Chasing A Child

Building my army

I wrote to a local mom the other day. I said "Hey, we need to be friends. We have multiple friends in common, we are both white moms raising black sons in the whitest of cities, we both have strong attitudes about things, when can we get together?" She replied with a warning: she does indeed have strong opinions about adoption, race, and gentrification. She cuts her friends no slack in these areas. I can expect strong push back. I laughed, and replied something like "Bring it on, sister!" This is the reason I want to be friends with this mom. I need more warriors on my team. Not just comrades, but serious not-afraid-to-get-bloody warriors.

It feels as if the world is going crazy. The political situation is insane. The cruelest people in the world have a champion in one of the presidential candidates. There have been threats throughout our state that mirror the things we are all seeing on social media. Perhaps in part because of the industry I work in, some of my co-workers of color are showing obvious signs of hate-related stress. And I am raising a black son. We are trying to adopt another black son. We are going to need all the support we can get.

I joined a new online group of moms raising black sons. I see the love and the fear in the tens of thousands of mamas as they share pictures of their boys of all ages, and I hear them keen with pain at the real threats they see facing their children. And you know what? These mamas are supporting each other, but they are also organizing. Committees, conference calls, action. They, like me, feel the need to DO something; and the internet gives us the means. I learn of other mamas in my state, in my city. I begin making connections.

I feel inadequate, an imposter. Of course, there are other white mamas raising black children out there, but we are all protected at some level by the color of our skin, by our privilege (which does not necessarily mean economic privilege). Our white privilege won't shield our children from discrimination they will face, so our mama-bear fears are just as burning and real as those of the brown-skinned mothers in the group; even so, it is not the same. We may be doing our very best to be good allies and good mothers, but we are still privileged. It's not something we can get rid of. It's always going to be there.

The racial situation in this country is intensely personal to me, but it doesn't directly affect my body. I don't have to deal with threats to my personal safety along with worrying about my kids. In comparison to the hundreds of thousands of brown-skinned mamas in this country, I am safe, my male relatives are safe, my husband is safe. It is a very real luxury, this knowing that the bulk of one's family will not be targeted because of the color of their skin.

I am conscious of the disparity every single moment of every day. The injustice eats at me. My awareness makes me feel an additional obligation to speak out, to use my position of relative privilege to point to the voices who are being ignored or shunned, to shut up and make space for them to speak and be heard, to get out of the way, to be a good ally. I watch out for any behavior of my own that tends towards hidden biases or white savior syndrome. I choose my words carefully. I make mistakes anyway. I apologize, own my shit, and move on. Every day, I get up and try again.

I was messaged by a reader (people still read this blog?!) who is also raising a black son. Do I live in XYZ city? Why yes, I do. And which neighborhood? Oh, hey, we're neighbors! And then it turns out that we live within blocks of each other, and that we've seen each other's kids playing in our respective yards, and she's actually had a conversation with my daughter. And one day I walk by this neighbor's house when she and her son are in their yard, and I say "Hi, I'm Rebeccah," and she invites us in. And another mama is added to my list of People Who Will Understand.

But it feels so fragile, sometimes, so inadequate. Squeaker asked the other day about "All Lives Matter," because he heard a black street performer say the phrase to a white crowd last weekend. The Mister and I scrambled to explain about sarcasm, and situations in which you find yourself saying what people want to hear so that they will like you, even when you know it's wrong, and what it takes to earn a living on the street, and how you can't always show your true self, and how most people who insist that all lives matter have no freaking idea why it is so important to talk about black lives mattering.

Squeaker is 7. These issues are so complicated, and he really wants to understand. We do the best we can to be honest with him without traumatizing him. It's a tricky tightrope to walk.

The series of police-involved shootings of unarmed black men that culminated with the Dallas officers being shot all happened while we were on vacation. I had been doing my best to unplug from social media, to enjoy our family time together, but it eventually became too much, the violence and grief unavoidable. I sat in a hotel room, sobbing, trying through tears to explain to my 7 year old what happened, what he had seen on the hotel's breakfast room TV, why mama was crying, why we need to do everything we can to make the world a better place.

He asked me whether he needed to be scared about police shooting him. He's 7 years old, people. Seven.

I can't protect him. I can't build a wall to keep him safe. All I can do is teach him compassion and self-esteem and street smarts, teach him about those who came before him who fought these battles so he could live a better life, show him his own super powers, and teach him how to build his own community. I can build my army of mamas to prop me up when I'm feeling fragile so that I can pour all my strength into his little body. I can search high and low in this lily-white state for men of color who have the time and energy to serve as role models for him, because the Mister is an amazing dad, but he can't explain to our son how to live in his skin as a black male in a system that was not built to treat him kindly. He'll need multiple mentors so that he can see how many healthy ways there are to be a good man in an unhealthy world, a world that judges people who look like him harshly for no reason at all that he will be able to control. He'll need all the advisors he can get, because his white parents are, well, white. We can love him as hard as we can, but ultimately, when he reaches an age where society judges him to be a danger simply because he is a man of color, our love won't do him a damn bit of good. He'll need more.

In the end, Squeaker is going to have to make his own way in this dangerous world. An army of loving mamas won't be able to protect him when he's out there. It's absolutely terrifying. Now imagine that fear multiplied times the number of male children in your extended family, in your neighborhood, in your child's school. I stand in awe of the mothers of black children (because it is just as dangerous for black girls out there, even more so than for boys in some ways), these strong mamas who have done this for hundreds of years because they simply had no other choice. They are the true warriors. I'm just trying to figure out how to follow their lead.

All the hoops

The adoption paperwork is done. Our home visit with the social worker happens next week. This process has been emotionally grueling.

We each completed a 128-question questionnaire (most of them essay questions) on everything you can imagine. Tell us about your childhood. Tell us about your parenting styles. How did your mom show love? How about your dad? Tell us about any childhood traumas. Tell us about any adult traumas. Any mental health / alcohol / addiction / violence in your childhood home? Tell us about it. How did it affect you? How did you cope? Tell us about your health issues. Are you over your infertility grief? How do you feel about open adoptions? How do you feel about birth parents who may have harmed their children? Have you ever had counseling? If so, for what, and what was the outcome? How do you deal with stress? Anger? Sadness? How is your sex life? No really, we want to know about your sex life. How about religion? When would you consider leaving your spouse?

And on and on it goes.

Medical exams, extensive bloodwork to test for all the possible drugs we might be on, fingerprints, criminal background checks. Detailed financial disclosures. Recommendations from five friends who are willing to answer a series of lengthy questions about us – how they know us, how strong our marriage is, how we are with kids, whether our house is clean/safe, whether we are stable human beings.

Multiple hours-long interviews with the social worker, who then sent us back to marriage counseling for a quick tune-up and a letter from the counselor attesting to our … I don’t know what … fitness as a couple? So back we went for a few months, and, wonder of all wonders, we "graduated." We are officially a healthy-ish couple and we may now go forth and do what we've been doing non-stop for the past 7+years: We can parent.

Look. I’m a lawyer. I get it. They have to make sure they’re not handing a kid to someone who will screw them up worse than they already have been screwed up by their families and the foster care system. They want to make sure that a kid’s issues don’t trigger an adoptive parent’s issues. They want to make sure we have the skills and the background to deal sanely with whatever may come our way. They want to find the best parents for that one special kid. It’s not about us at all. It’s about finding the best family for that child. It makes perfect sense.

However.

I’ve said this before, but I’m gonna say it again here: If all parents had to go through what adoptive parents have to go through before they can become parents, there would be very very few children born in this country, and all of those children would be wanted children. Desperately, deeply wanted kids; much-loved, much-longed-for kids; and their parents would walk over hot coals for them.

And still. A few broken parents would sneak through the cracks. And some children would suffer.

Perfection is not possible in this endeavor. Frustration, though – phew. We’ve got that in buckets. Now we just have to buy a giant-size fire extinguisher, because some bureaucrat decided that foster families need the really big ones.

The chase continues

This morning, our two kids got up, my daughter got herself dressed (!!!), and they played for a half hour or so ... without coming to wake us up first. This is a first, and I consider it a flat-out miracle.

To say that the last 4 years have been hard is a vast sweeping understatement. The sleep deprivation has been epic. Our kids are full-on whirlwinds 24/7, and my daughter is a light sleeper who is still nursing at almost 4 years old. There has been ridiculous family drama on all sides. My dad died. I have an autoimmune disorder that is causing permanent hair loss. My job has been crushingly stressful, and the Mister and I put our marriage through a freaking sausage grinder. Against all odds, we came out the other side. I have a vision of us after an enormous natural disaster, just laying on the ground, beat up and bruised, looking around, completely spent, amazed that the house is still standing and we're all still alive.

Marriage is hard, people. Parenting is hard. Being an older parent is extra super hard. Having dysfunctional families is hard. Chronic health issues don't help. And juggling all that while trying to hold down a full-time nonprofit lawyer job is in-freaking-sane.

So, of course, we decided that the best way to celebrate the fact that we made it through the long dark tunnel is ...  to add to our family! Because that will surely reduce the stress level, right?

Yup, it's true. We're in the midst of getting ourselves certified to adopt from the foster care system, and we're as excited as we were the first time we adopted ... although perhaps a bit more realistic/jaded/wise. We blew through 20 hours of training classes in a weekend (thanks to my mom and our kids' former nanny for holding down the fort while we were gone). We've had our first interview with the agency's social worker. And now we're facing a mountain of paperwork, including a questionnaire that, I kid you not, is over 125 questions -- the majority of which are complicated and require essay answers. We each have to fill one of these out, so we can't even split up the work. Epic sigh.

Why are we doing this? Because it makes sense. Squeaker really wants an older brother -- specifically, one who looks like him. We have the room, and we have the drive. We're so unendingly FURIOUS about the racial BS that is going on in this country, and so utterly terrified at the way our society looks at black boys, that we want to do the one thing we can do that we know will make a tangible difference in someone's life -- give a kid who society considers "unadoptable" (don't get me started, grrrr) a family. A chance. A support system. A team. Someone who always has his back.

Wish us well. It's going to be a fun ride!

 

My little runaway

Squeaker is a big kid now. Six. Full of life, full of himself, smart as a whip, but also, y’know, six. A child. Impulsive. Not always aware of consequences. Still innocent of the world’s hardness.

The other day, he ran away from home. The Mister refused to let him snatch a toy from his sister, and we were off to the races: “I hate you! You’re the worst daddy ever! I don’t like this family! I’m going to run away!”

And out the door he went. SLAM.

I was washing dishes, and paused for a moment to think. Do I chase him down? Do I let him run? How far will he get? What harm could come to him? I think about how young he is, how likely it is that our neighbors will watch out for him. I think about what it would be like if he were older, a 16-year-old black boy running for no apparent reason, and I think how that might change the outcome of my decision. We are, after all, living in the time of Ferguson, Baltimore, Freddy Gray, Walter Scott, Tamir Rice … Ironically, a 6-year-old black child running alone down the street of our lily-white neighborhood, without adult supervision, is a hell of a lot safer than he would be if he were 10 years older.

Stuffing my perpetual mama worries aside, I decided to let him go, let him experiment a bit. I am a big fan of the Free Range Kids philosophy, and Squeaker knows everyone on our block. I didn’t think he’d go farther than the corner in either direction. We’ve set those guidelines for him pretty firmly. I figured he'd forget he was mad and just play outside.

I went back to washing dishes.

About 5 minutes later, he burst in the door he’d just run out of, wailing, tears streaming down his face. He ran straight up to me and grabbed me hard around the waist, shaking with sobs.

I stood quietly for a moment, let him breathe. Then, “Did you get worried?”

He nodded his head, sniffing, still hugging me hard, showing no signs of letting go.

I knelt down and hugged him. “You can always come home,” I told him. “No matter how mad you are, or what you said to me or daddy, or how long you’ve been gone, you can always come home.”

He squeezed me with his gymnast’s arms until I thought my ribs would break. We sat there for a while, me crouched on the floor, and him sitting on my lap like he used to when he was little, before he became a wiry bundle of muscle and sinew, before he wore glasses, before he had a sister to tease, before he could spell “l-i-t-t-l-e, LITTLE!”

That night, he asked “What if I ran away and didn’t come back?”

“I’d come looking for you,” I said, stroking his curls.

“What if I went a different way?” he fretted.

“I’d get a lot of people to help me look,” I said firmly. “And we wouldn’t stop looking until we found you.”

Again, he wrapped me in an enormous hug. And this mama’s heart broke in two.

and so it begins

Monday, Squeaker's school sent home a book of rules and consequences that reads like the Federal Penal Code, complete with mandatory sentencing. For this infraction, you get a parent conference. For this one, a temporary suspension. For this one, a year-long suspension. Certain types of infractions are immediately escalated far beyond what I would expect in an elementary school setting.

I'm glad they're strict, but I also began to worry about whether they apply any kind of reasonableness for extenuating circumstances or for the age of the kids. Assault, for instance, is a serious offense. From what the Mister tells me, the kindergarten boys are whaling on each other all. the time. Constantly. Pushing, shoving, head-butting each other .. Is that assault?

Wednesday I got a call from the school. I hadn't programmed their number into my phone, so I didn't answer it. Oops. When I called back, they told me that Squeaker had sustained a minor head injury on the playground. A kid was swinging and Squeaker got in the way, so he got kicked in the head, and then his head hit a pole. Ouch! They said he seemed okay after an icepack and some quiet time. I thanked them for calling. He had a bruise and a sore noggin when he got home, but seemed fine. "My poor baby! The dangers of the playground," I thought.

I had no clue.

Thursday I got a call from the Mister. He was furious. Apparently, Squeaker had purposely hit another boy in the face, seemingly for no reason. When the Mister made him apologize and then informed him they were going home, my darling son informed his father that he was going to tell Mommy. "Here! Go ahead! Tell her!" When my child heard my voice, he burst into tears. We talked for awhile, and then hung up.

I was a mess after that. All I could think about was that book of rules, and the fact that my child had just broken one of them in a big way. And with articles like this everywhere I turn, I was terrified that we might be heading down a very long ugly road.

Here's the background: My son is in kindergarten, a sweet little kindergarten, with lots of kids from well-to-do families. Well-to-do white families, I must add. Squeaker and one other boy are the only Black kids in the 5 classes of kindergartners, and the school is only for kindergarten, so we're talking two Black people in the entire building. All the teachers and staff are white. There are several Asian children, and Squeaker's best friend is the sole Native American child. Squeaker stands out. But he's also popular. He is, and has always been, a friendly social child. He's part of a clique of girls (no surprise there) that apparently exerts a fair amount of power on the playground. I can imagine that all sorts of mischief might arise from the various dynamics at play. The boy he hit, Jason, is half-Asian, which, y'know, has no relevance except that thank god it wasn't one of the white kids. Other than his ethnicity and the fact that Jason is a good 6 inches taller than Squeaker, I don't know anything about this boy or his parents. Nor did I have any kind of idea as to what really happened. Squeaker and his sister hit each other sometimes, like all siblings do, but I've never known him to hit another kid.

I gently grilled him in the car that night, on the way to his gymnastics class. He spun a long story about how he and the girls have a crystal buried in the garden at school, and how Jason wants the crystal and tries to steal it from them. "He's mean to us!" he said. "What do you do when people are mean to you?" I ask, expecting the various nonviolent responses we've drilled into his head over the years -- walk away, tell a grownup, etc. "Be mean back to them!" he replied. Oh boy.

After more talk, I started coming to the conclusion that Squeaker and his posse were probably teasing the boy and that Jason had acted out his frustration. Squeaker said Jason had tripped him, but it was unclear whether that was the same day, a month earlier, or perhaps a figment of his imagination. I told him I was sad when he acted mean, and he said he was sorry and he wouldn't be mean anymore.

Friday, our manny picked Squeaker up from school. He told the Mister that Jason's dad had been on the playground, which is unusual. Usually, his grandmother is there. The father asked our manny if he was Squeaker's father. Double uh-oh. In my head, the father was there to challenge us, to yell at us for his child getting hit. He would complain to the school, condemn my son, and down the disciplinary road we would go. My fretting was epic.

Today, Saturday, our manny texted the Mister. "I forgot to tell you something that seems important. On the playground Friday, Jason told Squeaker that he didn't like black people. His dad made him apologize."

And, suddenly, the situation became something else entirely.

Already it starts.

Already.

Pink is a color

So how is everyone? It's been a busy holiday season at our house, with the kids just old enough to become whirling dervishes of over-stimulated, sugar-packed anticipation. Santa brought everyone very nice gifts, and we're heading swiftly into New Year's which, around our house, is better known as birthday season. Back-to-back birthdays, egad. Gods help us.

As I have done (and plan to do) every year, I got the kids matching pjs, which they opened on Christmas Eve. Squeaker found them in a store several months ago: "Mom! Look! Pink footie pajamas with Santas! I want them! Mom! Will you buy these for me? Please?" I didn't buy them that day, but I made a mental note. He mentioned them several times after that, emphasizing that they had to be pink, they had to have feet, and he wanted his sister to have the same pjs. "Same" is very big with Squeaker right now. He and his sister may not be genetically related, but by god, they can wear matching pjs!

So I found the pjs, in the right size, and on sale (yay!) and wrapped them up. The joy on their faces when they saw the soft pink jammies was one of the more gratifying moments I've had recently. "Same!" they both squealed, jumping up and down with excitement. They both eagerly got ready for bed and headed into dreamland with visions of sugar plums, etc., while Santa went to work bringing out the rest of the gifts.

The next morning, we took lots of pictures of the kids in their gift-frenzy, both grinning madly in pink-pj'd glory. And we posted them on FB, so the relatives could see how freaking cute they were.

For several days, folks were gracious in their praise of our beautiful kids and their adorable matching pjs. And then yesterday, a friend of the Mister's dove in with this comment to a photo on my page: "Stop dressing your son in pink!"

Pause.

Well. Let's see. How best to proceed ...This lovely tidbit was shared by a woman who I'm not particularly close to. In fact, I'm not FB friends with her, and I haven't heard from her in several years. The only reason she could even see the kids' photo was because the Mister tagged himself in it. So it's difficult to presume that she was joking, since we don't have that kind of relationship. Nor do I have any reason to think she meant it as a funny comment. She's uber-feminine in her fashion sense, and has a tendency towards dating big uber-masculine guys. I'm 99% sure she was 100% serious. And somehow, after several years of not speaking to me, she decided that this obnoxious sentiment was the perfect way to say hello.

For various reasons, I've been doing a lot of internal work over the past six months. A lot of it has to do with stopping, taking a breath, and seeing if my habitual response is actually the best way to handle a particular situation.

In this case, my first instinctive response was to flame her with a long list along these lines:

"Who the hell do you think you are?"

"What damn business is it of yours what our son wears?"

"Whatever possessed you to tell me how to parent my kid?"

"Who says I'm dressing him that way? I'll have you know he selected those pjs himself!"

"What's wrong with pink?"

"What are you so afraid of?"

And, of course ... "F you, bitch, I'm proud of my son, and you can just stay the hell away from our family!"

Etc.

But as I breathed it in and out, I decided to keep things minimal. I wrote "wow" and sat with that for an hour or so. I also had a long conversation with the Mister in which I questioned the wisdom of maintaining a friendship with someone who apparently places little value on letting children be themselves. Then I deleted her comment and my reply.

Because y'know what? I love the photo of my kids where she left her pile-o-shit comment. And I didn't want that thread dirtied up. I'm choosing to keep the joyful photo as it was meant to be -- a tribute to how gorgeous my kids are. It takes a pretty sad person to be blinded to that beauty by nothing more than a color that, once upon a time, signified the ultimate in masculinity.

It's all relative

We'd been talking about the word "birthmother." I haven't used it a lot, because we always call S by her name, rather than a title. She's a member of our family, even though we never see her. Squeaker knows his story. He knows who she is. He's seen pictures of her. From time to time he'll bring her up, usually when we're talking about how babies are born. We had hoped for a very open adoption with lots of contact, but that wasn't the way things worked out. He seems fine with that, so far. But I want to make sure he has the language to explain S to other people when he wants to. So we talked about the difference between birthmothers and mothers you live with, and how sometimes kids live with their birthmothers and sometimes their birthmother can't take care of them and finds them a new mother to live with forever.

"Mama, will I get a new mom and dad when I'm bigger?"

No, sweetie. You're pretty much stuck with us forever.

"But my cousin got a new mom and dad when she got big."

Ah.

So then we talk about Ethiopia and how kids like his cousin whose parents died and didn't have any family to take care of them went to live in orphanages where there were people like teachers who took care of them while the kids waited for their new moms and dads to find them. And how sometimes it took a long long time for that to happen and the kids got to be bigger kids. We talked about how lucky he was that S found us when he was a tiny baby so that he didn't have to wait a long long time for his new parents. We talked about how happy we were that his uncle and aunt found his cousin and brought her home.

And, I said firmly, you are not getting any more parents. You have a birthmother and a mom and a dad. That's a lot of people who love you.

"Okay," he said. "Can I have some candy?"

Hello again.

I know, I know ... What the huh?! Didn't I abandon this space and open up a new, less well-publicized ranting area? While it's true that I've been writing elsewhere (although not so much recently because OMG, who has the time?!), I kept this space for a reason. I just didn't know what that reason might be.

I've got a couple things I want to put out here now. The folks who read this blog (the ones who are not related to me, that is) are the perfect sounding board for some issues that have been bouncing through my head.

I want to talk about issues of race, in particular those issues facing the black male children of this country. I won't go into depth about the way in which our legal system treated Trayvon Martin's death. Let's just say that I stand with the mothers of all the dead children, and leave it at that. This issue has caused rifts between my family members in ways and in places that I would not expect. Again, I won't go into detail. But I need a space to talk about this stuff, and if I can't talk about being the mother of a young black male in this space, where else can I go?

My son (whom you all knew as Squeaker when he was a little guy) is 4-1/2 now. And he's already been racially profiled. We were at a local playground about a year ago. He was not yet 4. I was carrying my daughter in the Ergo on my chest. My son was playing happily by himself on the play structure. He was his usual rambunctious self, but he was not bothering anyone. A woman standing near me struck up a conversation. She explained that she was here with her several children, that they were not from these parts, and that she had given each of her kids whistles that they could blow if they felt scared or threatened. "I almost told them all to blow their whistles when I saw that boy," she said, indicating my son.

I was so flabbergasted that I couldn't respond. Instead, I walked away from her and went to him, checking in to see how he was doing. Letting her know, without a word, that she had just made a colossal ass out of herself.

But her words stuck with me. She found my child to be a potential threat to her kids. My 3-year-old child.

Stuff like this is going to keep happening. And I'm working out ways of dealing with it. More importantly, I'm working out ways for my son to deal with it, during those times when the Mister and I are not by his side. Racism is ugly, but he's got to learn about it, and he's got to learn that it has nothing to do with him, that it's all a construct of ignorant, fear-based people. And if we don't teach him what to expect and how to protect himself, what kind of parents are we?

*****

The other thing I want to toss out there is infertility-related, and I'm really talking to the older moms who have been through infertility treatments (whether successful or not). Did you experience any long-term physical effects from the treatments?

I'm losing my hair. And it's not the usual hair loss that most post-partum women experience several months after giving birth. I went through that, and it was disturbing, but temporary. No big deal in the grand scheme of things. This time, however, it's pretty significant. I'm not pulling out handfuls of hair, but my hair is noticeably receding all the way around in the front, sides and back, with some associated skin disturbance along the receding edge above my forehead. I've also noticed that my eyebrows are thinning.

My GP listened to me describe my current life and opined that it's probably stress-related. I was tempted to deck her, but restrained myself. She prescribed dandruff shampoo and said she'd refer me to a dermatologist if using the shampoo for a month didn't work. I just emailed her to let her know that gosh, I'd sure like that referral NOW please, since I'm noticing another half-inch of bare scalp in the front, despite my use of the dandruff shampoo. Dandruff ... gone. Hair ... also gone! Not good. To her credit, she acknowledged that the fact that I'm 48 and breastfeeding a toddler could be playing havoc with my nutrition. She ran a full set of blood work. I'm not anemic, my thyroid is normal, I'm not deficient in Vitamin D. None of the usual suspects associated with hair loss.

After several long sessions consulting Dr. Google, I've come to the conclusion that the most likely suspect is frontal fibrosing alopecia, a non-reversible form of hair loss usually found in post-menopausal women. I've done all the reading (c'mon, you know how I am about medical research!) and I'm pretty certain this is what I'm dealing with. The prospect is depressing.

It's an inflammatory ailment, and it's quite likely related to hormonal changes. I've been experiencing other inflammation-related issues (primarily involving my teeth) and I'm going on 5 years without sleeping through the night, and sleep-deprivation is a key cause of inflammation. My diet sucks, I'm getting no exercise, also associated with inflammation. And I've obviously had my share of hormonal changes in the past 5 years -- hormone-related shots of all kinds, pregnancy, miscarriage, pregnancy, childbirth, nursing, extended nursing (my daughter is 1-1/2 now and still nursing whenever she gets a chance, the little addict) ...

So I'm wondering is whether others who have been through infertility treatments have also experienced long-term physical effects related to long-term use of hormones, and if so, why we're not all talking about it. I can't possibly be the only one, right? There are plenty of articles out on the internetz about the increased risk of certain cancers and possible effects on fertility, but ... hair loss?

*****

So there it is. Hope this finds all of you well and healthy. I'm looking forward to chatting with you more often in this space.

Home sweet home

Okay, here's the deal. I've decided that I'll keep this space for awhile to write about things that seem light enough for the audience. But I've also started a new space, and it's going to be a bit more raw, dark, angst-filled, angry ... hell, it's going to be honest. So sue me. I've written the first post, but I haven't actually, y'know, posted it yet. Working up my nerve, I guess. If you've been reading here for awhile and you don't mind going down into the depths with me from time to time, drop me a note about who you are or why you want to follow me, and I'll send you the link when I finally get the guts to post. I promise I won't keep your email addresses and sell them to spammers! Those who asked to follow me in the comments to my last post are already on the list, so no need to duplicate your request.

So much for old business!

New stuff. Let's see ... We ran into the social worker from our adoption agency at the playground yesterday, you know, the one who was counseling us grief-stricken infertiles while she was hugely pregnant? Yeah, her. We actually became Facebook friends with her a few years ago, so we knew that she now has two kids, but it was a whole different thing seeing them running around with our son and the other kids. Instead of this weird awkward relationship where she held the keys to the magic parenthood castle and we were standing outside the gate begging to be let in, we were all just a bunch of exhausted parents trying to make it through to bedtime. We were all very different people 4 years ago. Now we're peers. It was nice to see her, but very strange.

In other news, we're buying a new house! We love our current house, but it's in the wrong school district for the Boy. He's such a wild child, so smart, so charming, so easily bored, so talkative, so open, so constantly in motion, that it will be really easy for him to pick up with the "wrong" kids (because they're the interesting/exciting ones!) or be labeled as a trouble-maker as early as kindergarten, and we simply couldn't allow that to happen. We wanted to get him into a good school district where the parents are involved (and probably over-involved) in their kids' lives, where there are resources to  provide him with extracurriculars, where there are other kids whose families look like his -- mixed-race, well-educated, and a bit driven. I feel guilty in some ways, because we're taking him away from an elementary school where a large percentage of the kids would look like him, and placing him in a district where more of the kids are white -- I never thought I'd do that -- but I also didn't know I was going to get this particular kid with these particular challenges. And honestly, we just want the best for him, and he's going to get a better education in the district where there are more resources. We're very conscious of making sure he has friends who look like him, with families who look like his -- some of his friends are Ethiopian, some were adopted domestically, some have black/white parents. Together, those kids will be able to figure out how to integrate themselves into all of their various worlds. It's not going to be easy for any of them, and I'm still very conscious of needing to make more connections in the non-adoptive black community so that the Boy will have more black adult role models/advisors. But in the meantime, we chose to make sure that he'll get a quality education. White flight or just being good parents? I like to hope it's the latter. Judge us if you will.

Our new house (assuming the inspection goes well and there are no major glitches before closing) is awesome. We're moving from a brand new green-certified home in a hip artsy neighborhood to a hundred-year-old craftsman in a family-oriented neighborhood with big trees and well-tended yards. The house is in near-perfect condition but will need some renovations eventually -- it needs a dishwasher, and we're already planning a second bathroom and maybe a kitchen remodel. If we can afford it, an on-demand water heater and some solar panels for the roof. (I suspect I'll need to start a "remodeling our house" blog at some point.) But basically, it's a solid house, a family house, the kind of house that should fit us until the kids are grown. It's 3 blocks from the Boy's preschool, across the street from the middle school, a mile from the elementary school, and a half-mile from the high school. We were able to get into it because it's not perfect, and it's on a street that gets busy at rush hour. Other houses in the district are considerably more expensive and way beyond our reach.

The housing market here is a bit nuts. The inventory in our price range is pretty much crappy, so whenever a good house goes on the market -- particularly in our target school district -- it's snatched up in a matter of days. We were reminded of looking for apartments in NY, where you'd need to show up with your credit score, your deposit, your proof of income, and there'd already be 30 people looking at the place. Once we figured out it was the same situation here, we got pre-approved with the bank and the instant our broker sent us a listing we liked, we'd schedule a time to see it that night, ready to make an offer on the spot if necessary. And even then, we "lost" at least one house when there were already several offers in before ours, at above asking price. We didn't expect to see this kind of competitive activity, given the way the national/international markets are, but our city is popular right now, and once people move into this school district, they don't leave until the kids are grown, so it's a tight market. We're very lucky that we're not underwater on our current mortgage and that we're going to be able to lock in a ridiculously low interest rate on the new place. I feel guilty because there are so many people still out of work or facing foreclosures. This is a tight squeeze for us financially, but we're able to do it, and we're feeling incredibly blessed. Of course, we still have to sell our current house, which is more than a bit scary, but based on what we've seen in the local market, it should go fast. I certainly don't want to be sitting on two mortgages for longer than absolutely necessary!

Anyway (she says, finally getting to the thing I wanted to tell you about), our realtor made a point to tell the seller's broker about us, explaining how we built our family and that we just wanted the best schools we could get for our kids. As it happens, the sellers have a 5-year-old daughter who they adopted from China, and they are moving to get her into a district that has a Chinese-language immersion program. Their next-door neighbors have two kids through adoption, as do the people across the street. I know we were the first offer on the house, and they didn't have to take it, but they did, and our realtor is positive that what sealed the deal was the adoption connection. And they want to meet us, which I think is great. There's something about the adoption community that makes instant bonds between strangers. That sense of community is one of the positives of living in this post-infertility world, and I'm really appreciating it when I find it.

So wish us luck with the inspection/closing/getting-ready-to-sell/hopefully-quick-sale/moving process. Not sure how much time I'll have to post here or elsewhere in the next month or so, but I do intend to keep writing. Lots of things are in flux right now, but that much is clear. Writing is important to me, and this community is important to me. This community was my home when my IRL home was not a place of comfort, and I'll never forget that.

Where to go from here?

I had lunch with a friend the other day. It was awesome. She let me talk my head off about some difficult stuff that's gone down in the last few months (and years), and she gave me some thoughtful advice. It was such a relief to be able to talk about the things that have been rattling around in my head, but the best part was that she *got* it, and for an hour and a half, I wasn't alone.

Despite the fact that certain people think I have no boundaries whatsoever, there are things I just can't write about on this blog, and that sucks, because those things are directly related to my journey of chasing these long-elusive children. I want to write about what infertility, adoption and ART do to your life, your sense of self, and your relationships -- intimate and otherwise. I want to write about parenting and being married in the "after", and how babies never fix things that were broken before the wee ones were born. I want to write about battles that I can't believe I'm fighting and words that should never have to be spoken. I want to write about the way that you can tell how someone was parented by the way that they treat other people, and how conscious I am about wanting my children to not follow in certain footsteps. I want to write about being surrounded by people 24/7 and being deeply, profoundly lonely, even with a perfect baby nuzzling my breast.

I had no intent of becoming one of those infertility bloggers who stops writing when she has kids. But, for a variety of reasons, the things I want to say now can't be said here without creating a giant shitstorm in my life. Years ago, I made the mistake of sharing this URL with family members, and now I'm paying the price. If I happen to decide one day to open a new space for that story, and you'd be interested in reading, let me know.

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In completely unrelated news, I've now started receiving hate mail of the white supremecist variety. Fan-tas-tic. Dear "Karen" in Ohio: It would be hard for me to send my son "back to Africa", since he was born right here in the good ol' U.S.of A. Perhaps you should go back to whatever European country you came from if you don't like me blogging about racist assholes like you. Just sayin'.

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Yeah, so, this space ... what to do with it ...