Blogging is a very '00s activity; this I realize. However, I basically narrate my own life in my head almost constantly, which lends itself to this type of expression quite well. Y'know when a woman is in her earliest months of pregnancy, she feels completely exhausted all of the time? That's because her body is "running a marathon" inside, even though she looks like she's exerting herself no more than usual, just going about her day to day things. Preparing her body and dividing all those cells takes a toll! The woman is tired! This is how I feel ALL the time. Not because I'm pregnant but because my brain is constantly running at full speed. Believe me, I know I look like I am doing nothing -- not working, not laundry, not cooking, not cleaning. Nothing. And I feel guilty and shitty about that all the time. But my brain is running, running, running, thinking thoughts and worrying and stressing and obsessing and wearing me out. This is depression. This is anxiety. At least it is for me. So in order to try and organize all those thought mice running around in my head, I'm going to try and make it a regular point to come here and write. No one needs to be out there to read it. But if someone does, that's okay, too.
My brain. (Yes, I know these aren't mice but it is a better visual image!)
I wanted to write-up a quick thank you to to everyone who took a moment to send me an e-mail or comment on my Facebook link or directly on the blog after my last post. I know it's been several weeks but I want you all to know how very much I appreciate all of your thoughts, well wishes, and offers of help. Although there really isn't much anyone can actually do, it's been helpful to me and I feel so much better getting it all out there and letting people know what's (been) going on. So listening is the best thing and I appreciate you all doing that for me. :o)
I do want to address just a couple things brought to my attention after my post. The first is that I would be remiss if I didn't mention what a big help my aunt Ruby has been. As I mentioned and as some of you know, it can be quite difficult dealing with my mom during her more unwell spells and even as her daughter I sometimes find myself unable to get myself to visit or call as often as I should. My aunt has been a big help in many ways since my mom's health began declining and I want her to know how much I and my sisters appreciate it. Her visits often give my dad a much needed break, (even allowing him to be able to actually leave the house!), and give my mom a change of pace, too. I know it's hard for her just like it is for the rest of us but I so very much appreciate her willingness to still come down spend time with my mom.
The second item is a question, one that surprised me and came from quite a few people -- how am I dealing with essentially not having a mom now that I have a baby? And honestly, that's something that hadn't even crossed my radar until I was asked because by the time I found out I was pregnant, my mom was already sick and I knew she wasn't going to be able to help me with the kinds of things she would have been able to in her healthier days. I actually talked about it with my therapist a long while ago when my sister, Michelle, first broached the topic with me and we came to the conclusion that, because I had no expectations of having a "traditional" mother around to ask questions of or to come over and help out when I had a baby, I felt no sadness or disappointment when none of that happened once I had Mallory. And that totally makes sense to me. I will say that I felt sad when I first discovered I was pregnant; Robert and I went to Disneyland the week after we found out and I remember seeing lots of grandparents with their grandkids and feeling sad that my children will never have that experience with my parents. But that's really the only time I can recall feeling down about my mom's illness with regard to my pregnancy. I would, of course, love for my mom to be able to have a more active presence in Mallory's life but I have my sisters and they have been a ginormous help with all things baby! And I've had several moms in my extended friends and family network who have offered to help out or answer questions and that's very kind, too. :o) I think because I sort of made peace with "losing" my mom and all that she was and could do well before I got pregnant it hasn't been a big issue. And in a weird way I am thankful for that.
Thanks to the ever-helpful and informative Interwebs, I discovered earlier today that it is World Alzheimer's Day. As such, I've been motivated to dust off a post I started several months ago and try to finish it up. Here's what I had: __________
Okay. This is the post I have started and rewritten hundreds of times
over the past year, usually when I can't fall asleep because my mind is
whirring at a rapid pace, that is the big explanation and mea culpa as
to why I've sort of dropped off the social grid. At this point, it's
been so long and so much has happened, I don't know where to even start
or how in-depth and detailed to be. It's very tempting to make this a
thorough purging and chronicling of
all the things that have happened but it's all a mish-mosh in my mind.
Certain events stand out but I can't always place them in the timeline.
And little things that feel important to me are probably not critical to
the overall story. So forgive me if this post is really a bit too "Dear
Diary" - I'm trying to streamline as I go! At the very least I'll try
to paint an entire picture as
clearly as possible. It's a long post... apologies in advance.
So,
what is this mysterious post about, you ask? Well, nothing fun and
nothing nice, of course - it deals with Alzheimer's disease. My mom is
currently suffering from AD and it is and has been an excruciatingly
painful experience for my family. It's truly like a death and it's
beyond difficult to put into words just how cruel a disease AD is and
how it affects each member of the family, both mentally and physically. I
follow the Alzheimer's Association on Facebook and earlier this week
watched a video that I found really helpful to explain the symptoms of
the disease and I think that's what's kind of kicked me in the pants a
little bit.
Now, I don't know if I'd call these "warning signs" of the
disease - my mom hits every single one and she's pretty far into it. But
I'm assuming if your loved one displays only one or two of these signs,
it means s/he should be checked out. My mom's diagnosis has been a
long, unorthodox one, impeded by outlying factors but we've been
operating under the assumption of Alzheimer's for over a year now
(though in doing a little digging for this post, I see that things
started declining a bit more rapidly at least around January 2013).
She's actually on a medication sometimes used for Alzheimer's patients
(Seroquel) that has helped a LOT, but lately she's been sliding backward
and I think a change of something is in order. That's also probably
helped push me into finally writing this post... She's been on my mind a
lot lately.
__________
This really could be a LONG, long post -- I have about a million things frantically swirling around in my brain, wanting to get out but I just don't know that I have the patience to form them all into a chronological, coherent post! Plus, it's actually fairly exhausting rehashing all of the depressing details, even if just to myself. So I'll start in February of last year and then try cover the bigger chunks of importance.
In February 2014, my mom had a major setback in her health; unbeknownst to us, her kidneys were not working properly and her pain medication began to build up in her system. She wound up having what amounted to a morphine (what she takes for pain) overdose and wound up in the hospital. While trying to get her health and medication under control, it became clear that her dementia was perhaps the worst it had ever been. My mom was in the hospital for a couple weeks and while none of the following things were constant, they all manifested at some point and some much more often than others. She didn't recognize my sister, Michelle. She thought I was in eighth grade. She didn't know where she was. She couldn't form certain words. She couldn't carry on a coherent conversation. She was hostile and belligerent with hospital staff, causing either my dad or my sister to have to go down in the middle of the night and sort things out. I am forever and immensely grateful to Michelle for coming into town because I was a mess, I didn't know what to do, and I didn't have any idea how to handle my mom in such a sickly state. My sister knew how to take care of my mom; she washed her hair for her and styled it, she painted her nails and even brought my mom coloring books and Crayons, which my mom loved. I would never, ever have thought to get such things for my mom. She's my mom! She may be sick but she's not a little kid. But, sadly, at that point in time she was.
When it was time for my mom to be discharged from the hospital, it was shockingly apparent that she would have to go to an assisted living/rehab facility. We talked to the hospital doctors and reached out to various homes and finally found a place where we thought she could stay. It was themost heart-breaking experience of my life. I had known this stage of her illness would arrive someday but I wasn't at all expecting it to happen so soon and so fast. Robert was my rock and my sister, my dad and I all leaned on each other to get through the darkness. There really isn't any adequate way for me to describe how difficult and how painful it is to get yourself mentally reconciled to the fact that the mother you knew, that you loved, that took care of you is not here anymore. Her body is here but SHE is gone. It's almost an insurmountable task and having to do it in fast-forward is unbearable.
My mother did stay in the rehab facility for a short while, (less than a week), but ultimately my dad decided he couldn't bear to keep her there. Over the months my sisters and I have gone around and around, wanting my dad to take care of himself and get different kinds of help for my mom but after lots and lots of discussions, we've all come to the conclusion that it's his decision and we just have to support it. I don't know what it's like to have a spouse with Alzheimer's so I can't force my beliefs onto him -- he has to do what feels right to him. But I do know what it's like to have a parent as a caregiver to someone with Alzheimer's and it's almost as painful to watch as it is to watch Alzheimer's steal your other parent. My dad's physical health has deteriorated over the time he's been taking care of my mom and it hurts me to see it. To say nothing of what tolls it takes emotionally and mentally. One very good thing that has come out of my mom's illness is that my dad and I are incredibly close now, so much closer than we would have been had my mom stayed healthy. And my sisters and I, as well as my dad, have been able to engage in open and honest dialogues about everything and that's brought us all closer together, too.
I have to admit, though, that my heart and mind have closed a bit where my mom is concerned. It sounds terrible to say, I know, and it feels terrible to say but I think it's a self-preservation thing. After I had pretty much reconciled myself to my mom's prognosis, I didn't change my thinking when she began taking the Seroquel and improved. And I think that's because I don't want to have to go through all of the pain and sickening heartache when she deteriorates to that point again, because it's a question of when, not if. If I keep her distant emotionally and mentally, I'll save myself a little bit of pain. It really hurts my dad that I approach my mom this way and I'm sorry for that. I do still love my mom, of course, and on the outside our interactions are just the same as they were. But inside I am protecting myself. Not at all a conscious decision but when I forced myself to sit down and think about why I approach her that way, that's the answer that makes the most sense to me.
As you know, I have been dealing with depression and anxiety for over 10 years now. And, of course, dealing with all of this hasn't made either of those issues any better but I won't waste time getting into that! The main thing I noticed is that my natural tendency to isolate myself was only intensified by dealing with my mom's illness. I sort of dropped of the social grid and was harder to get a hold of than usual. No blogging, no visiting, no emailing. I just didn't feel like talking to anyone and I think a big part of that was because I didn't want to have to talk about my mom all the time. People are kind and want to know what's going on but, as I mentioned earlier in the post, it's tiring rehashing such depressing stuff all the time. Somewhat around the time I was dealing with all of this I had two close friends who lost their fathers to cancer. And in talking to them I realized that I was not alone in my isolating tendencies -- no one with a sick or dying parent, it seems, really feels like talking to anyone. I am grateful to them for the knowledge that I was not alone. I am incredibly sorry that my own issues prevented me from being a good and supportive friend. Dealing with my mom's Alzheimer's is oddly consuming and so I'm sorry I've been even more distant for such a long time.
When the Oscars were on last year, one of the nominated songs was Glen Campbell's "I'm Not Gonna Miss You." I broke down into tears about 30 seconds into the song because it so accurately captures what families, including the one with the disease, go through when Alzheimer's invades your lives. I'm not sure if any of my family members have heard it but I recommend it -- it's a great song on many levels.
And here's a video I really like that tries to help you understand what it's like to suffer from Alzheimer's. It's really fascinating. Over the years my mom has had episodes of hallucinations, both visual and auditory; paranoia; she has physical impairments like foot numbness and hand spasms; she can't follow conversations or trains of thought; she suffers from Sundowning; she organizes things obsessively but she doesn't put things where they belong -- she puts remotes in the freezer or paper in DVD cases; she gets mired in the minutiae of what she's doing so she'll spend hours sorting her shoes when she was supposed to be getting dressed or counting grains of rice when she should just be eating dinner. It can be incredibly frustrating dealing with my mom sometimes and that makes me feel incredibly guilty. Logically, of course, I know she has no control over what she's doing but sometimes, if I'm already irritable or tired, dealing with her can be downright infuriating. Caring for an Alzheimer's sufferer takes a reserve of patience that I do not possess. I can see that it's frustrating for her, too, in her more lucid moments and that makes me exceedingly sad for her.
I do apologize for this post being so wordy and rushed but I wanted to take advantage of World Alzheimer's Day to share my story with those of you who didn't yet know it.
For those of you who didn't get to the previous post via Facebook, you may have a couple of questions since I kinda left a couple things hanging. Let me then briefly say that the results of the fetal echo were completely normal and the doctors think Mallory's heart looks great. Also, the kidney stones have not been an issue since my hospital visit, thank goodness. My OB told me that in all her years of practice, she'd only had 3 patients with kidney stones during pregnancy and they'd all required ureter stents. :-/ Yikes. I have been drinking copious amounts of water (though not the 12-15 glasses per day I was recommended because, well, that's just crazy talk) and while I have painful twinges here and there, it's nothing that can't be treated with a heating pad. *knock wood* So things have been going pretty smoothly lately. Whew.
*****Okay, this is what I like to call a "speed bump entry" - I can't ever get myself to really finish it but I don't write anything else because I'm convinced I'll finish the post soon and don't want to post things out of order. :-/ I really should know Future Lauren better than that by now. So, the first 2 paragraphs are back from 11/9/14 and then I'm just going to jump into a quicker synopsis. When you see what the post is about, you'll understand why it's taken so long.*****
Remember back when I was a young'un and I thought this was the definition of a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad experience? Ha! Memories. They make me laugh. Let's fast forward from that past about 4 years but rewind this week about 5 days to arrive at a TRULY terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Days. Oh, the hell with it - week.
Tuesday started normally enough: Robert and I went to an OB appointment and had the second part of my fetal echocardiogram. (The first part showed everything to be on the up-and-up but the doctor only got about 80% of the views he wanted - because Ms. Baby was being uncooperative - and he wanted to make sure he saw everything.) I'd been having some mild cramping and even though that's not necessarily a worrisome thing, I asked the doctor while at the ultrasound and she confirmed that without other symptoms, it was normal. So, I went about my day and not much of note happened. Jenna hadn't been feeling herself the previous few days - she was lethargic and had very little appetite and just seemed to be "off." I'd taken her in to the clinic last week to check it out and Dr. K thought Jenna had bronchitis so
_______________________________________________
And that's as far as I got, folks. Dr. K prescribed Jenna a bronchodilator and Jenna was only on it a few days when things started going downhill. By the time we finished dinner on Tuesday night, it was clear that Jenna's breathing was just too labored and I was concerned. So, Robert and I drove her to Ohlone Emergency and had her looked at. They put her on oxygen because her level was low but otherwise they found nothing urgently wrong. Jenna didn't have aspiration pneumonia and the doctor had given her an injectable form of the bronchodilator she was already on so once Jenna's O2 level was up to 92, the doctor said she felt comfortable letting us take Jenna home (because I'm a tech and would know what to watch for). The doctor did recommend a humidifier and some coupage treatment overnight so, since we don't have a humidifier, we had Jenna hang out in the bathroom with the shower running for a while and then I did the coupage (basically, you just use cupped hands and firm pats on the chest to help dislodge any mucus).
I'm not sure at this point what time Robert and I finally went to bed or even when I woke up but at some point in the early morning hours, I woke up with excruciating pain on my left side. I was instantly nauseated and couldn't sit or lie comfortably at all. I was reluctant to go to the ER but once I started spotting, I had no choice so off to Washington Hospital we went. This part I can definitely truncate: I was admitted to Labor and Delivery right away and it was decided that I was suffering from kidney stones. I had ultrasounds performed on both the baby and my kidneys, all of which looked good, and was given a little over 1500mL of fluids while I was there (about 8 hours or so). At an acceptable hour later in the morning (somewhere between maybe 8 and 10, I think), Robert texted my dad to have him run over to our place and check on the fur kids. After a bit my dad texted back, essentially saying that Garfunkel hadn't ruptured himself and something about not moving Jenna but we figured that just meant she wasn't feeling well and up to moving around much so he'd just left her to hang out. As it turned out, we did not get my dad's entire message and that turned out to be a weirdly fortuitous thing.
It's appropriate to inform people of your hospital stay via Instagram, right?
When I was finally discharged from the hospital (around 12 or 1ish), Robert and I headed straight home to check on the babies. I walked into the door first and immediately looked for Jenna. I saw her lying on the carpet just inside our bedroom and I knew instantly that she had died overnight. I dropped all that I was holding and crumpled on the floor next to her, sobbing "she's dead!" hysterically until Robert rushed over and squeezed me. This is where the weirdly fortuitous incomplete text comes in; turns out, when my dad stopped by to check on the animals, Jenna was already dead. (I feel just terrible that I wound up making the man find a dead dog. Ugh.) He'd included this bit of information in his text to us (hence the mention of not moving her) but we didn't get that part and I'm so, so glad. As absolutely heartbreaking as it was to come home and find her, it would've been excruciating to know she was dead and then have to hang out at the hospital for who knows how long. I had already let my clinic know I was going to be bringing Jenna in for an exam so I had to call and give them the news. Everyone just loved Jenna and was very sorry, of course. I also told them about my unexpected trip to the ER for myself and that, therefore, Robert would be bringing Jenna's body in later that day.
Robert wound up bringing Linguini in, as well, because in and around my sobbing, he noticed that there were a couple of piles of bloody vomit in the house, as well as the remnants of a chewed ribbon. So off my three men went while I sat at home, continuing to cry, and waited to hear if Linguini was going to need surgery. I don't think I gave my coworkers the heads-up that Gweenz was on his way in and that was unkind. I talk about how horrible he is all the time but I still should've prepared them! And told them they could do whatever they needed to in order to restrain his furry little butt. As it turned out, one of the girls I work with is a crazy cat whisperer and they were able to get x-rays on Linguini without even sedation! He did pee all over them, of course, but all in all that was a successful visit for Shitty Kitty. And he hadn't ingested any of the ribbon after all so he got to come home. Thank goodness.
I had never lost a dog before - Ziggy was living with my sister's dad when he died and while I was sad when I heard the news, I hadn't been with him for several years and I was happy he died living in a place where he was very happy. So Jenna's passing just knocked me down and continues to do so here and there when I see her ashes or have to write a blog post about her leaving us. Even though I knew she wasn't doing well at all - she'd had some bloodwork done just prior to her bronchitis diagnosis and her values were terrible - I just kept thinking we could squeak out a little more time. Up until the day before she died, she still loved walks and car rides and definitely loves. She just seemed to go downhill so fast; Dr. K suspects that, in the end, she had a stroke or heart attack and went quickly. Still, it breaks my heart and I feel guilty that she was home alone when she died. The logical part of my brain understands that she would've died whether or not she'd stayed at the hospital and so her being at home, a place she knew and where she was happy, was a good thing. But the emotional part of my brain just can't get over the fact that she was alone for hours before she died, when she was still alone.
Robert is very understanding of my residual mini-breakdowns here and there, (no doubt exacerbated by pregnancy hormones). He just loved Jenna to bits, too, and was deeply affected and saddened by her passing; even my coworkers said he just looked terribly heartbroken when he brought her body in. Jenna touched everyone she met, pretty much - the entire hospital staff, my parents, my aunt, even one complex 'regular' who saw Jenna and Funk on walks. I'm sure it seems silly to some people that we became so attached in just 3 months but we absolutely did. We were already so accustomed to the sound of her pattering around the house, her snoring, and her happy dance when she was really excited for food that the first couple of weeks after her passing were really tough. Still, I would foster her again in a heartbeat, no question. She was my best baby girl.
Last photo of the entire family (October).
Begging for chicken!
The very last photo of my baby girl. I was eating lunch at work and she was begging for peanut butter sandwich crusts.
I went kinda goon after she died and took photos of everything she had left behind...
including the spot where she went to the bathroom right at the bottom of our stairs.
Maria and Josh sent us the sweetest condolence bouquet.
Even though she was only with us a short while, Jenna was a member of the family and so has a spot in our ornament family timeline.
One of my Christmas gifts - Robert had a painting made of Jenna's final photo.
Well, originally I had a very sweeping and moving post planned for today but given the events of this week - which I'll cover later - I pooped out and came up with this. I couldn't let the day go by completely unnoticed because it's an achievement we're proud of: today is Robert's and my 17-year dating anniversary. This year is a little more exciting than usual because this now marks that 50% of our lives have been spent with one another. How weird is that?! And I think we've done a pretty darn good job of keeping it together and making a wonderful life for ourselves. I don't like to get shmoopy but I'm proud of how well we've done and I'm so lucky I found such an awesome partner in crime so early. :-) It was meant to be!!! Love you to pieces, behbeh!!!
1996: We were friends (We'd known each other since '94 but didn't start socializing outside of school until '96.)
Yes, indeedy, she is. :-) I know 90% of you know this already but I have to post anyway! I had my 2nd trimester ultrasound last Monday and both the sonographer as well as the doctor were 100% certain she's a girl. The sonographer during my nuchal translucency scan had also felt strongly that she is a girl so Robert and I are feeling pretty sure she's really a she. I will actually have another scan - a fetal echocardiogram, to be specific - in two weeks. Because I'm on several medications, two of which are known to cause different fetal conditions, my doctor is being very diligent in covering all the bases. My bloodwork looks great and Monday's ultrasound showed that Burl is developing right on track but Wellbutrin is known, in an extremely small percentage of women, to cause fetal heart issues so my doctor wants to do the echo just to be safe. My psychiatrist is also monitoring me - and my meds - very closely; the frequency of my visits has increased and will continue to do so as I get farther along in the pregnancy. Everyone from the nurses to the doctors to the geneticist keeps telling me that, while the meds pose their own risks, a depressed mother is the biggest risk of all and everyone wants to make sure I'm feeling good. I am appreciative of that because I have definitely felt the effects of the pregnancy on my depression and anxiety and, if possible, I don't want to tweak anything just now. The doctors are currently okay with how things are going because I am on low doses of all my meds and Burl is progressing just fine so, knock wood, things will keep going well.
I have had a few requests for a bump picture so here you go:
My official 20-week portrait.
Robert got to feel her move for the first time on Saturday so it's definitely sinking in that there's a baby on the way! Considering I just hit the official halfway mark (20 weeks), I guess it's about time it did. ;-)
As for the adoption process, we have decided to put it on hold. We told the agency that I'm pregnant a couple of weeks ago and our counselor wound up wanting to have a talk with us. We had two options: to keep the process moving or put it on hold. We were more than welcome to keep things going but there were a couple of big caveats involved. It would probably take a couple of months to finish our Dear Birth Mother letter and get it into circulation. Which means we'd only be in circulation for a couple of months before Burl arrives. And then we'd have to re-do our home visit (because there's another person in the house) AND re-do our DB letter (because our biographies will have changed). :-/ And all of those things will cost extra money in addition to being a pain in the tuchus. So our counselor recommended we put a hold on everything; Robert and I talked about it and decided the same. We want to make sure we put as much of ourselves as we can into the process and we wouldn't be able to do that right now. But we're still adopting, no worries there. It'll just take a little longer than we planned for Burl to have a little brother or sister.
Though I will say right off the bat that I never really expected to be a success in this particular case. :-)
This is Jenna. Jenna has been a patient at the clinic for roughly the same amount of time as I've worked there. She's an 8 1/2-year-old King Charles Cavalier with a grade 3 heart murmur who is currently in stage 3 kidney failure. Her previous owner, Voldemort (as in She Who Shall Not Be Named because she's a terrible person!), had a trade services agreement with the clinic, meaning that we gave her free vet care and she gave us free advertising in the magazine for which she worked. That agreement was made, of course, prior to Jenna's deterioration of health so, in the end, Voldemort ended up with a pretty sweet deal. In the last month of her contract, Voldemort had to bring Jenna in every other day to receive subcutaneous fluids; she had to pay for the fluids but not the actual tech time, which saved Voldy about $25 per visit. Voldemort's contract with the clinic expired in mid-August and the clinic manager chose not to renew it. Literally three days after Voldemort was informed of this, she decided Jenna was on death's doorstep and needed to be euthanized.
Unfortunately for Voldy and fortunately for Jenna, the latter had been coming in to the clinic so frequently that all of us knew she wasn't ready to go. Jenna made a point of visiting the reception staff each time she came in for her visit, and then she'd head to the back without any prompting. When we'd let her in the treatment area, she'd trot around and say hi to all the techs and then head toward the table where she received her fluids. Jenna LOVES people but she was my girlfriend and everyone knew it; anytime Jenna came for fluids, everyone knew I'd do it because Jenna was a favorite of mine. She'd give me kisses after her treatments and I'd give her liver treats. We had a relationship. :-) So when the staff heard Voldemort planned to put Jenna down, we were all up in arms. We talked to the doctor about Jenna and he agreed to talk to Voldemort about surrendering Jenna to the hospital. Turned out Voldy wasn't interested in surrendering Jenna, she absolutely wanted her put to sleep. We all talked about this attitude in the back and came to the conclusion that, as an owner, if a doctor agrees to put your animal down, your belief in her poor health is validated and you, therefore, are not a bad person. If, on the other hand, the doctor wants you to give your pet to someone else, that means your animal isn't beyond saving and you are giving up on her. It really took a lot of persuading but the doctor finally convinced Voldemort to let Jenna go and she officially became the hospital dog.
I think the doctor and the manager (his wife) were so easily persuaded to save Jenna because they believed I was going to adopt Jenna. And, believe me, I really wanted to! And I talked to Robert about it at length. Unfortunately, Jenna's care is quite costly and with the baby coming and the adoption in the queue, caring for a special needs dog wasn't the best idea. So the hospital was stuck with Jenna. There were several inquiries from clients interested in her but once they learned of her special needs, each one declined. Understandable, of course, because so did I but it was still sad. Jenna is an AWESOME dog - she loves people, car rides, and walks and is not fazed by loud noises, cats, dogs, children, or anything else. Aside from her medical needs, Jenna is the most low-maintenance dog you'll ever meet. But since no one was rushing to adopt her, Jenna had nowhere to go. Which, of course, meant I took her home the first night.
Another tech took Jenna home several times in the beginning but she has two small children and a very active lifestyle and it was tougher for her to keep Jenna. Robert and I, as you know, are not social butterflies so slowly I became the Foster Lady and I was tickled pink. Robert fell for Jenna soon after meeting her, as I knew he would; it wasn't long at all before he decided she needed a new bed, new bowls, and a new collar. It's been 8 weeks now and Jenna is definitely a McCauley! It's actually a pretty sweet deal - I get to keep her but since I haven't officially adopted her, the clinic pays for her prescription food, three different medications, and her fluids/dripsets/needles. The manager has OK'd this arrangement for as long as I work there so I couldn't be happier!! I honestly don't know if that will change when I'm on maternity leave but I'm really hoping not.
We took Jenna to the dog park but she mostly just wanted to hang with people.
Linguini was VERY unhappy with Jenna's presence when she first arrived but he's slowly gotten used to her, in part because he's figured out she doesn't move much so she's not going to come at him. He no longer hisses at her and they can both be in the same room together. Funk was a little jealous at first but it wasn't as bad as I was expecting and now he's completely indifferent to her. Except when Robert or I get home from work - Funk definitely wants to be the first to say hello and is a little dramatic when Jenna trots up to say hi, too. I, of course, have to give Jenna all of her treatments and I will admit it's not super fun. She won't eat pill pockets so I literally have to shove the pills down her throat and syringe-feed her some water to make her swallow. And this happens twice a day. Jenna has also decided she's tired of being poked every other day and so doesn't take her fluids as uncomplainingly as she used to. But she's just a doll and I love her to bits. My parents like her, too, (a lot!) and have been super awesome about letting Jenna hang at their house when Funk does. Things have been going as well as could be expected and I'm just so happy about that.
She did pretty much immediately decide Funk's bed was her new bed and Funk is too much a gentleman to kick her out.
Jenna's health is the elephant in the room, though, and it's already decreased some in just the short amount of time she's been with us. Her kidney failure is a little tougher to manage given her heart issues so she gets bloodwork done every so often to check-up on things. (Another expense I'm extremely grateful the clinic covers.) The doctors estimate she has less than 12 months to be with us and while that does make me terribly sad to think about, I'm just so happy she's getting to experience love and cuddles and fun that fostering her is absolutely worth the upcoming heartache. And, best of all, when it is her time to go, I'll know with all my heart that everything was done for her and she wasn't just discarded as an inconvenience.
Jenna in her old bed and with all her hair.
Jenna in her NEW bed with her sassy new 'do.
Voldemort didn't keep up with Jenna's grooming so she was covered in mats. We shaved her down at work and then Robert and I took her to PetSmart to smooth out the cut and bathe her. She kinda looks like a beagle but you can tell she loves having less hair!
Of course, she wasn't thrilled with it right away... It took a little getting used to.
This is Jenna in the new bed we bought for Funk to replace the bed Jenna overtook. He sleeps on the couch.
Jenna is a born beggar and therefore fits in seamlessly with the boys.
The other tech that watched Jenna bought her a fabulous Halloween ensemble! Unfortunately, J is just a little too plump for a perfect fit so it had to be returned. I don't think she misses it.
Many months before Robert and I found out we were expecting, we had started the process of adopting a baby. We didn't necessarily know that we couldn't have kids, we just knew we hadn't had any yet. And I'd thought about adoption a lot over the years, given my depression and anxiety, and when I broached the topic with Robert, I was pleasantly surprised to discover he was all for it. Unbeknownst to me, Robert had been worrying about the possible adverse effects of pregnancy on my depression, especially considering postpartum depression. Fairly soon after we talked about Robert hopped on the computer and researched several different agencies and options for us - this was probably a little after the beginning of the year. We soon discovered that open adoption, where the baby (and we) will still have contact with the birth mother, is pretty much the only game in town in California; closed adoptions or private adoptions are very few and far between. We attended a couple orientation sessions for different agencies and finally decided on the Independent Adoption Center.
The adoption process is a very long one before you even get put "into circulation" and begin waiting for a baby. It's also a fairly expensive process and different agencies have differing payment structures - some of them charge you for each step, some charge you in tiers, some charge you each time you enter the pool (for example, if we were matched with a baby but the match fell through at some point, we would be charged for getting ourselves matched with another birth mother), etc. Robert and I both felt that IAC had the best, most fair-seeming payment structure and it most definitely does not require us to pay again if our match falls apart because that completely stinks!
In a (somewhat large) nutshell, the adoption process looks something like this:
fill out the initial application to the agency as well as an autobiography, both of which are several pages long
attend a two-day intensive orientation session where we are assigned an adoption coordinator as well as a social worker and we get to hear from both a birth mother as well as an adoptive family who have worked with the agency
fill out a staggering number of forms - health evals from doctors, DMV driving records, employment verifications, proofs of marriage and health insurance, various legal releases, income information - and get fingerprinted
have a home visit, where a social worker inspects the house for carbon monoxide and smoke detectors, makes sure our running water does not exceed 120 degrees, checks on locations of medications and cleaning products and fire extinguishers, etc.
take an online training course and complete an accompanying questionnaire
receive 4 letters of recommendation from non-relatives
write a "Dear Birthmother" letter which is essentially our resume to prospective birth mothers and for which we have to have professional pictures taken
purchase a 1-800 number for interested birth mothers to call
create a Web page on iheartadoption.com
potentially create our own personal Web page and/or Facebook page for birth mothers to check out
We aren't considered to be "in circulation" until our Dear Birthmother letter goes out but the average wait-time for a baby is 15 months, which is a lot shorter than either Robert or I expected, quite frankly. It's a very rigorous exercise but extremely informative and helpful because the agency addresses every question you can possibly think of and that's certainly very reassuring for some things (especially concerning paternity if the birth father isn't known or around). The process is also extremely detailed in that everything from how many visits per year with the birth mother to who gets to cut the cord in the delivery room is discussed, decided, and legally recorded. It's pretty crazy. We get to bring the baby home from the hospital and it takes about 6 months for the adoption to be finalized and the baby's birth certificate changed to reflect Robert and me as the legal parents. There is no limit to how long the birth mother can wait to sign off on the adoption but the agency assures everyone that about 3 weeks is the longest any mother has taken. So, of course, the entire process is fraught with possibility that the adoption could stall at various stages but we just have to power through. The amount of stuff birth mothers have to go through with the agency is almost comparable to what we as adoptive parents have to do so by the time a birth mother contacts us, she will have already had a lot of opportunities to back out. In fact, the agency stated that last year they had 3,000 birth mothers contact them and only 200 matches because the counseling that the agency does with the birth mothers is very effective at getting down to those mothers who really are prepared to give their baby up for adoption.
Robert and I have kind of stalled out at the Dear Birthmother letter, mainly because with the pregnancy and everything else going on, we've just been swamped and I've been feeling pretty poorly, though that's thankfully improving some. I did ask our counselor if my being pregnant would affect our chances of a birth mother selecting us - I assumed we wouldn't be very desirable because a birth mother would assume we'd give more attention to our "real" baby than an adopted one - and the counselor said no. It's about a 50/50 split between birth mothers who do care and who don't and she said she recently had an adoptive mother and a birth mother who essentially had the same due date and the adoption was very smooth. I think we should probably take pictures before I get too chubs, however, so I think we're going to be moving fairly quickly to that step! :-)
Robert and I talked about the possibility of my getting pregnant while we were trying to adopt and we both decided that we'd want to keep going with the adoption. So we are! We definitely want more than one child, we both still really like adoption, and who knows how long the process will take? We could wind up matched with a birth mother in weeks, months, or years and even if it is weeks, it will still take months for the actual baby to arrive so we feel like moving along with the adoption is the right choice for us. We've discovered that many of our friends and family have lots of questions about the process so I'll probably be posting quite a bit on the subject as we slog through the steps. If you have any questions, feel free to ask!
Well, this is absolutely depressing. I can't believe it's been OVER A YEAR since my last post and that the grand total of 2013 posts is 14. Fourteen?! Granted, there's been a downward trend from year to year - 410 posts in 2008, 293 in 2009, 144 in 2010, 94 in 2011, 23 in 2012 - but 14??? Oy. That is just too sad for words.
All of this emptiness has not been without thoughts of posting, however. I have written and rewritten posts in my head literally dozens of times while trying (and failing) to fall asleep. This started a long time ago, so at first my posts were about depression, then dementia, then dementia and depression, then isolation... Very uplifting stuff, sure, but very applicable to my life an that moment. Now I'm up to crappy bosses, dog fostering, pregnancy, and adoption. I don't even know where to begin! Wait... yes, I do.
Indeed I do.
Hopefully, I will be able to get the word out that I am trying to be active in my blog posting you guys will start coming back! In the meantime, I will do a quick post on the a recent source excitement at Casa de McCauley - I'm pregnant!!!
Right now, I'm just shy of 4 months and am not due until March 1st. So everything is still very kind of vague-feeling and it still hasn't really sunk in that a baby will be arriving in the new year. I have had an ultrasound so that made things a little more real but I think Robert and I are still not 100% in pregnancy mode. He's mostly just stressed about cleaning out the office and how much childcare will cost and I'm mostly splayed out on the couch feeling sick or tired (or both). :-) We got several photos of the baby a couple of weeks ago via the ultrasound:
This is a front-facing view so the head looks a little alien-y!
3D version 1
3D version 2 (Robert and I had gone to a NIN concert the night before the ultrasound so I think the baby was still covering his/her ears...!)
So now we're just waiting until October when we get to find out if the baby is a boy or a girl. But we already have a spreadsheet of name options (courtesy of Robert, of course) so we're prepared for either eventuality. ;-)
