They're Moving In.

I'm excited and I wanted to share.  Our open adoption is about to head down an uncharted path...at least for us.  On Thursday we officially start expanding our family in a more deep and meaningful way than ever before.  On Thursday our son's birth mom and half-sister will be moving in with us and a few months later, so will his father.
Let me explain.  My wife and I have known our son's birth parents for many years.  We have worked together, learned together and grown together, and long before our son was born we talked about living together with a close-nit group of folks we call our 'tribe'.  I envisioned something between a commune and a kabbutz. However, by the summer of 2012 we couldn't be further from that dream.  My wife and I were making plans to move at the end of the year, almost 500 miles away to a different state, leaving behind my hopes of communal living...or so I thought.
Six weeks before we were to pack the last of our belongings into the U-Haul, our friends came to us with news....they were pregnant.  Such bittersweet news at the time.  I had been trying to start a family/get pregnant for about 20 years, but to no avail.  Part of the reason for the big move was to help my wife and I to 'move on', and enjoy our lives as DINKs (double income, no kids).  On top of that, my friends were facing some difficult challenges and tough choices about their pregnancy. 
After a few days of deep thoughts, long conversations and soul searching, our friends came to the wife and I and asked us to join with them in an open adoption.  They were clear about wanting to be part of our child's life and just as clear about knowing that we were the correct choice to be his primary care givers, his parents.  It was one of the most emotional, surreal days of my life.  (We said yes!)
My wife and I went forward with our move and attempted to get settled into Portland before the little bundle of joy would come and change our lives forever.  We did managed to make it to two sonograms and a couple of Dr. appointments before he was born. In April 2013 we welcomed our baby boy into the world, all eleven of us!  In attendance were J and me, the birth Mother and Father, our son's half sister and her gf, our doula and his wife,  our very dear friend C, and the Dr. and nurse, of course. And even though the adoption papers were signed the day after his birth, birth Mom and baby stayed together, with us, getting a chance to bond, for about a month.  She even nursed him for his first two weeks giving them both the awesome benefits of doing so.
It's been a year now, our little guy will be one this Easter Sunday and the family is gathering once again.  The past year has given my wife and I time to bond with our baby, given my friend time to heal and mourn the loss of her child, given the birth Dad time to fall in love with his son (a wonderful surprise to him, as he thought that he never wanted to be a father), time for the grandparents, birth, step and adopted, to realize that all are welcome to share their love.  We figure the more love for our son the better.
The more time that goes by, the more I truly feel like our son is really 'OUR' son.  I am excited to share his joys and accomplishments with my friends.  As his birth parents, only they will really understand the glee that we feel as we watch our child grow into a young man.  Which is why we've all decided that the best thing for us and our son is to all live together as one big happy family...so excited!

Wanted

This picture is from http://www.whatibeproject.com/.  It is a picture of one of my favorite artists, Michael Franti.  He looks sad.  And who won't be if they felt that nobody wanted them?  I hope that Lake never feels this way.  I hope that he will always know how much he is loved and how much he is wanted.  I imagine that Michael's adoptive parents told him he was loved and wanted, and yet, it seems that he still felt that he was not....what can we do to help Lake feel secure and held and supported and loved and wanted? 
 

"I am not my adoption."

Respect for single parents

I have a new found respect for single parents.  I can not imagine doing all that it takes to raise a child by myself.  I have awesome support and help raising Lake in my partnership with Jillian.  We are a great team, helping each other when needed, we've gotten into a bit of a routine that works really well for us.  Lake seems to be happy and thriving.  I'm sure if I was trying to do this all alone I'd be much more stressed and not as good at parenting.

One of the things that Jillian and I are good at is taking care of each other when we're sick.  She's better than me, if I'm truthful, lots better.  She will take time off work to care for me and go to the store to get food and meds to make me feel better, even though she hates to drive.  That is exactly what she did yesterday and today when Lake came down with a fever and needed to go to the Dr. for the croup and when I started getting sick myself last night and even sicker today.  Because I knew that she would be there, to take care of Lake, I was able to stay in bed and get the rest I needed.  It would have been very difficult to care for Lake myself in the state I was in.  I really don't know how single parents do it!

About mid-morning, Jillian started feeling really sick too....all three of us sick, what a sad state of affairs.  Pumped full of day-quill I was finally able to get out of bed and help with Lake, albeit, still not feeling my best.  Jillian got a hold of a co-worker who agreed not only to bring us pho for dinner, but to clean up our kitchen a bit too...what an AWESOME and kind thing to do. I really hope we don't get her sick!!!!  With any luck, our little family will be feeling better very soon.

So here's a shout out to all the single parents I know: much respect and love, you are amazing!

January 1st, 2014

Today was a doozy, so glad Jillian had the day off to help.  Lake came down with his first real sickness yesterday and today he was super needy and sad, and wanted to be held constantly.  At one point his fever reach 103.4!  We gave him baby fever reducer and it helped some, he was able to get in a couple 20-30 minute naps, but kept waking up in tears.  I've heard it before and it's true, nothing worse than your baby being sick and there's nothing you can do about it, almost broke our hearts.  
 



Lucky for him (us), by this evening his fever broke and he managed a few smiles and a little laugh, whew! I hope he sleeps though the night :)

I haven't wanted to jinks things by saying something, but Lake had been sleeping through the night for about a month now.  There have been a few exceptions, like last night when he was so sick, but I can't tell you how awesome it is for me to finally be getting some sleep.  I'm hoping that this means that I will have more energy to do things....both around the house and in the community.








Paddle has invited me to join her, and a bunch of others, in finding a word for the year:

 Hello Beautiful People!

As many of you from the Humboldt Area tribe know and participated in, it organically became a tradition for a handful of us to choose a word each year to take to heart, embrace with conscious intention, ponder for ourselves, consider our personal relationship to, use as a tool for growth, challenge ourselves with, sit with, openly embody, etc...whatever made sense for us in relation to our word. Sometimes these words have come to us easily and are obvious, other times, it has taken some time to ruminate on a number of possible words and to consider the parts of ourselves we want to work on or better engage. In whatever case, I have found that the words tend to pick us rather than the other way around, and when you have stumbled into the "right" word, you know it in your bones. 

 

In years past I have not felt drawn to a particular word, but this year I feel one calling to me.  It's still not clear, like a voice calling from a distance, but it's there.  I'm feeling like it may have something to do with being here in Portland and finding my place in the community.  Between being new to town and Lake being born, I really haven't had much chance to get to know this place....I still read the Lost Coast Outpost every day and know more about current events in Humboldt than I do here in Portland.  In the year to come I hope to find an activity/group/volunteer opportunity/work to help me feel more connected to the place we choose to call home for now.

This year I have.....

I was feeling very overwhelmed the other day and quite a bit depressed....but then my good friend Paddle pointed out that I have have quite the year, and I should give myself a break.

It was June 2012 when Jillian and I took a trip the The Nest and did some deep soul searching...at the end of that trip, we when home with huge life changing plans - wrap things up in Eureka and move on to Portland.  Which meant:

a) Saying good-bye to a job and co-workers I'd had for over 14 years.
b) Selling my house in Humboldt and all that goes along with that....for half of what it was worth and only after a struggle with the ex.
c) Letting go of Noah and Casey (those 6 words can not even begin to describe how hard this has been).
d) Letting go of the idea of having children in our lives, tired of the emotional roller coaster I'd been on for 20+ years as I tried over and over again.
e) Hosting the last of the Impropriety Society events, the end of 4.5 years of community work.
f) Ending a business partnership with two of the best friends/partners a gal could have.
g) Finding a place in Portland to live.
h) Packing what we could and selling or giving away the rest of our belongings.
i) Deciding to start my own business in Portland - picking a business name and designing a logo.

And then 6 weeks before we left Humboldt we found out we're getting a baby!!!...which meant:
j) Going to the Dr. with April and seeing our baby on the sonogram.
k) Dealing with government agencies and navigating the open adoption process.
l) Filling out lots of paperwork and getting FBI background check, credit checks and health checks, plus references from friends and family and personal interviews.
m) Enduring a Home Study.
n) Paying for all those studies...with money meant to run my business.
o) Processing the emotions around becoming a parent through open adoption- mine, Jillian's, April and Chris'...and to some extent the rest of our families.

Once in Portland:
p) Unpacking and settling into our new place....loving the view and the location, but realizing that our highrise studio is too small and too expensive for long term child rearing.
q) Familiarized ourselves to a new city and trying not to get lost.
r) Finish writing my business plan and do all the work to actually start my business - permits, kitchen rental, inspections, applying to farmers markets, get business supplies, set up my books, pick recipes.
s) Work my first farmers market in March, less than three months after arriving in town, loved it!
t) Travel back to Humboldt for baby shower, visit with Noah and Casey and the rest of our friends.
u) Pick a name for the baby.
v) Jillian had to find/get a job.
w) Travel back to Humboldt for Lake's birth....and experiencing a most magical time!
x) All the while holding our breath, waiting to see if April and Chris would change their minds.
y) Wait for official paperwork to bring Lake home.
z) Move again to a place that cost us less rent and has more room, but is in a much less desirable neighborhood...with a newborn, less than a month old...thank goodness April was here to help with Lake!
aa) Coming to the realization that I don't have enough money to keep the business afloat and that I'll have to put it on hold, even before it really gets going.
bb) Realized that we also don't have enough money to finish the adoption.
cc) Hind site is a bitch as I realized that we should have spent all our money on the adoption and not on starting the business, at least the adoption would be done and not in limbo.
dd) Adjusting to having FAR less money than I'm used to...living in government housing and even needing to visit a food bank to make ends meet
ee) Adjusting to being a stay-at-home-mom....hell, to just being a Mom
ff) Realizing that I need to make some Portland friends.
gg) Dealing with the heat of Portland, yuck.

I'm sure if I thought about it more I could add a few things more to the list.....not the average year!

The Naming Game

Picking his name.

For a few weeks, when we first found out about the pregnancy and went to our first sonogram with April, we thought we were having a girl.  That night after the sonogram, Jillian and I went home and picked out a beautiful name for a girl, one that we both loved and had very significant meaning for us...Zeva Rosalie Harbaugh.

Picking a name for a girl went so smooth, that it was a bit surprising to us, once we found out we were having a boy, not a girl, how difficult it was to find a name we agreed on.  We didn't like any of them. We were also in the middle of packing up the house in Humboldt and getting ready to move to Portland, so I suggested that we give it a rest until we moved, that our brains would have more time to ponder the possibilities when we were less stressed about the move.

A few weeks later we started up again.  We had rules for picking the name - couldn't be in the top 100 names, couldn't be hard to spell or pronounce, it couldn't be 'uniquely' spelled (like my name), didn't want it to start with J since both our names do, nor the letter E since both of Jillian new nieces are Eden and Emily.  Being list makers we just kept adding and scratching off names. We were re-watching Battlestar Galactica so had names like Apollo and Helo on the list, also Malcolm, Finn, Jasper, even William made on the list in a moment of desperation along with many others....like Funfetti.

As time went on we were feeling more and more frustrated....and then Paddle came to the rescue.  That woman has an awesome talent for naming things.  She's the one that came up with the name for The Impropriety Society, and most of the names for the events we had.  She's even changed her own first name, finding one that fit her better.  So sensing our frustration, she came over and started helping us pick a name for our baby....she must of thought we were being difficult because we just didn't like anything.

We finally did decided on both the middle and last names, so that was a start. We always agreed that Harbaugh would be the family name and that I would change my name legally to match.  For the middle name, we decided that we really liked how Rosalie honored our dear friend Annie, so wanted something as meaningful and powerful for our boy too.  So we decided on Cooper....I really like the name, and even considered it for a first name, and we felt good about giving him April's last name.  April will always be part of him and in his life, but we like how this adds an extra bond for them.

So there were were.....Something Cooper Harbaugh. Some more time went by and Paddle come over and tried again.  This time we came up with a short list to share with Jillian's Mom and brother when they came to visit.  I can't remember all the names, Drake was on the list, Thor was one, River was another, and Lake was on there too.  At first I laughed at the name Lake while Paddle tried to tell me what a cool, strong name it is.  I was sure Jillian's mom would laugh at it too.  But it turns out, she didn't, she like most of the names on the list....although she did ask that we don't name him Thor.  

At this point Jillian finally reached total frustration and was done with the whole process....she told me to pick - Lake or River.  I sent a text to Paddle for advice, she assured me we wanted a calm Lake, not a turbulent River.  And then, pulled the partnership card!  She said, that if April 'gets' to have the baby, and I 'get' to raise the baby, then she should get to name the baby.  So Lake Cooper Harbaugh he is...I can hardly wait to meet him!

Only a few more days.....

The anxiety comes in waves and the waves are coming more and more frequently.  Worried about April's health, worried about how the labor and delivery will progress, worried about my friend suffering through loss, worried that she could still change her mind, worried that we have missed a step in the adoption process, worried about sleep deprivation, worried about moving with a brand new baby, worried that money flow will be an issue while we wait for my business to take off, worried that it won't take off, worried that if it does, I won't be able to keep up, worried about vaccines, worried about public school, worried about eating habits, worried about keeping up with a growing child, worried about raising a boy to be a man, worried about....aww, heck...deep breaths...all will be good. 
I have friends and family who love me, Jillian is amazingly supportive and is holding up great, I have a great business idea, I am smart and resourceful, April is strong and not afraid to face the loss, Chris is dedicated to being connected to his child, we will have Deborah and Lo to help us process and progress through the next intense phase, and Jillian and I will work together to find the best way to navigate all those important decisions that we will be face with while raising up this child.
So Excited!