Long Bumpy Road

I’m in better spirits this week. Just because I refuse to wallow in self-pity anymore. I got a call this afternoon about a potential placement. A messy placement. It is a sibling group of 4, but they are going to try to split them up because CHOR doesn’t have any families able or willing to take in all 4. However, the county (the same county where the miracle Christmas baby was from, btw) has agreed to break up the group but according to the supervisor from CHOR, the county will look long and hard to find a home to take all 4 girls together before proceeding with adoption. She explained it as being a long, trying process to adopt with this county, but other families at CHOR have had success, despite the tension and worry along the way. I selected the younger two, the older one being well above my preferred age of 6 (and the older two being even older than that). According to the supervisor, the staff at CHOR schemed and brainstormed on how I could take all 4, but with the limited space and unfinished room in the basement, it wasn’t likely. What?! Holy macaroni! The girls have been in a foster home for a little over a year now but will not be adopted by that family, so they are being moved. No one knows how soon. The initial call came in last week but due to the ice storm, which was more pronounced in their county, nothing was done. The hope is to place the younger two girls with me and the older two girls with another CHOR family hoping to adopt. I don’t know how I feel about this placement. Being told it could be a long bumpy road is never something you want to hear. Breaking up a sibling group means making a concerted effort to get them together as much as possible (all the more reason to hope the other two get placed nearby). One girl would be in school (luckily I’ve had the experience of a child in the school closest to me and I actually like the school closest to me – it’s after the elementary school that things get hairy). Once again, it’s a lot to consider and would mean getting a set of bunk beds asap. While it would not be ideal to get a placement right now, because I still don’t have a car, I do have a three-day weekend coming up, so that would be a good time to get everyone settled. Although, the boy is supposed to be spending the weekend with me again, and it could be our last, so I would feel bad for him. Why does my stupid house have to be so damn small? Oh well, I have to deal with what I have! Isn’t it so silly how I immediately begin worrying about things after getting a call for a placement? Yet, so few calls result in actual placements…...

 

So, my period is a few weeks late but ever since last Friday I have been feeling it coming. You know that feeling – the clenching spasms of your uterus trying to slough off the useless lining; that tight, taunt feeling low in your abdomen, twisting and writhing to shed its skin. But, thus far no Aunt Flo. I’ve been grumpy and emotional lately, thanks to the pent up hormones flooding my system in hopes of forcing my uterus to act appropriately. Whenever my period is late it is always a hot mess. Ugh! I just want it to come and get it over with already. Sans cramps, patu.

 

So, as I wince from cramps, the newly pregnant woman at work has been trying very hard to share her pregnancy with me. She’s been craving vanilla ice cream, even though she hates vanilla ice cream – she seems delighted in this new twist of fate – and so she went for an ice cream sundae after a training this afternoon and got me one too. Because that’s what I need. A sundae. Am I five? A sundae will make it all better? She came by earlier to see if I had Sudafed or Tylenol cold because that’s what the doctor told her she could take. Listen, I told you I was happy for you, I congratulated you and promised to pray for a healthy pregnancy and baby (which I do every time I think of her and her “accidental” pregnancy), but please don’t force it down my throat. I get that you are all happy and glowie and newly pregnant, but I’m about to punch you in the throat. Not kidding. I don’t want to live vicariously through you and your pregnancy, I don’t want to know about your cravings or how you now think your house is too small for all the “stuff” you will be acquiring. I don’t want to hear about your mother admonishing you to get married or worried there will be multiple last names on the birth certificate. I want distance. I don’t want all of this in my face, rubbed in my wounds. What is a nice way of saying, “Try to be less pregnant around me, ok?” As she babbled on and on about ice cream I thought “I won’t even get to name my own children, if I get these girls. You can’t change a child’s name when they’ve had it for all these years.” And that’s my reality. So, please tell me more about your need for a bigger home and 2 am cravings for peanut butter…….

 

We are facing another snow storm, this one with the potential for greater quantities of snow. It would actually be a whole lotta fun to have kids to go play in the snow with! I would love to take them to the farm and go sledding! We could build a nice big snowman and maybe a snow fort – all the fun things I did as a kid! But, we’ve been beat up by snow storms this winter and everyone is a little weary. I have run out of places to put the snow, having large mounds in front of my porch and between the sidewalk and the curb. The snow doesn’t bother me as much as it does others – like my parents who have a dirt driveway nearly a mile long which is now a chute of solid ice – but, it is getting tiresome even for a snow-lover like me. But, like so many things in life, I have no control over the weather and whining about it will not change anything. Put on the big girl panties and grab a shovel!