamp the programs I manage, and my process deciding that this work was most likely the pinnacle of my efforts here and the time has come to find a new challenge. I saved the post. I opened the post. The post was now one sentence in length. Aargh.
But moving on…..I knew when I started this blog that itwould most likely not be like the blogs that I frequent–insightful, funny, well-written posts that appear once a day. No, my blog would be lucky to have 2-3 posts a week. So here I am, posting for the first time in nearly two months.
My darling partner and I made our every-other-year sojourn to visit my uncle’s farm for the wheat and barley harvest. The harvest was expected to be late when we bought our tickets, then a hot summer and a drought moved the season ahead. Two days after we arrived, harvest was finished. What shall we do with our time? Take a trip to the hot springs in Canada? Spend a few days at Coeur d’Alene? No, of course not. We painted the 5-bedroom 1890 farmhouse. It was a good time with the family, working on a common project and doing something that my uncle could never have done on his own.
We also went to see the grandstand show of the annual convention for the PGI with a few in-laws and a friend from seminary and her partner, some of the coolest people imaginable. A great time was had by all. Just imagine the light, sound, and pure energy of over 10 million firecrackers joined in a “Super String”
A week before we went to the farm we received a phone call from a social worker at our adoption agency. Yes, one of those voice messages that makes your heart stop. An expectant woman had selected five families from the profile book, ours was among the five. She asked the social worker to call each of the families and ask if they would be willing to work with her in her particular situation. Our answer was a very easy YES! The next message from the social worker was that the woman had not decided between parenting and adoption and wanted to wait until closer to the due date to meet any families.
Then a week and a half ago, the same social worker called me at work to say that they expectant woman had narrowed it down to us, just us, and that while she hadn’t made a decision between parenting and adoption, she thought it might be a better informed decision if she met us. So we set a time.
We met in the parking lot of the agency, having arrived at the same time. She brought her mother with her. Her mother pulled out a list she had made of everything she liked about us. She talked about the dreams she has for her child. She talked about her decision process. We talked about openness. Everything she said was so genuine. We exchanged contact information and agreed that she would contact us when and if she wanted to move forward.
The hopefulness is back. We started picking out a name, which is just so much work. I’ve been sewing little things like a maniac. We’ve been trying to remind ourselves that she hasn’t made her decision, but we are still racing ahead. We keep marvelling that this is so very different than our experience last year.
If she decides to parent, that will be a well thought out decision and it will be a good decision. If she decides to place with us, this could be the open adoption relationship that we have dreamed about.
