Celebrating Mother's Day

First and foremost let me say happy belated Mother's Day to all mothers, expecting mothers, and waiting mothers. I was lucky enough to share Mother's Day with my mom, although we lost her mom and my grandmother 2 years ago on May 9th which sadly was also a Mother's Day. To us Mother's Day is always May 9th, no matter what day it falls on now.

We enjoyed an entire day together, just me and her, and it was very nice, especially since only 2 days prior we had fought. That's what mothers and daughters do though. They fight, they make up, and sometimes they learn from what they were fighting about. While enjoying the day with my mother, I was also secretly celebrating Mother's Day for myself. I took the opportunity of picking up some small odds and ends for my future child; a couple stuffed toys, a coloring book with crayons, some children's toothbrushes, and sippy cups.

I am an optimist. I believe that if you truly believe something is going to happen it will happen, whether good or bad, (i.e truly believing you will fail a test can psychologically set you up to fail; whereas, truly believing you will pass a test will psychologically set you up to pass/succeed) so by "nesting" as they call it, and preparing my home for my future child I am psychologically preparing myself for my child. However, I am not blind to the fact that there are risks in the foster to adopt program. Because I have decided not to be classified as a legal at risk adopter I stand the risk of becoming highly attached to a child and then having to turn around and send them back to their birth parents.

I am allowing myself hope, and to get my hopes up a bit, but I try to keep the risks in mind at all times. You know the old saying hope for the best, prepare for the worst. That's what I'm doing. I hold the hope in my heart that the first child placed with me will be the one I want to adopt, and will be the one I end up adopting; however, I'm no dimwit, and I realize it very well may not work out that way.

I worried that maybe I was doing things wrong, buying toys, finding clothes that my friends' children have outgrown, finding a suitable bed for my chosen age range, slowly preparing my house, designing the child's room in my mind, and celebrating Mother's Day as if I am already a mother, but while reading a book on adoption I learned that it is actually healthy to do such. It helps me prepare for having a child, similar to the way a pregnant mother would.

I'm excited about this, but I have conflicting emotions as well. I imagine they aren't much different than a pregnant mother's emotions. Things such as worry about things not working out, worrying whether I'll be a good parent, worrying whether I'm already doing things wrong or right, conflicting emotions about the process of this adoption, and so much more. I check my paperwork daily, and most especially the checklist that Buckner gave me to keep track of the process to make sure I'm on track and getting the essential things taken care of in a timely manner. I imagine these are normal concerns for most waiting adoptive parents.

On the checklist, on my part, I have FBI fingerprinting to get done, my basic physical and TB test, and my dogs' shot records to track down. I think on them I am just going to call the vets that handled their shots and get them to give me another copy of their records, because so far several searches of the house have yielded nothing other than things I need to get cleaned up. I also need to find a lockable box to put all my medications in and I need to go through my medicine cabinet to make sure I don't have any expired medications. Most are antibiotics that I personally forgot to finish, the rest are all over the counter things such as Ibuprofen, Benadryl, and a handful of herbs. After Thursday I will have my parenting classes to take, my medications class to take, and my behavioral intervention class. Then comes the homestudy, and then hopefully a placement!