A Type A Mother Adopts

This morning when I was dropping Mia off at school, her teacher Lisa informed me that she had been checking the blog for updates. So I realized I better get my blogging on!

This week has been a total whirlwind. I am all at once preparing for a new baby, packing for practically a month abroad, finalizing an adoption and trying to keep Mia's life as calm and normal as possible. One of the mom's from Mia's class put it perfectly: It's like when you are planning a wedding and you are so caught up with the details you don't feel anything. When I do stop the frenzy of tasks, I go back and forth between excitement and anxiety. The excitement is incredible....it feels very similar to when I felt Mia kicking inside me. The anxiety is of course about all the details my type A personality can't control quickly enough...but also this weird feeling that comes from knowing my son is out there and I can't touch him yet. It's as though someone walked in and told me that Mia is wondering around Macy's by herself and she's lost and needs to be found. I get this urge to drop everything and run to the airport right now to get him. I don't think I will be able to completely rest until he is in my arms....or maybe not until he is home and I have both my children where they belong.

On top of that, I have been sick as a dog. The plague has hit the Upper West Side, and all the kids at school (or "the Petri Dish" as I fondly refer to it) have been swapping strep throat, a stomach bug and some horrible cold/fever thing that takes a week to get over. One boy in Mia's class has been out for two weeks! Last week, Mia missed three days of school and then Thursday night when we found out there "might' be a baby for us, she came down with one of her classic, raging ear infections. (I had actually called her doctor that morning to say "Mia is going to have an ear infection tonight so can you just call in the meds now and I'll bring her in tomorrow morning?" Sure enough Mother's instincts prevailed and at 6:30 she spiked a fever and clutched her left ear, screaming in pain.) I was doing a good job of keeping myself healthy but when this news hit, my stress level went up, I stopped sleeping and boom, THE PLAGUE. Today, Friday, I'm finally feeling better.

Everything is pretty much ready and we are about to start packing. The only issue is that we have not been able to contact anyone at the American Embassy in Bogota to confirm that they have our immigration papers. If we show up there and they don't have our form, we won't be able to take Mason out of the country. So today I have only one thing to stress about. Not bad!

Mia is doing remarkably well considering that her whole world is about to change. She is excited but trepidacious about her new adventure into Big Sisterhood. We have long talks about how when the baby comes, my heart will grow and make more love for him....she keeps pointing out that I won't be sharing any of HER love, I will be making MORE love so that I can love both of them. And we talk about how she will help me with Mason. We spend a lot of time discussing how nervous and scared we will both be the day we meet him, and we have a "pinky swear" that we will hold eachother's hands tight to help make the nervous feelings go away.

Josh has been a pretty cool character throughout all of this, taking a few diligent moments several times a day to tell me I am insane. (Thank you dear husband, for keepin' it real). He is spending lots of extra time with Mia, especially in the morning, and they are both gearing up for their two weeks at home without me. Josh even sat down and watched me blow out Mia's hair so he can do it himself while I'm gone. (For those who might not know, my daughter has these glorious curls that she has decided to hate and so after three years of fights and tears, we finally decided to blow her hair out straight and now she is a happy child.)

My parents have already begun to bond with this little guy, and I truly believe that they will love him as fiercely as they love Mia. They are shopping up a storm for him, calling and emailing constantly and today I even received Mason’s first Valentine’s Day card from his Yaya and Pop-Pop.

One last thing I'd like to share: This past week I have been so overwhelmed and touched by the support of my incredible friends. I am so privileged to be close to a handful of truly remarkable women and one remarkable man who make up my treasured collection of "best friends". In these days since Mason was offered to us, my friends have run around town picking things up, brought me truckloads of freshly washed and folded hand-me-downs, pitched in to buy me the stroller I wanted and even offered to pump extra breast milk. And perhaps most touching of all, my best guy friend Jamie ran out to buy me extra underwear and MAC bronzer for my trip. Now THAT's love!