Retrospective

Okay, so I left you kind of in a dramatic moment on that last post.  Ida went home on Thanksgiving morning.  Before we had known about her, we had plans to visit with Rob's family in Portland for the holiday weekend. After we found out Ida was going to be placed with us, we canceled those plans so we could just settle down at home and also be available for LeeAnn.  Since Ida wasn't going to be with us, we packed up our stuff and headed to Portland after all, and we left as fast as we could so we would be there in time for dinner.  That left us three and a half hours in the car to think about everything that had gone on.  I've spent a lot of my time since then stuck in that place in my head.  Here's what I've come up with:

1. In general, I am happy with how we conducted ourselves.  At almost every step of the process, we were really trying to keep Ida's needs at the forefront.  We didn't get overly possessive when LeeAnn was expressing her ambivalence - we recognized that it wasn't our place.  I'm really sad that I don't think I'm going to know what happens to Ida, but again - not really my place.  We were kind and open to LeeAnn the entire time, and when I look back, I know I feel a lot better about that than I would had we freaked out.

2.  Open adoption is definitely better than closed in this type of a situation.  It wasn't something where a baby was dropped off with us with no context and then taken away two days later.  We knew exactly where Ida was going and who she was going to.  This gave us a ton of peace of mind when she left.

3.  When negotiating the next open adoption agreement (assuming it all works out in the end), I've decided that I would handle the letters/pictures issue much differently.  At this point, I'm planning to try to come to an agreement where we commit to sending letters and pictures once every three months until the child is 12 and then once every six months or whatever the child wants to do, whichever is more, thereafter.  In addition, if the birth parents send us a letter and picture about themselves, we will respond in kind once per month.  I want to make it more of a dialogue.

4. Assuming I feel safe having the birth family in our home (and it's quite likely I will) I would be more assertive about having visits at our home instead of out in the community and I would have a definitive time-frame for visits.

5.  I'm happy with how we cared for Ida.  I love our cloth diapering system - even the cloth wipes, which sounded really weird to me but were *so* much better than the disposables.  They're so soft and warm coming out of the wipe warmer and you really only needed one, whereas I always used to use several disposables when I changed diapers as a nanny.  Our bottles also worked out really well. She was an exceptionally easy baby, but all of these things felt great.  It's actually what I miss the most.  When we got back from Portland, I washed all of the diapers and clothes, and we put away all of the things we had out to care for Ida.  While we were doing that, I felt really peaceful.  Once everything was clean and put away, I felt really sad.  That feeling has stuck with me.  I just want to take care of my baby.  And maybe Ida wasn't my baby, but she taught me how great it can feel to take care of your baby.

6.  Thoughts on other people's reactions (and if anyone who has said the ones I'm critical of is reading this, please don't take this personally - it's not directed towards anyone and I can't even remember everyone who has said these things, I just know they've been said!)

     a.  Upon the match - Lots of people were drilling us with questions about the legal process.  Adoptions (in Washington State) are inherently unstable for at least the first 48 hours, potentially a lot longer depending on the birth father's status.  The last thing someone who has just brought a baby home wants to deal with is questions about the relinquishment process or the default process.  Just be happy for them and offer excitement and support.  They have to manage their own worries about the relinquishment finalization, they can't really manage anyone else's.  It's part of the reason we didn't tell anyone that it was falling apart until it actually was officially fallen apart.  It might have been helpful to have family and friend support on the Wednesday afternoon we spent at the mall while LeeAnn was changing her mind back and forth, and that night when she sent the text that ended it all, but I just couldn't deal with anyone else feeling stressed about the situation, so it seemed better to just go it as a team of two.

     b.  If you know someone who has this happen to them, please make sure that anyone who you told about the adoption match is also told about the disruption.  I have been congratulated by all kinds of people who heard from others about the match.  Word obviously spread really, really fast that I had a baby at home.  Word has not gotten around nearly as fast that I didn't.  Help a girl out!!  Trying to tell people who are congratulating you that there's nothing to celebrate is really awkward.

     c.  Some people suggested that next time, we should just keep the whole match a secret until it's all final so we can avoid uncomfortable conversations.  First off, that's impossible.  We both have to take time off from work, our families certainly need to know, and our neighbors and friends might notice that we are suddenly carting around some noisy little 8 pound wriggly thing.  Second, it's really disrespectful to the process of adoption and marginalizes adoptive families.  Sure, going through a disruption was really hard, but we loved how much support, excitement, kindness, and compassion we received through the process.  How awful to go through it all alone, with no excitement that the baby was home with us, and no support when the disruption took place.  Finally, the adoption isn't actually final for months and months.  We are not keeping our new family member a secret for that long!!

     c.  Best reaction ever - when my friend Stephanie dropped off the gifts for Ida and some items she thought would be helpful.  It made me feel like we were "normal" and we were being treated like anyone else who had a baby.  We didn't have a baby shower, we didn't have visitors in a hospital room bringing us flowers and teddy bears, but we had a sweet little package on our front porch and that rocked.

On a sadder note, since Ida left, I feel like I don't have a sense of purpose anymore.  I have lost interest in things I used to be interested in.  To deal with this, I've lately been saying yes to every invitation that comes my way because I know I need to get out of the house and the only way I will is if someone is waiting for me out in the world.  Otherwise, I have holed up in our basement, where I watch television all day.  I go to work, but I'm super distracted and can't remember a lot of things that I should remember.  I'm sort of overcome.  Time will heal a lot of that, and I know that getting back out in the world doing things will help.  I know that we are back in the pool and I'm just dying for a screening email or call - just anything to let me know that the process is back on track.

As much as this has been a difficult situation, if I could go back and make it not happen, I wouldn't.  I loved being a mommy for the short time we had.  Those two nights were precious to me, and I like to think about them a lot.  I liked being able to test-drive some of the plans we had for parenting, and I liked learning that Rob and I really worked well as a team.  I'm probably going to be a bit off for a while, but in the end, it will all work out - everything somehow always does.