Some things about Christmas 2013

This is Grace's portrait of Bridgett and Bill. Which is so crazy perfect, if you know them.

1. My dad died 10 years ago today. You don't really recover from something like that. I was really sad for the past couple weeks and felt all "dumpy mom," and couldn't quite put my finger on it, but duh. Of course. Then, some magic. My older brother, Ilya, in ISRAEL, made a concert of this beautiful, ethereal music with some friends. We set up a Skype call and I watched/listened for a couple hours as I worked. It was truly beautiful and brought me to tears. Ilya is amazing. You should look him up when you go to Israel. He will march you through the Sinai, naked, and teach you to play drums with Bedouins. And you can all laugh at German tourists together.

2. I have been sadly neglectful of my blog and the 40licious activities because I took a screenwriting class. And now it's over and I have an outline for a super cute movie that involves a faked pregnancy and an oyster-shucking showdown with some French people.

3. 40licious is pivoting. I am re-branding and calling it "Swerve" because too many women on either side of 40 said they like what I do, but they don't feel either 40 or licious. Look for new logo etc. in January.

4. I am really trying to be really nice to people who, frankly, have been super sucky to me. Or even a little sucky over and over again. It is hard to not escalate it or match snark for snark. But I can sleep better knowing that even when my side of the street wasn't clean all the time, I tried to make it all right. It is a new paradigm for me.

4. My daughter's biological parents, Bridgett and Bill, have recently become homeless. They were in a shelter and then in a tent on the street. At first I was "helpful" by giving them blankets and movies and whatever else I thought they needed. And then it got cold in LA, and very rainy. And now they are staying with me and Grace for a while. I have learned a lot of things in the past week. Like how I have some pre-set Middle Class White Girl ideas and control issues. And that people are really, really, really big-hearted. I put a post about B&B on Facebook and for the past four days, bags of clothes, a $20 bill here and there, and bunny supplies have shown up at our door. Oh, did I mention they have a bunny? She now lives in our kitchen. Someone I don't even know is sending a bunny cage from Michigan. See, that's how amazing people are.

Relationships: 20,000 Ways to Die

When I became a mom, I realized there were about 5,000 ways to die. Now that Gracie is pushing 7 months and is all over the place, putting everything in her mouth and grabbing anything in 10-foot radius, I realized there are 10,000 ways to die.

Then my mother came to visit.

And now I realize, through Mom's advice and observations, that there are 20,000 ways to die.

I'm always a little on the morbid side since I have lost so many I love way too early. And now I'm following a really sad blog from a mom who lost her baby at 9 months to SIDS, and she writes every day and brings us along on her grief. Which is maybe why I hold this baby a little tighter than I might otherwise, and try to make sure she's happy every moment of her life.

Stay safe, Baby Gracie. Here's part of a prayer I say with her: May the angels protect you every second of every day, and all the space in between the seconds. May you always know luck, love, peace and happiness. I will always be your mama, forever. We will be together no matter where we are in this world or out of it. I love you.

Happy New Year

Spirit: How to Feng Shui for Baby

Laura Carrillo

Today's post comes from Laura Carrillo, a Los Angeles-based feng shui consultant. I met Laura on a transcontinental plane ride a couple years ago and we've been friends ever since, and I was one of her first guinea pigs when she started her practice. A couple months ago she saw how distressed I was from waiting what seemed like forever for our adoption to happen, so she offered to feng shui, this time for baby. Now, believe what you want, but our baby showed up less than a week after she visited. A lot of 40licious women are struggling with fertility, adoption and other baby-making efforts, so who knows -- it can't hurt, it could help!

Here's Laura's website.

In Feng Shui there is something called a Bagua that serves as a map or a grid of the nine different life stations. It looks kind of like a tic-tac-toe board. The nine guas of the Bagua are as follows: from top to bottom, left to right:

1. Prosperity
2. Fame & Reputation
3. Love & Relationships
4. Family
5. Health
6. Children & Creativity
7. Skills & Knowledge
8. Career
9. Travel & Helpful People

In Feng Shui for Baby, I focused on three specific guas. Children & Creativity, Fame & Reputation, and Travel & Helpful People. Children and Creativity was the obvious area to address and for Vanessa; this gua was in her living room. Here is where you want to focus on symbols of children, toys, artistic endeavors, games, the metal element, round shapes and the color white. Fame & Reputation happened to be where the baby’s room was located in Vanessa’s house and is also a key gua in garnering positive public attention and in this case from prospective parents. This gua is associated with the fire element, the color red or any color in the red spectrum such as pink or peach, and symbols of your accomplishments, or people you respect, etc. One of my favorite and often ignored guas, is Travel & Helpful People. This is the gua of synchronicity and assistance from both the divine and the mundane. Here is where it is best to place symbols of spiritual figures and at the same time where you might want to keep the business cards of your plumber or doctor … For Vanessa, this gua is in her entry way/porch so I suggested an angel statue that looks like a cherub, spiritual and infant-like.

All the guas are important and in Feng Shui balance is key, but in Vanessa’s case we had Feng Shui’d the home as a whole the previous, year and on this occasion, it made sense to focus our energy on the baby’s room and the other 2 corresponding guas. I also decided to do a Baby Blessing for the home. In planning for the Blessing, I chose to incorporate Space Clearing and the elements of an altar utilizing the principles of Feng Shui.

We spent time in the baby’s room which was the day’s initial focus. We discussed crib placement. Ideally, you want the bed or crib to be in full view of the door and with a solid wall behind it. Art and imagery are very important and Vanessa had three small paintings placed on the fame wall of the baby’s room. They were representations first of mother and child, then father, mother and child, and finally of the sun. Perfection! She had incorporated the number 3 in three perfect ways for that room. The images of family are symbolic of what she was inviting into her life and the sun is a fire element representation that is perfectly placed in the fame gua where the baby’s room resides. My whole premise behind calling my business Narrative Space Feng Shui is specific to the stories we tell through our homes and our art, and Vanessa understood that. One of the additional suggestions I had was that she make three copies of the adoption paperwork she had and place them in the three pertinent guas. The paperwork can be hidden as this is more of a transcendental cure with specific intent behind it.

Next, we did the space clearing prior to and in preparation of the Blessing. Vanessa and I walked through the house with my burning bundle of sage clearing each room and welcoming a baby into the environment. When we completed that, I went about the business of creating an altar for the Blessing. I chose to perform the ceremony in the living room which as mentioned is her Children & Creativity gua. We cleared the coffee table and I pulled out my bell, some incense and requested three white candles that we lit and something metal from Vanessa. She had her own three bells which were perfect elementally and symbolically. Bells can be rung to begin and end a blessing … I grabbed three yellow lemons from the kitchen. Lemons are yellow, which in Feng Shui is considered a representation of the earth element and because they are fruit, they are also considered of the wood element. The number 3 as in mother, father and child is important to note.

I had Vanessa place her wedding necklace on the altar as a symbol of her marriage and family bond. I was creating an altar that was symbolically and elementally balanced but with an emphasis on metal. I also requested some mood enhancing music which Vanessa supplied; an unusual instrumental arrangement that incorporated gongs. (It’s important to create a mood.) Steven, Vanessa’s husband, arrived and we began the blessing with the ring of a bell. I spoke a few words about what a loving and beautiful home and family this child is being invited to join and had Steven and Vanessa each say a few words. The true impact of a blessing is the energy of the participants and their intention.

In blessings, there is power in numbers and everyone involved should participate. I am there to facilitate for them but it’s their home, their blessing, and their emotion that energetically manifests their intentions. When we finished, I asked them to blow out the three candles and as they did, three gongs went off in the music as if on cue. Vanessa and Steven were matched with a birth family six days later.

This Is What I've Been Doing Since June 7

Relationships: Bringing Home Baby

Cinco is alternately curious and sulking

Adopting our baby was like being pregnant for two years in that everyone we know is invested in it by this point. Countless friends called and wrote with tears steaming down their cheeks upon hearing the news of this little miracle we call Grace Magnolia, as if they were watching the last scene of a magnificent film. It was also like being pregnant for four days: exactly how much time we had from meeting the birth parents until the baby was born. Team Grace moved into action: bags of clothes and gear from one friend, another took the mission to grab the bassinet and supplies as we beat it to the hospital to bring home the baby. A steady stream of well-wishers bring clothes and almost more important, dinner.

I realize that I'm not the first person to have a baby and gush about it. I know I'm not the only woman who has tried to navigate sleeping and feeding, HR labyrinths, and how to tie a Moby baby carrier. I am also not the first to be taken aback by surprise tears walking into Naartjie Baby, or seeing the little sleeping child curled up next to my big snoring husband.

But as a first-time mother at 40licious, I feel like the instincts are on high-alert, and even better, I know how and when to use them. I know what I don't know, and eagerly listen to advice on babies and their accoutrements. But most of all, I know that the little cooing child snuggling on my chest, this perfect baby girl, is the best thing that has ever happened to me. And I speak from experience.

Hard

This post is not about all the things 40licious is. It is not inspiring or informative. It is just that I wanted to write about how hard it is to be in the waiting phase of an adoption.

I keep wondering if we had better pictures that make us look more, I don't know, suburban or Malibu, if that would make a difference. Without looking for them I keep seeing stories about how a mom drives her van with the kids into it in the river, or how the boyfriend kept the kids in a tiny cage until CPS freed everybody. And I can't believe the unfairness of it all.

They mean well, the people who say, "Enjoy this time and take an amazing trip! Because your life will change once you have kids!" You know what? I have been to France, the Netherlands, Italy, Greece, Yugolavia when it was called that, Israel, Ireland, England, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, Turks and Caicos, Jamaica, and probably some other places that I forgot. I think I'm OK to have a kid. And maybe take her with us to the next place for a vacation.

The ones who say, "How's the adoption going?" also mean well because they are really interested. Like my Mom. Who keeps sending me sweet little things for this baby we don't know yet. But if I had something interesting or good to say I would say it. I don't think she wants to know that I crumbled into a wet gooshy pile the other day when another "maybe but not quite" situation came up, a baby girl abandoned in a hospital where my friend works in another state. Too many systems to navigate. Too much paper to cross.

And the worst part is the people who hate adoption. The ones who had terrible childhoods with abusive adoptive parents, who have made it their mission to share their angst with people like us. We just want a family, and their truth is not our truth. I've been called "baby grabber" and "too white" and some really nasty other stuff by people who came across our adoption website. Which is why I'm about to unload the bulk of my savings on a different agency that specializes in marketing people to birthmothers considering adoption.

It is like planting a seed and watching, not knowing when it will come up, what it will be, or if it will even ever appear. And it is hard to believe after a while that anything will ever sprout. But you just wait. And there are infinite temperatures and flavors of waiting. And tonight is one of them.

40licious Body: Infertility Articles Omit Adoption Information

I'm glad we're all paying attention to the plight of women in their 40s who grew up believing they can have it all, then suddenly realized it might be more difficult than they thought.

This article in The Faster Times, for example, does a great job how the pill blessed and damned a generation of women. And this one, in the LA Times, about women delaying pregnancy until the economy improves. What disappoints me is that these and so many other stories like this neglect to address the other ways to build a family. Adoption, fostering, surrogate parenting are common, just not talked about in the same breath as infertility.

Here's to giving women hope that they really can have it all -- it just might not look like they thought it would.

Adoption Support Group

Our profile

Each month, Steve and I try to make it to the adoption support group our agency runs for adoptive parents, children, birth moms, and people like us, people who are waiting.

We took the long drive down to Orange County last night to connect with those I am beginning to consider "our people." It was an unusually joyous time, so many stories about successful matches. A newborn boy had found a home. Or friends Uma and James introduced us to their exquisite Kailash, 3 months old. One family was matched even before they were done with their homestudy -- a fortunate match perhaps aided by the fact that the couple was from the same country as the birthparents.

As the director reported all the successes, a tiny part of me (ok, bigger than tiny) wondered when it will be our turn. And what else can we be doing. Is the font OK on our profile that goes to birthmoms? Do we need better pictures? What subtle differences keep us in, or out, of the running? Think about watching other people get picked for the kickball team, but thousands of times more important.

But before I wallow in a crisis of confidence, before I go into the mindspin of "it will never happen," I remind myself of something I just know: when it is right, our child will come. As it had for so many before us.

But There's a Catch ...

When you get so deep into a process sometimes you lose sight of what it is you're doing in the first place. Friday I was working from home, intent on finishing a film with a hard deadline. I was so engrossed in the finer points of iMovie 11 I hadn't noticed that my social worker had called. Her message: "There's a baby, in Long Beach. We're showing profiles right now, so we need to know if you and Steve are interested. But there's a catch ..."

All the molecules surrounding me slowed. My body froze. My mind made frenetic laps around the weekend and the possibilities.

"But there's a catch ..."

The catch was not only that we had to decide if we wanted to be presented to the birth mother within an hour. It was also that the father has schizophrenia.

Phone calls to track down Steve at work. Separately, we both embarked on quick Internet searches to learn that this baby has a 13 percent chance of developing schizophrenia. Calls to friends much smarter than us, with advanced degrees in psychology and child development. Calls to our moms.

And separately together, we came to the same conclusion: that an hour is not enough time to make such a life-defining decision. We passed, saying prayers for a good life and a good family for this little guy who has a genetic mark against him. But who has great odds of being just perfect.

Here is what we learned: We are ready emotionally and spiritually, but we don't have a diaper in the house. We don't have a car seat or bib or tiny hat. We need these things. We need to be mobile in case our adoption comes down like this, which it very well might. We learned who the very inner circle was for this situation. We learned to wait until it is right.

This morning I had a dream. I was walking and there was a little bi-racial girl crawling along the side of the road. I picked her up, wrapped her in a blanket, and went through a labyrinth of bad apartment buildings to find her mother. When I finally saw her, I knew that she was an addict. And I handed over this sweet sweet girl, along with my card,  and said, "I know you're an addict. You won't be able to keep her. When you're ready, give her to me."

And then I woke up.

A Year as Measure

Watching salmon is hypnotic. You should seriously try it sometime. Everything else becomes small and not as important.

A year ago Stevie and I were on our way to Washington, dog in tow, making the long, cold journey home for Thanksgiving to see my family and scrape up oysters from Uncle Seamus' beach. We hiked up Lilliwaup Creek with Amanda and all the kids and watched salmon fight their way home to spawn.

This year we have two dogs, and we'll have a small TG with our neighbors and a couple friends here at home. Where there are palm trees and its 80 degrees outside. And I will cry slow, soft tears of missing my family.

A year ago I had just finished my adoption profile. My brand was along the lines of "even though I am single, I have an amazing network of friends and family. And even though I live in a simple apartment, I am big-hearted and creative and me and the child you give birth to will have a rich and beautiful life together."

This year, Steve and I have created a profile together. Our brand is and better, stronger than mine alone like we don't have to convince someone so hard how lovely their child's life will be with us as parents. Because it will be, and they will know it when they meet us.

A year ago I hadn't started on my book.

This year, I haven't started on my book. But I'm gonna.

Respecting the Process

This is what it is like to have a baby after 40licious, no matter which way you get it.

Here's a big difference between being 40licious and younger than that.* When you are 7 or 15 or 20 or 33 or even 38, you want what you want now. You want it to happen when you deem you are ready and you will do anything you can to make it happen. Make those phone calls, fill out those papers, get good and feng shui'd, say some prayers, organize and ready yourself so It can happen. Whatever It is to you.

But eventually, you come to realize there is a process -- and you learn to respect that process. This is for a lot of Major Life Events. Like marriage, for example. Thanking all the stars in all the galaxies all the time that I didn't marry the person(s) I really, truly thought I wanted to be married to after a rollicking first three months. And even in my current very new marriage, there was a lot of process that had to happen -- over the course of a year and a half -- before we figured it out.

But tonight I'm referring specifically to adoption. Our adoption. I'm laughing a tiny bit in my head thinking about a couple who signed on with our agency and, upon the first meeting with the social worker, demanded that they have their child "before the holidays," a scant few weeks later.  They laugh about this now as well, several years into it.

Steve and I are all set with our requirements -- together, as a couple. We've filled out every paper, taken every class, called in our favors for referrals, and created what will hopefully be a compelling profile to prospective birth parents. I think they spread out all the classes and make the paperwork slightly overwhelming to weed out the folks who don't really want it.

And now we wait.

We have beautiful, lovely, empathetic friends who squeal with delight when we tell them where we are in the process. We're done with everything -- except the waiting. "When will you know?" they ask.

We could get a call tonight telling us to go to the hospital and pick up our baby. Or it could be two more years and lots of "dates" with birth parents to see if the right chemistry is there.

It's nutty enough to not know when your baby will arrive, or not knowing if it will be a boy or a girl. The only way to go through something like this is to make friends with each stage of the process -- the required class time, the paperwork, the profile writing, the interviews with social workers -- and the waiting. It is not the hardest part, nor the easiest. It is just a part.

* I am speaking of myself. It is my blog, and that's what I do here, mostly. When I refer to "you," of course, I am referring to myself. And maybe some other people who are of a similar experience.

Trajectory

Bathroom before: I don't know what I was thinking five years ago when I chose this tile. Actually, I was thinking that if I couldn't get it at Home Depot, my wild fantasy of white subway tiles didn't exist.

We are making joint decisions about things little and big. Like the decision to stay where we live now instead of pack it all up and move closer to the beach and Steve's parents. At least, for now. The tradeoff: make our home, our modest 1947 condo that I bought at the absolutely wrong time in history, an amazing space. Which means re-tiling the bathroom and giving it a classic, beachy feel with subway tiles and barely blue paint, consulting with our neighbor about practical and stylish storage solutions, and painting pretty much any piece of furniture we find on the sidewalk white. You'd be amazed at the perfectly good things that people throw away in Glendale. Steve's mom loads us up with decor magazines she gets volunteering at the library each week. Those help.

I suppose we're nesting. Which is strange to think about -- a 49-year-old man with teenage daughters, a grown son, and a toddler grandson. And me, 40licious, who'd just as soon traipse through a tropical jungle halfway around the world than stay home for Christmas. We're getting closer. Our agency has posted our profile on the chance that it might pique interest from a birth parent who is interested in placing her child for adoption.

The dogs think that this is all for them. Trips to the home-improvement store! Mama staying home to keep an eye on the tile guy = extra attention! We'll let them go on thinking that for now.

Our bathroom as it is now.

2010: Year of the Baby

In the past 72 hours, there has be tremendous baby news for people around us -- and not in the way you normally get this kind of news. One person is expecting a baby via surrogate in December; she just told the world as she's had so many failures she didn't want to get everyone's hopes up. Another friend is taking a step with artificial insemination, and for some reason, I had a very psychic knowing before she told me -- a vicarious nausea -- I think she is pg. And, perhaps closest to me, James and Uma. We started orientation with our adoption agency on the very same day, and together, we went through the classes, saved seats at support groups for each other, and visited whenever we had our foster-adopt series in Redlands, where they live. James and Uma got a call a month ago from our social worker, who introduced them to a very, very pregnant person who wanted to place her child for adoption. They all got along well. They went with her to the ultrasound. And in a couple days, voila, the baby was born and Uma is a mom and James is a dad. They are a family.

But there's no "just like that" with all of the above. When you hit 40licious, you realize how hard-won babies are. There are tears and tries and surprises and terrible miscarriages and disappointments when surrogates or birth moms don't pan out. And then, at the end of it, there is a good news call, and a baby.

Blessings to those who have to work just a little bit harder. 

Cinco de Mayo

My neighbor found this puppy on the highway. Not around it, or on an exit ramp or something, but ON THE INTERSTATE 5 freeway. She is a dog angel, and because he is the last on a long list of rescues, she can't keep him. Right before she was going to let him go to the pound, we stepped in.

There's just something about those big brown eyes and huge floppy ears. He wore a red collar with a bell but no tag. Well fed, happy and loving ... he must be somebody's dog, we thought.

So we hit up Fido Finder and Craigslist. No response. The vet's office says he isn't microchipped. And why would he have a collar on with a bell but no tag? I'm becoming more convinced he was dumped on the side of the road.

All yesterday afternoon, we kept assuring each other that we wouldn't keep him. Even though his puppy antics kept us laughing for hours. He delights the neighborhood children and stared down a big pit bull in Petco. He needs house training. He has fleas. He has no name, except the temporary one we've given him to tide us all over until he finds his family -- Cinco.

We're working pretty hard to find him a new home, and getting him all spruced up. Today was a new collar and leash and a dose of Front Line. Tomorrow it's the vet for neutering and shots.

We want him to have the best possible start on his new little life. Somewhere else he can curl up like a baby on a lap and give tiny kisses. Somewhere else he can be happy and tangle himself up in a blanket. Somewhere he can sleep soundly with the oddest little puppy smile on his face. Because it would be crazy to take on a dog with a wedding and impeding adoption of a child and a move.

Right?

Nesting Frenzy

Here's what the equasion seems to be:

Informed about better-than-expected tax refund + news about great trip to Japan for 10 days + anticipating a child in the home + madly in love with boyfriend = INTENSE NESTING FRENZY

On my way to yoga tonight, I thought I'd buy Steve a sweater for Valentine's Day to introduce the prospect of possibly, maybe, providing a companion garment to the one he wears. All. The. Time.

But of course I had to make a detour into Anthropologie, because I have been invited on a trip to Japan for 10 days to taste sake and miso, and it is cold there, and clearly none of my current wardrobe will do. This is a store that switches my brain into French Bohemian mode and gives me all kinds of lifestyle fantasies, such as serving mint juleps to my guests in pink-washed glasses from Czechoslovakia, or having books on obscure cultural subjects on my coffee table, or hanging embroidered dish towels on fanciful ceramic knobs in the kitchen, or paying $238 for a sweater.

But tonight I found the happiest shower curtain ever on sale. And a couple knobs. And then I went on the hunt for coordinating towels and floor mat. And another curtain for the shower window because for the past five years, anyone who happens to walk by can get a pretty good idea through the frosted glass if it's a man or woman taking a shower. And a pot scrubber that looks like a flower. I don't know why that was so appealing.

And I will paint my bathroom this weekend and make it a cozy and scrumptious nest, which will perhaps give all who use it lifestyle fantasies.

I never made it to yoga. And maybe Steve doesn't even want a new sweater.

Getting Closer

We're done. We're done with all the classes we need for adopting kids from the foster system. Today was a marathon -- first session on transracial / transcultural adopotions, and the second with parents who adopted from the system. Without exception, none of them got what they thought they wanted. Those who wanted one got three kids. Those who wanted two got four. And the parents who wanted a sibling set got a single little girl with some medical fragility that they were able to take on. The woman with her head set on an infant got two tween girls. All of the parents we met have attached with their kids as family, and can't imagine life any other way.

The good-hearted folks who work at our agency have intuitive superpowers. They are mystics who can see more clearly than a well-thought out plan. They are matchmakers. They are saving everyone's lives. We have a mountain of paperwork to complete. And then figuring out some logistics. With each passing day we get closer to our kid.

It doesn't feel like waiting. We have tasks. We relish our James Bond film festivals and little but important rituals together. When the time is right, Our Family will Be So.

Passing Along

In California, it is raining. The skies have opened and the gods have spoken to us in tears. They might be tears of joy. Or horror. They are belly laughing thunder and winking lightening. They are waving at us with wind that whips palm trees all the way down the street.

Tonight I had a rare free night and the not-uncommon urge to shop for boots, so I went to the usual haunts in Pasadena. Hurrying with my purchase back to the parking garage, I saw a girl bundled up in a black coat, underneath a multicolored umbrella. Her sopping cardboard sign said "Expectant mother. Please help with donation."

A story flashes in my mind. We will connect and she will see that I am a warm and good human being, and she will mention she's looking for an adoptive family for her child. And, I will tell her that I have completed my homestudy and am looking to adopt. And here is my card. And can we go somewhere and have a cocoa? And we will bond over that cocoa, and the she will have her baby in the spring and I will help to deliver the baby, and take that baby home to the room in my house painted white and spring green, while she pursues her dreams to become a scientist at an Ivy League school (after two years of community college). And we will spend every Mothers' day together, with that child. This vision lasts all of three seconds. 

I went up to her. "Are you really pregnant?"
"Yes," she said. "Six months."
"Do you know about Casa Teresa in Santa Ana?" I asked.
"A lot of people have told me about places for single mothers. But I want to be with the baby's father 24/7." She gestured to a boy about 10 feet away, under his own red umbrella. "Neither of us grew up with fathers. It's better for the baby to have a father."

I looked at her for what seemed like a while. Pale skin. Watery blue eyes. No eyelashes as far as I could tell. I don't know why the word "METH" came to me in capital letters in my brain, but it did. Perhaps all they keep telling us at the fost-adopt training has scared the bejeezus out of me and sunk in. Or maybe she's having a girl and, as the Old Wives tell it, the girl has stolen her beauty.

"Oh," I said.
She looked down at my Coach handbag.
"Well, good luck," I told her.
"Thanks," she said.

I walked away thinking that I probably should have given her $5 or $10 or however much cash I had in my wallet. And then I wonder if standing in the rain asking for money is really better for the baby. And then I know that it is not my place to wonder these things. Because it just Is.

On the cusp of something is still outside it

I love the adoption agency I'm working with. I truly do. They are a bunch of big-hearted social workers who have been placing children for about one million years. They all have car seats and bibs and have offered the shelter of their very own homes and hearts when they couldn't find others who could. They are my people, and I am so glad to have chosen this path.

Each month there is a support group for anyone in the adoption constellation who wants to come: birth mothers, successful adoptive parents on their second or third go-round, adult adoptees, social workers, the people who run the local home for pregnant women who need a spot to stay until after they give bith and pull their lives togehter. Then there are those of us who are waiting. Waiting for our own story to tell.

I've completed my training with the agency for my infant adoption, and am almost through with the fost-adopt series in case an older child comes my way. In the time I've been going to the workshops, I've made connections with people who are going the same way. One couple and I are on the same track, the same timeline. They have no children yet either, and are waiting for their first call.

The other people in the group shared their stories of meetings with birth moms going horribly wrong or spectacularly right. Two birth grandmothers who came spoke words of truth and wisdom and wishing. One adoptee read poems her birth mother wrote about her, before the suicide. A young, beautiful birth mother told of her Christmas lonliness with nothing but her big belly, carton of milk and box of cereal.

The couple and I just sat back and listened. We had no story, no words of wisdom or encouragement for these people experiencing such amazing emotional and psychohistorical trajectories. We are on the cusp of our own stories, which can begin in tomorrow's wee hours with a phone call to get to the hospital to pick up the baby, quick -- or after a series of dates and deliberations with birthmothers over a year or two. We don't know, and there is no way to plan.

As we hugged goodbye and made plans for lunch this weekend, I realized that sometimes if you are on the outside togehter, you have your own circle.

Hit Me

It took me a while to learn how to win at Blackjack. You can't be all intuitive about it. You can't bet on a strong feeling that the dealer has a 16 and that your next card on an 18 will be a 3. You just follow the rules -- what cards warrant a hit, what warrants a stay.

So it is with social media. The rules say that you publish relevant comments to your posts -- even if they are negative. It's part of being in an honest dialogue. So I did that with my 48 hours of hate mail from the Pregnant Teenagers on BabyCenter.com. I'd apologized profusely, but many of them still had something to say about how wrong it was to post a (supportive) reply to a girl considering placing her child for adoption.

I was scared that a prospective birth mom might read this and think I'm a monster. I considered just deleting all the posts and the comments. But, in the same way you hit on a 17 when the dealer is showing an 8, I just kept it all up there. And then, in the same way that 3 or 4 comes as the next card, the sweetness began to roll in.

"I didn't mean to come off sounding so...bitchy. I tend to have a sharp tongue. I've been on the Pregnant Teenagers site for 3 years so I know the impact adoption posts have on the girls there. I never stopped to think you would not know that. I sorry for that."

"Hello, I was one of the teenagers on that board when you posted. I did not comment, however. I understand your frustration and confusion. I did not comment on that post because I knew that you weren't being condescending, and you really thought that perhaps this forum was some sort of link to a possible adoption. I am sorry some of my cyber friends were so horrid to you, but you have to understand where they are coming from. I am a teenage mother. I am 17 years old and my daughter is one. I was planning on giving my daughter up for adoption up intil three months. Please don't be too offended. They were just protecting their rights as mothers. Hold your head up. You will get your baby."

"i was lurking on the pregnant teen boards and saw your post. i understand their reactions, but it seems as though you're not as terrible of a person as they make you out to be. keep at it. you'll get your baby soon enough."

We're all scared. We're all feeling raw and protective. We all want Blackjack.