Wild Geese


By Mary Oliver


You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Testing day…part 2

Negative. White. Blank. No shadow. No line. Nada. Zip.

Could be worse, right?

So, my question to you is….if AF is not on her way (no symptoms) then did I actually ovulate?

In the meeting…for Fern

You know that saying: “It never rains, but it pours”??? Yeah, so 10 minutes before I picked McRuger up for our meeting about Fern, we got a message asking if we wanted a 5 day old baby girl. Uhhhh, how do I even answer that question? By the time I was able to return the call, the baby was placed with someone else. But wow.

Anyway, the meeting for Fern went well. There are some positive things about this adoptive placement (for us) and some negative things (for us) as well. I know that foster parents are supposed to be hoping for everything to work out for the bio-parents and reunification…but this is my blog and I am going to talk about what this means for us. I am not hoping the parents fail, but I am hoping that the best thing happens for this little girl. I will be addressing this issue in a later post.

The “positives”
1) Parents have “lost” three kids to adoption already
2) Mom has a long history of going off her meds (one of the conditions of reunification)
3) No family or friends have expressed an interest in Fern

The “negatives”
1) The ultimate goal at the moment is reunification
2) The parents have 6 months to meet reunification requirements
3) We don’t know bio-mom’s HIV status (or that of the baby)
4) Bio-parents are doing really well on reunification so far (1 month in)

So, we accepted the placement. On Friday we’ll meet her for the first time and she will start transitioning to our home over the next week or so. It’s going to be a hard 5 months (until March) when the next court date will determine what happens next in Fern’s life. Sure, there will be clues, but it’s all a waiting game. Until then, Fern is going to be our daughter. I have no idea what this means for our TTC life…because lord knows how that’s going to work. Fern is only 6 weeks old and hasn’t yet established a schedule of sleeping/eating…..so, that’s not great for the old love life.

McRuger and I are both excited and nervous. This whole placement seems much different than it was for Amber. It seems more official and “real”. More tomorrow! And, yes, I will test again…but I am pretty sure that I won’t get a BFP. Oh, someone asked if I was on any supplements that would delay AF…nope.  Yep, it’s a head-scratcher.

Testing day…

Yeah, not pregnant…I don’t think. There wasn’t a second line, but there was a very light shadow of one. So, I am just thinking my mind is playing tricks on me and it was a BFN (as usual). Honestly, there were no tears and no sobs…just a quiet acceptance of what I already knew. As McRuger pointed out, I didn’t test first thing this morning (at 3:30)…so I will be testing tomorrow…just in case.

Ughh, IF sucks.

The meeting.

I called Dingbat today and she actually picked up on the first ring. The post-match meeting will take place Wednesday at 3:30pm. If I’m being honest, I am nervous about this. This whole match has McRuger worried. He feels “burdened” by Fern’s potential arrival. He wants to go through with the match (barring any red flags), but he’s worried about it. Every time I bring it up, he gets pretty serious pretty quickly. None of the joking or laughter seem to get him out of the mood. I think that he’s getting used to our child-free life and likes it. He can game and watch tv as much as he wants. He can have all of my attention and I’m not frazzled or tired. We can FD/BD anytime we want. And yet, he keeps telling me that he wants this match to go through….nerves perhaps?

But that’s not me. I enjoy having little ones around. And yet, even I have butterflies in my stomach. This match seems more “official” than Amber was. I talked to our advocate today (she’s coming to the meeting with us). She said that transitioning Fern into our home will take over a week! Amber was in our care within 48 hours of accepting the match (heck, we had her before the post-match). I guess because Fern is so young, they want to do the transition slowly. We’ll find out more tomorrow. Our advocate also said that Fern is a healthy little baby and seems to be very happy.

The house is ready. My Ama.zon order will come in tomorrow. I just want all the uncertainty to be over with. And that’s just naive since the next several months will be nothing but uncertainty with this little one.  Ugghhh. Don’t you just hate uncertainty? I just hope that tomorrow brings some clarity and understanding.

Day in the trenches.

McRuger stayed home from work today. He was feeling a little off and I forced him to stay home and relax. I am a firm believer in the healing power of a day on the couch drinking lots of water. I didn’t want him pushing himself and then getting sick later this week when I really need a non-sick husband. Ironically, he missed his flu shot appointment at work. He’ll make it up next week.

For me, today was about cleaning little things: nursery closet, guest bathroom, floors, and my eyebrows. Oh my, it’s been way too long since I have plucked! I looked very fuzzy up there. Thankfully, that was the least arduous task of my day. I also went through all of our baby clothes from Amber and pulled anything that I thought might fit a younger baby. Luckily, I have several outfits that would work for ages 0-3 months and a few from 3-6 months. If any social workers make a surprise visit, we’re ready.

I dashed Dingbat an e-mail before I remembered that today is a holiday. So, the earliest we’ll hear about when our post-match meeting is tomorrow. In the meantime, McRuger and I had a very serious conversation about what we want to have covered in the post-match. Here’s our list:

Post Match Meeting Questions 

1) What other adoptive options are there for Fern? Relatives? Family friends? At what point will those be explored? 

2) Details of reunification plan. What requirements must the parents meet? Are there any plans to place parents in rehab with Fern? Dates? 

3) Details of medical history. Premature? Birth weight? Any medical problems during/post birth? Current health status? 

4) Have the mom been tested for HIV? Status? 

5) What is the drug history of mom? What drugs was she using? Father’s history? 

6) How long has Fern been in foster care? 

7) What were the circumstances of Fern’s siblings adoption? Who adopted her/him? 

8) Are there any family members or family friends who have expressed and interest in adopting/caring for Fern? 

Generally speaking, we know this is a legal-risk placement, but we want to make sure that we have all the information we possibly can before we say yes. Please feel free to add any questions you may have…we’re always happy to add to the list. We have also come up with our “red flags” list. This is the list that would give us pause to accept the placement. It’s a very short list, but it’s good to have our boundaries listed out. 

I also took the time to order a few other things from Ama.zon (like this, this, this, and this). I know it’s premature, but if this placement suddenly happens, I need to be prepared. The way I see it, once she’s here all we’ll need is diapers and formula. Most of everything else we have left over from Amber. I’ll pick Fern up some more clothes only once she gets here. 

What else have I done today? Nothing much. Em has spent much of her day on the couch with McRuger. She’s so cute when she curls up next to him. 

Relishing the quiet

It’s 13dpiui/CD28 and nothing. No, there’s less than nothing. The “ladies” don’t hurt at all. I am not more thirsty than usual. No cramps or headaches.  I am sleeping just fine. No hint that even AF is on her way. What’s up with that? I would think that sometime soon AF would be showing herself…but I guess not. I will still test on Wednesday, but have no doubts that it will be a BFN…again.

This weekend was quiet. Beautifully so. McRuger and I read, cooked, cleaned, and walked Em. And every moment I tried to not to think about what our life will be like once we have Fern. It didn’t work and I ended up thinking about Fern a lot. Questions just zizz about my brain without any control. The main one being….”Will she be the one or will we end up broken like we were after Amber?”.

I have spent time this weekend re-reading the posts leading up to and immediately after Amber left us. I want to remember how hard it was, how much I cried, and how empty I felt. I needed to remind myself that  it is not easy to give these babies back to someone else. I thought of how we only had Amber for 13 days. What’s it going to be like if we have to give Fern back after 2, 3, or 5 months? I don’t think I can comprehend how that would feel.

But, the quiet also brought up some wonderful feelings. McRuger and I just love being together. We are good together. And if this baby doesn’t work out, there’s a child out there for us…we just have to work harder to find her.

We don’t know when the post-match meeting is yet. Our list of questions is growing and growing.

How was your weekend?