Hmmm...it's going to be even harder this time...

I received an email from one of the Journey's social workers today. She explained in her email that families who already have one child often experience a 12-24 month wait for placement. What?! From the day we got our act together to the day Oliver came home was something like 4.5 months. I'm try to stay positive (We can put more in savings, Oliver will be potty trained, I'll have more leave accrued) and focusing on what I can do to make the process go faster - like quickly tackling paperwork.

Adoption #2

Three days ago we turned in an adoption application to Journey's to start a second adoption. It's only been three days, but I'm already going crazy. I've heard many times before that woman forget how painful child-birth can be and in a similar fashion I forgot how awful the waiting can be while one goes through the adoption process. It's excruciating and time seems to slow down. 

Statistically speaking, our future child's birthmom is probably pregnant already, yet I won't know anything about her for many more months. I wonder if she's thinking about us in the same way we're thinking about her. Having gone through an adoption already I now know what a central figure she will be to our lives and I wish I could be with her right now. 

On Monday I become overwhelmed with emotions and I recognized it for what it was - oxytocin. In the same way a pregnant mother imagines holding the baby she carries, which then builds feelings of attachment in her brain, adoptive mothers also imagine and plan. It didn't occur to me last time that my brain was already making attachment chemicals. This time I knew what it was. I could feel the chemistry change and I longed to hold my future son or daughter in my arms. 

Like I said, the waiting is the worst part. May the day we meet our second child be quickly upon us!

Oliver: the love of my life

I've been emailing with my brother about various topics and it made me realize how much I miss writing. I decided to go back and read old blog posts from this blog and another one. I was reminded, while reading this blog, that my friend Julie mentioned that I needed to post a follow up on about our adoption. Anybody who is reading this should know that we adopted a baby boy in 2012, but I figured I'd write a post about it just so there is resolution. :)

Oliver came into our lives on May 18th at 11:45pm. We received an excited call from one of the social workers at the agency saying that Oliver's birth mom wanted to make an emergent adoption plan for him and she had chosen us to be his parents. We met our baby boy the next day and our lives were forever changed in the most amazing way. Maybe someday I'll write a post all about that day (I currently only have a cell phone with which I can write), but for now I'll just say that it was the start of the greatest part of my life - motherhood. Almost two years later I'm still amazed and feel so blessed to be Oliver's parent. He is the love of my life.