New Dad Photos

Two male friends of mine had their first babies within the last few weeks. The first photograph each shared of dad with baby looked so familiar.  Because I had the exact same photograph of Chris with Oliver. The adage "A picture is worth a thousand words" could really be "A picture conveys 1,000 emotions," when it comes to a new dad picture.  It's pride, fear, happiness, shock, awe, nervousness, and "I don't know what the heck I'm doing," all wrapped up in a sideways glance towards the camera and a day-old baby cradled awkwardly in the arms. 

In the days after Oliver's September 29, 2009 birth.

The new dad in this picture, well, he ended up doing fine.

No Match Tonight

I am disappointed.  I can't hide that.  As long as there was the possibility we would be matched tonight, however slim, I had my hopes. Referral night is like waiting to take a pregnancy test and wishing for that second line to appear.  Instead, I constantly refreshed my e-mail.  No news was good news, as our agency calls us first if we are matched.  When an e-mail from Bethany appeared, the news was unmistakeable though.  The subject line read, "no match tonight."

With no referral, all we can do is look ahead to next month.  As difficult as I find it to trust our child is out there and we will be matched with each other when the timing is right, all I have left is hope. 

Nevada: State #35

When we decided to go skiing in Lake Tahoe, California, I didn't realize that the lake sits on the border between California and Nevada.  Once I looked at the map, I told Chris that if we were going to be so close to the border, we'd take the time to dip into Nevada so I could check another state off my list in my quest to visit every state in the country.

On our first morning we headed southeast from Truckee, California and drove around the eastern side of Lake Tahoe, with South Lake Tahoe on the southern end of the lake as our destination.  I was so taken in by the view of the lake and mountains under blue sky that I hadn't even noticed we had crossed into Nevada, which borders the eastern side of California's famous lake.  When I saw Crystal Bay, Nevada printed on the side of the post office as we flashed by on the curvy mountain road, I made Chris turn the car around. 

Just across the border in Crystal Bay, Nevada

Although I'm sure he was at least slightly embarrassed acting like such a tourist, he obligingly took a picture of me in front of the "Welcome to Nevada" sign.  The moment I strolled away though, a car pulled up and a family of four popped out.  They were clearly as excited as I was about documenting their arrival in Nevada.  

The little slice of Nevada we saw along the shores of Lake Tahoe was stunning.  Which was why I was taken aback and disappointed to be confronted with casinos just steps across the border.  Just like the bars and liquor stores that sit on the other side of the border from the dry town I grew up in in New Jersey, the first thing you see when crossing into Nevada at Crystal Bay is a casino.  No joke.

Thankfully, much of the lake shore consists of state park land and wildlife management areas and some of the prettiest views of Lake Tahoe.  At every turn on the mountain road we'd encounter yet another stunning view.  Miles of pine tree-studded forests lay in between lakeside villages. 

Then we saw huge, glass-sided buildings looming in the distance.  Not realizing that we were re-approaching the border with California, it didn't occur to us that, yup, more casinos.  It was depressing to think that all Nevada tries to lure you to their state with is gambling when they have so much natural beauty to offer that otherwise gets overlooked. 

Stateline Avenue divides Stateline, Nevada from South Lake Tahoe, California.  On one side of the street are these monstrosities. 

On the California side there's a village with hotels and condos built above shops and centered on a pedestrian plaza.  You know the city has strictly-enforced design standards when the McDonald's is disguised as a mountain chalet.  The gondola for the Heavenly Mountain Resort ends in the center of the village and at day's end, people carrying skis and snowboards mingle on the city sidewalks with the dinner crowd. 

Despite my distaste for gambling, I hope to see more of Nevada some day.  Outside the rooms full of slot machines and walls seeped with decades of smoke, is a beautiful state. 

Toddlermoon

Five years ago at this time of year we were on our honeymoon in the Canadian Rockies.  It was this trip that we found out we were expecting Oliver.  I remember feeling euphoric at the idea that we were going to be parents.  I couldn't believe it was actually going to happen. Five years later in the Sierra Nevadas, I was a different kind of pregnant.  But I still felt the excitement, hope and anticipation and I still couldn't believe we were going to be parents a third time around, this time through adoption. 

Lake Tahoe ended up being our destination for what I affectionately referred to as our "toddlermoon."  A trip away for expecting parents has been coined a "babymoon," but since Oliver is quick to point out that he's not getting a baby brother or sister, but rather a toddler brother or sister, I thought "toddlermoon" was more appropriate. 

The trip really was a chance for Chris and me to spend quality time with each other and recharge.  With the perspective gained after nearly five years of parenting, I appreciated this trip much more than our original honeymoon-turned-babymoon.  With Oliver and Soren being well taken care of back home with Grandma and Grandpa, (the two who made this trip even feasible) we had no one to worry about except ourselves.  We skied hard, saw as much of the region as we could, ate at nice restaurants and lounged around in the evening watching the Olympics. 

Highlights of our toddlermoon include skiing at what felt like the top of the Sierra Nevadas with Lake Tahoe deep down in the valley below us, knocking another state off my quest to see every state in the country, receiving a kiss from an avalanche dog, and having uninterrupted conversations with Chris.

The views were unreal.

I Go First!

In recent weeks, the kids' competitive "spirit" has reached a new level.  "I go first" is a constant refrain from their mouths.  Each demands/cries/yells/tantrums to be the first to get in the car, wash his hands before dinner, pick out the bath toys, get in the bathtub, have his story ready first and so on.  Sometimes going first defies logic, like quitting playing just so he can be the first to wash his hands before dinner.  Of course there are a couple scenarios in which one insists the other actually should go first, like having his hair washed or getting out of the bathtub.  But by and large, refereeing who may go first now takes up a significant share of our everyday parenting responsibilities, along with reminding the kids to keep their hands to themselves, pick up their toys, use please and thank you and to stop egging the other on.

I don't know what sparks this "going first" desire, but I'm guessing it's normal and it's not going to end anytime soon.  A co-worker's elementary-age daughters still "compete" in who can go first in things you'd never think to want to or need to be first.  Everything for them is a competition.

It looks like I've got years of this ahead of me.  I'd better break out the referee whistle. 

Allowing Life to Guide You

Noelle Pikus-Pace, the Olympic skeleton racer, reminds me how special life can be when you allow yourself to take a new direction when the life you had envisioned doesn't turn out the way you had assumed it would.  Out of all the sports in the Olympics, the skeleton is a sport I know little about, but I'm a sucker for the human interest stories the newscasters sprinkle in between coverage of the events and Noelle's story (and endearing personality) immediately made her my favorite athlete.

Noelle was never supposed to compete in this Olympics.  She had retired after a freak accident prevented her from competing in the 2006 Olympics in Turin and a fourth place finish in the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver meant she didn't receive a medal.  She became pregnant with her third child and expected she would focus on raising her growing family.  Then she miscarried at 18 weeks. 

Despite her family's loss, she found the strength to go on, and with her husband's encouragement and promise that he and their kids would be literally with her every step of the way, decided to return to training and competition.  The 2014 Olympics made her known for her skill as a skeleton rider, but also for competing on her own terms.  Since I can't even clean the house with my kids underfoot, I have no idea how Noelle managed to train to be an Olympic champion with her children as her companions, but she maintained that she wouldn't return to competing unless her family accompanied her.  She fit in trainings between dropping her oldest off at school and her youngest's nap time.  The little one hung out with mom at the gym and track, unaware of what his mom was working to accomplish.  When Noelle won silver in Sochi, her husband and two young children were there cheering for her, just as they had for every competition since she'd come out of retirement. 

Losing a baby sucks. The euphoria of winning a silver medal doesn't replace the pain of Noelle's past, that I'm sure of.  Life turned out the way it did for her, but amazingly, now her life's story includes silver-place Olympian.  As I watched Noelle's silver-place finish and her post-race interviews, I was happy to see her experience joy and pride in her hard work paying off.  I was left feeling in awe that yes, life can change unexpectedly, and in heart-breaking ways, but the results can still be sweet.  

Final Conference Call Before a Referral

The wait is officially on.  Bethany requires a conference call with its "China team" before a family is eligible to be matched off the shared list, and ours was held today.  Since our home study had covered every possible aspect related to this adoption - what medical needs we are open to, age range of children we are open to, why we want to adopt, how much money we make, where we live, how much leave we plan to take, whether we can accommodate the medical appointments our future child may have and so on - I was actually quite nervous about what there was possibly left to ask and whether we would have to prove we're worthy of adopting. 

Instead we spent most of the nearly two-hour call rehashing what we had checked as a "yes" or as a "willing to discuss" on our openness form.  The conversation went deeper than just talking about the range of severity for each diagnosis.  The social worker cut to the chase and asked us questions like, Would you accept a heart condition that one surgery?  Multiple surgeries?  Limitations on your child's participation in everyday activities? With limb differences, will you accept a child with a missing arm, two missing arms, a missing leg, missing arms and one missing leg, both legs missing, but ability to be fit with a prosthetic?  Are you open to accepting a child with a heart condition, limb difference and cleft lip/palate?  How about just cleft lip/palate and a limb difference?  I wanted to say yes to everything, but then hemmed and hawed and felt guilty about our quickly-shrinking list of what we are truly open to. 

All that made the conversation bearable was that the social worker had  prefaced her questions with acknowledgment that families generally find these questions awkward and uncomfortable and that she and everyone else at the agency respects a family's honesty and its limits.  I felt she was very sincere and I recognized that she's asking tough questions now so she can make the best possible matches.  When the files are released each month, she and social workers from the 180 adoption agencies around the world have seconds to scan basic information - birth date, sex, orphanage name and medical diagnoses - and lock files for families.  She has 16 families eligible to match this coming month. 

The bright spot of our conversation is that the China team estimates that given our openness to a boy and certain conditions like cleft lip/palate, our wait for a referral could be three to four months.  It's hard to believe that by the summer, we could know who our child is.  The downside of hearing an estimate is that I hear "three to four months" and my heart thinks, "That means it could be this month, right?"

LID

Our agency was notified today by the Chinese Center of Children's Welfare and Adoption (CCCWA) that our dossier was logged in today.  In the world of Chinese adoption, this is referred to as LID, and it's a major milestone for adoptive families in the long adoption process. Since our dossier most likely landed on Chinese soil at the start of the week-long Chinese New Year celebrations, I was pleasantly surprised we got our LID just a few days after government offices reopened following the holidays. 

Aside from additional training Chris and I are required by our agency and the Hague Adoption Convention to complete, the next couple months will consist of waiting for a referral.  A referral will most likely occur during the CCCWA's monthly release of profiles of children newly eligible for international adoption.  If we aren't matched that month, we wait for the next month and so on.  Although we are open to adopting a boy and the estimated wait for a referral is one to six months, (compared with 12-18 months for a girl) there are many factors besides gender that make estimates unreliable.  

Signs of Spring

This winter has been tough because it's often been too cold to spend time outside, especially with little kids.  Saint Paul schools haven't had one snow day, yet have had five "cold days."  Five.  Those were all days where the wind chills were at least -45 degrees.  Even Chris headed home early from a ski trip to the North Shore because it was too cold, and honestly, very little keeps him off the slopes.  So yes, it's been cold.  And we still have a lot of winter ahead of us. 

Just when I'm about to succumb to the feeling that it will be winter forever, someone told me that the sun is setting nearly an hour later than it did on the longest day of the year, when it was completely dark when I arrived home from work at 5:00 p.m.  An hour, that's huge.  That's the difference between leaving for work and arriving home again in the dark.  That's hope.  That's a sign of spring.  The days may still be bitter cold, but they're at least less dark.  

Swim Lessons at the Y

Neither kid was particularly a huge fan of the water in their baby years, but we found they liked the splash pads and zero-entry pools, since they could wade in and out on their own and never had to go in deep water.  They had found their comfort zone.  Maybe they were too comfortable though.  Oliver would often declare he knew how to swim even when he was wearing his life jacket and his feet were still touching the bottom of the pool!  We knew it was time to get serious about teaching them to swim.  So we signed them up for swim lessons on Saturday mornings at the Y, with Soren in a parent-child class and Oliver in a "water adjustment" class, aka, the class for kids who've never had swim lessons before and/or are apprehensive about the water. 

Because Soren is more of a rule-follower type of kid, I thought he was going to be fine, but turns out he's rarely interested in participating in any of the skills-building activities.  However, whenever I look over at him, he's got a smile on his face and totally looks like he's having a blast in the pool with Daddy, so that there is worth it. 

As for Oliver, we were happy he was finally old enough to be in a class without a parent, because we thought he'd listen better if Chris and I weren't in the pool with him.  However, his teacher gave Oliver a lot of leeway in whether he wanted to participate or not and you can guess what he chose to do.  So I spent the first two classes standing on the pool deck periodically reminding Oliver to follow his teacher's instructions.  At the very beginning, I sometimes had to physically put him where he was supposed to be.  For instance, his teacher asked the class to move to the other side of the rope and sit on the edge of the pool and Oliver defiantly refused to comply, so I picked him up out of the water and sat him down next to his classmates.  Even when Oliver is excited about something, he often needs a little nudge to actually do it and this was an example of that.  However a lot of coaxing, he participated in almost all the exercises and generally had fun.  Even when he was apprehensive, he at least tried a variation.  When he was afraid to put his whole head under, he went as far submerging himself up to his mouth and although jumping in the pool was too much for him, he'd sit down on the pool deck, hold his teacher's hands and hop in the water.  Now that he's used to the idea of swim lessons, I no longer need to be there and he comes home all excited to tell me what he did in class. 

The kids won't be bona fide swimmers before summer arrives, that's clear, but I'm thankful they are enjoying the water and have an outlet to be physically active during the long winter months.