Home stretch

On Tuesday, March 6, we found out that Will’s emigration permit—his EP—had been submitted to the Korean government for approval! This is the last big paperwork step before he can come home. After the long, long delay—no children have come home since spring 2011—the Korean government is saying it will expedite these EPs, approving them in about two weeks. Soon after that will come our Travel Call, the phone call from our social worker that will say, Buy your plane tickets, come to Korea, get your son. He’s ready for you.

All of this was shocking to us. We’d heard rumors that EP approvals would be starting again, but they’re submitted in batches, and because of when we received our referral, we didn’t expect to be in the first batch. For the past few months, we’ve thought we might travel in April, then maybe early June, then (fingers crossed) May. All of this was based on supposition and rumor and sketchy math, on online postings and wishful thinking. We had no idea what to expect. We’ve been disappointed before.

Then, suddenly, concrete information. His EP submitted. A travel call coming soon. Me once again standing up in my office, phone clutched to my ear, stomach flipping over. Something happening. Something real.

I felt a lot of strange things last week (to be honest, likely influenced by the fact that it was a certain time of the month). I felt elated and terrified and not ready. I felt a sense of mourning for my current child-free life, a sense of closeness to John as I realized our “just the two of us” days are about to end. I felt panicked about my annual reunion with my best friends from college, scheduled for the last weekend in March here at my house. I felt utterly and 100% unprepared. Then I felt worried that these feelings meant I wasn’t ready to be a parent, that something was wrong with me. What was wrong with me? This is what I’ve wanted for more than two years now.

I am happy to report that these feelings have shifted and largely dissipated. Creating two big lists—To Do and To Buy—and beginning to cross things off them was a big help. His nursery is pretty much done, and we’re well stocked in toddler gear, thanks to a lovely baby shower my mom hosted for me. We have hotel options picked out, flights researched, Stella care lined up, a printout of Korean phrases sitting on the coffee table. Is there still nervousness and fear? Of course. But the excitement—the sheer excitement to imagine holding my son, to imagine the first time he turns his head and smiles at me—I am giddy with it.

I’ve been reading the research and I know we will have some dark, hard times. A major trauma is coming his way, a major change for all three of us, and we need to be ready to support him as he works through it, and support each other as we do. But I think of him here, in our house, in my arms—and I realize that we’re in the home stretch, that it’s actually going to happen, and happen soon—and I’m just amazed, exhilarated. I’m smiling. I see John smiling, too (he tends not to worry as much as I do), look at him studying the Seoul guidebook, and I can barely comprehend that this process is finally coming to an end, and a beginning.

2011 lookback: An embarrassment of riches

Even when I kept a paper journal, back in college, I always loved writing a “year in review” entry at the end of December. This meme, while a meme, makes it easy. Without further ado:

What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?
Ran a half-marathon in two hours, stood on Cuban soil, became an aunt, took a four-week photography class, took a staycation. Went to six concerts (Iron & Wine, Mason Jennings, Death Cab for Cutie with Frightened Rabbit, Mountain Heart, Amos Lee, and the Civil Wars). Walked on Lake Shore Drive after a blizzard. Attended a mayoral debate. Kept a daily gratitude list for a month. Cheered on runners in the Chicago marathon. Named my son.

Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
My 2011 resolutions were to run the half-marathon again and beat my first time (done!), become comfortable driving again (woefully not done!), continue reading at least one book per month (done), take a more in-depth photography class (done), and hang out in my neighborhood café in the winter when I feel sad about the lack of light (semi-done; I could have indulged in this more often).

2012 is going to be a year like no other. Of course, my resolutions are focused on Will—on doing the very best I can to make him feel safe and comfortable and happy in his new home. I’m going to do some intense reading on attachment this winter. I want to focus on patience and calmness. Overall, I want to start learning how to become the best parent I can. I also want to focus on keeping our marriage strong as we embark on this huge change in our life.

I am so, so excited to love my child in person.

I’d like to run my third half-marathon; I think I can do it, depending on the timing of my maternity leave. I want to write here at least once a month, and I want to keep taking ballet classes when possible.

Where did you travel in 2011?
San Francisco and Havana, Cuba! Closer to home: northern Michigan for a weeklong camping trip.

What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
Obviously, Will.

What dates or images from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory?
November 10, the day I received the phone call at work that changed everything. November 13, the day we knew for sure that Will was our son.

Then, in chronological order:
--April 17, the day I held my week-old nephew for the very first time, and looked down and saw my family in the tiny, red, scrunched-up face of a newborn.
--The Friday night in late May when I stumbled across a blog post discussing the fact that Korean adoptions would be on hold for the rest of the year.
--The morning of June 22, when I wandered into the kitchen and found a small gray box waiting for me on the counter. Beautiful, beautiful diamond earrings from a husband who continues to surprise and delight me after 10 years of marriage.
--The very early morning of August 14, watching the cobalt clouds rush across the downtown skyline as I walked toward the start of the half-marathon.
--December 8, seeing the island of Cuba from the sky for the first time, the passengers clapping as we landed, my hands shaking and a little Cuban-American boy yelling excitedly to his mother, “We’re in CUBA!”
--December 10, visiting the neighborhood where my mother grew up, walking the rooms where my ancestors lived. I will never, ever forget this day and the way it made me feel.

What were your biggest achievements of the year?
As with last year, running! I had a personal best of 24:35 in a 5k, and I shaved 15 minutes off my half-marathon time. I wrote here almost every month, and I took four photo walks: two in Uptown and Edgewater after the blizzard, one in the Loop, and one in the neighborhood this fall. I celebrated 10 years of marriage, and I started taking ballet classes again after 21 years.

What was your biggest failure?
Driving more often. I really, really need to get on this.

Did you suffer illness or injury?
Some illnesses here and there, but I’m so happy to be able to type that none of them was serious.

What was the best thing you bought?
New plain white dishes. An oil painting in Cuba. A flowered dress from Akira. My iPhone.

Whose behavior merited celebration?
Cuban bloggers who are brave enough to speak out against the oppression and propaganda of their country’s government. Read them. The wider their audience, the more protected they are from persecution.

Whose behavior saddened you?
I wish the Korean government would embrace an adoption policy that works better for children who need families.

Where did most of your money go?
The mortgage, Cuba, adoption fees.

What did you get really excited about?
Will. Cuba. Running. Game of Thrones. Eating at Topolobampo for our 10th wedding anniversary. Living outside on our deck in the summer. Girls’ weekend in Chicago. Our staycation. Working on Will’s nursery. My neighborhood. Lagunita’s A Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ Ale. Big Star. The Violet Hour. Watching Stella run on the beach.

What song will always remind you of 2011?
Anything by The Head and the Heart and The Civil Wars. The Beatles song “Till There Was You,” which John learned to play on his guitar.

What do you wish you’d done more of?
Photography and driving.

What do you wish you’d done less of?
Worrying; thinking in terms of “what ifs.”

What was your favorite TV program?
Game of Thrones, Mad Men, and Modern Family.

What was the best book you read?
I read 12 books this year—three less than last year, but four of them were giant books in the Game of Thrones series. The New Yorker continues to take up a lot of my reading time! The GoT books and Freedom by Jonathan Franzen were my favorites.

What was your greatest musical discovery?
The Civil Wars

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
I finally tried on a pair of skinny jeans and felt sad that I’d waited so long. Also, I happily wore lots of dresses and skirts in the summer.

What political issue stirred you the most?
Gay rights and health care… same as last year.

What kept you sane?
Late Sunday afternoons with a glass of wine and InStyle magazine, preferably on the deck. Summertime camping. Any stretch of a few days where I didn’t touch a computer. (Mind you, these are exactly the same as 2009 and 2010.)

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.
Our family and friends provide us with an embarrassment of riches. I can run faster than I’d ever imagine possible. Also: What you think about the reflection in the mirror isn’t the point; just put on the leotard and go.

Traffic patterns changing

I never realized this before, but November is a month in which good things tend to happen in my life. It’s the month in which we moved to Chicago 10 years ago. It’s the month I was hired in my current job, which I love, and the month in which we mailed off our application to adopt from Korea. (Of course, it’s the month of Thanksgiving, too, a time of gratitude and family and lots of good food.)

On Thursday, November 10, around 10:30 in the morning, I retrieved my phone from the closet in my office to text our dogwalker. I then placed it on my desk, thinking absentmindedly that one of these days, hopefully, hopefully, our social worker would call with our referral, and I’d want to make sure I picked up right away.

Less than three minutes later, it rang, and it was her.

“I’ve received a package with a referral for you,” she said.

Then I was standing, facing away from my open office door, my eyes full, hands shaking, heart beating so hard I could feel it hitting against my chest.

It’s a boy, she told me. He’s healthy. He was born on November 1, 2010. We could come in that afternoon to read his files and see his face.

See his face.

I called John, still shaking, breathless. I think he was shocked to the point where he could barely register what was happening, that it was actually happening. He would pick me up at 2:30 for the drive to the agency.

I called my parents. I told my boss and cried when she hugged me. I pretended to do work for three hours. My stomach somersaulted; I had no appetite for lunch. I tried to remember what we’d been doing on November 1 in 2010. It was a Monday, the day after Halloween. We’d run a 10K on Halloween morning and met up with new friends whose adopted toddler son is Korean. I remembered John and I walking around the neighborhood that night, looking at all the trick-or-treaters, talking about how much our child would love being part of it someday, musing about costume ideas. He was born the next day.

The drive was slow, surreal. We listened to Andrew Bird. We passed the Korean Air warehouse by the airport. I saw a construction sign alongside the highway: “Week of Nov. 7: Traffic patterns changing.”

Our social worker apologized for wearing jeans; she hadn’t expected to meet with clients that day. We sat in her office and she started handing us document after document, so much information about his birthmother, his birth, his medical history, his foster family. And then, oh, then, three pages of typed information from his foster mother: his likes and dislikes, his personality, his schedule, what he eats (and what he spits out—yogurt!). He is curious and likes riding outside in his carriage. He can sometimes be short-tempered. He can find a hidden toy. He likes baths. He laughs. He likes meeting other babies. He dances when his foster mother sings. He cries when his foster father leaves for work. He’s already pulling himself up. He says two words. He has four teeth.

His birthmother gave him the name Jiho. It means “clear wisdom.”

The Korean social worker wrote in the paperwork, “Jiho is a smart, cute-looking baby boy. He babbles well and gives a laugh if you play with him. He is growing up healthy and being loved in the special care of his foster family. We hope that Jiho will meet a good adoptive family as soon as possible. We also hope his adoptive parents will enjoy a happier life as well with him.”

And then, then, the photos. We were given the gift of more than 25 of them, some taken when he was six months old and some just a few weeks ago, at 12 months. He is adorable. He is beautiful. He has big eyes and lots of hair and the smoothest skin. He’s wearing a little hoodie. He’s standing up and holding onto a toy lawnmower. He’s clutching a rattle, then a phone. He’s sitting with his smiling foster mother. He’s propped up between two huge teddy bears.

We took the papers and the photos and we drove home in a daze, in the late-afternoon darkness, straining to look at his face again and again as we passed under the streetlights. When we got home, we spread all the photos out on the counter, a collage of Jiho. We reread his paperwork. That night we slept like the dead, funnily enough; we were just completely drained from the emotion and intensity of the day.

Before formally accepting the referral, we needed to speak with a pediatrician who specializes in internationally adopted children and have him review Jiho’s files. That didn’t happen until Sunday. Friday and Saturday were slow and surreal, spent looking at his photos, talking about him, offering up possible names, just the two of us together, sharing this secret. For the first time since we decided to adopt, John walked into the second bedroom and started talking about what we’d need for the nursery. (He always said he wanted to wait until our referral before doing any real preparation.)

On Sunday afternoon, we spoke with the doctor, who’s raising his family in the city not far from us and will likely be our pediatrician. He said Jiho is healthy and developing well. He told us to “go get him.”

And we are.

We don’t know exactly when that will be. Sometime in the spring, I suspect (and pray). Sometime in the spring we will fly across the world, where there is a baby boy waiting for us, as we’ve been waiting for him. We will meet him and hold him and become a family of three. He is real. This is really happening. For two years—we mailed our first application to adopt on November 12, 2009—this has been our hope and wish and plan, and now it’s actually happened. It’s almost too much to process and grasp, but it’s beginning to feel more normal as each hour of each day passes by. The more I look at his face, the deeper in love I fall with him.

I don’t even know what else to write, or how to talk about this. In the past nine days, I’ve found myself smiling at nothing. Riding on the train, I haven’t been able to focus on my magazine; I just stare out the window. We’ve called our parents and siblings, emailed his photos to the proud new grandparents and aunts and uncles. We’re starting to tell cousins, friends, coworkers. Their tears and sincere joy for us deepens our own. I’ve reflected a lot on what wonderful people we have in our life, and on the miracle of how many people here already love this baby.

I won’t lie, the tears have been coming easily. The moment on Sunday afternoon when we decided to accept, I cried hard, really hard, so overwhelmed by what was happening. And then I gathered myself together, dried my face, pulled my hair back, and went out for my long run, amazed at how different the familiar path and trees and lake looked that miraculous autumn afternoon, on my first run as a mom.

Running, registering, and this past weekend

I. Running

I’m in training again. My second half-marathon. When my friend-slash-coach emailed me my training plan, all twelve weeks lined up in a neat chart of miles, I was simultaneously elated and daunted. There are pace runs and intervals and fast finishes on that chart. My weekly long runs started with seven-milers. It’s a more aggressive plan than last year, because I want to run those 13.1 miles faster. I believe I can run them faster.

I know this is an eye-rolling, cringe-inducing statement to some, but I really do love to run. It makes me feel powerful and healthy, it helps me zip my jeans, it earns me membership in a community, it connects me to my city in a unique way. But I’ve realized that, like anything else, just because you love something doesn’t mean it’s pink roses and calico kittens all the time. I worry about getting hurt. I worry about failing. Sometimes I don’t want to run. Sometimes I set out for my long run and hate the entire first mile; the weight of the distance left to go seem so unbearable. My mind boggles at the fact that there are still seven, eight, twelve miles to cover.

Long runs are funny things. I find myself needing a day or two to psych myself up for them, especially when I’m in the above-ten-miles range. Our minds hold a lot of power; completing a long run is a physical achievement, of course, but your brain has to be on board to propel you through. When I’m running for two hours, my thoughts swing from ecstasy to agony, bliss to torture. I look at my fellow runners, at the dogs and boats and soccer players, then I zone out and don’t notice anything for a mile. My right knee twinges and aches. I worry that I’m getting sunburned. Then I round a bend and see the sun glittering on the mighty lake and feel like my chest is going to burst with joy, because I get to have this experience, this feeling, this accomplishment.

Two miles later, I hate every step and can think of nothing but the shower and beer waiting for me back home.

It’s fascinating to me, those mental and physical shifts. But above all else, running gives me space to think, to truly be alone in my head, if that makes sense, even as I’m surrounded by hundreds of Chicagoans. I suspect I’m going to value this time even more when I’m a mom. And certainly my main topic of thought while running these days is our little guy. The miles fly by when you’re thinking of names, mentally debating whether you need a pack-n-play, and scrutinizing every jogging stroller that flies down the path.

II. Registering

I went to Babies R Us for the first time a couple weeks ago. My friend Mandy came along to help me start our registry. Mandy and I have a lot in common: we both waited until our mid-30s to have our first child, we live in similar-sized city condos, and our reaction to places like Babies R Us is more overwhelmed-ness than excitement. Don’t get me wrong; I was extremely excited to register, but I definitely needed some navigational assistance. So we spent two hours on a Wednesday night roaming the store, waving the little gun over changing-pad covers and thermometers and wipes and plastic utensils and a carseat. We discussed the merits of homemade baby food. We tried on diaper bags. I got a little choked up around the bath toys. It was so, so much fun.

In the past month, John and I have allowed ourselves to realize that we’re actually going to become parents. For the first time, it’s all seemed so real. Based on referrals coming to other families who are with our agency, we realized that ours could come at the early end of the six-to-nine-month wait we were quoted. In fact, it could come in early June. And then, we could be in Seoul in as little as twelve weeks after that. I didn’t want to cram all our preparations into three months. And I wanted to give adequate advance notice at work. So I told my boss the news (she was over the moon). My college girlfriends gave me a beautiful shower at our annual reunion in May. I signed up for a weekly e-newsletter that tracks your baby’s development, guessing that maybe he’d been born in February. John and I made plans to paint the nursery on the weekend of our tenth wedding anniversary in June. I made sure my phone’s ringer was always turned on.

III. This past weekend

Friday was warm and summer-like. We decided to grill after work, and we lounged on the deck, enjoying the balmy air, savoring our beers, John flipping the bison burgers as they seared. Life felt so perfect. “When do you think our referral will come?” he asked me out of the blue, his eyes alight.

Later, before bed, I went online to check the weekend forecast and plan when to do my long run. I zipped around a few sites and visited Cheese Curds and Kimchi, a blog written by a couple who just brought their son home from Seoul a few weeks ago. As soon as I began to read the news in her latest post, my stomach turned over, and then I was crying, and all of those happy expectations and plans and hopes were just—not there anymore.

I definitely recommend clicking on that link; Pix is a terrific writer and she explains the situation really well. In a nutshell, the Korean government is attempting to slow, and eventually end, international adoption. They’re allowing fewer and fewer babies to leave the country each year—there’s an annual quota for how many can be adopted internationally. But domestic adoption rates aren’t rising fast enough to make up the difference. So more and more babies are having to wait longer to join their international families. If they’re matched with a family but the quota is then reached, they have to wait until the following year to travel, when a new batch of annual permits is issued.

Our agency historically hasn't been as affected by this quota as others, which is why we switched to it. But as of last month, that changed. Somehow, we fell through the cracks and weren’t informed—our social worker hasn’t explained why, but she confirmed what I read online. There will be no more referrals until late fall, there will be no travel until 2012, and our child will very likely be older than twelve months when he comes home. We had been expecting him to be nine or ten months, and we didn’t imagine Christmas 2011 without him.

What else to say? This was a tough blow. We aren’t in control of this process, but it’s really hard to readjust our expectations. We don’t have a choice. But it’s still really hard. I feel like we’re back at that place where it doesn’t feel real. We can fill our lives with work and classes and dinner with friends, summer festivals, camping trips, and the beach, and we will. But part of me feels like I’m ready for this era of my life to end, for the new one to begin, and now I don’t know when that will happen.

***

On Saturday night, we decided to go downtown for dinner at an Indian place. The car ride down Lake Shore Drive was a quiet one. We parked in a garage, and when I got out, I found a black wallet at my feet. It contained a driver’s license, credit card, about $30, and some mints. Amazingly, the owner lived just three blocks west of us, on the same street. We found him on Facebook, saw that he was a server at a nearby restaurant, and called there to let him know we’d found his wallet. We offered to bring it by after our meal.

The restaurant is a swanky new steakhouse overlooking the river. We showed up around 10, and when we spoke with the hostess, she began gushing about how kind we were and insisted we have a round of drinks on the house. So we found ourselves sitting in the dark, hushed bar, raising two glasses to good karma. We’ll take all we can get.

There were bells on a hill

Yesterday I read an article about a new study showing that South Korean children seem to have much higher rates of autism than American children.

Yesterday I got home from work, looked in the mirror, and saw a ladybug clinging to the collar of my jacket.

That’s pretty much how life seems to be going these days, swinging on a pendulum from fear/worry/angst to excitement/joy/hopefulness. I mean, it’s not like every day is a rollercoaster of emotions, but they crop up pretty regularly. It’s strange how you can want something so badly and be so afraid of it at the same time.

We’re entering the timeframe when our referral could come. Still a bit early, yes, but it could conceivably come anytime between the end of May and August. We could travel anytime between September and December, I think, if the current agency timeframes hold steady. This stage of our adoption process—which started in November 2009, when I mailed our first agency application—feels the most “real” yet. Our child is most likely born. We are eyeing every stroller we see on the street. I’m trolling around local message boards that discuss child care. We’re going to register in June. I’m going to tell my boss this month, and after that, we won’t have a reason to keep the whole thing secret any longer.

I’ve been having lots of big thoughts—about nature versus nurture, what we can control and what we can’t, about personal courage and strength, about what makes a strong marriage. What it means to be happy and just how important that really is. (I think we Americans place a higher emphasis on personal happiness than some other cultures do.) I think about those studies that say childless adults are happier than adults with kids. I wonder about that, thinking about things like getting good sleep, lounging with the newspaper, running four or five days a week, meeting friends for dinner, lingering and laughing with John at a bar or over a meal. Those things make me happy, and I won’t do them as often once we’re parents.

The thing that is taking their place will make me happy in a whole different—and, arguably, deeper and more fulfilling—way. I know that. But it will also bring worry and frustration and fear, and that’s going to mean a new way of living, a new way of feeling. Right now, we’re fortunate enough to not have any major stressors, other than the usual mild work or family challenges. I want this new life, but I also like my current, simpler life (even though sometimes it feels like something is missing, like I’m ready to move on to the next chapter). So I guess I’m just thinking my way through all that right now.

Of course, it’s not like I spend all my waking hours immersed in deep thought! Spring is finally springing in Chicago. I’m back to running outside, and I’ve decided to attempt my second half-marathon this summer, so I’ll start training for that soon. We’ve started planting in the backyard, and we’ll get our deck flowers planted soon. After almost three years with us, Stella has suddenly noticed the existence of squirrels, making our walks much more amusing. I’ve signed up for a four-week photography class, and I’m copyediting a friend’s first novel. John just learned to play “Till There Was You” on his guitar, which I’ve decided will make a great lullaby. We recently went to Michigan to meet my perfect little nephew. And we spent a fabulous weekend in San Francisco, celebrating the end of tax season and just enjoying a few days of doing whatever we wanted to, together, in one of our favorite cities in the world.

Last weekend we had brunch with some dear friends who live in the suburbs. We were standing on the sidewalk, waiting for a table at a restaurant. I was holding my friend’s blond-haired, blue-eyed nine-month-old, and a woman walking by wished me a happy Mother’s Day. “So funny,” I told my friend, “it’s not like she looks like me at all!” Then I realized, um, yes, neither will my actual child, and we all laughed, me feeling grateful for the woman's assumption. I pressed my cheek against the baby’s soft head and pretended.

One year later, some thoughts

Sometimes it happens at odd times. On Sunday afternoon I’m doing the big Seasonal Clothing Switch, carefully folding my short-sleeved shirts into the plastic storage container that lives under my bed, and suddenly I think—when I see this T-shirt again, will I already know his face?

Other times it’s more expected. It’s Halloween, and we’re walking Stella around the neighborhood among the dark hordes of happy kids, and I think—will there be four of us next year, doing this walk? Maybe we’ll dress him as Yoda, or as a little frog. As he gets older, he’s going to love trick-or-treating in our neighborhood, I think, where Halloween is a holiday on par with the Fourth or Christmas.

Will he be here this time next year? Will I have his photo in the spring? Is he born yet? Is his birth mother all right? Where is he now? What is he doing, right this instant, 9:52 p.m. in Chicago, 12:52 p.m. in Seoul?

Question marks are a big part of this process, I’m realizing. Where, when, how, who.

*****

On November 12, it was exactly one year since I mailed our application to our agency. I remember walking to the post office, watching the envelope slide into the mail slot, stepping back outside into the pale autumn sunlight, smiling at no one. It’s hard to comprehend that a whole year has passed since that day. I turned 34, bought a real camera and started learning to use it, trained for and ran a half-marathon, spent two weeks in Italy. There was camping and reunions with friends and long summer afternoons on the deck. It’s been a good year. And of course, peppered throughout it, small adoption mile markers—our joint visit with our social worker. Our individual visits. Her visit to our home. Getting fingerprinted, getting tested for TB. Chasing paper. Visiting the notary. And making the difficult decision to switch our placement agency to one that’s currently experiencing a faster timeline between referral (when you’re matched with your child) and travel to Seoul. Of course, there’s no guarantee that that shorter timeline will stay in place, but for now, it is. We wanted to do whatever we could to bring our child home at as young an age as possible.

In 2011, we will see our child’s face for the very first time, a photograph that will be the most precious photograph I can imagine holding in my hands. We will send him care packages. We will fly across the world to Seoul, our first time in Asia, and we will meet him and hold him and bring him across an ocean to his new home. We’ll start a new life as three that will be hard and scary and the most beautiful, meaningful thing that we’ve ever done in our lives. I am terrified, and I am so excited.

*****

(The not-as-romantic details: Our homestudy is complete and is with the state adoption coordinator for endorsement. Once it’s endorsed, it will be sent to our placement agency. Barring them needing any changes made to it (and all possible limbs are crossed in the hopes that doesn’t happen), it will be sent on to the agency in Korea, and we’ll officially be waiting for our referral. That’s a big milestone that we’re anxiously awaiting. We hope to travel in late summer or early fall, but we know anything is possible.)

*****

This past weekend, we attended a parent education seminar at our agency. It was a fascinating five hours, with a child psychologist presenting and a panel of adoptive parents telling their stories and answering questions. One of the panelists was a woman who brought her Korean son, Will, home in April. He’s 21 months old now, a calm, quiet boy who sat on her lap for almost an hour, thoughtfully chewing his Cheerios and looking at all of the prospective parents as we grinned at him, trying not to stare too much but unable to look away.

After the seminar, John and I went up to the woman to thank her for coming and meet Will. He watched us as we talked, clutching his big yellow Lego, staring at John as his mom talked about how well he’s adjusted to his new home. There was a lull in the conversation, and John reached out and rubbed Will’s back. “He’s so beautiful,” he said to the woman, a tinge of awe in his voice, and something in me welled up and I could not speak. It’s like there’s this whole other dimension of life, a different kind of beauty and humanity and love, and I’m just now starting to glimpse it. Soon, I’m going to get to live it.

In my head lately

Things I have been thinking lately, in no particular order:

I can run 13 miles. I know this because I did it twice. The first time was fairly hellish. The second time, yesterday, was much better. I’m excited to do this with thousands of my closest friends in exactly two weeks (!!).

What if, when the baby comes, the person who picks him up from child care is also the first person home and has to walk the dog? How do we do both in a fast and efficient manner, where no one cries or has an accident on the rug?

Also, what kind of child care should we use?

Apparently we’re going to Italy in less than four weeks. Apparently one should make some loose itineraries when fortunate enough to have three days in Rome, five days on the Amalfi Coast, and four days in Tuscany. One now has plans for the long Labor Day weekend…

Throwing a party for 40 people on your rooftop deck is stressful, but realizing you have 40 friends who want to spend a Saturday night on your roof is pretty darn awesome.

Sometimes, when I’m watching TV at night, I look to the entrance of the hallway off the living room, and I see a tiny little boy standing there in a sleeper, holding a blanket and sucking his thumb.

I suspect adopting a baby from Korea is going to bring some really good new friendships into our lives.

I have seen the Chicago skyline from the north many, many times, but it never gets less breathtaking, especially the first time it’s approached on foot, after running six miles south on the lakefront path. Turning the bend around the domino tables, and pow—I actually consider it a kind of reward.

Stella actually understands when it’s the weekend and that that should equal a ride to the dog beach. She follows us around the house, and she starts dancing in place and wagging her pointy hound head if I change my clothes. Apparently something is working inside that golf-ball-sized brain.

I do not approve of darkness at 8 p.m.

If I worked at an adoption agency in Seoul and my responsibility was to match infants with their parents, what kinds of photos of those parents would I want to see?

Where is the child who will become our child right this very second?

******

This past week, we went to an outdoor concert at Millennium Park downtown. David Gray and Ray Lamontagne—oh yes, we were excited. We packed our picnic basket (including a clandestine bottle of wine under the cloth napkins), hoisted up our camping chairs, and I grabbed a light scarf because it was unseasonably cool, daytime highs in the 70s. We claimed a patch of turf close to the stage and proceeded to enjoy a really fabulous show, while the sun set behind the skyline and couples held hands and swayed together and someone, somewhere, smoked some pot.

Ray played my favorite song of his, a sad, quiet one with a violin called “Jolene.” There is this plaintive line that just pulls at the proverbial heartstrings, that I always sing along to: “Still don’t know what love means.” And so I sang along to it in my camping chair, with my plastic cup of cabernet, and suddenly it had a new meaning. I thought that it was very true, that there is a type of love that I don’t know yet, the meaning and experience of which I don’t understand. I know love, but not in all its manifestations, not yet. We are so, so incredibly on the cusp, sometimes I’m in awe of it.

In a suburban Starbucks, waiting

** This post was written on Jan. 11, 2010.**

I’m sitting in one of those Starbucks-within-a-grocery store, in a nondescript ghost town of a suburb near an airport. Through the window there is pale January sunlight, icy snow piled up on an outdoor café table, a parking lot, a gas station, a Long John Silver’s. There’s no WiFi here, so my plan to stay on top of work email this morning has been scrapped. I edited some articles, and now I have about an hour to kill before John’s meeting is over and he picks me up for lunch.

Having both of our individual meetings with the caseworker in one day is easiest—what with our one car, which John drives to work, and the fact that I can’t even remember the last time I drove it. (I probably should practice before any attempt to pilot it out to the suburbs.) So I’m here while he has his meeting, then, after lunch, I’ll have mine. I’ll take a cab to the Blue Line afterward and head home.

We are adopting a baby. I’m going to type it again: We are adopting a baby. It doesn’t seem real, somehow, although this is our second visit with our caseworker, and we’ve already written two not-inconsequentially sized checks, penned our autobiographies, had our agreement for agency services notarized. My parents know (I could not resist telling them). Our five personal references know. John’s parents don’t know yet, and I think that’s because again, somehow, it just doesn’t seem all that real. That’s largely because we still have at least a year and a half to go, I think. We don’t know who our child is yet. (Although it’s occurred to me that he might be conceived already, might be growing and developing somewhere on the other side of the world, in South Korea. And yes, in my mind, he is a he.)

I am excited. Well, duh, of course, right? But I want to write it here, how very excited I am. We are going to be parents. We will be three (plus one dog). Somewhere there is a child who will be born without parents who can keep him, and we will be the parents who can.

The decision to have a child is one I’ve been wrestling with for many years now (as long-time readers of this site know!). At some point in spring 2009, I felt ready. I had been inching toward readiness, one tiny little step at a time, seeing babies and smiling, holding babies and feeling good inside, getting warmer, warmer, warmer. John had been ready for a few years, and I caught up. There was a time when I didn’t know if I’d ever want children. I still don’t feel any yearning to be pregnant. But I want to be a parent. I think we’re going to be pretty good at it. I know we want to love a child. We’re ready to start a new chapter—no, it’s more than that; it’s starting the next part of the book, with many chapters contained within.

I am excited. And I’m scared; I have a good idea of the changes to my life that are coming, since the majority of my friends have walked this path before me. I still cherish my alone time. Hitting the gym for an hour, four or five days a week, is a priority for me. I love going out to eat (and not at 5 p.m.). There’s my job, all the strides I’ve made in my career. Sitting next to me here in Starbucks are two stay-at-home moms with their little girls running among the tables, and nothing’s changed for me in that regard; I do not think I want that to be my 8–5 life, at least not every day.

But I’ve come to a place where I’m ready to embrace a new way of living, a new Amy. She won’t visit the gym so regularly, but in the warm months, she’ll take the jogging stroller out along the lake. I think she’ll still love her job, but she’ll often miss her child while she’s there. She won’t care as much about late-night dining or being disconnected from work email for a morning. She will be somebody’s mom. And now my heart has jumped into my throat a little, imagining that, and I’m smiling at no one. We are going to be parents. We are adopting a baby.

It’s all going to turn out beautifully

This photo of us was taken in May 2009, at a bar in the Jordaan neighborhood of Amsterdam. It was very late at night, and we were there with a Dutch friend, in one of our favorite cities, drinking beer in a snug, dark little bar with nary another American in sight. I love this image because of the happiness it captures. We were both fully thrilled with where we were and what we were doing, and it shows.

***

Valentine’s Day has never been a big deal in our little family. We usually mark it with a good meal out—it’s a bright spot in the long tax-season winter, especially when it falls on a weeknight, since John usually doesn’t get home until 10 or so on weeknights. An exception is made on Valentine’s Day, though, and his office empties out around 7, all the accountants hurrying home to their tax-widow spouses. We usually hit a local BYOB Italian place for some good catching-up conversation over a bottle of cabernet and a long, comforting meal.

This year, of course, Valentine’s Day was on a Sunday—the one day of the week that John doesn’t go to the office. We slept in. He made breakfast: waffles with strawberries, fresh turkey sausage from the indoor Green City Market, mugs and mugs of coffee. We ate at the dining-room table by the windows, turning our newspaper pages, watching the dog watch the turkey sausage.

I did the dishes while he did some work. We went to Bed Bath & Beyond to buy new pillows, an outing that we were both pretty pathetically excited about. (No need for a dozen roses; a new pillow will suffice!) I went for a run in the cold sunshine. He took a nap. I finished a freelance project. A quiet, good, peaceful day.

***

We had reservations for a five-course meal, paired with wine tastings, at a local winebar. It felt decadent, going out to dinner on a Sunday, and the two hours we spent eating figs and goat cheese and brie/potato soup and lobster gnocchi and short ribs and pepper beignets and oatmeal risotto were pretty damn enjoyable. We talked about upcoming visits from friends. We compared work stories. We reminisced about travels past and dreamed about travels future. There was a lot of talk labeled “future.” We laughed and smiled and rolled our eyes at each other a little, that particular brand of gentle exasperation that comes after so many years together. He didn’t like the white-wine pairings. I didn’t care for the short ribs. We both wanted the lobster gnocchi to go on forever.

Seated next to us was a foursome made up of two couples. When we got up to leave, one of the women, a young blond with a round, cheerful face, said, “How long have you guys been together? You seem like you’re on your second or third date.” A high compliment, for sure, and we told her we’d been married for eight and a half years. “So what’s your secret?" she asked.

“No kids yet,” John replied with a grin. And, hey! It turned out that the other woman at the table was pregnant. But she also had a good sense of humor, so no harm done. I added, “We do things together, and we do things apart. I think that makes a difference.”

There was some more small talk, and then our coats were buttoned, our gloves pulled on, and as we turned to leave, the blond girl said, very earnestly, “Whatever it is you two are hoping for, whatever you’re dreaming of…it’s all going to turn out beautifully. Like the most beautiful work of modern art you can imagine. It’s going to turn out beautifully.”

I don’t know if this person was drunk, or if perhaps she says this to everyone. She seemed sincere, and her tablemates weren’t fazed. I, however, was teary-eyed, and oddly buoyant-feeling. We walked home in the dark icy air, arm in arm, to our new home, closing in on our mid-thirties, going on nine years of marriage. I suspect we were both fully thrilled with where we were and what we were doing, and it showed.

Whatever comes next

On Saturday morning I woke up before 10 a.m. I ate a bowl of Raisin Nut Bran cereal and drank a mug of coffee while reading the Letters to the Editor in the Tribune. John left to play football with some friends. I made the bed, put on a pair of cropped cargo pants and a green shirt and my flat espadrille slip-ons from H&M, the ones with the black sequins (note: they are better-looking than they sound here). I brushed my teeth and combed my hair, smeared on some tinted moisturizer, applied mascara and reddish lipstick. Grabbed a purse and the iPod (that day: Death Cab for Cutie, the Garden State soundtrack, Coldplay, Lucy Kaplansky), petted the dog, and left to catch a southbound bus. I disembarked in Lakeview, walked into a medical center, and had blood drawn that will reveal whether I’m a carrier of the cystic fibrosis gene and whether I’m immune to rubella. Because if you happen to catch rubella (are the chances of this high?) when you’re pregnant, the fetus could go deaf.

To the few people who know about my little weekend jaunt (these people do not include my mother, who recently sighed to me, “The tree in our front yard is the perfect size for a swing… I can just picture our grandchildren out there, can’t you?”), I’ve explained that John’s biological clock is ticking. And it’s true; it is. He’s ready. As he puts it, we’re not getting any younger. The silvery hairs sprouting from my right temple attest to that, although at 30 I don’t feel the least bit old, not really. But anyway, he’s ready, and on some days, or at certain times on certain days, I am, too.

The blood test was a big mental hurdle for me. My doctor wrote the requisition slip for the test last January, when I went in for my annual exam, and it’s been sitting in my desk drawer since then. Sometimes I’d idly think of going to get it done. John would ask every once in awhile—“Hey, have you had that test yet?”—and I’d assure him that he’d be the first to know when I did. One of these times, he added helpfully, “It’s not really a big deal… it’s not like going off the pill, or anything. Just a blood test.”

About a month ago, John and I had a Big Talk, and we decided to think more seriously about trying to conceive this year. I cannot possibly explain how this made me feel: scared and excited and terrified and in love and overwhelmed. Bitter, because I’m female and therefore will be more greatly affected by parenthood than my husband, whether I like it or not. Frustrated, because I wish I had a damn crystal ball that could show me what will happen to my job and my health and my marriage and my life, if we do this thing.

I think we will do this thing. After all, I placed my arm on the padded bar and let a friendly technician tie a rubber tube around my bicep. He took my blood and it hardly hurt at all. And I thought about the shoe-shopping I was going to do next, and decided to stop at Jamba Juice on the way. And I thought about how this was the first time I was making a (very small) sacrifice in the name of parenthood, and how I was offering up a (very small) part of my body for a child I can barely begin to dream of. It was a strange realization, a strange moment of clarity.

So yes, I think we will do this thing, or attempt to, anyway. But first, first, we are taking a trip, an idea we’ve been toying with for the past few months: a trip to Spain. Two of my great-grandparents are from Spain, I have a decent grip on the language, and the country’s been on both my list and John’s for awhile. We’re going to spend twelve days there, hanging out in Barcelona, then renting a car to explore the seaside villages along the Costa Brava, the mountains of the Pyrenees, and the old glamour of San Sebastian. I am planning like a fiend, amassing notes and photocopies and recommendations, caught up in the goosebumpy thrill of imagining tiny medieval villages and beautiful, unknown cities and endless cups of wine. First, the trip. Then, whatever comes next.

Faith

Originally posted to Diary-X on September 28, 2005

Lately I’ve been struck by the thought that at age 29, the choices I make actually matter in the grand scheme of my life. The biggest choices I made when I was, say, 19 had to do with what classes to take next semester and whether to hook up with someone at a party. I mean, of course there was the potential to make life-altering decisions back then—choosing a major, choosing to not to make a dumb mistake with that “someone.” But instead of majoring in history, I could’ve chosen English or philosophy and taken the exact same career path that I’ve followed. (And luckily, none of my drunken hookups ever went too far.)

Now when I make a decision, it’s like throwing a stone in a smooth, flat lake and watching the ripples grow, curving outward, affecting a future that I can’t really see. I (and John) have chosen to let four years of marriage go by without ever seriously considering having a baby. Only now, as I live the last months of my twenties, have we had a few of these tentative conversations: “Well, maybe we should start thinking about it next summer…”

I am realizing that this choice to wait will impact my life in many ways. How old will I be when I become a mother? How will that affect how many more children I have? How old will we be when we’re “empty nesters” again? Then there’s my job. At 16 I chose to work part-time in a video store; it could’ve been a supermarket or a dress shop and it wouldn’t have made any difference. Obviously it’s not like that now; the job decisions I make will affect where and how I get my next job, how my salary grows, how far I advance up the “ladder,” etc.

I’m not saying I have any regrets, oh no. It’s just sort of surprising to realize that I’m an adult living a real life, with a husband and a career and a mortgage and birth control pills and the capability to make Big Decisions—and no one to catch me or fix it if I make the wrong ones. It reminds me of when I graduated from college and moved into an apartment with Rachael. There was no campus community anymore, no sorority or class schedule or school rules. We were just two women paying rent and working. I remember driving to the grocery store back then and realizing that I could eat mac and cheese or Frosted Flakes for dinner every night; there was no dining hall, no meal plan, no parents insisting on a well-balanced plate. (Even in college, my parents had been somewhat in charge of my life; they once threatened to cut me off financially if I went to New Orleans for spring break.) The freedom I felt upon graduating was intoxicating.

I suppose growing up and living life means losing your safety net, in a way. Maybe we’re all wearing blindfolds, feeling and listening our way forward, doing the best we can to make the right decisions so we don’t walk off the side of a cliff. None of us can really know what’s around the next corner.

Brush with suburbia

Originally posted to Diary-X on June 11, 2003

We were supposed to go camping last weekend—we had reservations at a park in Wisconsin. But the weather forecast was iffy, and, well, waiting out a rainstorm in a tent with a wet dog is not my idea of a good time. So we stayed home instead. And the sun shone all day on Saturday.

We slept in, and made a breakfast of scrambled eggs, hash browns, and fruit smoothies, and drank multiple cups of coffee, and read the good sections of the Tribune. We took the dog for a jog by the lake, and I sat at Starbucks for a few hours doing homework while John watched the Cubs/Yankees game on TV.

Later in the afternoon, we pondered the all-important question: where should we go for dinner? I suggested something radical, something totally new: “Let’s go to a suburb!”

Now, Oak Park isn’t really a suburb. I think of it as “urban suburbia”—it’s right on the western border of Chicago, and two different el lines have stations there. It’s one of the areas where we’ll search for a house, whenever that time comes. Actually, that time could come sooner than we’ve planned. The woman who owns our condo recently told us that she may sell it next winter, and we don’t want to buy it—it’s too small for anything long-term. The thought of enduring the nightmare of moving again, simply to bide our time in another apartment for a year, is loathsome… so if she does put our place on the market, we’ll probably try to buy something. (We’ve considered buying a two-bedroom condo in the city, but something about that just doesn’t feel right to me. There’s only so long you can live in a two-bedroom condo. Condo buildings usually don’t have fenced-in yards for dogs, which is something I want if I’m paying six figures for a home. And who wants to pony up those $200+ assessment fees every month?)

So. We’ve heard great things about Oak Park, but we’d never been there, so we decided to make the trek west last Saturday. We left around 6 p.m., driving down Lakeshore Drive, admiring the deep blue of the lake and Lincoln Park spreading out on our right. We chugged through downtown, momentarily slowed by crowds from Gospel Fest and the Printers’ Row Book Fair. We got onto 294, also known as the Eisenhower. And then we crawled. And crawled some more. My husband is not always the most patient of guys, and traffic brings out the worst in him. He was not happy that it took us about an hour to get to Oak Park. While I’m usually a glass-half-full kind of girl, my excitement was quashed a bit, too. We felt so… far away.

Oak Park is a really, really pretty town. There are canopies of tall green trees everywhere, and cute old houses lining up behind cracked sidewalks, and corner stores and elementary schools and venerable stone churches. The downtown is picturesque and walkable—lots of cool-looking restaurants and stores, little art galleries, an old movie theater, an opera house. Big, beautiful green parks are everywhere. North of downtown, there are some truly magnificent (and $800,000+) homes, many designed in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright. It’s a cultural town, a historical town, and it has excellent access to the city (by train, it probably takes about 20-25 minutes to get downtown).

We drove by a house that we’d seen on a realtor’s website. It was built in the 1930s, a two-story bungalow, and it had a front porch with a bench swing. It was on one of those leafy sidewalked streets. The neighbors had “No War” signs in their front yards. As we drove by, we saw that it had a back porch, too. And a little fenced-in lawn.

Two porches. Two. I immediately saw us sitting on the back porch after dinner, drinking beers, John playing guitar, Murphy chasing squirrels in the yard.

We went out to dinner at a casual alehouse that got a positive review in the Tribune. We sat outside on the deck and ate mediocre meals. Something felt a bit strange to me… I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. Then, suddenly, I figured it out. We were surrounded by people who were either in their 40s and 50s or in their teens. There were only two other couples on that crowded deck that were our age. And I realized that in our neighborhood, everyone’s in their 20s and 30s. We hardly ever see children or teenagers or people our parents’ age. I’m not sure I’d ever noticed that before.

After dinner, we drove around town a little longer, then headed back to the city, a shorter drive this time. We felt tired and decided to go home and relax on our rooftop deck with some drinks. We hauled out our camping chairs and set ourselves up in the dark, looking out over the Chicago skyline, the buildings rising up dark and bejeweled in the night sky. To the west, less than a mile away, the lights were still glowing at Wrigley. (On the following night, we’d hear the immense roar of the crowd coming through our living room windows as the Cubs walloped the Yanks.) We could hear faint sirens and car horns, and the “brrr” of a low-flying helicopter scuttling past on its way to the hospital. We could also hear the wind. The skyscrapers twinkled. The sky above us was huge and black.

“I like it here,” I said.

“Me too,” John answered.

“I don’t think I’m ready to buy a house,” I said. “I mean, having a porch would be nice, and a yard. But I’m just not ready to leave this.”

“Me neither.”

“Anyway, we have a porch now,” I said, sipping my beer and looking out at my city. “And a view.”