Waiting

I've never been very good at waiting. In Kindergarten my table partner was too slow at his homework--we couldn't move on to another activity until both of our work was done, so I did it for him until I got caught and moved to a different table. After I graduated, I couldn't wait to leave--so much so that I decided to rush just so I could move into my dorm a week earlier. To be fair, I went through two days of sorority recruitment and then quit. And now I find myself waiting again. We have officially completed all of our initial paperwork to get us into the adoption pool. We're waiting to receive confirmation that we were approved and placed in the pool....then, we'll wait some more to be matched with a birth mom/birth parents.

So what do we do while we wait for an undetermined amount of time? Someone asked me the other day if I was going to work on a nursery this summer....and though it's so tempting to clean out our spare room and convert it into the nursery of my dreams, I don't think this would be good for me. I would have a difficult time walking by an empty nursery day after day wondering and hoping for the child that may or may not be. Someone else recommended that we start looking for a daycare provider. How do you even get on a waiting list for daycares when you have no time frame of when you'd need daycare? We have been attending several classes and workshops designed for adoptive parents--prenatal drug and alcohol exposure, newborn care classes, parenting a child whose birth family has a history of mental health issues, etc. And though these are great, I feel like I need something that's "child-free" to take my mind off of our adoption. (I hope people don't read that wrong! I want our adoption to go through, but I don't want to dwell...)

I read a few articles about what to do during this "wait time" in a recent issue of Adoptive Families magazine (a great magazine for people adopting, interested in adopting or wanting to learn more about adoption). In one article readers weighed in and gave suggestions about what they did during this wait time---and the best advice I read was to have fun and spend as much time as possible with your partner. I can do this. So---we're planning a last minute hiking trip with another couple to the Boulder area for this weekend (hopefully the weather holds up for us!). And...a vacation to the Portland/Seattle area is in the works for the end of July! Ever since I started reading Don Miller a few years back, I've wanted to visit these two cities. We've decided not to get too crazy planning our trip since we want it to be laid back with no rushed, set timetable. But we will drive so we can see more of the country and we know for sure that we want to do some hiking around the Mt. Hood area. I would also love to visit the Pike Place Market in Seattle. And we have to visit a jazz club---that's a given. Nate and I haven't been on a true vacation where we call the shots since our honeymoon almost five years ago, so we are stoked about the trip.

As much as I want to fill my time with preparing for a potential baby---I'm just not sure my heart can take it. So if we get a call, we will be unprepared--we'll be crib-less, bottle-less, etc. But I'm okay with that. We'll make it work. Until then--I'm going to enjoy the time I have with my husband.