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!
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
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.
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.
Friday, June 11, 2010
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...
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...
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
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.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Our Dogs
I mentioned that I'd likely be posting about our dogs, and this seems a good day for it as I've spent a good portion of the weekend caring for one of them. (will get to that later..)
People are always saying that small dogs and small children don't mix. I think that depends a lot on the dogs and the children. We currently have 3 small dogs. They love small children. Our grand daughter (baby G) is currently living with us (her parents too..) and she just loves the dogs. She's two and a half right now, but she spent time up here a few times over the last 2 years so we have had the chance to see them react to her at different ages.
They adore her. We never had any qualms about leaving her alone with the pommies.
The youngest one, Gobo, is 3 and will occasionally want to play "rough" which pretty much means she'll wind up getting licked to death. He was born with several birth defects, the most noticeable one being that he doesn't have the traditional pommie tail. Oddly, this seems to allow him better balance on 2 legs and he will often stand up and walk around to beg for attention. He also has some problems with is "boy bits" which we have to keep an eye on. They tried repairing some of it in surgery, but it didn't work because there were even more things wrong then we'd realized. But he is doing well now. Just have to keep an eye on things. This weekend he's apparently been bitten by something and managed to chew a large raw spot on his back, so he's been a bit needy this weekend while I'm trying to keep him from making things worse. That all seems to be settling down now though, and as long as I can keep him away from the sore, he should be ok and start healing soon.
Gir is a little older and a little more stand off-ish.. she's also the smallest of the dogs and has never really liked the hubbub. But she will sit and be petted and if the others start to get too excited, she just leaves. We got her from the same breeder we got Gobo from, though she is not from the same lines. She'd been brought up here to add to the breeding stock then, once she got here, it was discovered that she had bad knees (which you want to breed out, not in..) and was underweight, so she couldn't be used for breeding. So we got called to see if we would take her or knew of anyone who would and she joined our little gang. Turned out she also had 4 extra teeth in her mouth and a bunch of other dental problems. She wound up having to have 16 teeth pulled.. Sadly, her teeth are still bad and we might have to have more pulled. She is a total joy, though. She gets so excited to see us, she spins and dances around the floor.
Willow was the only one we were ever really concerned with. She's a 9 year old Jack Russell. Very dominant personality, very protective. She was a little snappy when we first got her a few years ago. (All of our dogs have basically been rescues of one sort or another.) And she still has her moments. (For instance, she really hates the oven. We have no idea why, but she will attack the couch or a toy or something or run around barking at it when we open the oven. We really don't understand this, but are trying to work with her on this.) We got her from a friend of a friend. They were headed off to college and her parents had told her to find a new home for the dog or they were going to shoot her, because they wanted a rottweiler. I really hope they didn't get such a big, powerful dog.. We've been told that Willow is actually pretty mellow for her breed, but there is no number of pommies that can prepare you for a JRT, even a "mellow" one..
So we were a little worried at first about how she would react to baby G.
Willow has been wonderful with her. We were rather surprised at how quickly she took to her. Willow has always been very protective of "her" girls (B2 and M) and it seems baby G is now in that fold. If Gobo gets "rowdy", Willow will come stand between and push Gobo away. If she thinks anyone is going to hurt G, she does the same thing. There's only been one incident where G was tugging on Willow's ear while she was trying to eat. Willow didn't like that and let G know. No skin was broken, Willow knows she gets in BIG trouble over that, but she will bare her teeth and can be very scary looking. They never get left alone, either way, but it is also good for G to learn there are limits and that you should be nice to animals.
I'm really sad that I can't include one other dog on this list. The first dog we got as a family, Pepe, passed away very suddenly in March, so she is no longer with us to be a part of this. However, she was such a big part of our family, and my healing process in coming to terms with infertility, that I might just have to make another post about her later.
People are always saying that small dogs and small children don't mix. I think that depends a lot on the dogs and the children. We currently have 3 small dogs. They love small children. Our grand daughter (baby G) is currently living with us (her parents too..) and she just loves the dogs. She's two and a half right now, but she spent time up here a few times over the last 2 years so we have had the chance to see them react to her at different ages.
They adore her. We never had any qualms about leaving her alone with the pommies.
The youngest one, Gobo, is 3 and will occasionally want to play "rough" which pretty much means she'll wind up getting licked to death. He was born with several birth defects, the most noticeable one being that he doesn't have the traditional pommie tail. Oddly, this seems to allow him better balance on 2 legs and he will often stand up and walk around to beg for attention. He also has some problems with is "boy bits" which we have to keep an eye on. They tried repairing some of it in surgery, but it didn't work because there were even more things wrong then we'd realized. But he is doing well now. Just have to keep an eye on things. This weekend he's apparently been bitten by something and managed to chew a large raw spot on his back, so he's been a bit needy this weekend while I'm trying to keep him from making things worse. That all seems to be settling down now though, and as long as I can keep him away from the sore, he should be ok and start healing soon.
Gir is a little older and a little more stand off-ish.. she's also the smallest of the dogs and has never really liked the hubbub. But she will sit and be petted and if the others start to get too excited, she just leaves. We got her from the same breeder we got Gobo from, though she is not from the same lines. She'd been brought up here to add to the breeding stock then, once she got here, it was discovered that she had bad knees (which you want to breed out, not in..) and was underweight, so she couldn't be used for breeding. So we got called to see if we would take her or knew of anyone who would and she joined our little gang. Turned out she also had 4 extra teeth in her mouth and a bunch of other dental problems. She wound up having to have 16 teeth pulled.. Sadly, her teeth are still bad and we might have to have more pulled. She is a total joy, though. She gets so excited to see us, she spins and dances around the floor.
Willow was the only one we were ever really concerned with. She's a 9 year old Jack Russell. Very dominant personality, very protective. She was a little snappy when we first got her a few years ago. (All of our dogs have basically been rescues of one sort or another.) And she still has her moments. (For instance, she really hates the oven. We have no idea why, but she will attack the couch or a toy or something or run around barking at it when we open the oven. We really don't understand this, but are trying to work with her on this.) We got her from a friend of a friend. They were headed off to college and her parents had told her to find a new home for the dog or they were going to shoot her, because they wanted a rottweiler. I really hope they didn't get such a big, powerful dog.. We've been told that Willow is actually pretty mellow for her breed, but there is no number of pommies that can prepare you for a JRT, even a "mellow" one..
So we were a little worried at first about how she would react to baby G.
Willow has been wonderful with her. We were rather surprised at how quickly she took to her. Willow has always been very protective of "her" girls (B2 and M) and it seems baby G is now in that fold. If Gobo gets "rowdy", Willow will come stand between and push Gobo away. If she thinks anyone is going to hurt G, she does the same thing. There's only been one incident where G was tugging on Willow's ear while she was trying to eat. Willow didn't like that and let G know. No skin was broken, Willow knows she gets in BIG trouble over that, but she will bare her teeth and can be very scary looking. They never get left alone, either way, but it is also good for G to learn there are limits and that you should be nice to animals.
I'm really sad that I can't include one other dog on this list. The first dog we got as a family, Pepe, passed away very suddenly in March, so she is no longer with us to be a part of this. However, she was such a big part of our family, and my healing process in coming to terms with infertility, that I might just have to make another post about her later.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Adoption workshop
This past weekend hubby and I went to a 3 day adoption workshop run by pretty much the only non state agency in Alaska (ok, there is one little one up in Fairbanks as well, but for our purposes... ya know..) Catholic Social Services has been doing adoptions in Alaska for over 40 years, so they have a pretty good track record, and even though we're not Catholic, they don't seem to mind. We had previously considered LDS Family Services, but turns out that they tend to farm out most of the paperwork and home studies and such to CSS, so we've decided we might as well just work with them.
It looks like a very good program, they offer lots of counseling for birth families and provide lots of follow up for all sides afterwards. They strongly promote open adoptions, though the level of openness varies and is something that everyone decides and agrees to up front.
It was a great way for Tom to get all caught up and up to speed on things. I've been doing the research on this for years, but he's had other things (like last year's deployment) to keep his mind otherwise occupied, and there were a lot of things he hadn't thought of or didn't know about.
It was a great experience and the next step for us is to set up an appointment to go in and talk to them and get all the paperwork started. That will be waiting a few weeks though as Tom heads back to work on the North Slope tomorrow. Sadly this weekend also saw us both completely mobbed by a nasty virus that had been going around so we took the last few days to recover this week. But we are once again fit and sane and not all doped up on cold meds :) *lol*
It looks like a very good program, they offer lots of counseling for birth families and provide lots of follow up for all sides afterwards. They strongly promote open adoptions, though the level of openness varies and is something that everyone decides and agrees to up front.
It was a great way for Tom to get all caught up and up to speed on things. I've been doing the research on this for years, but he's had other things (like last year's deployment) to keep his mind otherwise occupied, and there were a lot of things he hadn't thought of or didn't know about.
It was a great experience and the next step for us is to set up an appointment to go in and talk to them and get all the paperwork started. That will be waiting a few weeks though as Tom heads back to work on the North Slope tomorrow. Sadly this weekend also saw us both completely mobbed by a nasty virus that had been going around so we took the last few days to recover this week. But we are once again fit and sane and not all doped up on cold meds :) *lol*
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Family Info
I should probably start by giving you some information about our little family.
Tom and I were married in January of 2003. I had been living in Salt Lake City and he came down, we got married and then he and his friends moved me on up to Alaska. We had lots of adventures, some good, some not so good. And I got to know Tom's kids from his first marriage. They are pretty much a good bunch of kids, though some of them aren't really "kids" anymore...
B1 is the oldest gal, she's 23 and has a little family of her own. They've recently moved in with us temporarily while they save up money and look for a house. Has been loads of fun having her, C and "baby" G.. big changing having a 2.5 year old in the house, but great practice :)
D is the only boy of the lot (there was another, but he passed away at about a year old, so I never knew him..) He will be 22 later this year. D is a good kid, but is currently having a hard time figuring out who he is and what he really wants to do with his life. We're hoping he will get that all figured out soon, but until then we wait and love him.
B2 is 16 and working on getting her driver's license. She was just elected class president for next year and vp of her speech and debate club. She is also really into swimming and track. She's a great kid and really seems to know who she is in herself.
M is the youngest. She was 4 when we married, and will be 12 later this year. She has really grown up. We're still not sure where she's going yet, but it does look like she and B2 are geek girls.. and we couldn't be prouder :)
We also have several dogs. The current round is composed of Willow, a 9 year old Jack Russell Terrier, (B2's dog, really.. she's perfect for the girls, she is very very protective of them) Gobo, a 3 year old Pomeranian, and Gir, a 4 year old Pomeranian. Pepe and Rocky were our other dogs, both pommies, who might get mentioned from time to time. Rocky passed away about 3 years ago and Pepe just earlier this spring. We loved them dearly and miss them. They are definitely part of the family.
More later on each of us individually. :)
Tom and I were married in January of 2003. I had been living in Salt Lake City and he came down, we got married and then he and his friends moved me on up to Alaska. We had lots of adventures, some good, some not so good. And I got to know Tom's kids from his first marriage. They are pretty much a good bunch of kids, though some of them aren't really "kids" anymore...
B1 is the oldest gal, she's 23 and has a little family of her own. They've recently moved in with us temporarily while they save up money and look for a house. Has been loads of fun having her, C and "baby" G.. big changing having a 2.5 year old in the house, but great practice :)
D is the only boy of the lot (there was another, but he passed away at about a year old, so I never knew him..) He will be 22 later this year. D is a good kid, but is currently having a hard time figuring out who he is and what he really wants to do with his life. We're hoping he will get that all figured out soon, but until then we wait and love him.
B2 is 16 and working on getting her driver's license. She was just elected class president for next year and vp of her speech and debate club. She is also really into swimming and track. She's a great kid and really seems to know who she is in herself.
M is the youngest. She was 4 when we married, and will be 12 later this year. She has really grown up. We're still not sure where she's going yet, but it does look like she and B2 are geek girls.. and we couldn't be prouder :)
We also have several dogs. The current round is composed of Willow, a 9 year old Jack Russell Terrier, (B2's dog, really.. she's perfect for the girls, she is very very protective of them) Gobo, a 3 year old Pomeranian, and Gir, a 4 year old Pomeranian. Pepe and Rocky were our other dogs, both pommies, who might get mentioned from time to time. Rocky passed away about 3 years ago and Pepe just earlier this spring. We loved them dearly and miss them. They are definitely part of the family.
More later on each of us individually. :)
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