Sorry about that

It's been a rather hectic few weeks here. Last week was Spring Break and we went to visit the in-laws. It was a good visit - pretty low key, the weather was fabulous, and Ben had plenty of time to swim and play.

Ben had a cough while we were out of town. After a few days I noticed that he was not coughing anything up even though it sounded like a wet, deep cough. Saturday afternoon late we returned home and decided that a trip to the urgent care clinic sounded like a good idea. Turns out he has pneumonia.

Oh goodness. Hubby and I felt like the absolute worst parents ever! How could we not know he had pneumonia? Hmmm...he was running around happy, swimming, running, not sickly or running a fever. Appetite was off a bit and he was breathing heavy, but that's not outside his scope of pollen reactions.

So this week has been trying to convince Ben he should rest and lay low. He went to school yesterday and apparently it was too much for him. He was wiped out this morning. He fell asleep two hours ago sprawled across the big chair and ottoman and is still sawing logs. Wish he'd do this every day.

So, we met with our Social Worker before spring break. We'll call her A. We, well, I mean, I, am in the midst of paperwork for the homestudy and the registration docs for our agency. It feels productive to get going on this and still daunting to think about what's ahead.

So, I am trying to think back to the first year Ben was home. I am working on remembering how he reacted to new things and how much care he needed (diapers, bottles, etc.). It's really hard to remember much on the day to day of Ben in 2007. It was all filtered through a lens of sleep deprivation and grief. My Dad was losing his battle with leukemia, my dear hubby was fighting a bacterial infection that eventually led to surgery, and my family was not able to support me on a daily basis.

Thank God for my friends. The C's, friends before during and after the adoption, and the H's, my first friends post adoption, kept me from driving away from it all. I should probably call them and ask what I need - they were new parents as well that same year.

It does feel like a cliff. Right now it's the gently sloping uphill hike of paper forms and obscure governmental clearances and teaching yourself to not ask "why do they need that?".

One day we'll reach the top, accept the referral, meet our child, get through court and the whole "don't pinch me, I might wake up" jet-lagged, numb feeling pervades, insulating me from the emotional upheaval.

Then the jump off the cliff, which absurdly came to me at the moment I boarded the airplane to the US with Ben. For Russia Adoptive Moms, this is the last moment someone is coming to say "this is not your child". When we landed on US soil, our child became automatic US citizen.

It's a strong soup of emotions and I think this time around I will be much more aware of the reactions of my child (and children once home) than I was the first time.