2015 was quite a year. It began like any other year, but ended unlike any year we have ever experienced. After our nephew was born things were progressing like any other year. We were closing in on the end of Jeremy's penultimate semester. **side note: I only know the word penultimate became my family read "A Series of Unfortunate Events" together and it was in the title of the second to last book.** In August we had gotten an email through our Adoption.com profile from a man in Washington who was considering placing his almost 1-year old boy. The mother had passed away and there were some complications in his life that made it difficult for him to be the father he wanted to be. Unfortunately he stopped contacting us before any plans could be made. We picked ourselves up and kept on trucking.
Then November rolled around and we got another email from a young woman here in Utah. She was looking to place her son that she would be having around December 21. We met with her and spent three hours at dinner just talking and laughing. We agreed that we wanted to move forward and began to make plans. We met with an attorney and got all of the initial paperwork filled out. Our hopeful birthmother was great about communicating back with the information we needed. As we got closer to the actual birth (which was to happen somewhat earlier than expected) communication became more difficult. She had never really answered her phone so we communicated mostly through text. Sometimes it would be an entire day before we would receive a text back, but we knew that she was very busy working. About a week before the date she was to be induced we stopped hearing back from her at all. I still scheduled maternity leave just in case, but we ended up not hearing from her again. We found out through Facebook (gotta love social media) that she had the baby. He was healthy and doing well. We still don't know if she decided to parent or had chosen another couple, but I have never felt like it was right to ask her. I didn't take the full maternity leave, but I did end up taking a week off. It was the week right before Christmas break began and I am glad I did take it. It helped me to take the time to grieve. I didn't expect to grieve or mourn or to feel the incredible amount of loss that I did feel. I don't want to downplay what women go through with a miscarriage, but I think I better understand the emotional journey the go through. It's like there is something hopeful there, something not quite tangible and yet tied to your heart nonetheless, and then it's gone. Without explanation. Luckily I have an amazing principal who understood and didn't require me to come back earlier than the end of Christmas break. I also work with an amazing staff who sent me a Poinsettia and a beautiful card that helped lift my spirits. After that first week, I also got to spend almost two weeks with my little brother, his wife, and their adorable little boy. They were kind enough to let me snuggle him to my heart's content. My family is also the kind that uses humor to get through difficult situations and there was so much laughter it made it impossible to feel sorry for myself. Plus, I have a hard time feeling sorry for myself anyway. I am an eternal optimist and instead of wallowing in self-pity for a long time (because I did wallow for some time), I picked myself up and moved on. We also had a great opportunity that helped us move on.
A week after we found out that the baby had been born, we got a call from an agency that we had considered working with, but hadn't finished applying for because the previous opportunity had presented itself. We decided to give the agency a try and were matched that same day with a young woman in Georgia. She was due at the end of February. We quickly made payments to agency and got set up with an attorney in the area. We called her and her mom weekly just to check in. Everything seemed to be going well. Then we got a text that the baby had come early, was healthy, and had come home with the mother. We asked if they were still planning to place and we told that they thought so. We tried calling the next day to determine if we needed to head out to Georgia, but never got through. We tried calling and texting, but heard nothing again. It was very hard to go through that again. Especially since, this time, I didn't want to take any additional time off. I have plenty of sick and personal days, but really want to save them for when we do get a child. That was a very difficult week and I feel bad for my students because I know that they could sense it. It gave me a bad feeling for how February was going to go. Normally I really dislike January and February anyway because where we live it is cold, snowy, and we don't see the sun for weeks at at time due to inversion. It also makes my allergies go nuts because all the "crap" in the air is trapped low so that I am breathing it in. Miraculously, though, January was over and February is almost there.
March always seems like such a change from the first 2 months of the year. It isn't necessarily warm, but we get out of consistent freezing temperatures and only have sporadic days of some snow that melts quickly. You can finally get outside during the day and feel the sun on your face. Plus, as a teacher, it means Spring Break is around the corner and the end of school and summer break is near! So there are definitely good things to look forward to. As I stated earlier, I am an eternal optimist. Sometimes it drives Jeremy nuts because he is.... well... a pessimist in my mind and a realist in his. He says that he hopes for the best, but plans for the worst. That can seem harsh, but it balances out my optimism when we need to look at pros and cons of situations. I also got some great news just before our first failed placement. I found out that I will be teaching at a new high school opening up for the 2016-2017 school year. They aren't even finished building it so it is truly brand new! They should have it done, or done enough to move in by the end of this school year. I still don't know what I'm teaching, but I know it will be a new and exciting adventure! I am hoping to find out soon so that I can start preparing and getting ideas that will help occupy my mind. I really hate being bored or having nothing to focus on. Jeremy would say it's that I don't like having something to obsess over, but either way the idea is the same.
I thought it would be a lot harder to write this post because there are a lot of emotions involved in the last few months, but it was easier than expected. The one aspect of this whole situation that I am really grateful for is that I don't feel animosity or anger toward either of the mothers in our failed placements. We have all been granted the gift of agency and we get to make our own choices. They will always affect others, but that doesn't mean that I get to be angry or upset that someone else made a choice I didn't like or that hurt me. I also feel like there is something even more right for us out there. We have grown through this process. Not only in knowing what to say and do, but as a couple. I am so glad that we made sure to support each other through the whole process instead of letting it drive us apart. Hopefully we can continue that with any new stresses that might happen with Jeremy graduating in May!
After a couple of weeks we decided that it was important for us to just move on with our lives and start "living" again. We started focusing on other things that we had been neglecting. Jeremy got back to focusing on school and looking for electrical engineering jobs for after graduation and I got back to focusing on improving my teaching and other small "stuff" that I needed to get done, but had been neglecting. It has felt really good to get back to life. We also decided to stop postponing a trip we wanted to take as a graduation/anniversary celebration. So we booked our trip and are looking forward to a few days sitting on beach doing nothing and worrying about nothing. I made sure to book a hotel that didn't offer WiFi so that we could completely disconnect. Now I just have to work on losing these extra pounds I have put on to get by swimsuit body ready!
