On the Move

Well, life is become very interesting over here at our household. Ellie is now crawling, sometimes at an alarmingly rapid pace, as well as standing up and beginning to cruise edges of furniture, including her pack and play.

It’s pretty funny to wake up in the morning and see her little face poking over the edge of the pack and play right next to our bed! She’s on the move all the time now, and there is no stopping her. It becomes kind of a game of how to keep her safe, contained, and  entertained. We recently bought one of those playyards, so we can use that as another, more expansive option if we can’t constantly be on her tail.

Our decision to move forward as a three person, triangle family has definitely been a journey, but I feel clear now, as does RC. Letting the embryos go will still be very sad, but mediated by the excitement of our local recipient family moving forward with their transfer at the end of August.

I think I’ll need to devote a an entire post to this later, but I’ll just say that I strongly disagree and I am sad and frustrated with our clinics policies around their donors. There are many, many half siblings out there, and we just can’t even fathom nor deal directly with that right now. She is our unique, little daughter, who I developed and grew inside of me. It helps me to say this affirmation: I am yours, you are mine, together till the end of Time. Anyway, it’s enough to have dealt with donating our embryos right now.

Having embraced our triangle family status, I am reflecting on the next “big goal” or goals I/we want to set in my/our life/lives. Did any of you go through this after having a child? Ttc was so much of my purpose and life meaning off and on over the last decade plus and, as much as Ellie gives my life meaning and fills it with love, I still need to be working towards something. Travel, further training, thinking about a mom/daughter tattoo. I’m not sure yet.

Summer here is hot!! No AC and lots of fans, and it’s hard to sleep. Other areas have it much worse, I know. What is your summer (and ongoing pandemic) focus?

Hoping, Hoping, Hoping

I'm borrowing last year's prompt for today: "What do you hope happens by the end of this year?"

First of all, I can't believe it's almost the end of November! I think you know you're getting older when time starts going faster. On the other hand, I think time generally goes faster heading into fall because there seem to be a lot of events, and people are trying to cram goals and activities in before the holidays arrive, especially Christmas season, which pretty much starts in a couple of weeks. Ach! If I want to make some of my gifts, I better get on it! But I digress...

By the end of this year, I hope to have my home in good shape to accept an adoption placement, and I hope to have my online profile created, which is a collaborative effort between me and whoever my social worker may be. I don't know if this is realistic, but that's what I hope. I cleaned my bedroom closet today, got rid of a couple of boxes, and did several loads of laundry, which seemed like a step in the right direction.

I would have thought I might have heard from the agency and have scheduled the social worker interview by now. I sent an email inquiry week before last and received this response:

  

"Thank you for the check in. At this point your file is being reviewed by the program supervisor, who will assign you to a social worker. I do not have a timeline on when you will be assigned to a social worker and start the interviews. We will update you once you have a social worker assigned! In the meantime, please keep working on any remaining paperwork and/or start preparing your house for the walk through."

Basically, "Be patient and quite bothering us!"

The other change I hope happens by the end of the year, is to have joined or be close to joining a business referral networking group, likely a BNI chapter, be receiving the higher amount per check from the non-profit for additional hours, and possibly have applied for a secured loan - all amounting to an increase in financial stability. I know I will start my new schedule the week of December 1st and have reached out to local BNI groups expressing interest and visited one last week. I'm not sure if I should apply for the secured loan now or in a month or two when I have increased monthly income.

The wild card is possibly landing a higher paying part-time job, which has it's pros and cons but would definitely help financially. I have applied and continue to apply for these, though it grows wearisome.

So those are my hopes for the next six weeks. May the wind be at my back, and at yours!