questions for you, oh great experienced bloggers

I'm somewhat stumped on what I want to write about in this space.  Writing about infertility was easy.  Okay, the infertility stuff sucked.  Duh.  Writing about it though was pretty much an easy flowing filterless look into my headspace.  It was all about my thoughts, my feelings, my coping (or lack thereof), my treatment, etc.  Me.  Me.  Me.  Marcia.  Marcia.  Marcia.

I guess I knew on some level that writing a want-to-adopt type of blog would eventually lead to a change in the cast of characters if all went the way we hoped it would.  It did, and now there is a living and breathing little human as well as her birth families to consider.  What is mine to share and what is not?  How anonymous is this space really?  As adorable as she is, do I really want her picture out on a public space without her permission?*

To write about my thoughts and feelings on open adoption requires me to have some experiences with open adoption.  Those, I have.  They are shared experiences though.  I'm not sure how to write what I want to write without oversharing or projecting.  I know it can be done as I have seen many of you do this beautifully.  I'm just struggling a bit to overcome some likely irrational big scary interwebz fears.

Mostly I like the rule that if I write something about someone here and they happen to find and read it, they will be okay with what I wrote, after they look past all my swearing and sarcasm, of course.

Blogging thoughts rolling around my brain... pick none, pick one, pick 'em all (or your nose) to answer if you'd like to.

• If you blogged (are currently blogging) before children, how have (will) you change(d) what you share publicly and why?
• If you share (plan to share) pictures and stories of your children on your blog, how do (will) you reconcile feelings regarding their safety and privacy?  
• Do (Will) you have any safeguards in place (watermark pictures, fake names, etc.)?
• Will you stop when your child reaches a certain age?
• Really, any thoughts regarding any of this would be helpful.  Am I an overprotective crazy who just needs to get over it and get on with it?

*For what it's worth, I haven't shared a picture of Firecracker on my private FB account for almost 6-months so it isn't just this blog I am struggling with...

alright, let's do this then

Something happens in my day-to-day life and I write a couple of blog-worthy sentences within the confines of my head.  It's generally some pretty funny shit because let's face it, I am hilarious inside my head.

Hilarious, people!  

A few times I have even sat down to type out a couple of my witty-isms only to find myself hesitating to go on with the rest.  Thoughts change as I figure out what to say next and then just behind the funny I find a few of my old friends making their way to the surface...frustration, sadness, bitterness.  They aren't current feelings, but rather flashbacks or reminders of the places I used to be when I sat down to blog.

I started blogging in January 2008 as we entered into the world of IVF.  We were 2.5 years into our baby-making/failing efforts.  What I thought I was doing then was documenting our process to finally get pregnant, complete with pictures of our babies at 8-cells old.  Of course, that space would then be used to showcase my pregnancy and finally turn into a mommy-ish type blog.

Except it didn't.

That IVF failed.  The other IVFs failed.  There were pregnancies ALL. AROUND. ME.  I fell into a deep depression.  MJ didn't want to adopt.  I considered driving under a big rig.  Our marriage was rocky.  Therapy.  Time.  Wandering aimlessly.  A year later M still didn't want to adopt.  Soul searching.  Mountain climbing.  Cave exploring.  Rappelling off shit.  Collecting mastiffs in our much too small for multiple mastiffs house.  Emerging.  Adopting.  A lot of it is documented.  Some of it stayed in draft form.  Even more is just old thoughts or feelings that appear with different triggers.

Our journey isn't anything special.  The names and doctors and lawyers and outcomes and length of time stuck in turmoil may change, but it is still just another infertility story.  Ours happens to end with a child through domestic adoption...a pretty fantabulously amazing and extremely loud child I might add.

When I left my old blog I had high hopes of leaving so much of the hard stuff behind, and really, I did just that.  I started blogging here and everything felt lighter and livelier and just plain happier.  I think somewhere along the way through those harder years I associated blogging with my place to get out all the ugliness that comes with infertility.  When I didn't feel stuck in that hole of darkness anymore, I simply didn't feel like blogging either.  I'd like to say I knew this is why I stopped blogging all along, but really I have only recently been able to put my finger on it.  Just another of my late-bloomer-isms hard at work.

I still have stuff to say.  Just trying to get into the mode where I sit down at the computer and actually type out a full post.  I used to write most of my blog drafts on the clock at my job.  Shhhh*.

*Ahhh, never mind.  They still got WAY more free hours out of me than I got out of them.  Bastards.  Have I mentioned I don't work there anymore anyway?  Hmmm, right, I should probably do a catch up post sometime.

dusting off the keys (and chiseling away the rust)...

Wow, you know you've been away from your blog for a long time when the blogger format looks completely foreign.  Let's hope this works...

I have always hated when people disappear for what seems like f.o.r.e.v.e.r in blogland only to later turn up in a completely different place than when they left.  Not that I don't want to see them in a different place (assuming different means better), but the nosy detail oriented freak in me wants to know ALL the specifics.  You were going from A to B and now you're at Q?  What happened during that big gap?  Surely it was something.  There has to be more to it.  Yadda.  Yadda.

Yet, here I am.  The very kind of blogger that I hate*.  I needed to not be here for a bunch of selfish asshole reasons that seem even more assholish now that my head is in a different space.  I never planned to stay away so long.  Of course, then the snowball effect took hold until the thought of trying to catch up not only here but also with everyone else's blogs pretty much overwhelmed me to the point of no return.  So return, I didn't.

What has happened around here since May 2011?

• We completed our home study in September 2011
• We finally **FINALLY** finished and turned in our profile booklet mid-December 2011
• This is when our official adoption wait began
• We were chosen by an expectant mom on February 27, 2012 to parent her child 
• Her due date was in exactly 3 weeks - March 19, 2012
• We were officially considered a match on February 29, 2012
• We frantically researched, bought, washed, sterilized, organized, and packed baby gear, let our employers in on our little secret and did our best to finish/hand off our projects, figured out all the work leave BS, packed our own stuff, worked on the nursery, lined up dog sitters to be on call and got all the dog stuff ready to go, researched airline flight locations and times, hotel accommodations, rental cars, started discussing names - one would think we could have done this one at some point in the last 6.5 years.  Anyway, so we were pretty panicked and busy.  And did I mention that my never-gets-sick husband got really sick too?
• We got a call from our caseworker who told us to get on the next available flight just 9 days later on March 9, 2012 (which we did, of course)
• It was a false alarm, but her labor was close
• Her water broke around 10:30PM on March 11, 2012.  We beat her to the hospital.
• Our daughter was born on March 12, 2012 at 1:38PM, perfect in every way
• There are used to be a few pictures at the end of this post, but I took them down
• We lived in a hotel in her birth state until she was 9 days old and we could make the cross country flight back home
• Note:  Airline travel with a 9-day old baby on a flight full of coughing and hacking passengers (MJ included) during flu season after staying up all night (we bought airline tickets at 8PM, packed, and left for the airport at 2AM) is NOT recommended for first time parents.  The parenting handbook missed this one. 

Yes, so there is our past year.

Six years, seven months, and twelve days after we began trying to add a child to our little family of 2, we found ourselves on the lucky side of statistics for a change.  An eternity to some.  A blip on the radar to others.  An at-least-your-ending-has-a-baby to so many more.

I am at a loss as what to even say now.  I don't know where to go from here.  At all.  I don't know if anyone is even around to read this.  I don't know the first thing about mommy blogging.  I pretty much sucked as an infertility blogger once our cycling days were done.  And let's face it, I REALLY sucked as a pre-adoptive parent blogger.  I may just try to catch up around the blogosphere for now and see where that leads...or if anyone has a question/topic they'd like to hear more about please shout it out.  I am about as rusty as they come right now.  As much as I needed to be away from here, I have missed y'all a whole lot.


*And by hate, I really mean love.  I hate that they have disappeared because I have loved reading their story.