Adoption Journey — Day 95

Another appointment done. We’re getting there.

I think we are doing well. Our home inspection was good, thanks to hours and hours of preparation. We have a bunch of things to do on our “Will Comply” list, but those are all things we need time to do. Get the baby’s room cleaned out and ready. Buy a proper TV stand. Put latches on all the cupboards. Get meds locked away. Write up a fire escape plan. Make a list of emergency numbers.

It was a little daunting, doing the inspection. I knew we had things to do; I just didn’t want to find something that would be a huge issue. And we didn’t. So that was good.

I found last night’s interviews made me more tense than the one we did during the previous appointment. BDH had his one-on-one, and it was hard for him. I don’t think he’s done fretting about it yet. We both second-guess our answers because we don’t want to fail.

And last night there were a few contentious issues raised. Two non-cat-friendly social workers asking us what we’re going to do if our child doesn’t like cats. Well, that kind of raises the hackles, doesn’t it? I certainly don’t believe they were singling out our cats because they’re cats and not dogs — I am sure the question would have been the same for dogs. It’s part of their job to ask about the animals. I understand that. But still, I felt cornered. In other discussions, there’s been room for discussion, but this one felt like a right/wrong answer question. I mean, I know the answer they wanted was “we would get rid of the cats” and so I said it, and they said that was the answer they wanted and we moved on. But it made me angry. Because I don’t believe being reactionary is the correct way to raise a child, and that sort of answer smacks of reactionary. There are many things I would do and reasonable steps I would take and do my due diligence to help baby and pet coexist peaceably, and getting rid of our pets would be a last solution if all else failed. But no amount of reasonable ground would do in this instance. So I said, “we would get rid of the cats” and felt forced to do so.

So that made me a bit peevish.

There’s also the question of spanking that came up, just tangentially. Not that we’re advocates of spanking by any stretch of the imagination — in fact, the opposite — but this was one of those items that did not seem to have an element of discussion around it. It was a right/wrong answer. We were given a pamphlet, we were to read it, and we were to answer any questions according to what was in the pamphlet. But things like this are important, because we need to discuss them to understand them to be responsible parents. And just raising questions around it felt like we had a mark against us, and the tone of the discussion seemed to change, ever so slightly. And because we only talked about it as an aside, next week when we DO meet to talk about parenting and so on, the question of spanking will come up and I will feel obliged to answer according to what they want to hear. Not that I’m suddenly going to become a fan of spanking overnight, but I want to feel like just talking about it isn’t going to count against us. I don’t want to be afraid to ask questions. But this is another issue where there’s no room for discussion.

I guess it bothers me because someone could just lie through their teeth and answer what it has been broadcast that they are expected to answer for some of these questions, and pass with flying colours. And we as new parents have a lot to learn, and a lot of things to work out for ourselves, and a lot of questions to ask, and a lot of discussion to do, and I hate feeling as though we can’t do that for fear of being painted with the wrong brush. I hate feeling obliged to answer anything blindly.

I know that there are some issues that they absolutely can’t budge on because their job is to ensure the safety and security of the children that are adopted, and I understand that they have to be very careful. I totally get that. It just makes discussion hard sometimes, and you’re unsure what is okay and what is not, and you are afraid to mess up.

I need to get some perspective back, I think.

We’ve been so deep in this stuff and we’re so tired and stressed and emotional that I think we’re taking too much to heart. We’re overanalysing everything and thinking it to death. We want desperately to do well.

We need to take a few days off and just have a normal life again. We need to take a few days and breathe.

Adoption Journey — Day 94

My everything hurts. BDH says his everything hurts too.

It’s been a very busy few days here. We have been madly preparing for our visit with the adoption practitioners tonight and it has meant cleaning, shopping, assembling, breaking down, and fixing. All over the house. And we’re still not close to done yet.

But we got a lot done, and that’s good. What we did get done, we feel pretty proud of.

Last week, we had the first of our one-on-one appointments (my interview), and tonight, for the first part of the appointment at least, it’s BDH’s turn. But they also plan on starting our home inspection this evening, and while we’re pleased they want to get our appointments done as quickly as they can, we didn’t expect that. So we’re not even close to ready.

We were freaking out when they said they wanted to start the home inspection so soon, but our social workers said that we should start by focusing on the safety stuff first. That’s the most important to them. So we got out our checklist, and we made a list of everything we needed to get done.

First thing Saturday morning, we headed off to Canadian Tire to get some essentials. We picked up a fire extinguisher, a smoke alarm (to replace the ultra-sensitive one beside the kitchen, that goes off every time we even make toast, that we disconnected), some carbon monoxide detectors (one for outside the bedrooms, and one in the basement), flashlights, and a whole whack of baby-proofing gear.

Then, we went to Ikea. We had a bunch of furniture that would not pass muster: an old, falling-apart kitchen table and chairs and a newer, impractical cafe-style kitchen table and chairs that needed to be replaced. A bookshelf/entertainment unit that we could not fasten to the wall. A flimsy coffee table acting as a TV table. Bookshelves that had to go. So we picked up what we could (between our budget, the room to carry it in the car, and what was in stock) and headed home.

And so, we started the work.

We put up the smoke alarm.

We installed the carbon monoxide detectors.

We put protective cover plates on outlets.

We put baby-proof (and, let’s face it, ADULT-proof) covers on doorknobs.

We took down evil bookshelves.

We assembled good bookshelves and fastened them to the walls.

We broke down old tables and moved them to better places in the house.

We broke down old chairs and pitched them.

We put skid-proof pads under all the throw rugs.

We packed up unused dishes and nicknacks.

We vacuumed in the wake of our wreckage.

And we’re still not finished, not by half.

We still have to deal with that flimsy coffeetable-slash-TV stand. We still have a million cords and cables to hide. We still have SO much to do.

Today, while BDH is off at work, I have a lot to do. I must put the living room back into some semblance of order after the installation of the bookshelves. I will tidy, and vacuum, and put stuff away. I have to get some laundry done. I have to clean the bathrooms. I have to sweep. I have to tidy the kitchen, and find a place to hide several bottles of liquor that have lost their shelf due to recent furniture changes. I have to clean the cat litter and surrounding areas in our basement of doom.

And sometime in the middle of all that, I have to run to the store for a quick couple of things.

We haven’t even TOUCHED the baby’s room. So far as the adoption practitioners are concerned, we HAVE a baby’s room with the requisite door and window and closet space. Beyond that, right now? It’s a storage room. That will have to be handled next visit.

And don’t even bother to look in the other bedrooms. Not yet, anyway.

We’re getting there.

Adoption Journey — Day 90

Well, OF COURSE it went fine. What, you were doubting it or something?

(*hee hee hee*)

Our first “interview” home study appointment is done, and it went just fine. Quite well, actually, I think. (And the cookies were not even required. Although they were a hit.)

Yes, I know. I worried for nothing. Well, not for nothing, actually, because it WAS one of the difficult interviews — they talked with me at length about infertility, our miscarriage, my family. So, on a scale of one to stressful, this was the most stressful of all our interviews, I think.

There are no easy answers in that kind of an interview. It uncovers a lot of difficult memories and times and challenges, and you have to discuss some painful stuff. But I did alright. I was honest and forthright and that’s about all you can be, really. Also, as I’ve mentioned before, we have wonderful adoption practitioners, who are really helpful and easy to talk to, so they make the process so much easier. I think I did alright.

Next week is BDH’s turn. He’ll do great, I am sure.

BUT…

We have to start our home “inspection” next week! AAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHH!

We’re SO not ready. So TOTALLY not ready. And we have a precious few days to GET ready. But the good thing is that we are approaching it with our practitioners as a “work in progress”, because more than anything, we’d really like to do it right and get their advice and input. So we’ll likely identify some things as “will comply”, which will give them an opportunity to give us some advice on what to do and so on, and give us some time to get it done, and get it done right.

So that’s a relief.

Still means we’ll be working clear through the weekend, though. Oh well.

Adoption Journey — Day 89, or something

The tired is overwhelming.

I need to learn to sleep better. I need to learn to not snore.

It’s hard to be crazed with running-around-preparing-ness when you’re tired.

I have cleaned and cleaned and it’s still not clean enough.

Vacuum. Sweep. Wash. Dust.

I have run around fussing and fretting.

Fold. File. Straighten. Hide.

I have followed around after a little old lady with bad eyesight, bad hearing, bad bladder. A little old lady whose mind no longer works like it once did, who shouts all the time, who pees on stuff.

Shoo.

I can’t have that kind of smell before a home visit.

I clean some more.

Only a few more hours and then I will smile and be honest and answer questions and smile some more.

Bake cookies before they come in the hopes of winning them over with chocolate.

(The smell of baking makes the house more homey. Plus the smell of cookies covers up the smell of cat litter, last night’s dinner, pee, egg salad for lunch… A real estate agent once taught me that.)

“Would you like anything? Water? Tea? Coffee?

HaveacookieIbakedthemmyself.”

Smile.

Answer politely.

Try not to talk too much.

(Good thing the cats will be in the basement. They talk too much. They interrupt.)

Smile.

Pleasepleaseplease like us.

Only a few more things to get done and then I will sleep for hours and hours.

Until next time.

Adoption Journey — Day 87

It’s getting there. It’s still cluttered, and there’s still a lot of work to be done. But it’s getting there.

We’re slowly getting the house cleaned up for the adoption practitioners’ first visit this week. It’s clean. Not as clean as I’d like it to be for their visit, which will still take me a while until everything’s satisfactory and cleaned and looking fresh as a daisy. But I’ll keep plugging away this week and hopefully it will be clean and clutter-free by the time they get here.

It’s still nowhere near ready for a visit to check our child-proofing. Not even close. We have to clean out everything in the garage, under the sinks, sitting out on counters and bookshelves. We have to shampoo all the carpets. We have to hide cords. We have to clean the basement. We have to clean the baby’s room from top to bottom, which until now has been a storage room. Painting it would also be nice, but that’s not going to happen. We have to buy fire extinguishers and carbon monoxide detectors and a new kitchen table and proper TV stands and…

I feel like we’re never going to be ready. I know they’re not expecting us to be perfect, and they said they are definitely not looking for perfect, but we’re so far from it at this point that I fear we’ll never even get close.

We’re NOT perfect. We’re so far from perfect that it’s ridiculous to try. And even when Mystery Baby gets here, IF Mystery Baby gets here, we’re still going to be no closer to perfect.

This is who we are. We’re cluttered and not always tidy and don’t have tons of money. Our basement is unfinished and our cats barf on the carpet and we don’t always get everything put away all the time. And this is who our child, if we are allowed to bring one into our family, will be living with. Two slightly messy and well-meaning parents and three unruly cats. All with a lot of love to give.

I kind of feel we’re behind the eight ball in a couple of ways in this process. But there’s really nothing to be done about that. All we can do is be ourselves and hope that’s good enough. Because I don’t think pretending we’re who we are not is going to do anyone any good either. And the stress is bad enough without setting unrealistic expectations of ourselves. So I’m not the best housekeeper in the world. So we don’t have the nicest furniture or enough storage space. So I have an imperfect family. So we have three cats.

Deal with it.

We’re not perfect. But we are who we are, and it’s going to have to be good enough.

Adoption Journey — Day 85-ish

Well as diverting as the Friday Fun is this week, there is work to be done this weekend! Le sigh. Although I WILL be going back to our Friday Fun post, because it never fails to make me laugh. So keep your comments coming!

We have some things to tackle before the home study people come visiting later this week. There’s lots of cleaning to do, although it’s not the BIG BABYPROOFING appointment, so basically we just have to make the place clean and neat for visitors.

It is the first of a couple “paperwork and interviews” appointments, and so there are some forms to be filled out. And we were warned that this is the part of the process that gets a bit tough. This is where you’re asked a lot of personal questions, where things get emotional sometimes. So I thought I’d just take my time this weekend and get through it all.

A lot of the forms are statements that say we understand what we just read, and require a signature. Or they’re forms that okay “them” to do “something” — okay the ministry to do a background check, okay the social worker to send stuff by email, that kind of thing. But a couple of them are big ass questionnaires, and require some time and thought to complete.

Today, I sat down to do one of the questionnaires, about family history. They ask about your childhood and to describe your childhood and your parents and such. I started to fill my form out but it was really hard.

My mom died when I was young, and I was trying to describe her and our relationship and her parenting. I was so young, I don’t remember much about her. And because she was sick, she was not at her best. So I felt bad pigeonholing her and her parenting based on the few years I knew her when she was sick and struggling. I felt like I was betraying her and who she was, because when she was not sick, everyone says she was a wonderful parent and a lovely woman.

I just didn’t know that woman, that’s all. I was too little.

I was so upset. I felt like I was betraying her, and labelling her, and it felt unfair. I felt that if she was looking down on me checking off some of those checkboxes, it would break her heart. Because who she was when she was sick was not who she REALLY was.

So I stopped.

BDH and I talked a lot about the questionnaire, and the upcoming interviews. And it was hard. It was upsetting. And I didn’t want to think about it anymore.

So BDH told me to put some socks and shoes on, and took me out to the mall to get a happy movie or a nice book or something to cheer me up. He took me out and distracted me.

The form is still waiting. But I think I’m going to fill in a lot of “unknown” checkboxes about my mom, and tell them that my memories are not the best.

But I will tell them that my mom was, by all accounts, a great mom. And that she loved us with all her heart. And that’s the key to who she was.