We all did some really stupid things in our younger years, right?  I have a long list.  But one of those things came back to haunt me recently.  After college, I held several jobs at a time to make ends meet.  My “real” job paid me minimum wage straight out of college and I couldn’t live on that (no, that isn’t one of the stupid things).  Through one of my jobs, I met a man who was good bit older than me.  This man pursued me somewhat aggressively.  I wasn’t having a lot of fun in those days – all work and no play, we all know that doesn’t turn out well.  We began seeing each other.  We kept things hush-hush for a variety of reasons.  First?  I was only 6 years older than his son.  Even I saw the ick potential there.  Second, he was kind of friendly with my dad seeing as he was closer to Dad’s age than mine (there is that ick potential again).

Not sure what is creepier, hitting on someone at their father’s funeral OR attempting to relive old times when those old times almost ended in a restraining order OR hitting on someone who has just informed you she is incredibly happily married and adopting a beautiful little girl?  Ding, ding, ding, ding – that is correct Alex, all of the above!  Thanks for playing.

Just so no one thinks they missed the email, I didn’t get them sent out last night.  Blonde issues arose…I was matching everyone up and some how ended up with an extra person.  I was just about to start over when someone happened to email me that she would like to give but not receive because she hasn’t started her process officially yet. (Yes, I told her she could receive anyway but she preferred a one way match.)  That fixes my problem but I got busy with other things and didn’t get the emails sent.  I will do my best to get them out tonight. Thanks for your patience!

I mentioned that I’ve been playing around with making jewelry for a couple of months.  I made more earrings than I can wear or give away as gifts.  I gave a couple of pairs to Sabrina’s Foster Mom.  I gave a pair of earrings and a necklace to my sister in law for Christmas.  Steve’s been encouraging me to try selling some on Ebay so I listed 4 pairs today.

I’ve never sold anything on Ebay before.  I looked at similar items and realized that fewer than 10% listed even sell.  At first I thought it would be a slight ego blow for them not to sell at all but with so few being sold I can’t really take it personally.  But, I thought I would give it a try and if it doesn’t work then perhaps I’ll just put up my own little website to sell them.  I’m not putting up a link here because I’m not trying to use my blog to sell them…however, if they don’t sell and I go the website route, I’ll certainly post that.

I would like to do the Secret Blog Pal matches today.  Is there anyone else out there who wants to be included?  If you miss this round, we will do it again in about 6 weeks.

First, I have to post the picture of the wonderful gift I received from my SBP on Wednesday. I received this adorable frame and Tigger wrst rattle from my SBP, Julie, along with a note that the frame might not do the adorable Sabrina justice (I believe it is perfect). She even included a couple of photos of Miss Sabrina. Thanks Julie! You’ve been a great SBP!

I also mentioned that there was another gift given to me that day by my hubby. We were shopping for his mom’s birthday gift and he saw me looking at this vase so he picked it up when I wasn’t paying attention. Thank you honey – it’s lovely and you spoil me.

Okay, now…drumroll please…if you haven’t figured out who your secret blog pal is, here are the pairings from this first round. (And sadly, I did the matches but didn’t look at the list again…I spent all of this time convinced my blog pal was someone else so when I looked this morning and discovered it was Julie, I was surprised!)

Michelle (Me) –> Carrie
Tricia –> Laurie K.
Laurie K. –> Muriel

Muriel –> Andrea

Andrea –> Alleen
Alleen –> Ginger

Ginger –> Sig

Sig –> Megan

Megan –> Lori

Lori –> Carla

Carla –> Chou-Chou (I haven’t seen your real name on your blog so wasn’t sure if you wanted to keep it private)
Chou –> Ashley

Ashley –> Tracy

Tracy –> Kim

Kim –> Debra

Debra –> Veronica

Veronica –> Tara

Carrie –> Jennifer

Jennifer –> Dottie

Dottie –> Julie P.
Tara –> Mary Pat
Julie –> Michelle (me)

Mary Pat –> Crystal

Crystal –> Nicole

Nicole –> Holly

Holly –> Cheri

Cheri –> Tricia

Okay, that’s a lot of linking to be done and I am feeling lazy. If the first name doesn’t tell you who it is (many are linked in my sidebar) please please please leave me a comment and I will clarify. There are a few who don’t have blogs so that could cause some confusion. And if for some reason the list I posted above doesn’t match with who you were matched with, please let me know. I had one small mix up the day of matching that I got straightened out quickly but I was a little crazy when I did it. It was just days before leaving for Guatemala and I was shedding brain cells every hour. I hope I make any mistakes, but if I did, they were mine alone and I apologize.

Now, we are going to start another round. I have heard from some of you already that you would like to continue. If you weren’t in this round but would like to jump in, please do so! I will reprint the questionaire below if you are new. If you participated this time, you need not fill it out again unless something has changed. I sent an email to everyone who participated the first time so please respond if you would like to participate again. Also let me know if you don’t receive the email because I know a few of you had trouble receiving email from the yahoo account during the matching process.

Here is the questionaire for anyone new who would like to participate. Send it to secretblogpals@yahoo.com

Name

Mailling address

Country adopting/adopted from

Where are you in the adoption process? (Is your baby home? Are you paperchasing? Do you have a referral?)

Gender, name, age, current size/weight of baby (if known)

Age you are hoping your baby will be at homecoming

Do you have a nursery? What is or what will the theme be?

Do you have other children at home? If yes, ages.

Favorites or dislikes (for example if you are adopting a girl but hate pink, tell your blog pal this…or if, like Carla, you have a love of all things camo, share that…if your tastes are traditional or funky you can also tell your pal this)

Blog address

Email address

Any other info you think might be helpful for a secret blog pal

Picture updates used to be pure joy in our house. I would wait and wait for them and do a little happy dance when they arrived. Now they are bittersweet. Steve and I are always happy to see new photos of our baby girl but it also reminds us that time is passing and we aren’t with her. We see how much she grows and changes each month and it makes us a little sad. Still a joy…but tempered now that we’ve spent time with her.

We received both her January doctor update and her surprise visit report this morning. The doctor says she is doing well – up to 11lb 15 oz at 4 months. And it looks like she got her ears pierced since we last saw her (has it only been a month? it feels like forever since we held her).

I don’t recognize any of the clothing as anything we left (I hate that head band lol) but she looks darling as always. I like this little white dress.

Here’s the smile I love.

Edited to add: Several have asked if we gave permission for her ears to be pierced.  Yes we did.  We knew they might ask permission while we are there so we discussed it before we went.  My stance was that I wouldn’t personally do it so young but since it is a cultural thing there and the foster moms really want to do it as a gift to the babies I was okay with it.  Steve said absolutely not.

The foster mom asked us just after we met Sabrina.  We were both in awe of Sabrina.  Steve was holding her when the foster mom asked and would have agreed to a tattoo if asked.  He even insisted we buy the lavendar jade earrings she is wearing.

Thanks for the love my friends.  No, it doesn’t change anything but it is nice to know we have so many people out there rooting for us.  As anon pointed out yesterday, I’m having trouble finding the smiles in my blog name right now.  I’m okay though…mostly numb.  I was disappointed and frustrated with the news but not shocked.  I just can’t work up any shock about this process anymore.  I think the only thing that would shock me at this point would be seeing some fast progress.  But there are people out there with worse time lines than ours so I can’t get sucked too far into a pity party.

I’m just tired at this point.  Tired of hoping and being disappointed and bitter.  Tired of answering the question of “Why can’t she come home now?”.  Tired of jealousy fighting the joy of hearing good news for others.  Tired of adjusting our projected time line in my head.  Tired of being consumed with all things adoption.  I love this little girl more than I can say and I just want her home so I can forget all of this like everyone tells me I will.  Ignore my cranky ass – I think I’m coming down with the flu.  I just need a nap.

I received 2 sweet gifts yesterday…one from my husband and one from my SBP.  Both made me smile.  I will post photos later tonight. 

As I was walking into a meeting Tuesday afternoon, my cell phone rang. I saw on the caller ID it was my agency. My first thought? Maybe our social worker interviews in family court got done last week and they were calling to give me the good news. Heh. Silly me.

Apparently Guatemala created a 7th family court room. Great – more social workers to handle the work load. In the long run. In the short run, apparently nothing is happening in that new court yet. Our case was submitted on 12/15 and that it was “shuffled” to the new court on 12/22 but no one from our agency noticed the problem until yesterday. So, we’ve been pulled from that court so that we can be submitted to another one next week and then wait 10 business days after that to be assigned to a social worker in that new court. Us? Screwed. Great that our agency acted on the news. It isn’t their fault that we got put into the new court. But, another 6+ weeks down the tubes with NO MOVEMENT ON OUR F*CKING CASE. Not one damn thing has happened with our case since DNA was taken on 10/4.  Sabrina will be over 5 months old before the possibility of the social worker interview even happening – let alone the weeks of waiting for the report before we are out of family court.

I am so sad. I just want her home. I just want one f*cking thing in this process to go smoothly. I was hoping we would get out of family court the week my mom and I are visiting. That hope is shot to hell…

“Straw? Hi, this is the camel’s back…”

I am more careful these days.  Since meeting Sabrina, I have this irrational fear that I will be killed in some horrible accident and never see the joy of bringing her home.  How’s that for morbid?  When we flew back from Guatemala, we had a rather ugly landing in Atlanta.  I was terrified.  I actually ended up in tears while waiting for the ball of flames to engulf us after the seeming inevitable slam into the runway.  I was sitting in my seat, clutching some photos of Sabrina, wondering why God would be so cruel.  Yeah, I know, melodramatic much? 

While driving on the highways, I am convinced a semi will lose control and smash into me.  When driving on country roads, I am sure that a deer will jump in front of the car and his hoof will go through the windshield and then my forehead.  Starting the dryer before bed, I wait for the lint to ignite and burn the house down.  Walking downtown, I wait for someone to open fire on the crowd.  Going down the basement steps, I envision falling and hitting my head on the stone window sill.  I’ve seen all 3 Final Destination movies, so trust me, my imagination gets way more bizarre than those examples. 

I am not normally this morbid.  It’s only been since our trip to Guatemala.  I have mentioned in the past, that I keep waiting for the adoption equivalent of miscarriage because I can’t believe that we are finally going to have a family.  I still worry about losing our referral – I will breath much easier after our social worker interview happens.  But I guess since we’ve passed the most dangerous point for losing a referral (DNA), my brain has moved on to new ways to torture me.  Don’t worry, it hasn’t reached the point of psychological disorder.  I recognize how irrational the thoughts are.  I laugh at myself even as I am thinking the thoughts (except the bad landing in Atlanta).  I continue to function through my day…these things just pass through my mind and they make me laugh because who knew becoming a mom would make me nuts in this way?

Memo to the loud cell phone guy:

It is polite of you to step out of the office of the person you are meeting with when you take a call on your cell phone.  However, you negate all of your good manners by instead taking the call in the middle of cubicle world.  You’ve avoided irritating one person but are now distracting 27 others.  Next time please step out into the waiting area or hallway. I know that would require an extra 20 steps but it would be appreciated.

Thank you,

The crabby cubicle girl who is easily annoyed distracted