he waxes profound

Paul (after watching American Idol): I just had an hour of my life sucked out of my life. It's deep. Think about it.

a lightness in my soul

Hi, blog. Remember when I told you that I wouldn't neglect you ever ever? That I would be there for you, in good times and bad, until computer virus do us part?

Sorry, blog.

Really, I mean it. I'm sorry. It will never happen again. It's just that I was busy. Nothing funny is going on, I SWEAR. Please accept these red roses and this heart-shaped box of chocolates as a sincere expression of my deep and profoundly felt sorrow at the hurt I have caused you, blog.

What? You're not buying it? I thought the heart-shaped box of chocolates would do the trick, for sure.

Okay, okay. I'll level with you.

I did IVF again. And it didn't work. Again.

And it turns out that when I am in the middle of an IVF cycle, I cannot concentrate on anything.

Anything.

Everyone and everything I see reminds me of babies and all I want to do is look at baby products online and my brain turns to a gigantic bowl of baby oatmeal and if I attempted to write a blog post all that would come out is something like goo-goo-ga-ga BABIES and there is nothing whatsoever I can do about it.

But now, it's over. No more shots, at least for a little while. No more hot flashes and mood swings and feeling like I'm turning into a science experiment. Life has become normal again. Well, normal..... with extra twinkies.

My brain has begun once again to recognize non baby-related terms. I actually feel like exercising. Studying is again possible. And I feel like writing.

But what is there to say? What do I feel like saying?

For a while, the words in my heart and head were kind of sad. They matched my feelings, I guess. So it's not that I didn't think about you, blog, because I did. I just didn't want to bum you out. You're not a living being and thus are unable to eat cookie dough and I just didn't know how you would deal with sad feelings without cookie dough.

Today, though, the words in my heart and head are different. They match a lightness in my soul. And my soul feels like warm yellow sunlight and like flying on a trapeze and like when you eat a warm chocolate chip cookie with milk.

My soul feels good.

My soul feels like everything will turn out okay. And while I wait, there are warm chocolate chip cookies with milk and Paul to eat them with.

love and boxes

I am thinking about love.

We've been getting ready to move apartments. That's why it's been like a million years since I've posted. I've been clearing and cleaning and folding and boxing up our lives, and the words inside my head have been waiting to be aired out.

And now it is late, and I am sitting on the couch and our apartment is a mess and I should probably wash the silverware but I don't want to.

I want to think about love.

I like love. I love love. Always have. A good portion of my formative years were spent yearning for romantic connection, memorizing old musicals, dreaming of the day when the stories spun in my head would be for reals.

I think Paul kind of shakes his head at my shameless romanticism. Honestly, I shake my own head at my shameless romanticism. In my defense, I am far more sensible now than I was at fifteen. But I am who I am, and knowing I can frequently be somewhat silly and ridiculous in no way prevents me from being either silly or ridiculous, especially when it comes to love.

And so what I want to say is this:

The love I pictured in my head when I was fifteen is not the same love that I experience now, sitting among empty pizza boxes and odds and ends waiting to be packed.

The love I experience now is sometimes messy. There are disappointments and bad smells and unwashed silverware. Boxes to be packed, work to be done. Hard work.

But there is also Paul scratching my back and Paul smiling because I don't know how to use tools and Paul holding me when I cry and he puts his hand on the back of my neck which feels protective in a nice way.

And all of these things well up inside me and make a feeling unlike any imagined abstract passion, a feeling that is clean and constant and true.

And strong enough to withstand moving apartments.

that about clinches it

This evening as Paul and I sat, Paul watching football and me attempting to watch football, Paul cast a loving gaze upon our cat, Gilly. As he cradled her gently in his arms, he cooed:

"I would follow you into war."

If we weren't already crazy cat people, I'm pretty sure we are now. I think once the phrase "I would follow you into war" is uttered to a cat, you are automatically inducted into some secret club and I fully expect a welcome package to appear on our doorstep tomorrow morning, complete with T-shirts and mugs.

Good grief.

God opens a dishwasher

You know how they say when God closes a door He opens a window?

Well, for us God closed a door and opened.....

A dishwasher.

That's right. A dishwasher. Paul and I just got the excellent news that our application to a lovely one-bedroom apartment just a block or so away from our present location has been accepted, and that apartment has A DISHWASHER!!!!

I know, I know, some might call our decision to downsize just as we are in active pursuit of posterity somewhat counter-intuitive, but we can save like five hundred bucks a month, and since this apartment comes equipped with this most desirable of amenities, it just seemed like a wise decision.

A DISHWASHER!!!!!!

No more will utensils lie unwashed in the sink because Paul and I both hate washing them. Gone are the days of letting dishes dry on top of the stove, gone are the days of....well, I guess those are the only days that come to mind. You get the idea.

We're really excited about this dishwasher.

a dress waits to be filled (i did not expect this miracle)

"I have something I want to talk to you about."

That's the message Linda left on my phone last Sunday. I hadn't heard from Linda in a while, not since she and her husband and new baby moved back to Utah. I liked her. She's beautiful and soft-spoken and kind and considerate. We served in church together. Her baby made me want to shout for joy, she was so cute.

But I hadn't heard from her in like a year and half. Which is why I was a little surprised when I knew, just knew, that Linda was going to tell me she had a baby for me to adopt.

I called her right back. She answered, and we engaged in small talk until after a while I cut to the chase and was like "what can I do for you?" and that's when Linda told me about her. She told me about her friend, her wonderful, bright and very pregnant friend.

This friend was due on March 12th. It was a girl, the doctors thought. And Linda had thought of us and the birth mother wanted to give us her baby and I hung up the phone and told Paul and we were like YESSSSS and then I called Linda back and left her like three messages, each more excited than the last, telling her we would love to adopt this baby.

Paul and I got this news while we were on vacation, staying with redstarmama and her family. That night, we went to the beach and had a bonfire. The tide glowed blue and when you walked on the sand little explosions of sparkly stars appeared under your feet and while it was probably something to do with algae or plankton or something science-ish, really to me it was magic and the whole world, the ocean and sand and sky, was celebrating the start of our family.

The next day we were in the car with redstarmama and her family, on our way to the museum and Linda called to tell us the birth mom was excited and the baby would be ours and then Paul got sick to his stomach and puked and we thought that's such a good story, that Paul puked as he found out he was going to be a dad.

I couldn't stop smiling. We called our parents and siblings and we talked about names, and I looked up baby stuff online, stuff like strollers and cribs and baby swings. We got a lawyer and filled out paperwork. And when I watched Paul help with redstarmama's little girl I was thinking about what it would be like to watch him with our own little girl.

We got back from vacation, and there was more paperwork, more to be done. A lot to be done. And we had just eight weeks to do it. That was okay, though. Neither Paul or myself are prone to looking a gift baby in the mouth.

Paul and I were excited. Thrilled. Beyond words, really. We were excited and thrilled beyond words. Thursday night we couldn't sleep and we stayed up until three in the morning looking at baby clothes online and making plans and when we crawled into bed it was only because our bodies insisted on rest.

We woke late, at ten. And I stumbled into the living room and checked my phone and Linda had tried calling five times and then everything changed.

The baby had been born. Even though the birth mother had a doctor appointment just the other day and everything had looked fine, she had gone into labor and the baby was born. It sounded like everything was fine, though. Just early.

And Paul and I proceeded to push a month's worth of paperwork through in a matter of hours and it wasn't how we had thought things would happen, but everything seemed to be falling into place and it felt meant to be.

That night, Paul talked to one of the nurses who was helping care for the baby. The baby was sick, she said. So many things wrong. Words like intraventricular hemmorhage, grade three, things like the cord was wrapped around the baby's neck and she was blue and listless and nobody knew just yet how bad things were, but they sounded pretty bad.

We were up late that night. We talked and prayed and thought. Was this what we were meant to do? Could we care for such a sick little baby? Was she ours? And if she wasn't, how could we feel good about saying no? Who would love this baby? Who would give the birth mother the peace of mind I am sure she desperately needed?

The lawyer sent us a picture of her. She looked so sick, so blue, so sad. And I looked at her and felt a mixture of unidentifiable and extreme emotions and I wondered, are you mine? Who will care for you?

Paul and I decided we would wait and talk with the doctor, to get a better idea of how serious the situation was. I guess everyone wants a healthy baby, and we certainly were no exception. But not every baby is healthy, and we suddenly found ourselves faced with a choice. We hoped the doctor would say things weren't so bad. We hoped for a miracle. And we got one, but not in the way I thought we would.

That night Paul fell asleep before I did, and as I crawled under the blankets and placed my hand on his back I loved him more than life and was all of a sudden overwhelmed with reassurance. We would be fine. I knew we would be fine. And that, right there, was a miracle, because my exhausted soul could not imagine how that would ever be possible, but peace claimed my body and I slept.

The next day we, drove to South Jersey to meet with our social worker. We stopped at a local mall on our way home and sat in the food court eating pizza and every once in a while we would exchange a weary smile or a brush of the hand and I thought we maybe looked like all the other tired couples, but there was nobody with as much love as us, and I knew the meaning behind those weary smiles.

Then we sat in the parking lot and Paul called the doctor. Paul said he was nervous, and I was too. And the doctor told us how sick the baby was, so sick that she would likely never leave the hospital, so sick that she would need care we just couldn't possibly provide. I watched Paul shake his head and take notes and Paul hung up the phone and we looked at each other.

"Sweetheart, I don't think this is our time..."

Paul looked at me and I knew, knew that this baby was not ours. "I know" I said, and we drove in exhausted silence and every so often I looked at Paul and knew there was a way to feel good again, and that we would find it, but I wondered about this baby, and who would love her, who would be her mother.

That evening, we called the lawyer we had hired to represent the birth mother. We told him about our decision, and thanked him for all of his help. We told him there was a check in the mail for his services and that's when it happened, when we got a miracle.

This lawyer knows a couple who wants specifically to adopt a special needs baby. And the couple found out about this baby and were excited to adopt her, but without financial means to do so, and the check we sent the lawyer will allow this couple to adopt this baby and that is a miracle to me, that where there had been pain there was now peace and the baby would be loved and cared for and a couple given the experience for which they have been waiting.

It is a week now since this began. I have gone from excitement to concern and from concern to grief and from grief to peace, and my body and soul rejoice in the love I feel for Paul, and for the opportunity we had to participate in the life of this mother and baby.

I am, once again, waiting. A week has passed and it could have been years for the tiredness in my soul, and I have nothing to show for the intensity of this experience, nothing except a tiny dress that hangs in my closet.

Waiting.

hiatus

I am not at home.

That's not a statement referring to the rather spacey state of my brain, although there are moments when that most certainly is the case. No, I am not at home, because Paul and I are in beautiful Aptos, CA, visiting redstarmama and her charming family.

And I loves it.

So, I am taking a teeny tiny blogging break. Until Thursday. And then I will regale you with tales of wonder, tales of hearbreaking depth and beauty, tales of bacon and twinkies and smoked ribs and fireworks on the beach.

Not now, though. Right now I'm going to eat eclair cake and pass out.