One Year Married

We did it! We made it through the first year.

And so here we are, starting year 2. We're excited to see what year 2 could bring. Pursuing parenthood is definitely a big part of this.

One of the big things I've thought about from the past year is how different everything feels with inviting someone else into my own emotions. I think this will be even more true with inviting another little someone or someones or someones plus their family plus their social worker in. It reminds me of the idea of God as a rock. Sometimes this is a funny image, but other times it makes so much sense. Sometimes the characteristic of God that is most comforting to me is this "rock"ness, this unchanging nature.

Random rambles today, so here are a few more pictures.

Waiting

I don't know about you, but I do not wait well. It's a lesson the Lord has been working on in my life since...maybe since I was born. I had good and bad seasons of waiting while single, and I think now I draw on some of that experience as we wait.

Ok, waiting to hear back about our background checks isn't that hard. Due to our roles in education which have required recent checks (and knowing we've both never committed a crime), no concerns there. And, sadly, the bar for being a foster parent is pretty low, so I'm not really worried about our application. There is a little sense of urgency in getting stuff back so we can get a spot in the April class, but it's not taking up a lot of mental space.

The harder waiting right now is that we are also trying to have biological children at the same time. It's not going well. We actually knew, through weird circumstances, that this would be the case after just a month of trying. In other words, we don't actually meet the criteria for the "I" word (infertility), but have started testing and treatment anyway. We level up, so to speak, in our treatment plan in April/May. The waiting without knowing is hard, not knowing if we'll eventually get pregnant, not knowing when, not knowing what treatment might work. It's not all consuming, but it is distracting.

Then there's the work waiting. I'm in a tenure track faculty position which means my job description is something along the lines of "be a productive scholar with a trajectory towards national recognition"...so, go make a name for yourself. Uhm, ok. I'm finishing up my fourth of five years before the evaluation year begins. So many things feel like they are waiting on a tenure decision...will we move to a bigger house in Ames (now we are very limited in the number/arrangement of foster children we can take)? Or will we need to move to a new university? Or will I need to pick a new career? Or will we just move to a backpacker island in Thailand and open a taco stand that caters to expats (actual dream job)?

When I get freaked out about all the waiting, I go back to this verse: "But I have trusted in Your steadfast love; My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation." Psalm 13:5

And so we wait. At least there are only three more days to wait for spring break!

We applied to be parents!

We did it. We applied to be parents. That statement seems super weird, like we applied for a fishing license, but we did it. Sunday was our initial info meeting/orientation, and we got finger prints done and handed in paper work. Now we wait a couple of weeks for all of that to get processed. If all goes well, we may get to start our ten weeks of classes in April.

Guys, I am a total commitment-phobe. Seriously, the whole drive home from picking up my dog, when he was just a cute little helpless furball puppy, I cried. All I could think about was how I had just made a 10-15 year commitment, and I was so overwhelmed by that. Every commitment to move (East Asia, back from EA, North Carolina, Iowa) has been accompanied by a total freak out, as was buying my car and my house. I spent a solid six months totally convinced I wanted to marry Jason and just waiting for him to figure it out, only to hit mild panic a couple of days after he proposed. Fortunately, by then, I knew my pattern!

So, you can imagine my thoughts Sunday afternoon shortly after turning in our paperwork. But, I've learned to trust myself. I think through decisions extensively and perhaps obsessively, so once a decision is made, I can trust it and know that I will return to confident and excited after the panic subsides.

I was also reminded that Sunday was just an initial insight into the system we are jumping into: a little loud and chaotic, not enough workers, nobody has time to be delicate with your feelings, and nothing gets done in a hurry or on a dependable time line. As much as I want to start painting our kids room and soliciting donations of hand-me-downs from friends, it's not time. Right now, it's just time to practice waiting.

And to organize the garage. Seriously, this seems to be the linchpin in the whole organizing/purging/make room process for the entire house.

Not Much Time In The Kitchen

I'm really bad at keeping blogs going. Like, really really bad. So we'll see how this goes. But, we're starting the foster care/adoption adventure and it seems almost a requirement to blog about that.

Wait, what? We?

Yep, my kitchen is now our kitchen. And the Ph.D. is done. And I've moved to the middle of the Midwest to a little college town. It's great and life is rolling along. And we'd hate for it to get boring, so just shy of a year into marriage, we are starting the growing-our-family adventure.

This weekend we'll go to an information/orientation meeting, get fingerprinted, and submit paperwork. Then we'll wait to see if we get to enroll in the required parenting classes.

It's exciting. It's terrifying. Honestly, it seems super normal like this was always the plan and super-distant since we aren't able to do much more right now than talk about how to re-arrange my office and fill out paperwork.

On that note, I'm off to make Sticky Honey Sriracha Chicken, though using chicken breast instead of drumsticks and some sort of something with yummy little yellow potatoes.  The tough decision is whether to chop them up and roast them with a little olive oil and spices or to boil and smash them...