Still here and waiting some more

I know it's been a while.  I just thought I would share that we're still waiting to get P's amended birth certificate.  We were told it would take 16 weeks from finalization which seemed an inordinate amount of time at that moment.  How naive we were.  We aren't at 16 weeks quite yet, but DH went to the state office to check on the status of the birth certificate.  He figured it might be ready and if not he'd have a better idea of when it would be.  He was told not to bother checking back until at least another two months have passed. And that it probably wouldn't be ready then because they were short-staffed and swamped.  So sorry.  Next in line.

Ugh.  I love bureaucracy.

Is that my kid? Do the math.

DH found a photo on the ground in the yard at the end of our driveway. It was a photo from a professional portrait studio of a baby wearing a My First Christmas outfit. DH brought it inside and left it on the counter.  I asked him who it was.  He said he didn't know, but he didn't want to throw it out because he thought there was a chance it could be Phenix.  His thinking was that maybe it fell out of an envelope the social worker had given us with another photo of P from right before he came to live with us.  She'd found that photo in his file while preparing for finalization and gave it to us along with some other info. 

The photo DH found stayed on the counter for almost a week.  We couldn't tell if it was Phenix or not and we didn't want to risk throwing it out.  More than likely, it's just a photo that fell out of someone's early Christmas card and blew from the mail truck to our front yard. But when you adopt a child older than a newborn, early photos from before the adoption are treasures. Throwing one out would be like tossing your wedding album in the trash.  You just don't do it. 

Over the past couple of days I've started feeling guilty because I can't tell whether it's Phenix in the photo.  It sounds silly, but I've caught myself asking what kind of mother I am that I can't recognize my own kid.  Then I remind myself that I've always been horrible in those baby photo contests when you have to match the baby photo to the celebrity.  I can't find the similarities between the infant face and adult one.  I just can't do it, so this isn't really any different, right? Then I go back to examining the found photo and looking at Phenix and deciding and changing my mind a million times that it definitely is/isn't him.  And I ask myself what kind of mother doesn't recognize her own child.  

Today I realized that on the back of the photo someone had written the words "6 months."  I'd seen the words before, but for reasons I can't explain I didn't really attend to them.  I finally did the math and figured out that Phenix was only 3 1/2 months old for his first Christmas.  So unless someone labeled the photo incorrectly or had him take a first Christmas photo in March when he actually was 6 months old, Phenix is not the baby in the photo.  Other information had pointed in that direction: the baby in the photo was chubbier than P likely was (he had bad acid reflux and was about to be labeled failure to thrive at that age) and the mouth and ears weren't quite right. But the eyes and forehead were similar and I'd never seen him before he was 12 months old so how could I be sure?  The "6 months" math seems pretty conclusive. 

So the photo isn't sitting on our counter any longer.  It's in a drawer in our desk in the office.  I still can't bring myself to throw it out.  Why? Because. . .well. . .I just can't.  You know.  Just in case. 

Holiday Cards

I read about this offer (50 free Holiday Cards from Shutterfly) on Wendy's blog, Our Story.  Like a lot of people, I don't usually like to post stuff like this on my blog, but I loved the cards that Wendy showcased and I've had good experiences when I've used Shutterfly in the past when making mouse pads for P's Aunties and photo magnets for DH to put up in his locker at work. I figured it was worth a look.  I'm glad I did look because when I went to Shutterfly I found the perfect holiday card for us.

This has been a big year for us.  A lot has happened, including our finalization of P's adoption, and I'd like to share the news.  However, there's no way I'm going to find the time in the next few weeks to get a holiday letter written. When I saw this card, it looked like it was made for us.  I'm going to list different events from throughout the year.  The #1 moment will be "becoming a forever family." I'm going to put our adoption day photo in the middle and a photo of P on either side. I'm so excited to see the final product.  Last year, it took me forever to find a card I liked. On top of that, I spent about 3 days forcing P into various holiday outfits so I could take his photo and had to sort through probably 1,000 photos as a result before I decided on one photo that I liked enough to use. Since this card is about Top Ten Moments of 2010, I feel comfortable using some great photos from the summer and fall and don't feel like I have to use a Christmas one.  I may actually get my cards out early this year!

Final

We finalized! Friday, October 22 was Phenix's adoption day. It was an amazing, joy-filled day with lots of friends and family helping us celebrate. He's been ours in hearts since we first met him, but now he's ours forever.  Nobody can take him away.  I didn't realize that I was holding my breath, until after the court ceremony, when I was getting congratulations hugs from Phenix's brother's parents.  Suddenly, I could breathe again and realized that I hadn't really been breathing for a while. What a difference a signature on a piece of paper makes!

I'm now able to write his real name, Phenix Jake, and share some pics of him. In all honesty, I'll probably freak out about privacy and take these down at some point, but here they are for now:

ETA: I did end up having my privacy freak out and took the photos down.  I have to decide how I'm going to deal with the battle between being open and honest and being private on here.  Maybe I'll write more about that in a future post. 

We have a date!

In fewer than two weeks, we'll be finalizing our adoption of L!  I'm beyond excited.  Time can't move fast enough!

A year ago, I was a new mom: trying to figure out how to change a diaper without my baby arching away from me and screaming his lungs out, exactly how much food a one year old was supposed to eat, how to keep my little guy from rocking nonstop in his highchair during meal times, how to get him to fall asleep and then to sleep through the night.  My sister told me at the time that she and my BIL liked to look at a video they took of their oldest daughter's first diaper change at home because it made them feel like they'd come so far.  She laughed about how it took two of them a good five minutes to finish the task when soon after she could change a diaper by herself one-handed in 2.7 seconds.  

I remember wondering if I would ever feel like that as a parent. Competent, natural, like I had it under control.  Because those first few months I wasn't sure it would happen. I felt like an imposter.  Maybe it was because he was one and not calling me Mama.  Maybe it was because I was his fourth mom.  Maybe it was because he wasn't legally ours.* I loved him with everything I had in me, and in my heart he was my son, but I wasn't sure I would feel like I was his mom. Did anyone else feel that same distinction? When we went out in public and someone told me how cute he was, out loud I would say "thanks," but in my head would follow, "we're adopting him so we don't deserve any credit for it." Same when someone would say how well-behaved he was, or how smart he was,  or how happy he was.  

I'm happy to say that caveat (we're adopting him) has stopped popping into my head every time our guy gets compliments.  Not that we deserve or don't deserve credit, but just that it doesn't matter. My response, external and internal, stops at, "Thanks."  I don't know when or how it happened, except maybe time, daily living, building attachment, but there is no doubt that I'm my boy's mother.  I know he has another mother who would have given anything to have kept him and two more who mothered him when he was alone and most needed it, but I'm his now-mother, his everyday-mother, his forever-mother. I'm his mother. I no longer feel the need to qualify my motherhood. 

I've been looking back a lot as the one year anniversary of L joining our family came and went. Maybe it's the looking back that gives perspective. Perhaps it's got something to do with the one year mark.  Isn't that why one year old birthdays are such a huge deal to parents?  Because the first year is HARD and to have fumbled through it without major harm to baby or parents is surely something to celebrate. And, although I didn't start with a newborn, I feel pretty darn celebratory about making it through this year and coming out the other side feeling like a regular, normal parent. 

*We're still waiting for a finalization date for those who were wondering.  We've been told we should hear this week sometime about a few date possibilities.  

One Year Ago Today

One year ago today, we got THE call. Of course at the time we didn't know it was THE call. It was another call in a series of raised hopes and false starts. In fact, that's what I titled that blog entry: Another One. We'd just passed on the opportunity to move forward with placement of a four year old boy due to lots of legal ugliness between DCF and the boy's foster mother. We were feeling a little down, secure in our choice, knowing it was the best one for us and for the little boy, but wondering if we'd ever get a call about a placement that felt right.

I was at school trying to get set up for the school year to start in a few weeks. DH called me and left a message that our family resource worker had called about a one-year old boy. It was a legal risk placement and we weren't sure how much risk was involved. There was some talk about a grandmother who wanted him which turned out to be a complete misunderstanding due to his foster mom at the time being called Granny.

We placed a call to the child's worker to get more information. And waited. And started fantasizing about a little one in our home. And wondered how much of our hearts we were willing to risk.

It turns out we were willing to risk everything. I'm so thankful we did, because down the hall there's a little boy napping who will wake up and call for Mama and I'm the one he's calling for. He's the light of my heart, my beautiful boy, my wonderful child, and we first heard he existed in the world, one year ago today.