8 random things

I recently divulged 7 random things about me, but now I've been tagged by Cibele to give you 8 random things, so I'll try to think of 8 new ones. See what a good sport I am?

1. I have never broken a bone and my lap surgery last year was my first surgery ever (unless you count having my wisdom teeth out). Before all that, I've had stitches three times, and once went to the hospital for a funky allergic reaction (hives are not fun).

2. I'm a jock, or whatever you call a female athlete. I'd rather play a sport than watch a sport. For a while, after undergrad, I started sitting on my butt a lot and not exercising much. I started to lose some of my coordiation and was not as athletic. When I started exercising again, it came back, thankfully!

3. I have a really hard time picking favorites. When someone asks "what's your favorite movie, or music or food or color" I can't hardly narrow it down to one. There are so many types of movies and music and foods. My favorite one day won't be the same the next. So when people send those "getting to know you" emails, I always refuse to answer what my favorite ____ is.

4. I've been in the same job for almost 8 years now, and it's the job I got right after undergrad. It's a good job, I'm the manager of a lab, and I'm well-compensated. It's flexible, comfortable, and challenging. As I stay here and get older, I hire younger and younger people as others come and go. It gets harder to find things to talk about with a 23 year old, but we manage!

5. I have one brother, and 8 cousins. Not a huge family, but bigger than my husband's - he has two brothers and one cousin. Can you imagine? One cousin!

6. My husband and I are high school sweethearts. I went with him to his prom, and the next year, he went with me to mine. We've been together over 14 years (nearly half our lives) and our 10 year wedding anniversary is next month. You can imagine when people learn we're coming up on 10 years, they naturally wonder (and ask) why we don't have kids yet!

7. Ok, I'm doing pretty good. Already at 7. I think I've said this before, but since there are some new readers, I'll give it up again. I have four tattoos. My husband has three. We got our last ones as 5 year anniversary gifts and called it our "white trash anniversary." I have been wanting another one on and off for a while, but don't know where to put it. If I spread out too many more, I really will start to look like trash!

8. Hmm. Number eight. Ummm... I still hold out hope that we can get pregnant naturally. After almost five years of trying, I still have that little bit of hope in there. I guess we all do!

thoughts on adoption.

Hello blogland. How's it going today? I'd doing well, thanks for asking.

I have lots of thoughts floating around in my head, and it's going to be hard to write them out. Hubby and I have started giving some serious thought to adoption. We've talked about it on and off for a year or two as a possibility. At first I said I wanted only our biological baby; that I didn't just want a baby, I wanted to make a baby together and see ourselves in that child. Then I started thinking maybe I could adopt and love a baby that was not biologically mine. Then I went back to wanting my biological child or nothing. I think the wavering was mostly because I hadn't quite given up hope on conceiving. I am back to seeing adoption as a real option, and I think I'm there to stay. Here's how I came to this conclusion (let's see it in a list):

1. I do want a family, and if we can't make one ourselves, then I'm ready to explore other options. I know now without a doubt that I could love a baby that is not biologically mine.

2. I have talked to others who have adopted, and that baby immediately became theirs. Love at first sight.

3. I know we can give a child a healthy and loving home.

4. I have talked to people about the process and it didn't scare me away.

5. I am not getting any younger.

6. I am not willing to undergo any more treatments.

7. I am not willing to put my life on hold anymore to try this or that. I don't want to take my BBT, don't want to put a pillow under my ass and lay there for 20 minutes after sex, don't want to have sex on day 14 if we don't want to. It's not like I'm getting back on the pill, I'm just done with "trying" after almost 5 years! Know what I mean?

8. I know many of you are not at this point and are much more willing to exhaust all other options, but we don't have insurance coverage for infertility and I hated the treatments. Also, I'd rather spend that money (once I find it) and be guarenteed a baby!

9. I'm tired of watching everyone around me get pregnant and enter into parenthood while I watch on the sidelines. I'm just tired of it.

10. It gives me hope and that feels good.

Adopting a baby will not be a consolation prize and we have a lot more to think about. When to start the process, how to pick an agency, what we're willing to take or discuss as far as medical issues, race, etc., financing. Then there is tons of paperwork and stuff to do. I have two friends who will be great resources if/when we start the process. Right now, we just have a lot more talking to do, and most importantly, we're going to stay on the same page during this process. If hubby needs to slow down, then I'll respect his feelings and slow down. This is also not something I want to just jump into. I want to gather lots of information and really analyze my feelings on this and hubby's feelings too.

Yesterday I got on an adoption website and looked at the children available for adoption now. I fell in love with a 13 year old boy with green eyes and red hair. A local tv station airs a story about one of the kids each week and I watched his video online, then made hubby watch it. This red-headed kid was into animals and science just like my husband, which is why I fell for him. We talked and talked and realized that this does not fit our lifestyle right now. We're 31 and 32 and hardly feel like we could parent a 13 year old right now. Hell sometimes I still feel like a 13 year old. Then I talked to a friend of my SIL for an hour and a half last night about her adoption experience and I really do think I'd like a newborn, but I'm not opposed to still thinking about an older kid. There are just so many things to consider and I tend to get carried away. I'm just ready for a child to love, I know you all understand that!

Anyway, that's what's up in our world. I need to finish school up sometime next year, but maybe we can start the process so that we're not at square one and have another year to wait after I graduate! That's still being negotiated. It feels good though to be considering something that might actually work out. I'm tired of waiting on my body. If it happens naturally one day, then we'll have two kids - yea!

Have a great weekend everyone!

vacation time

We are off to tropical Costa.Rica tomorrow. It's going to be awesome. Unfortunately that means that this week I have been unbelievably busy getting ready to be gone for a week at work and home, so I haven't had a lot of time to read blogs or write. I wanted to thank you all for your kind comments on my last post about adoption. I'm so excited about it and it fills me with hope. I will get caught up on all your blogs when we return from vacation and probably post some photos too. Oh, real quick, we started a ballroom dance class this week. It was fun and entertaining, and I'll post more about it when I return. Everyone have a fantastic weekend and a good week. Hasta luego!

Random

I don't know where to begin. Maybe just a random summary of things, then I'll come back with details in future posts.

1. Costa.Rica was awesome. I highly recommend it. I'll post more on it later with photos.

2. Work has been extremely busy since I returned. I'm scrambling to catch up with all the blogs I read. I'm thinking about you all.

3. We are enjoying our ballroom dance lessons. We've learned the Foxtrot, (missed the week of the Jitterbug), the Rhumba, and the Waltz. We're not bad either!

4. We joined a gym and signed up for personal training. I'm trying to bulk up a bit and hubby wants to slim down. Mostly we just want to be healthy and fit and create some long lasting healthy habits. We're enjoying it all so far.

5. I filled out and sent in the information sheet to an adoption agency we're interested in. I have a friend who adopted and she's going to bring me information on another agency. She encouraged us to check out several, that we'll be dealing with them for a long time, so we'd better like them. Just like an RE. Hopefully we can rule some out early, then go to a few orientations and decide who to use. I'm ready to get started.

6. As much as I'm excited about the possibility of adoption in the somewhat near future, I still get sad. I should have known better than to think I was "cured." You may or may not remember that we had baby furniture that my brother and SIL gave us before we even started trying. We put it in a closet and it sat there for years. A friend of mine who is financially unstable got pregnant, so we loaned the furniture to them. I recently asked her to send some more pictures of her baby. I adore this friend, but haven't met her son yet, so she sent me a link to her my.space page. As I watched the slide show of photos, there is her beautiful smiling son laying on MY changing table or in MY crib. I'm happy to have helped her out and I know that one day those will be in my house with my baby in them, but it was a little too much. It made me sad, as all of you can understand. As I told my hubby about this experience, I saw a lot of empathy in his eyes and it was so comforting to see it.

7. The hubby and I are otherwise happy and doing well. We are happy and getting along and on the same page about adoption. I feel lucky.

please wait for assistance

I am not allowed to use the self check-out lines. Not in grocery stores, not in Home.Depot, not anywhere. Every time I use one, I screw up and end up needing assistance. Now I consider myself to be a reasonably intelligent person, and I actually worked as a checker in a grocery store for 5 weeks after high school (hated it). I can work the computer just fine. I can work the scanner just fine. I can run my credit card just fine. I can do all of these things, I really can.

The problem is that I'm not patient enough. I am all about efficiency. It's just the way I roll. The machine can't keep up with me. Oh, and the bagging area has it out for me. Unexpected item in bagging area... whatever! Those machines have too many rules.

Last time I helped with the self check-out process, the machine locked up and the transaction had to be cancelled and re-run. We almost always have to have someone come over and correct something in the process. It's embarrassing. So now I no longer get to help. I have to stand impotently by and watch my husband have all the fun. He slowly scans each item and places it directly in the bagging area. Then he selects his method of payment, so slowly it kills me. He swipes his credit card (though he sometimes has a problem here because he's cursed to swipe it the wrong way the first time every time no matter where we are), completes the transaction, takes his bag out of the irksome bagging area, and walks happily out of the stores without needing any assistance. I can't stand watching, I want to help, but I have to recognize I have limits. That is not easy for me. Anyone else hate these machines? I prefer just going to a live person!

Thanks all for your happy anniversary wishes. Hope you're having a good week!