How to Navigate Around Borrowed Genes

Posted in Adoption, The Adoption Waiting Game by

Hi friends!  

A few of you have asked how to know when a new post is up, especially as we get down to the exciting events ahead that will be here before we know it. I have NOT been posting on my personal Facebook page, because I wanted to give people who were truly interested in this journey an opportunity to follow along of their own free will, without me clogging their news feeds. Basically that means you need to be following the blog one way or another to get updates from my Borrowed Genes Facebook page or via email.   A couple friends had not heard we were chosen to adopt, and were a bit irritated that they heard the news two weeks later. And I was over here all protesting, “But, the blog!  The blog.” 

1) If you are viewing the site from a computer/laptop, there should be a very large widget in the top right of the screen that allows you to enter your email address to be notified when a new post is up. For some reason, that box does not appear if you are using a tablet or a smartphone. This has been frustrating to correct, but the good people at WordPress are trying to troubleshoot where that glitch is. In the meantime, computer!

2) Follow my website Facebook page, also called Borrowed Genes. When I publish a new post, it will show up there and then appear in your news feed so you can click on it if you choose. 

3) Comments: there is a place for you to leave comments all the way down at the end of the post. Please do, I enjoy reading them and it makes it a more interactive experience for all of us. All the way down at the bottom you also have the choice of liking the post, or even sharing it on social media if I was especially profound that day. I am occasionally profound; mostly I’m prolost. 

Time is winding down and anticipation is trending up!  My forecast for the next few days: interesting with a chance of exhilaration. 

Peace be with you, dear readers. Thanks for your continued support. 

Look down here ⬇️ for where to comment, like or share. Keep scrolling…you made it! 

Excited? It’s Complicated.

Posted in Adoption, The Adoption Waiting Game by

Tomorrow marks two weeks since we learned we had been chosen to adopt.  The time since we heard those blessed words has been marked with enormous excitement tinged with guarded enthusiasm.  As with any adoption, there is always the possibility that the expectant mother may decide she wants to parent after all, after giving birth to the baby.  Although we have been told she is very committed to her adoption plan, I still have reserved a big ol’ chunk of my heart just in case. I will let it out of heart jail after she has made her decision and signed the papers.  The old me would have been shouting the news from the rooftops and moving forward emotionally sans hesitation, but experience has taught me to proceed with caution. I wish that wasn’t the way it was, but it is only temporary. Once I am free to rejoice, I plan to do so unabashedly!

We get to meet the expectant parents this week!  I am looking forward to the moment I get to meet them, but I am petrified with fear as well.  It will definitely be something to see this brave woman pregnant with the baby we have prayed for since we started infertility journey part deux.  Back then I could not have imagined that my first encounter with my future child would take place just a few short weeks before they were due to enter the world, growing comfortably in another woman’s body. I would not ever have considered that a negative, I just don’t think I would have thought of it at all. The fact that this is where we have circled around to now feels very natural and exactly the way it was meant to be.

Nonetheless, when you ask me if I’m excited, don’t do a double take and grimace when I hesitate before finally saying, “I think so.” I realize that is a strange answer, but on the other hand, it’s an honest answer, and I am nothing if not honest.
 

 

 

The Best Kind of Radio Silence

Posted in The Adoption Waiting Game, Uncategorized by

We have some news to share, friends.

People have reached out to ask why I haven’t updated the blog after our profile was shared with the expectant mother. After all, it’s been like ten days!

This is the reason.

SHE CHOSE US.

She chose our family.

She chose us to adopt her baby boy, due at the beginning of June.

I have started eight different posts to share this news since we got the call last Wednesday. Interestingly, I seem to lack a writing style that doesn’t lean heavily towards the smart-ass department.  With this kind of amazing, life-changing news, I was blocked, writer style.

So that’s all I’ve got, because I’m actually tongue tied, talking style.  Yup, me.  More updates to follow once I learn how to write/speak again!

Painted by my mother for this very occasion.

Painted by my mother after hearing the news.

www.borrowedgenes.com

 

 

On This Easter Sunday

Posted in It's My Blog and I'll Rant if I Want To by

On this, the early hours of Easter, I have found myself in spiritual reflection. One large topic I haven’t really addressed in this forum is my faith. And I will be honest with you why I have not.  Although I love Jesus with all my heart, I have found the label of “Christian” is something that has been hijacked by a collection of organizations and people that I simply do not want to be identified with. This is why I refer to myself as a Follower of Jesus rather than a Christian.  It’s all semantics, but people have very set ideas on what Christians believe and how they treat others. Some hear it with a very positive connotation, yet others still hear the word and assume narrow mindedness and judgement.   It is one reason why I have refrained from addressing my beliefs on this site until now. 

Jesus in his mortal form was THE MAN (also in His risen form, but I’m referring to the time before the crucifixion. He loved unconditionally. He sought out the undesirables of society and was intentional about spending his time and energy with and on them. He did not judge. He just loved his flock, warts and all. He had the answer to remedy a flailing, tumultuous society during his earthly life; love, be loved, do good whenever and wherever you can.  It’s the simplest set of rules ever if you think about it. 

Jesus was abundantly clear about the issue of judgement of others; don’t do it, because that isn’t your job. It’s God’s job. It’s not your job. Your job is to love. 

I was, am, and always will be an unapologetic supporter of equality for homosexuals, including marriage. People have often asked me, “How can you consider yourself saved if you go against the teachings of the Bible?”  Such a many layered question, but I will go with this: because Jesus himself spoke about homosexuality exactly zero times in the Bible. And also, remember that part about how Jesus sought out the disenfranchised and  outliers of society to teach them and walk with them and love them because that’s just who Jesus is?  Does Jesus sound like a guy who would be holding “God Hates Fags” poster board signs above his head at the latest “Preserve the Sanctity of Marriage Rally?”  How about the guy outside Planned Parenthood laying in wait for a young woman to exit so he can scream at her she’s going directly to hell, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Maybe she had an abortion, maybe she’s there for the free birth control. Either way, that is not how Jesus rolled, and some acknowledge it and some don’t.  Political issues that use the Bible like weaponry really aren’t about the Bible, or Jesus at all, in my opinion. Although Jesus rose from the dead and LIVES, his physical form is not occupying our current space and time on Earth. If he was, I believe he would shake his head in disbelief that as a nation we have allowed ourselves to be mired down by trumped up religious issues: does anyone truly believe that Jesus’ first order of business in the mortal world would be to deal with recently legalized marijuana laws? Or same sex marriage? Or would he zoom in on the real issues, such as abject poverty in a land of plenty, or war after   war, or children not getting enough to eat. I think he would see a society that never seemed to quite “get” what He wanted of all us in order to thrive: to do OUR jobs. Our jobs are simple; we practice love, we practice acceptance, we shun judgement of our fellow human beings. 

My family doesn’t currently attend church. We have in the past, but until we find one that embodies the unconditional, non judgemental spirit of Jesus as their bedrock, we will continue to pray and worship in the comfort of our home. And if any of my readers happen to know of a church that operates like Jesus did, I’d love to know! I dream of finding a church of people who think like me. Until then, I feel pretty great about my relationship with God and His son just the way it is. 

On this Easter Sunday, I sit humbly as I remember God’s sacrifice for the world; giving his only son over to death so that Jesus could conquer mortality and rise again to become the ultimate salvation of all who seek him.  

Be a Follower of Jesus; accepting Jesus does not mean your only option is to glom on to the thinly veiled hate groups who act in the name of Christianity but have none of Jesus’s charactistics, traits, or intentions. Dare to be different, just like Jesus was! 😇

Good Things Are Happening!

Posted in The Adoption Waiting Game by

The wheels are moving!

Yesterday, the hubs and I received an email of an expectant mother profile! What that means is that our agency is working with a young lady who has decided to make the courageous decision to find a family for her baby, and her preferences and our preferences overlapped so we asked to be presented to her! She has received our adoption portfolio, along with several others, and will make a decision by the end of the week. I do not know how many other couples asked to be presented, nor how many she was interested in looking at, but we were among them. Our agency is pretty small and they have about 8 “paper ready” couples, including us; although there are not many adoption situations that come along, when they do, the ratio of waiting parents is narrow enough that we feel like we at least have a chance of being chosen.

This is very big for us, although to be completely honest we do not allow ourselves to fully experience emotions of excitement or anticipation at this stage. It is just one of those things where we sort of perk up with optimism, but don’t let it overwhelm us, because we still need to wear our “heart armor.” It’s sort of like running a computer in safe mode!

I won’t reveal many details about the adoption situation here, out of respect for the expectant parents. If she does choose us, I can reveal more details at that time, with her permission.

For every family that is overjoyed and elated about the addition of a long-prayed for, much desired baby, there is always a mother, and sometimes a father, that is grieving the greatest loss of their lives. So, while we certainly appreciate, and in fact, solicit, your prayers and positive energy, consider doing the same for this amazing woman who could easily have chosen to terminate the pregnancy and go on with her life. Instead, she chose to carry the pregnancy, all the while knowing that the family that would be blessed by this baby, wasn’t her own.  I know I sure haven’t done anything that selfless lately, or ever.

I will update this post with the news of if we were chosen, or not, as soon as we hear about it. I have been committed to transparency all along on this site, and that means sharing the good and the bad. Sharing the bad sucks, it is true. Oh so true. But it is part of the process, and all of the process matters.

Wish us luck, cross your fingers and toes, channel that energy, or shoot up some prayers!

www.borrowedgenes.com

A Couple of Teeny-Tiny Updates on the Adoption Front

Posted in The Adoption Waiting Game by

The adoption front has been pretty stagnant, but I am happy to report that I have a couple of updates to share. Maybe you remember that our adoption profile was presented to an expectant mother a couple months ago? We never received any feedback or information after that, so we assumed she chose another family. We recently learned that she is taking her time choosing a family because she is not due for another couple of months. Basically that means that (1) our profile did not thrill her so much that she decided then and there that she wanted to place her baby with us and (2) she is rightfully taking all the time she needs to make a decision and it is still possible she will choose us.  Peace be with you, expectant mama, wherever you are.

When we learned about the first expectant mother, we learned there was also a second expectant mother who was having a hard time getting medical records together. After two months went by, we figured that she had either decided to parent or that she was just taking the time she needed to process how to move forward. We were wrong—she was STILL dealing with medical professionals and trying to get copies of her records! Listen up, doctors, insurance companies, and hospitals; if a woman is in a situation where she is choosing to find an adoptive family for her baby, try not to make her life a living hell by giving her the run around as she attempts to gather all the necessary records for the agency. Seriously. Anyway, our adoption coordinator has told us that she will have a profile of the expectant mother to share with us by the end of the week. That was on Monday. Tomorrow is Friday. I have been checking my email every 15 seconds. I do not have a great deal of faith that we will actually see it tomorrow, but patience is the name of the game in adoption. Patience and fertility are two things God did not grace me with, so the adoption wait is basically the ultimate in horrible irony. But I digress.

Target is having a huge baby sale this week so I went and bought a bunch of diapers. Little teeny ones. Although there isn’t much happening and we have no reason to believe we will need wee diapers any time soon, I believe in preparedness. Also, it gave me an excuse to wander through the baby aisles and ogle all the adorable baby things. Okay, let’s be real.  I found out about the baby sale because I was already there looking at the adorable baby things. But the reason I was at Target in the first place was to acquire some Hyland’s homeopathic cold and flu tablets for my little one. It’s complicated, like your classic “which came first, the chicken or egg?” scenario. But I like it there. The first time around preparing for a baby, I had no clue what I was doing. The baby aisle at Target was a scary, frightening place. I wanted no part of it. Now that I’m an old pro, wandering through the baby section is quite comforting.

Also, I completed the nursery and it is baby-ready. That will be a separate post* because it was a rather involved undertaking. But I needed it done, because again, preparedness. What kind of monster brings a new baby home to an undecorated nursery? The horror!

Here’s to hoping we have more exciting news to share in the not too distant future, and to keeping an optimistic heart and mind.

*I’m super excited to share how I redid the nursery and managed to keep it gender neutral. It’s orange and turquoise! And the theme is elephants! And cuteness! But mostly it was a much needed time of creativity and DIY therapy to keep my hands busy and my mind engaged. Details and pictures coming soon.

www.borrowedgenes.com