Selfish

I was laying in bed last night reading my book on adoption and the section I was reading was on building healthy adoptive families.  The chapter, and really the whole book for that matter, has been talking about making the child aware from a very early age that they are adopted and to make it an open conversation in the household.  To me, that's fine.  I don't want to keep secrets from the child because that will only hurt our relationship when the truth comes out.  However, all of these things I'm reading keep making it seem as if I should be pushing the subject and making the child's entire identity.  I'm not sure if that's what they intend or if I'm interpreting it wrong but that's how it seems to me.  I want my child to know they were adopted, of course, because it is part of who they are, but I don't want to make it ALL of who they are.  I don't want it to detract from me being their mother and making sure they know they are loved and that Dave and I are their family forever.

I also realized I don't like sharing certain things, and one of them will be my child.  One of the things required by our adoption process is that we have to send at least pictures and letters to the birth mother 1-2 times per year and possibly extending that to include emails, phone calls and visits.  The pictures and letters I'm fine with because I can certainly understand wanting to know your child is happy and loved.  We haven't chosen to do a fully open adoption because we don't want possible unexpected visits.  I guess, to be blunt, we just want to a chance to be parents without having to share.  Maybe I'll feel differently once the adoption occurs and we're actually in the middle of everything, but for now I am just feeling like I want to act like a little kid and say "No!".  People who adopt are forced to make so many concessions to be parents and sometimes it seems so flipping unfair to me.  I'm sincerely hoping that I'll feel differently when it's all said and done, but only time will.  Hopefully I'll remember to update the blog when that happens so you all can know if my feelings changed or not :).

Home Study Recommendation

On Thursday July 5th we had our home visit with our social worker for our Home Study.  He was here for about 3 1/2 hours talking to us about our childhoods, our current situation in life and various other things.  At the end he said that we had his recommendation and could move forward.  This was such a huge relief to us!  My biggest fear was that we wouldn't even make it past that point to start the adoption process.  I know in my heart we will be parents through adoption.  It may take longer than I'm expecting but it will happen eventually.  I feel confident that our adoption agency is going to be able to help us achieve our goals.  But, now that we've gotten the approval needed to be able to move forward I feel much better.

All that's left now is to wait on our FBI background clearances and finish our profile information for the adoption agency.  I'm finding it kind of hard to find the right kind of pictures to submit because David and I tend to not be in the same picture very often.  Usually when we travel it's just the two of us and one or the other of us is behind the camera. 

In other news I've been looking at some baby stuff on ETSY and I found the cutest baby blanket!  It was kind of spendy but I couldn't help myself, I had to order it.   It's red, white and black argyle with a soft "minky" backside in black.  Not exactly sure what "minky" is unless it's a really soft fur-type feeling material.  Anyway it was just too cute to pass up.  I'm figuring I can slowly stock up on some cute gender neutral stuff when I come across them. 

That's basically all that's happening on the adoption front. The next step is finalizing all the paperwork and becoming active with the agency.  I hope I'm able to curb the anxiety and the obsessing some people go through.  It's hard to trust that someone will like you enough to give you their child to raise but I guess I just have to.  I'll try to keep this more updated and people in the loop as much as I can.  There won't be much going on for a while after we go active and are just waiting for a phone call. But we're going to keep on keeping on!!

Love,
Sammee