And The Ugly!

I'm sure that at least a few of you had to see that title coming if you were paying attention to the last two titles :)

*How can you say "I would choose you if I could" & then turn around and let a relative basically bully you into making a different choice? It is YOUR choice/decision not theirs~I do believe that this would not have hurt quite so much if I knew you had made this choice for yourself & not someone else.

*You truly led me to feeling like a crazy person at times over the past several months...as well as the "officials" involved in this process...just to turn around & leave us with nothing to make it all worth the struggle.

*How does Luke all of a sudden become the least important person in this whole scenario? At first, it was most important that he grow up with his sibling, but now it really isn't?

*I wish for your sake that you would have become a stronger person since Luke's birth...then maybe all of this could have been avoided in the first place.

*It makes me very sad to think about the decision you ended up making, a little because of how it affected us, but mostly because of how it could end up affecting the baby's health/life in the long run...I'm not sure that it is really for the best...

*My knee jerk reaction was to keep Luke away from you forever now, but as I get farther away from all of it-I know that this is NOT the right thing to do & the updates will continue to be sent even though these first few may be a little tougher for me to put together

These are just a few of the thoughts & questions I have had over the past week that will never get asked or answered. I write them here knowing that they could be seen (but it is highly unlikely) by her and/or someday read by Luke himself. They are not meant to cause harm or ill will~they are just a reflection of the emotions that I/we are dealing with in this specific moment in time.

This birthmom is still Luke's birthmom too-that will never change & that is why I have to let it go. What was decided is decided (no matter how it was decided by her) & we must move on from here. It will be tough the first few times if there are any more visits down the road, but I do not want to be that person who harbors bad feelings towards her-it would not be good for her, for us & most especially for Luke & that is what this post is meant to be-me letting it go for his sake...

The Bad...

The following are some things that I have found to be "bad" over the past week in regards to this latest disappointment, but some have actually surprised me & turned into "good" things as week went on...

*It was the most "thankful" week of the year, during a time when I really DID NOT want to look forward to feeling thankful for anything...thankfully, I was able to find some things to be thankful for :)

*Four family functions to attend wearing my "everything is wonderful" face. Fortunately, by the time I had to attend most of these functions, I had already had several days to deal with everything on my own so this really wasn't all that "bad" in the long run either. But if you would have asked me if I was looking forward to them last weekend, that would have been a whole different story.

*The questions that are always left unanswered/unasked after this type of thing happens.

*The questions/comments that sometimes get asked/made that seem totally inappropriate.

*The baby's situation in general.

*Surprising, the people who know what happened & don't offer so much as an "I'm sorry to hear this" and also the people who do.

*Watching Luke being so ready to be a big brother & being unable to give him that opportunity. I hate hearing him refer to our extra bedroom as "the baby's room" when sometimes it feels like we may never get the chance to give that to him.

*The holiday season in general, honestly, I was not really expecting to get to take part much in it, but with this turn of events I have actually thrown myself into it full fledged mentally & I am feeling a bit excited about them in many ways. (So I guess this could actually be a "good" thing now :)

*Going back to work tomorrow~in many ways I'm ready & in many ways it sends me into a sheer panic...I have a feeling it may end up being a very long day, possibly with several questions that I'm not really ready or willing to answer in regards to the situation...

I promise only one more post on this topic & then I'm putting it away-maybe not forever, but for quite awhile anyway!

The Good...

I've been moping around here for the last few days, so I figured that I had better find some "good" things to be thankful for~because I do have plenty of them in spite of recent events!

So here it is "The Good"

*Scott~it is awesome to have such a wonderful & supportive husband! It is also nice to know that even during our roughest patches on these IF/adoption roller coasters, we have always managed to be on the same wavelength with whatever course of action we have wanted to pursue-sometimes before we had even shared it with each other.

*Luke~what can I say? His smile makes my whole day brighter & when you throw in that infectious giggle of his-how can one not be grateful for such a tremendous gift! He is my "sweet little man" & I can't imagine life without him.

*Family/Friends/Coworkers~their support through everything has been phenomenal & I could not ask for a better group of people to be surrounded by. It is quite humbling to know that there are SO many people out there who care about us & what happens to us.

*Blogging/Bloggers~I am thankful every single day for having discovered this wonderful world on the web (catchy, huh! ;) I love being able to put myself "out there" in a way that I probably never truly will in "real" life & especially during this past year, the support that I have received from fellow bloggers who have "been there done that" or have at least experienced similar things means more than words could ever say! It's a nice feeling to know that I have this whole world of people at my fingertips to celebrate & cry with when the occasions arise.

*We're all alive & healthy & surrounded by lots of love!

*Wine! No worries, I am not becoming an alcoholic, but it sure is nice to have a big tall glass of the stuff every once in awhile ;)

Last of all, but most definitely not least...

*GOD~sometimes I feel like saying "What in the world is your plan for us?" but than I realize that this is not something I need to know...my only job is just to trust him...he knows what he's doing even when I feel like I have no clue what going on! So I will TRUST!

Hope all of your Thanksgivings are swell & don't expect the next post to be so sweet ;)

Innocent Conversation?

I had just sat down to relax for a few minutes when I heard the "click" of Luke's bedroom door opening & shutting. He was up from his nap, normally he would be crying/calling for one of us, but not this time...I looked at our strategically placed mirror just in time to see his little feet rounding the upstairs corner. He was being very quiet...hmmm...that could mean trouble, so I went upstairs to find out what he was doing. When I got up there, I spotted him standing innocently by the computer moving the mouse around and this was the conversation that then took place...

Me: "Luke what are you doing?"
Luke: "Looking at computer...Frank."
Me: "Do you want me to help you find Frank?"
Luke: "Yes!"
A few moments later as we're waiting for the internet to come up...
Me: "Do you still want Frank?"
Luke: "No!"
Me: "Well what do you want?"
Luke: "Whiskey!"

Now please refrain from calling any social service agencies on us...one of Luke's favorite things to do is to look at this website at all of his favorite puppies (& trust me-he has quite a memory for these puppies-he can recite quite A LOT of them on sight & he specifically requests which ones he wants to see :) Check it out~obviously, two of his current favorites are "Frank" & "Whiskey" & luckily, they appear in order right next to each other ;)

Therapeutic words

I heard this song & then later this song over the weekend and both brought great feelings of sadness as they described how I am feeling as we are dealing with this latest disappointment.

Especially the lines from Kenny's song...

"Wish I could unremember
Everything my heart's been through
And finding out it's impossible to do
Oh it's no use
I can't unlove you"

Along with...

"Interstates and old songs
Like time they go on and on
I guess could learn to do the same
I can wake up without you
These two arms not around you
Tell myself it was meant to be this way
No matter how I try
Some things I can't change"

And then the line from Little Texas's song...

"I try not to think about what might have been
Cause that was then and we have taken diff'rent roads
We can't go back again there's no use giving in
And there's no way to know
What might have been"

Deja Vu Sucks!

We've been here before & the only word that seems to fit is...

heartbroken...

Other words that could be added are...

disbelief...
anger...
foolishness...
AND
complete & utter sadness...

These are the feelings running through our household this weekend after the news was delivered by the birthmom that she was "not going through with the adoption" to me in a voicemail on Friday evening & then later confirmed in a conversation with her. There may still be an ever so slight glimmer of hope that things could change, but I am definitely not putting any stock in it.

Last week at church our priest's sermon contained the theme "Life is Suffering", unfortunately for us, we have definitely been given our chance to share in that plenty this past year :(

Catch up in 5...

Here are some random & not so random things that have been going on in my life over the past few weeks...

1: Paranoia, paranoia, paranoia~about this whole flu thing & definitely NOT on my part! I am probably in a huge minority, but I have just not been concerned about it. People were paranoid that if they got the shot-the government was out to kill them or at least harm their children in some way, but if they didn't get the shot-then they or their children were going to die from the flu.
Yes, that may be a bit on the extreme end of what they were actually saying, but all my mind was saying was-"I am just not that worried about it..." maybe I should be, but that is how I am-I just don't give those things much thought. I have just never gotten the flu shot ever & it has not been a problem so once I heard that the H1N1 would have been part of the regular flu shot if it had been discovered earlier-I just figured that I wouldn't have worried about getting it anyway had that been the case so why 'spaz out' about all of it.

2: I went ahead & got vaccinated (along with Luke & Scott then a few days later) for H1N1...then I came down with the flu 4 days later. Grrrr! If I had known I was going to catch the 'bug' anyway, I wouldn't have messed with the shot...on a side note though, I am still alive (thus I did not die of the flu) & I have my doubts that I have suffered from any crippling side effects/death from the shot :) Maybe the more paranoid people out there can look upon those two things as a good omen ;)
And NO I don't think I caught the flu from the shot, I'm fairly certain that it probably came from one of the over 200 kids we had been sending home sick from school the week before!

3: I am trying to wrap my brain around the fact that one week from today maybe I will be holding another little baby in my arms & I am still ever more hopeful that I will be able to bring that little baby home to raise as one of my own...

4: You do NOT want to know how messy my house is & just HOW much of it I am planning on trying to tackle of the next 4-5 days!

5: If I can make it through the next week & a half without totally becoming insane~I will consider that one of my best accomplishments ever :) Along with that, I really have to refrain from saying "Oh really, is it?" everytime someone says "NEAT!" or "Well you will just have the perfect family then-one boy, one girl!" everytime this adoption gets discussed. First of all, 'neat' is not the word I would use to describe the circumstances that this birthmom has found herself in-choosing not to raise yet another child because of her circumstances-huge amounts of guilt & anxiety on her part are more like it, definitely NOT 'neat'. The second statement always leads me to wonder that if things had worked out with Baby E over the summer-would we not have had a 'perfect' family by having 2 boys, plus what happens down the road if this all works out & we choose to add another sibling to our brood~will our family become less "perfect"?
Oh, the things that send my mind into "rant" mode-the list is endless! :)

I apologize for the ranting, but it really is where I am at right now & hopefully, things will begin to happily calm down soon. Thanks for sticking with me & I'll try to keep you posted as often as possible of the next 2 weeks with whatever happens!

Life...

is currently causing me to want to do this:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

right now, so please bear with me on the lack of recent posts & here's to hoping that I can get some posts up this weekend to catch you all up a bit on most recent going ons.

A little luck & some prayers wouldn't hurt any either ;)

P.S. It seems that I have managed to survived the flu that had me down earlier in the week & baby is set to arrive in 11 days if things can stay on the right track.

Part 2: A Tale of Running

So over this past month or so that word "Chicken" has been floating around in my head along with the fact that my sister said that she thought she was running up to about 2 miles at a time...

WHAT???

2 Miles~how long has she been doing this? I was either much wiser by taking it slower (because I know she hadn't been doing it as long yet as I had done it last winter) or I was being a pansy! :)

Anyway, so I kept throwing around the idea of starting to run again, but hadn't really done anything about it until 2 1/2 weeks ago...

I had been walking again for a few weeks by this point so I figured that I could start doing a little running when I was out on my walks.

So I started out on my regular walk & picked a very short distance to run between as I passed it going from & back to my house...I ran that short distance both ways and...Wait a second...that was easy, much easier than last winter...maybe I'm not as out of shape as I was imagining that I am...interesting!

A day or two later I tried it again, but with a little bit longer distance & the same thing occurred...hmmmm...& then the same thing happened again when I broke out my Pilates video, which is always a bit of a killer the first time or two-this time though...no problem...

So getting back into this running thing & thinking that I was going to be waaay out of shape for it has not been so bad & then I realized...

CRAP: TIME CHANGE!

Meaning-if I'm going to keep this up, the only free time I will have very, very soon will be after it is already getting dark or is dark...

"Chicken, chicken, chicken..."

I decided that I better just bite the bullet & try running outside again & that day came last Monday night...TO BE CONTINUED... ;)