doers, talkers and whiners

I was sitting,drinking coffee...eating ramen (don't hate) and thinking about things I had to do: making chex mix with my Girl Scout troop, help with the Bishop's reception with scout troops (I still have no idea how I ended up on this committee), look over the lesson for GOTR, planning and hosting 2 bridal showers, checking to see if Blessings in a Backpack has found me a school to volunteer at, planning K's sleepover, making meals for a neighbor who is hungry, building a chicken coop, taking in another bearded dragon, saying prayer for people who ask for them or just those that need a little boost...the list does go on.

I (along with my DH...I recently found out what that meant :)) have adopted 5 children, 2 from Africa, we built a house (ok, we had it built), we drive super old cars, have a veggie garden in the front yard, clothes line on the deck, give time to the kids school teaching religion and teaching the youngsters where their food comes from...etc.

Now, you probably think, "who the hell does this lady think she is??" or "she thinks she's SOMETHING (insert eye roll)", "who is this bitch???". Well, it is none of those.

The reason I am telling you this is because I, like everyone, like to think of myself as "something", a mother, wife, friend, cupcake maker, animal poop cleaner, laundress. And I, like to think of myself as a "doer". Someone who does things, someone who is actively participating in their life and their community. When I set out to start my day, week, month, I don't always feel I do this and by no means am I bragging. I really only to brag about my wonderfully talented and well behaved children. I am trying to tell everyone that you can do it...you can let the dishes sit in the sink and stop by the ______________, and give a few hours or a hour.

And truth be told, am fascinated with "talkers"...

You know what I mean. The folks who talk about how they would love to volunteer for an hour at _________, but I am SOOOOOOOOOO busy. How, if they just had the time they would drive a little out of their way to drop off donations to the food pantry, but they are SOOOOOOO busy. The folks that say, "Oh MY GOD!!! we soooooooooo wanted to adopt, then we got pregnant" or "We are soooooo going to adopt, when we have the time". These people, to me, are like zoo animals or goldfish. Going around and around and pretending to live life through words. They are all talk and no action.

These folks, to me, are missing out on some of the best experiences...people you meet, going places you never thought about going to, things you never thought about doing. It's like the guy who sits around watching sports all day, bitching about a team that he was never involved in while his kid stands in the front yard throwing a football to himself...wake up!!!

Oh, this rant is not done.

The one type of person that makes my irish skin crawl are the "whiners". You heard me, the folks who say that they have nothing and when you try to help out they bitch because the food came from Walmart! WTF people. They complain when the sun is shining because it's too hot and when it's raining (even though this makes the flowers grow). They get so caught up in there own bubble that they turn it into a "shame spiral" constantly feeling that they are owed by the world and that they have been wronged and no one, not even Job himself have suffered as much as them...bitch please.

These folks need to look at the roof over their heads, their spouses, their children, the sun in the sky, the Walmart food on their table and take in joy from EVERYTHING or else their little tornado of doom will wreck their houses. These folks, in my eyes need to volunteer and help people. To be around people who will make them think twice about bitching just because they are in the "shame spiral" and nothing they get from other people can help. They have to help themselves, change their attitude, smile at the sun and laugh at the rain (no, I'm not drunk!).

To these folks I say, tap your ruby slippers together quickly before your life flies on by and you're left whining to yourself in a mirror, with a face like a slapped ass staring back at you.

Rant. Done.

nap time...

When you have a baby you have a free pass to nap. You rock them to sleep and then you get to close your eyes and listen to them breathe and smell their head and before you know it you are whisked away that amazing place, napville. As the kids grew in numbers and age I would get a chance to visit, but never for as long as I wanted.

Then it happened.

It's spring break, the kids are tired and happy to home and "relax" for a while. Then R said that we were all bitten by the lazy bug...he was right, and there was only one thing to do. We all crawled into my bed, we must have looked like a murder scene. We curled up together, hands and feet, laying everywhere, little mouths open, eyes closed. Their heads are just as sweet smelling and listening to them breathe lulled me back to napville...and I got to visit for quite awhile.

infertility, miscarriage and ectopic is this topic..

Since I am going through our past 10 or so years with adoption this subject is one that is always comes up. And today I tell you fine readers that yes, I had an ectopic pregnancy.

Why I wonder, is this subject so taboo?? many (almost all) of my friends have had a miscarriage. It is something that happens, it is nothing we do, it is nothing we ate. It is a shitty fact of life, like acne or bad hair days.

Why do we hide it? Why is there this feeling of failure surrounding it? Why do we make ourselves do it alone?

Hell, I don't know.

I wish I did. Then somehow maybe we could all band together and make the emptiness go away. Make the feeling that our bodies had betrayed us fade and that shadow that can follow us to move it's shadowy ass on down the road.

Here is my story, it is like many of you and like none of you. We heal differently, we process in our own ways and we go on...

When we were living at the apartment in Ann Arbor, we were building our house in Kzoo and I became pregnant. I was scared. No, I was terrified. When you deal with infertility for so many years you really don't think it is going to happen, it becomes a unicorn or the perfect pair of jeans...always out of reach. It did happen and for the first time I saw all the lines and crosses on that white plastic thingie...it was positive.

I called the nurse at the dr. office and she had me come in for a blood test to make sure. She predicted that I was about 6 weeks along. CRAP!! I went in and had my blood taken and waited until the next day for her to call. The test looked great. Everything seemed to be going along fine.

Then...

About two weeks later we were at a birthday party for a friends kid and I started to spot...shit. I didn't tell KPK, I stayed there at the party, wishing it away. I told KPK on the way home, it was Saturday, I had no one to call, there was nothing I could do...

On Monday I went in for another blood test. The numbers were not going up as fast as they should...she told me to come in Thursday for another test...Friday I was told that the numbers were low...really low...I was going to miscarry.

Then the side pain, like being poked no stabbed/cut with a pointy stick. I called the dr and had another blood test (I think that doctors are really just freaky vampires that save our blood in little jars...but I will save that for another post). My numbers we steady, this meant that it was an ectopic pregnancy, that there at this point in time my body was holding onto a mass of cells and they were stuck in my tube, of the fallopian nature.

FUCK!

Personally, I just wanted this shit done. The pain was mind numbing, I had two toddlers at home and a very worried nervous husband that wanted to get a vasectomy NOW.

I drove myself to the hospital, my doctor told me to go to the ER and get the two "shots", this is when I found out it was chemo drugs, to shrink the mass. And yes I am calling it a mass, there was no blood supply so my body was multiplying cells and sooner than later it would get big enough to explode my tube and I would bleed internally...good times.

Following is the high points of the hospital.

-I sat there for 6 hours

-I tried to leave, they told me I could die, I said I could die in the waiting room, they fit me right in.

-Kevin finally found someone to watch the kids for an hour.

-The fuck nut doctor told me I was going to kill the fetus, there was no fetus and I told him so (before you guys get too pissed, this man was written up, put on doctor probation and then asked to leave the hospital).

-I had an internal ultrasound and felt like I was in a woman's prison movie.

-I received two giant shots of the chemo drug in my right hip by a wonderful nurse in complete radioactive gear, her gloves were lime green and looked to be from IKEA.

-I drove myself home.

-I cried.

-I cried.

-I cried.

-It took 12 weeks for the mass to go away...don't put anything in your vagina!

This all happen six years ago. It feels like yesterday, it feels like a dream. Slash that. It feel like it happen to someone else. Someone who was stronger. Someone who doesn't take doctors shit. Someone who can talk about it and not feel like I failed. Someone who holds her children and smiles.

And I am proud to be her.

We called him Aiden...

I think the reason that I haven't written in a while is because of this story. This situation took a little piece of my heart which I freely gave up and I hope it is being taken care of.

When R was around 2yrs old and we were building our house in Kzoo and living in this little apartment in Ann Arbor. We had put our names in to adopt again, we honestly didn't think anything would happen, we just wanted to make sure all of our information was in to the agency and available for birth mothers to see.

So, you can imagine my shock when I received a call from our social worker while shopping at Target with Poots and Cheryl. There was a woman who had see our letter and album...she wanted us to adopt her baby...she was seven months pregnant...she wanted to write us a letter could she have our address...she was sure this is what she wanted to do...she had been speaking to her social worker for a week or so...about US! Holy shit. I stood there in the lamp aisle (no one ever goes there) and listened....I asked her name (I'll call her Grace), if she had other children (she does, not with her, with her mother).

I was told she was in the Robert Scott Correctional Facility. She was going to be there until 2018 or so and did not want the baby in foster care, she wanted him to have a home.

HIM?!?

That was when I found out it was a boy!!! A boy...a boy...another beautiful boy. I tried not to get too excited, I called KPK at work and he was thrilled and shocked and excited. We laughed in the lamp aisle...I cried a tear or two. We were going to have another son...

Over the next few weeks we wrote letters back and forth. She told me about her life that led her to prison, about her pregnancy about her other children. She asked me to send her a photo of the nursery, of clothing for him. She asked if I would bring him to visit her, I said of course...I contacted the prison and our social worker to find out how we could do that. She asked what we wanted to name him.

We wanted to name him Aiden Patrick.

She loved the name. She said she was calling him Aiden to all the other woman. She was making him a little book for us to give him when he was older, she was writing him letters.

During this time we were granted permission to send her $10.00 a week for paper, stamps and such from the prison commissary. We did, keeping it all above board, the social workers all knew about it as did the prison system.

Then one day I received a letter telling me she needed $20.00, that she had not received any thing from me...that she had to borrow the stamp on the letter. I couldn't believe it! Where was the money??? Did it get stuck in the scanning process??? (The prison takes the money and puts it on account for the inmates.)

I called our social worker, she recommend we call the prison to see if it was just taking longer. At the same time as I was trying to get money into Grace's account. We get a call from our social worker.

The prison social worker Grace had been seeing had discovered she had 4 other families she was talking to, telling them that she had chosen them, that's 5 families from 5 different agencies.

I couldn't process the information. Honestly, 5 years later I still have a hard time processing it, fully understanding...what do you mean 5 families?? She had talked to the social worker for a week about us. We had written letters. We had named him. She asked us to name him. What the fuck is going on????

We never heard from her again.

We will never have closure.

But, for that month and a half, in our hearts, we were the parents of a sweet baby boy.

And we called him Aiden.

do you think about giving?

Hello!

I've been at Girl Scout training and a kick ass dance party for the last couple of days, the dance party was only one evening, but it was soooo much fun it took time to recover :)

Any-hoo, I wanted to start out the week with some great organizations that you may not know anything about. The holiday season is coming down on us like hurricane of "buy! buy! sale! sale!", and I thought I could use this forum to let you (all 17 of you!!) know about organizations that are out there that actually do what we talk about doing. Check them out and you'll see how easy it is to change the battle cry this season to, "GIVE GIVE GIVE!!!!"

http://www.charitywater.org/

http://mare.org

http://www.heifer.org/

http://www.holtinternational.org/

http://www.kalamazooahp.org/calendar/hhaw

http://www.kzoogospel.org/

For those of you that are strapped this season and think you have nothing to give. Look in your cupboards and I am sure you have a box of mac and cheese or a can of tuna that any area food bank would be happy to have.

Change starts with one little choice...

2 yrs later...

I just have to say, I am having a great time writing this! Thank you guys (all 17 of you! woot!) for taking the time to read it :)

Buzzing right along.

After Kayleigh was born we said we would like to adopt again. Given that it can take years for a birthmother to choose you we thought, hell, let's reapply as soon as we can. Why not?

Here's a little something you may not know. When adopting you can not apply to adopt again until the child is over 1 yr of age and the first adoption is finalized. Kayleigh was born April 23rd, her adoption was finalized on Dec 22...so, on her 1st birthday we threw our hat, aka application, back into the pool. And waited.

We kept in contact with Frannie, meeting for lunch, she came over, we called one another. We were there when she got married. And were there when she moved down south to be with her husband's family.

We kept in contact through calling, letters and pictures.

Then one day...she called.

We were chatting away when she mentioned that she was pregnant, her husband had left her...she didn't want to parent...she asked if we would be interested in adopting this baby. We asked, "Is this is your choice?", she said, "Yes."

Now, the romantic stuff.

we called the social workers. When adopting you have to make sure that everything is up and up. That all parties are on board with the choices. That all decisions were made with a clear head and all choices for the birthmother were offered, that every avenue was shown to her to parent this child. She made the choice to come to Michigan to give birth, that choice was given to her by her social worker. Another piece of information, there are at least two social workers for each adoption, one for the adoptive family and one for the birthmother. Each social worker works only with their people. And they take their job a hell of a lot more serious than anyone working that I know.

Now, for those of you that think that we "did" something for her to choose us again, that this was not her choice. This is where I call bullshit on your shit :)

She was 9 months pregnant and got on a Greyhound bus to come from Kentucky to Ann Arbor. She called us and asked if we were interested in adopting the baby. She called her social worker. She called her family. She made the choice. She could have changed her mind after she gave birth up to 90 days after she gave birth.

This was her choice.

In fact, we had no control over the situation what so ever. In the state of Michigan an adoption can be nullified if you ask to adopt a child, an adoption can be nullified if money changes hands...even $5.00, an adoption can be nullified if all avenues of parenting are not shown to the birthmother. So, NO we did nothing, but answer the phone.

And I make no apologies for that.

Two weeks later on, July 2, 2004 we got a phone call at 5 am.

When we got to the hospital Frannie's parents were there. Her mom gave me a hug, grabbed my hand and dragged me into the delivery room. She told me to grab a leg and I watched my sweet boy being born...just like that. He flew into the world yelling as soon as his head was out! Frannie's mom laughed and said he was a fighter :). Frannie said she was hungry!

And like that,

our family...grew by one.

K's story...

Every child has their story and K loves her story! She loves it so much that she knows it by heart and still at the age of nine when I sing the song I wrote for her when she was born she will take my hand, put it against her cheek and lay on her pillow (she has done this since she was a baby), she looks up at me with those beautiful brown almond shaped eyes and says,

"Mama, tell me my story..."

and I do.

(This version has swearing. As you know I never swear in front of my children and is more indepth)

It was April 22, 2002, my sister Boopie was in town for a conference and staying with us (God works in crazy ways). We all went to bed like normal and at 5:15am the the phone rang...Kevin grabbed the phone and it went flying, no shit. It flew up in the air and when he finally got a hold of it to say, "hello", the line was dead...FUUUUUCCCCCKKKK. We both knew that it was the hospital calling for Frannie or Frannie saying she was at the hospital or somebody calling to say something...something that had to do with a baby girl!

We waited, got dressed, stared at the phone...then at 5:25 am it rang again (you will never know how long that 10 min was!!!) Kevin answered and a nurse told him that Frannie had given birth and she wanted us to come to the hospital!!

We arrived in the hospital in a fog...we checked in with the nurses station, showed id and were given wrist bands. Then we went to Frannie's room and knocked on the door. We walked in and she was sitting in bed holding the most beautiful baby I have ever seen...I couldn't even see her face, she was glowing.

I have to take a moment to explain something here. We were non-people...non-parents...no rights, we were nothing. If Frannie would have said, "get them out of here" or "I've changed my mind". We would have walked out of the room and that would have been that. Prospective adoptive parents give up ALL control.

Back to the story :)

She held onto the baby as we talked, asking how she was and such...I never asked to hold the baby, it was not my place. She asked me to call her social worker and I went out into the hall to make the call, when I came back, Kevin was holding the baby...tears in his eyes...holding this little pink bundle...I stood there, staring when Frannie said, "Do you want to hold her?"...all I could do was nod and take her in my arms...she was amazing...Frannie was amazing...she was laughing and joking with Kevin...she asked for the baby back...I handed her back...a nurse came in to check Frannie and she asked us to to leave so she could rest and to come back later...we did...it was a dream...I kissed Frannie on the head and asked if I could kiss the baby...she said yes!

We went back and saw them again, we brought her lunch, every time her family was there or her friends, all holding the baby...I would ask if I could hold her and they would all watch me...I fed the baby and they watched...her aunt judged...We didn't stay long any of our visits. Frannie was spending time with the baby and this I knew in my heart was needed.

On April 24th we came to the hospital, the baby was being released and so was Frannie. We had planned in our earlier conversations to have a "handing over ceremony". This is one of the hardest things I have ever been a part of. In our situation the reverend for the hospital came and talked to Frannie the night before and she was leading the ceremony. I had brought three different outfits for Frannie to choose from so she could dress the baby, she wanted us to do this together, she will never know what that meant to me. Frannie held the baby as the reverend spoke of love and loss...of families...she asked Frannie what the baby's name was. "Kayleigh Marie Liberty May __________", this was the name we had decided on "together", two names from each of us, blended together forever...just like us. Then...Frannie walked over and put Kayleigh in my arms...we cried...we hugged...we thanked one another...we cried more...we hugged more...we finally smiled.

Frannie left with her family. And for the first time...we were alone with our daughter...no one...just us...sitting on a hospital bed, crying...crying for the gift that we were just given...crying for the Frannie...crying for it all.

Then a nurse came in, in your life if you are lucky you meet people, people who are put on this earth by God. She smiled at us, asked if we had a camera...and took the first picture of our family...