Someone from TN landed on my blog by searching for "into darkest tennesse." Ah, irony.
I should have woken up and said "Rabbit," for good luck since it's the first of the month. Instead though, I woke up and said, "Crap!" because Abigail had thrown up a pale spill of frothy vomit right beside the bed. At least it wasn't on the bed and at least I didn't, half asleep, step in it while getting out of bed.
Himself has taken the sickly dog off to an emergency visit to the vet. Before he took her, she managed to poop a nice splat on the downstairs carpet and then another little pile on the kitchen floor.
The poor man cannot stand the sight of poop, so he had his shirt up around his nose as he hustled the girl out to the garage. "I'm taking your car!" he called over his shoulder, in the midst of his hurried exodus.
(He was very good about taking a bucket of soapy water and the spray Resolve around to scrub the stain out of the carpets; he's just not good about the bulk removal stage. I'm not saying that I specialize in that, but I did work as a care manager with the elderly for four years and one can't help but become desensitized after a certain point along the way. That, or quit.)
The Kentucky branch of Bethany called and they do take military couples. There was no chance for this information to translate into joy however, before she explained that the reason military families have to be very careful in beginning the adoption journey is that a move will end the process, as it is state based.
Stupid, stupid me. I should have known. How could I have forgotten the little thing of our PCS move to GA? I didn't forget, I remembered, but I should have known it meant an impossibility, not just a difficulty.
Here's how it breaks down. The first step is an informational meeting, the soonest of which is set for June 21st. It lasts all day. After that, the families go home with the papers for the home study. The next step depends on how quickly they get their paperwork together, it takes anywhere from three to six months.
Now, we know the Army and paperwork. Let's just be honest here. It's going to take a goddamn six months. Or, let's be positive and assume it takes three. That leaves eight months to be matched with a birthmother, for her to give birth and for the adoption to become complete.
That is cutting it way to close, especially since PCS dates get moved around all the time. What if we get matched, are in process, and then get moved to GA, ending up in a disrupted adoption plan? Heartbreaking.
Also, costly, as the home studies are state based. We would have to go through the entire process, albeit expedited, in GA. The cost of the home study is two to three thousand dollars. We are not rich. If we pay double for one child, that could realistically impact how many children we end up adopting, the actually size of our family. Which is weird.
Directly after this call, Keith and I left for the dump with all the empty boxes from PCSing from CO. I absorbed all this information slowly during the hot, bumpy ride and the more I absorbed, the more exhausted and dense I became, until I was like a limp rag. I stayed that way pretty much the rest of the day.
Now I just feel stupid for having gotten my hopes up. Of course I can't control having a child. How dare I try. How dare I be proactive. Stupid, stupid me. Children are a gift from God and he's withholding, he's on hold, listen to the music while your party is reached, your wait time will be several years.
I wish I didn't want it so much. I wish I were someone else, someone completely different. I wish I had been born in some hick town in Oklahoma or Wisconsin or Wyoming. I would have wispy blond hair and would use to use mascara to have any eyelashes. I'm nineteen and passionately in love with Keith, whom I went to high school with. He works for the county; he drives a snow plow in the winter, he's an EMT or something.
We make out in his truck, we get married in a little church when I'm twenty, we have a tiny apartment in town, the town with one stop light. I buy lingerie at WalMart and have a ball. I get pregnant three months married. By the time I'm twenty three I have two tow headed children. I'm going to the county college, I want to be a CNA and work part time, my mom will babysit for me.
We're saving up to buy a house, we have arguments about money, I burn the steaks, we sleep tangled up together in our double bed with the blinds tapping against the windows, we bemoan the cost of heating the apartment. I get pregnant again.
And so on. Five years later we have a small house on an acre of land a little out of town, I hang the wash on the line, the first two are in elementary school, I work four days a week, we have birthday parties with helium balloons and a cake I ordered from the local Kroger's. We get a new TV for Christmas, we repaint the living room.
That would be a nice little life.
