Healthvues

We found the Mall today. And Barnes and Noble. This should give you an indication of the level of achievement we’re feeling right about now. We keep telling ourselves that we could be in an unfriendly place or a foreign country - both definitely NOT the case here. Were it not for the people here, we’d be completely nuts by now.

We know what you’re all thinking - “What a vacation! They must be having so much fun!” While we wouldn’t quite characterize our experience that way, thanks in large part to our great sense of humor, we will definitely look back on this with fond memories (if it all works out, that is!). But this whole adoption road has been such a roller coaster and today was the epitome of that notion. For the past few days, little things have been happening that seemed to undermine the confidence we had with this adoption. We have not had the constant contact with the birthmother we had when we first got here. Things weren’t happening like we envisioned - or even agreed upon. Your mind starts to envision the worst as things start to indicate that she’s changed her mind. We have to keep reminding ourselves of the logical, not let our worst fears get the better of us. It came to a head today when we were at our lowest, convinced we had been scammed and actually thought about packing up and going home - not an exaggeration. We probably felt as low as we did right after Atlanta. We don’t care what anyone says - this open adoption route, while having many, many benefits is also a very difficult road. But with this particular match, just when we’re at our lowest, something positive seems to happen to turn it around. To make a long story short, one our “angels” (we refer to them as “Deep Throat” - the Watergate one, not that other one! - and we can elaborate later on what we mean) came through to turn things around when no one else had any luck. The pendulum swings back in a matter of minutes. Talk about exhausting! We’re still very skeptical, but we unpack our bags.

We needed something positive - and fast. It came in the form of basketball tickets to the Arkansas Tennessee game. Our hosts, Gloria and Mike, bought season tickets to Razorback basketball with Moose and Nancy, the mayor of Siloam Springs and his wife - all very devout fans. Gloria offered their tickets to us. Those of you who know how much we enjoy college basketball (especially a good game with two SEC powerhouses) can envision us practically tackling Gloria before she could get her words out. We politely say, “Why, yes - we think we would enjoy such an outing.” So off we go to the game - one that was not even supposed to be close as Tennessee was the heavy favorite. We either have Maryland gear (red and white, close enough to Razorback colors but we don’t risk the reaction) or Syracuse colors - orange, same as Tennessee and DEFINITELY not the way to go. We go neutral and buy stuff there in a store called “Hog Heaven.” To say that Razorback basketball is big in these parts is an understatement of biblical proportions. They know how to put on a game here! Our seats are incredible - 6 rows behind the students and very close to the floor. Knowing that we’ll be sitting with the Mayor and his wife, we remind ourselves that we must be on our best behavior. When they show up in full Razorback regalia, we know we made the right choice in choosing our birthmother and Arkansas as the place our child will be born. This is going to be fun! We were warned that there is a lot of ceremony and pomp, but we didn’t expect this level of showmanship. It was like a Ringling Bros circus with rock music and cheerleaders! They have not one, not two, but three mascots - one of which is a big inflatable pig - “Boss Hog” - which, despite having a human operator on oxygen inside, does some very inhuman things! The fans have a call or act for everything - including calling the team to the court. You haven’t heard anything until you’ve heard 20,000 rabid fans screaming “Woooooooo Pig Sooie!” We heard sounds emanating from human beings that would drive a dog crazy. The packed house, the tradition, the decibel level, the excitement - not to mention an overtime upset win over #8 ranked Tennessee - this was one helluva night! Andy lost his voice, Spike bought a “Hogs” shirt and Gloria will never give up her tickets again. Just what we needed.

Still exhausted from the emotional roller coaster of yesterday, we fire off an email to our agency counselor in Indiana, updating her on the events of the past few days. She finally gets the birthmother on the phone (she had also been trying to reach her all week), who has just returned from her doc visit. Everything is back on track - she says she’s still committed to this adoption, she’s 2 cm dilated and the baby’s in position. The doc says it could be within the week, but the birthmother says it could be any day now. It would’ve been nice to know the exact due date (turns out it is indeed the 15th of Feb) but for each day we’re sitting here waiting is just one more day that solidifies our residency requirement. Things could, of course, still not work out for several reasons, but for now, we’re still on course. The most incredible thing that happens today is that we FINALLY take advantage of the hot tub that is sitting on our front porch. 11 days go by without indulging - what were we thinking? It’s surprising how much things go smoother with some hot, bubbly, chlorinated water. At night, we have a most spectacular thunderstorm (Syracuse, remember the Labor Day storm?) and this is the only time we hope the birthmother doesn’t call. Our moderate, 60 degree sunny weather seems to be over.

We honestly can’t remember what happened this day, so we’re telling this story instead. On the main highway in and out of Siloam Springs there are many antique and junk shops. At one construction company, there’s this big old steam shovel from the ’40s sitting out front. I said to Spike, “There’s Mike Mulligan’s steam shovel!” She couldn’t remember what I was talking about. I explained the famous children’s story, how it was one of my favorites and that now every time we would pass it, she’ll think about that story. Sure enough, now it knaws her brain every time we pass it and she has to point it out. The owner even painted eyes on it, just like the story. Of course, we stopped to take pictures of it and went out and bought the book for our child - whenever it arrives…

We’re thinking that the birthmother could go at any minute, so we’re reluctant to venture far. But it was such a nice day (sunny and 60s) that he had to take the “scenic” route, rolling through the Ozark National Forest and expansive pasturelands. We saw a real American Bald Eagle in the wild today - pretty impressive! Never saw one outside of a zoo. (See how exciting the simplest things can be after 13 days of staring at each other?) Spoke with the birthmother again today - she was very chipper and looked forward to giving birth at any minute. Tonight, we had dinner (at “the club”) with our lawyer and her husband, a real cowboy! One the cool things about this whole experience is meeting people with such different backgrounds from ours - it’s really refreshing to talk with someone who has a totally different perspective on the world. Gary is one of those people. He manages ranches and is probably exactly like you’d imagine - very down to earth, easy going and can sum up the world in a sentence. Fascinating, great stories! Among other things, we learned that you should not attempt to break a mare in heat as she’s standing next to a eager stallion. Sounds like great advise - we’ll file that one away! And don’t leave your truck running where your dog, who you’ve previously ticked off, can get in it and try to run you over. Well, that was a no brainer… We all had big steaks, as the birthmother told us her grandmother told her that eating steaks induces labor. (Well, I certainly felt like giving birth after eating that thing!) Potential disaster: It was karaoke night at the club. It was refreshing to find that Dena and Gary had only slightly less inclination to join in than us - we scrammed.

The steaks didn’t work - the birthmother didn’t pop. The biggest news of the day: Andy narrowly escapes being listed in the police blotter for stealing newspapers off of downtown business’ doorsteps. The fact that it our lawyer’s doorstep, and he fessed up only after the newspaper received an irate phone call from said lawyer, didn’t help his case. He’s now under house arrest, but actually… it feels no different than any other day.

We’re both now fighting wicked colds, something we must’ve caught at the club. The weather has turned extremely miserable - very wet and very cold. Our hosts, Mike and Gloria, are in Tulsa for the week. Mike has to have surgery for a blocked artery and is expected to be OK. But it’s still stressful for everyone. This is sure shaping up to be one heck of a week…

We’ve mentioned before the superb quality of the local TV spots. We’re not exaggerating when we say they’re often more entertaining than the daytime programming. For those of you familiar with “Raising Arizona,” we have found the actual furniture store owners upon which that movie must have been based. A husband and wife team, whose primary marketing talent seems to be based on parking themselves in the deal of the day and, using visualization/projection techniques, get the viewer to imagine themselves in said furniture (never mind that the viewer cannot actually SEE said furniture, because, well, let’s just say our proprietors have hit the Chik-Fil-A once too often…). And our favorite (the one whose leather sofas were “worn by cows to work only last week”) has a new spot wherein he pushes his face up to the camera and scolds us to get our fat butts off the Lazy-Boy and come down and see him, “Bub.” This is the same guy who tells us to come down right away to take advantage of his deals because he “fell off [his] medication.” A cross between Crazy Eddy and Uncle Fester. This is all not a slam on these spots - we love these things. When we’re feeling down from our colds, the wait, the being away from home - 30 seconds of this kind of therapy is like a shot of adrenaline to keep us going until the next commercial break!

Maybe it’s something with Wednesdays. Our colds are the worst, the weather is a cold, driving rain and our sense of adventure is completely gone - at least for now. Absolutely nothing of note happens during the day. We speak with the birthmother, and she’s probably more surprised than anyone that she hasn’t popped yet. As much as we want to move forward with this, she wants to get on with her life too. Her next appointment is Friday and she said she may even talk about trying to induce. That’s fine with us, but we also know that for everyday the baby stays in, it’s another day it’s getting healthy and strong. And we don’t even want to get into the status of the men’s basketball program of the University of Maryland - other than the ugly slide from pre-season Final Four expectations to middle-conference mediocrity. I mean, they lost to FLORIDA STATE at HOME for crying out loud!!!