As many people are celebrating American Thanksgiving today, I thought today I’d share my most recent week of happy moments – all moments that I am thankful for.
I hope you enjoy the photos as much as I enjoyed each moment.
Day 136 – November 19, 2014: Today I went to lunch with two amazing friends and gave them each a little early Christmas present that I knew they would love.
Day 137 – November 20, 2014: My parents are upgrading to a new elliptical, so they gave us their old one. I am so happy to add to our home gym without paying a dime! And my legs are loving the new workout!
Day 138 – November 21, 2014: I love my Grandmother’s cookies so much so that Mr. MPB had to hide them from me to prevent me from turning a giant cookie (Day 134). So, today I got one of my grandmother’s cookies! Yummy!!
Day 139 – November 22, 2014: We went out to dinner with some friends this evening, which is always a happy moment. By pure coincidence the restaurant was celebrating their third anniversary, which meant free appetizers and drinks!
Day 140 – November 23, 2014: We went to the Christmas Market today some friends, and enjoyed listening to Christmas music, wondering through Christmas shops, watching reindeer relax. We definitely enjoyed the Christmas spirit!
Day 141 – November 24, 2014: Movie date night! (Thanks Mama et Maman).
Day 142 – November 25, 2014: I love wrapping presents, in fact is is probably one of my favourite things to do (I know, I’m slightly weird). Once I have all the Christmas gifts purchased for our extended family, I almost always wrap them all in one go. And, as many of the gifts that have to be mailed, this usually happens sometime in November. Well, today was the day! I spent the entire day wrapping in this years colours of gold and silver. I had so much fun!!
Wishing everyone splendid happy moments!
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As we are telling more and more people about our plans to adopt, I’ve begun to notice a really interesting twist happening in our lives.
People are excited for us!
No-one in the last 2 + years has ever been excited for us, and really there has been no reason to be excited for us in the last few years. Miscarriages are not anything to celebrate.
I know, rationally, this excitement seems normal. While adoption may be unconventional, we are announcing our plans to have a child, so clearly people are excited.
Some people are asking questions (i.e. how long is the process, when will you get a child, what race will your child be, where are you adopting from, etc.), but they are all questions based in excitement and curiosity. Quite frankly, I suspect they are similar to someone who is announcing a healthy pregnancy – they face questions like, when are you due, will you find out if it’s a boy or a girl, etc. While the adoption questions are slightly different, so is adoption, which in my mind just means the questions will be slightly different.
Anyways, I was booking an appointment with my family doctor for adoption paper work. When I told the nurse, she responded with such happiness “That’s so exciting!!!” I was completely caught off guard. I think I must have looked and sounded like an idiot when I mumbled and stumbled to say “Sure…I’ll be excited when the paperwork is done.”
So the other night I said to Mr. MPB:
Is something wrong with me? Am I Broken?
I’m really not that excited right now. I’m hopeful, but I’m most definitely not excited.
This lead to a really good conversation about my reaction to other people’s excitement.
First, people don’t know the path we’ve walked and don’t necessarily know our history of loss. So, they have no idea what fears and hesitations we bring with us to the adoption process. People don’t know that my heart is scared, my soul is slightly broken and my fears of the adoption not working are very real. While we both believe this is our best route to becoming parents, we both have very real fears about the process we are entering into.
Second, the paperwork and process is daunting, intimidating and at times even overwhelming. The immediate months ahead of us are going to be intense, and tiring. If you have not been through the adoption process, then you are unlikely to know just how intimidating the process is. While it is manageable, it takes substantial effort and time just to navigate all of the paperwork. And it is most definitely not exciting and fun.
Third, we’ve spent nearly two and a half years only sharing bad news and grieving. We’ve learned to brace ourselves for our own bad news and to deliver bad news to others. We’ve learned to support and console our friends and family when we tell them about another loss.
Fourth, we’ve learned to hide from virtually any sort event related to pregnancy and births. We’ve hidden from the excitement of others because of our personal sorrow and struggles. This means, we are not used to seeing the excitement that others have for such happy news. So, after so long of hiding, it’s pretty weird to not only be seeing it but having it directed at us.
Fifth, we’ve had moments of pure excitement with our first few pregnancies, and with our fourth one when actually saw a healthy fetal heart rate for our first and last time. There were moments of pure excitement, which were followed by moments of pure soul-crushing heartache and horror. I’m afraid to let the excitement back in, because every time I have, it hasn’t lasted and it’s just turned to complete and utter heartbreak. In many ways my refusal to be ecstatic right now is our past experiences where excitement is followed by loss.
We decided that given our struggles in the last few years, there is probably nothing wrong with me, and I’m probably not broken. So, for now, being hopeful is good enough. I’ll try to be less awkward when others are excited for us and eventually, when I’m ready, I will let excitement in.
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My Perfect Breakdown 