Loss and hope

A week ago my brother announced that they were expecting their 4th child, and about 3 months along, but Sunday they found out that she'd miscarried. We're all trying to help them deal with that. It's hard though. I know enough from my battles with infertility how easy it is for well meaning people to say something that is completely the wrong thing to say because while it may seem "helpful," to the person hearing it it's like twisting the dagger. I've been sending them some links to some miscarriage support pages and articles about how it's ok for them to have all the emotions and pain they are going to have. While most of us in the family have only known about this baby for a week, for them it was years of waiting and hoping and expectation and 3 months of "hey, we're having a baby.." There has been a death in the family even if most of the family doesn't realize it.

Personally, today I decided to stay indoors and finally go through my pots and pans. I got a new set about a month or two ago but have never had the time to sit and weed out the ones that need to go. Finally got that done today and now there is room, the door actually closes all the way and everything... Even got one of the other cupboards sorted a little and made room on one of the book cases in the living room for a bunch of parenting books I had ordered that came in the mail today. (And I got them for FREE!! Being in the military reserve does have some benefits!)

Speaking of parenting, today, in the mail, we got the paperwork from the agency we're going to try adopting through, so now we've got to sit and go though all of that, dig out all the info they want, do the background checks, etc... and figure out where we'll come up with all the money :) I was starting to print out the requests for copies of our tax records from the IRS, but my printer is out of ink, so will have to wait and do that later. I was just so anxious to get started!

Waiting...

Well, it has been an exciting week. My oldest step daughter and her family might have found a house, they are doing all the paper work and the waiting involved with that... My brother announced that he and his wife are expecting their fourth child. They don't know yet if it will be a boy or a girl. They have 3 girls so are hoping for a boy this time.
Tomorrow, my two younger step daughters arrive for the summer and we have a friend's wedding that evening as well. And we've been running around to appointments all week. Hubby is having a crown put on after a root canal. The temporary crown was put in Monday and the final one will be put on in 2 weeks, but the temp one came off this morning so we've got to go in this afternoon and get it reattached. And he had a bit of a minor motorcycle accident over the weekend as well so we've had to tow the bike around to get it looked at to find out how much it was going to cost to fix it. Fortunately he is safe and sound, hardly even any bruising. Nothing broken, just a few scraped knees. Thankfully he was wearing all his gear and wasn't hurt more. And turns out the bike isn't too badly damaged, either..
And.. this afternoon I called the case worker with Catholic Social Services here in Alaska and am waiting for her to call me back so we can set up an appointment to start all the paperwork and everything to get things moving on our adoption. So now I am waiting.. Hoping she calls back soon, before we have to run off to the dentist office today.. But if not, I will be calling her back tomorrow, sometime in between all our running around.. and/or Monday.

thoughts...

Today has been a sad day. I was reading some other blogs this morning and it got me to thinking about how much I'm missing because I don't have children. It has gotten me very sad today and really I just want to sit down and have a good cry. Unfortunately, I'm not one of those women who can have a good cry.. instead, I blubber and get all snotty and congested and can't breath, and often as not, wind up throwing up. Sorry for telling you that, but, well, there it is. So it's hard to even have a good cry and "get over it," as they say...
My husband gets back from work today and will be home for the next 3 weeks. Am happy for him to be coming home. Next week my step daughters will be arriving for the summer as well. They will keep us busy for the summer and we're planning and hoping on having lots of fun with them this summer. My oldest step daughter is off today meeting with mortgage lenders. They think they've found a house they like and are hoping to get the ball rolling on purchasing as soon as possible. While we will miss having them in the house, if they get the one they are looking at, they will only be about 9 miles away, so we can live with that. :)
I long to be able to have a child or two running around this home on a daily basis. I find all sorts of educational things that I want to get for my kids, so they can learn about this great big wonderful universe and all the tiny little things in it, all the while knowing that who knows if I will ever have those children. It makes me sad and I want to cry.
But hubby will be home, and hopefully while he is home this time we can meet with the adoption agency and get all that paperwork started, and maybe, one day, hopefully soon, I will be able to bring home one of my missing children...

Nieces

Today I thought I'd talk a little about my nieces. My younger brother and his wife (she is from Venezuela) have three beautiful little girls, Shayla, Mikaela, and Sasha. Ages 8, 6 and 4, this is a picture of them taken in April, around the time of Sasha's 4th birthday. I don't get to see them often, in fact, I've never gotten to meet the younger two and haven't seen Shayla in ages. But my brother does his best to keep us informed as to all their crazy antics.
See, the problem is, I live in Alaska now, and he lives in Nebraska. Not an easy trip to make most of the time. I miss getting to be part of their lives, but I love hearing about their crazy antics. This year, so far anyway, It's been a Sasha year. Silly girl had pneumonia earlier this year and had fever spikes so high she started having seizures and had to spend some time in the hospital. She recovered from that just fine, thankfully, but apparently decided that she really liked the hospital and just a few weeks ago managed to break her arm while jumping off the couch when her parents weren't looking. I think she did it just to go back to the hospital. She was apparently very brave though and didn't cry. The doctors didn't think she could have broken the bone until they got the x-rays back, they'd never seen a 4 year old that calm.
I don't have too many stories about Mika, apparently she's the quiet sort, though she started school not too long ago, and most of Shayla's stuff these days is related to school. Shayla had been born with a cleft palate, and had lots of surgery right off the bat, but she has healed up very well and you barely notice the scar on her lip, so yay for modern medicine...
Anyway, I can't say too much about them, as I know my brother doesn't want too much info about them put up on public forums, but I wanted to share a glimpse of my extended family. He is hoping to move soon, I doubt it will be all the way up here, but we're hoping they can come up and visit some time in the future.