An update of sorts

Wow. It’s been over two months since the last post. School has ended and birthdays have happened and now summer is nearly over.

But the last post we’d made was about our adoption approval. We were excited. But as I said then, it really didn’t change a whole lot. Our profile book had been shown to a few expectant moms already before the official approval. We even had a question or two about why our pictures in the profile book didn’t have any “people of color” in them. The truth was that the only people pictured in the book were of the five of us. So it wasn’t like we’d had photos of neighbors and family and church friends and soccer teams and everyone looked exactly like us. It’s just that it was…us.

We knew we could stage a few photos: “Hey (insert black friend’s name), do you mind us taking a quick photo together so we can send it to someone neither of us know to prove I’m diverse?” But we decided against it. That would seem forced. There was another question similar to that one that we answered as well.

But that was early summer. In late May we went with some friends to the beach and had a fantastic time. We didn’t really do anything special except hang out at the pool and the beach. A lot. Here are a few pics from the beach:

This was the view from our balcony. There was the pool. And the beach.

You can never have enough crazy-face-in-the-pool pictures can you?

These are all of the kids waiting outside of The Mellow Mushroom for a table to open up.

Addie and Rowan doing some pose I told them to do.

And while we were there Ella lost her tooth. And then she really lost her tooth. So she left the Tooth Fairy a little note.

But since the beach we’ve been pretty low key. Addie and Bev both had birthdays. We got to celebrate my grandmother’s 80th birthday with her. Addie and I have been running around the neighborhood some. She’s really getting into that. She won her age group in a 5k on the Fourth of July. We’ve done Ole Miss Soccer Camp (there’s a good story there) and Camp Lake Stephens is upcoming as well. It’s been a full but not crazy summer so far.

As far as hearing much about the adoption, we really haven’t almost all summer. Once we did get a call from our caseworker asking about our indicated preference of a boy. We figure that since we currently have a 1 to 2 ratio we’d like to even things out. So we said “yeah, let’s say ‘boy’ for now“. But we’ve not really heard much since. Now our caseworker did have a vacation and a couple of other things that kept her out of the office for a couple of weeks. But we started wondering about things.

I know that Tom Petty says that “the waiting is the hardest part“. Now I’m pretty sure he wasn’t talking about adoption, but I think he’s on to something. But we started wondering that if our indicated preference of “boy” was holding back the opportunities for our profile book to be shown. I mean, how often to expectant mothers find out the sex of their child? At what point in their pregnancy do they do that? At what point do they “choose” a family they’d like to become the forever family for the baby? Do they usually choose a family before finding out the sex? All of that is the tip of the proverbial iceberg of how my thoughts bounce around.

So last Sunday night I sent out an email to our caseworker with a lot of those questions. I wasn’t wanting to seem impatient or for her to think I was expecting to have a child by Labor Day or anything. Heck, I knew full well it could be next year. But just the not hearing anything was hard. We wanted an update of sorts. I heard nothing on Monday, but did get a call on Tuesday. She indicated that our profile book had indeed been shown. I don’t know how often or how broad of a reach it’s made (we had to make five of them, but I don’t think they all stay w/in Mississippi.) But in a small nutshell, people had seen it, but just hadn’t had the sort of questions we’d received before.

So up to know, we’ve just been waiting. But what we have been told all along is that it could be a not so long process, or a really long process. And to temper any expectations and not base them on examples giving by friends. Because each case is different. But it’s just been, um, not frustrating, but repetitive when people ask us, “So, any news on the adoption?” and we have had to shrug and say, “No, not really,” since the approval happened. For a while it seemed like we had a form to find or a profile book to make or an essay to write or something almost every few days. But since approval…not so much.

But regardless of the wait ahead, I say “SORRY” about the lack of activity here. Not Yet Finished isn’t intended to be an “adoption blog”, but a blog about our family. But the adoption process has spurred its creation. But whether it’s a long time from now or not when we add the next member of our family, I’ve got plenty to share here. I’ve thought of things to post about every other day, but just not taken the first step of logging in.

But I’ve warmed up my “blogging muscles” now. So expect more soon.