2012 - The year of the Baby.

2012 is the year.  No, seriously - this kid will be here in 4 months.  If you haven't started to freak out yet, now is the time.  No, wait, what? I'm the only one thinking that after all of the doctor visits, the fingerprinting, the background checks, the waiting, did I mention the waiting? that it still caught me somewhat by surprise.  I guess it started to feel like it might not ever happen for us. Just when I kind of tried to put it out of my mind - SURPRISE - BABY!

Ok, I'm not really complaining.  I am sooo excited to be a parent.  I think the next 4 months might kill me.  Mostly because I live with a pregnant woman, but also because I'M TIRED OF WAITING.  I want to meet my son.  I think about the things I want to show him, to teach him.  And I just can't wait to be a part of his life and watch him grow. It's amazing how he isn't even born yet and I love him so much.

Now we get to iron out all of the small details - you know the things that don't matter, like a name?  We have it narrowed down to our favorites, but I know that the idea of "thinking" about it will only lead us to the name that has already been chosen - Lincoln.   Love it or hate it, it will probably be our son!  It has gotten mixed reviews, but we'll see.

Since we can't play sports currently, we are trying to fill time by taking Spanish classes down on the Edmonds Water front.  I love it!  Si! Hablo Espanol.  Hopefully we will do well. We both have a few years of Spanish classes in our past (High school/college) but obviously since we are taking classes - it didn't stay with us for long. 

Anyway, I wanted to write a real quick update and get back into the blogging world.  We had disappeared - but good things were being accomplished.

Let the games begin!

Happy day before Thanksgiving!  I can’t believe that it’s the end of November already.  Seems like just the other day I was wetting my pants at the idea of the scary corn maze for Halloween.  I think that was over a month ago now.  Weird!  Let’s see… What else has happened since I last time I wrote?

For the first time in our relationship Kristen and I finally have weekends off together.  It’s crazy because after 5 years you kind of get used to having one day off alone to get “your” stuff done and one day to spend together and to get “together” things done.  The only time that it was really a problem was when we wanted to get away for the weekend and one of us would have to take a vacation day to make it happen.  I think that this weekend will mark the third weekend together and I’d say it’s going pretty great.  It’s not without its challenges, but this is going to be really great when the baby comes!

Even this past weekend we were able to brave the Pass and head over the mountains to spend the weekend after dad’s birthday with him.  It was nice that she was able to go with me.  We actually fit a ton of stuff in this weekend, too!  Normally heading home is a way for me to recharge my batteries.  Sleep in and not have to clean.  Spend time with mom and dad and pick on my little brother.  This weekend was full of seeing old friends and running around!  We got to see Sara and spend time with her two boys, hang out Liz who I haven’t seen since high school (gotta love how Facebook brings you back together) and have yummy Casa Mia lunch with Michele (minus Pam because of work, booo!) who are in town from Boston to spend the holiday with her family.  Then over the course of the weekend we got to spend time with Dave and meet dad’s girlfriend’s sons.  All in all it was a great time.

It was also a good way to forget about the eviction process that I’ve been going through with my rental house tenants.  To quickly sum it up, this has definitely been a learning experience and not one that I wish to go through again.  I’m not a fan of how one sided the judicial system is toward tenants, especially when they’re not paying (yet I still have to cover the mortgage?).  BUT, I’m in the process to getting a property manager who will hopefully be able to turn a somewhat downer situation into something positive.  My only issue is that I tend to be a bit of a control freak so giving up being part of the rental house and decisions regarding the house is going to be challenging!

The baby front has been pretty quiet lately.  For us, anyway.  November is typically a huge month for the agency, more than any other month other than June, and I’m chalking it up to Valentine’s Day and frisky activities.  By the 20^th, 6 families were gone from the pool (which is great because typically the months tend to run from 0 to 4 families on average) but without the newsletter which won’t come out until Dec. 1, it’s hard to tell if it’s because of adoptions or maybe for some other reason.  Two lesbian couples have gone from the pool and that always makes me feel good about this process.  Both couples had been waiting longer than us so it’s awesome that their journey has moved onto the next stage.  In other baby news, though, I learned that a co-worker’s wife is pregnant and due in May or June, another co-worker has not one but TWO grandbabies due next year and a third co-worker was just placed with a 3-year old foster daughter! 

I feel like 2012 might be our year.  I’m not getting my hopes up super high as I’ve been in this process long enough to know better, but I really think that it might work out for us.  In the meantime we’re going to keep planning fun things with friends and family!  Deck the Hall Ball in December, our annual Leavenworth trip and CONCACAF women’s Olympic qualifying soccer in January.  Maybe I can even get Kristen to plan a trip somewhere sunny and warm soon.  Winter hasn’t even started here yet, but I’m already over it.  Haha.

I wish everyone a fantastic and safe Thanksgiving weekend.  May you have too much to eat, laugh too loudly and enjoy every minute with your friends and family!  If you’re anything like us, you’re going to gorge yourself on food, get about 2 hours of sleep and head out to the Black Friday sales.  I know, it sounds crazy but it’s just another way we’ve found to bond.  And I secretly love it ;)

Who asked for the cold weather?!?

Fall is definitely in the air!  Did we even have a summer, though?  Oh well.  Maybe next year!  I actually secretly like the fall season.  I don't so much like the cold (I *am* a desert girl, after all) but I love the way the trees turn from green to gold and red.  They don't really do that in the Tri-Cities.  They turn something more like green to dead there.  I like to be snuggled under a blanket with the cats fighting over who gets my lap.

I like what the holiday season means for my family, too.  I've agreed (and even helped plan!) a trip to the scary corn maze for later this week.  I'm going to freak out and wet my pants.  Hopefully this won't make me jumpy for months (OKAY, years) to come.  Dad's birthday is in the middle of November and that usually marks one of my last trips back to the Tri-Cities before the winter.  This year I'm even going to get to see Michele and Pam who will be in town from Boston!  Kristen and I are going to head back for that, so that'll be super fun.  Because she works on Saturdays it's rare that we get to take weekend trips together unless one of us takes a vacation day.  About a week later mom will be back for Thanksgiving and our 3^rd annual Black Friday shopping trip!  I never thought that going out shopping all night would be fun, but I realize now that the people that you go with make all of the difference in the world!

In December we rent a Suburban, fill it full of luggage, gifts, 4 adults and one chalabsky (Jeff and Matt's dog, Leo) and head back to the TC for Christmas with the Fam!  It's nice to be able to get all of us back there to celebrate.  January brings about the annual trip to Leavenworth and snow sledding fun.  And look at that?  Before you know it we are into the new year.  I'm actually excited for January because we're planning to go to some of the women's soccer qualifying games for the London Olympics that are being played in Vancouver BC this year!

On the baby front, I wish that I could say that no news is good news, but it's really just "no news".  There have been some exciting developments as far as our friends go, though.  I don't know if I talked about Warren and Chris having adopted in August (I think) and our adoption support group buddies Kristin and Tim adopted about two weeks ago!  This is very cool for both couples and just helps to remind me that this is actually happening.  There is a lesbian couple in planning right now and I'm excited for them, too.  Other than that it's just back to waiting patiently and having faith that this will happen when it's meant to be.  We're going through and updating our autobiographies and dear birthparent letter now and plan to make a video for the website in a couple of weeks, I think.  Kristen and I just put together the crib last night so the room is starting to really come together now.  I think that one of the last things for us to get is the mattress and then we're pretty much done with the nursery!  We're waiting to get any sort of bedding because we really want that part of it to be gender specific.  We've got a lot of gender neutral clothing and blankets and stuff but I think that both of us are ready to fill the nursery with pinks and purples or blues and oranges now.

Oh, by the way, Babies R Us is CRAZY on the weekends.  That's just an FYI from me to you.

So many questions...

There are days, especially when I'm slow at work or right after we've gotten a screening call where I'll sit and wonder how all of this is going to go down.  Mostly questions like, is the birthmom pregnant right now and about to choose a family?  What is she going through right now?  Will it be that we'll get a call that a birthmother has chosen us and we'll have a few months to get to know her?  Be a part of the birth?  Maybe not necessarily in the room with her, but close by?  Or will it be a last minute placement where we're asked to come as soon as possible because the baby has been born and we've been chosen as parents?  A part of me would ache as the thought of not being there from the very beginning but in the grand scheme of it all, would that really matter? Will we have the most perfect Entrustment Ceremony where we call cry and promise to provide the very best for this little life because that's what they deserve?

I wonder about how our relationship will be with the birthparents.  I would really love for the birthfather to be around, but will that happen?  Even if the birthfather chooses not to be around, between my dad, two brothers and male best friend plus Kristen's dad, stepdad and 7 brothers I think that there will be enough male impressions on their life.  What about our relationship with the birth-grandparents and extended birthfamily?  I wonder how that's going to be.  Will they accept the decision of the birthparents and accept us into their lives or will it be challenging in the beginning?

Will we ever be able to express to the birthparents the gift that they have given to Kristen and I?  What is going to happen if our methods of parenting are different?  If the baby's culture differs from ours will we ever be able to do them justice by introducing enough of their culture into our lives?

I think about the "firsts" of everything.  First full night of sleep.  First time they sit up on their own or crawl.  First word and first step.  And their first birthday and the fun that it will be.  Will the birthfamily want to be there?  Will we want to combine the parties and have everyone there or would that be too much for us or them?  And later birthdays when we get to take them to Jump Planet and bounce around for an hour with all of their little friends.  Then I think about the enormity of Kristen and I being responsible for teaching them everything that they're going to know.  Well, not everything but you catch my drift.  She and I helping to mold them into productive people for society.

What happens 12 years down the road when they are at the age where they are figuring themselves out?  Will they understand the adoption and the great sacrifices that their birthparents gave to give them a better life?  Will they understand that they were everything that we ever dreamed of and not be angry with us?  Will there be a phase where they'll want to live with their birthparents or prefer them over us?  How is that going to affect Kristen and I and will it break our hearts?  Will *we* have enough strength to know that it's just a phase and one day they'll understand?

Checking in...

Editor’s note:  I always start these blogs out in Word, away from the actual Blog and then I forget what it was that I mentioned last time to be able to continue on with this new blog.

Summer has finally hit Seattle and it couldn’t be more perfect!  It’s been in the 80s most of September and to me, that’s perfect.  Better late than never, especially when the weatherguys are all aflutter about us having another La Nina winter.  I’m not exactly sure what that means but I’m pretty sure that La Nina is Spanish for: you’re going to get a lot of snow, so be prepared.  BAH, I say!  Let’s focus more on the late summer that we’re having!

Labor Day weekend couldn’t have been more perfect.  Friday I was at an all day concert featuring the like of The Naked and Famous, The Givers, AWOLNATION, The Joy Formidable and lots more.  It was great to be outside with friends and taking in the awesome weather and great tunes.  I don’t know how it happened, but I managed to only burn the inside of my legs.  How does that happen??  Anyway, in the meantime mom had come into town and was hanging out with Jeff at the studio.  Saturday was spent running around getting ready for the BBQ later that night.  The BBQ was fun!  More low key than the ones that we normally have, but it was a holiday weekend and the turnout was perfect.  I managed to only get bit by one bug which is HUGE news for me.  Seems the skeeters in Seattle love them some Misty.  Sunday was pretty low key.  We spent a couple of hours with Jeff and Matt installing a new washer at the rental house, replacing the one that flooded the laundry room (that’s for THAT, stupid old washer) the Wednesday before the long weekend.  Monday Kristen and I hauled down to IKEA for a dresser for the nursery and about $200 worth of other randomness for the house.

Let’s get into how complicated the dresser was to put together.  I had heard a while ago that IKEA had to change their little pictorial installers on all of their instructions from being a woman (women’s lib got their panties in a twist) to now be well, not even human-looking, let’s be honest.  It took THREE female humans to get that damn dresser together!  And there were 2 left over cam locks.  Oy.  Pray the thing stays together.  So all we’re missing now is the crib which was ordered from Babies R Us last night!  The whole room is coming together now and I’m completely excited :)  I know that it might still be a little while before it’s actually filled with a baby, but these little steps remind me that this is really happening.

Let’s see.. what else?  This weekend wraps up the last of the regular season for the Storm and that’s kind of sad.  Okay, I’ll be honest and say that I wasn’t really as into this season as I have been in the past.  Maybe it was because we were so busy this summer that we missed a handful of games and it was kind of a hassle to schedule everything else around them.  Oh well.  They’ve made it to the playoffs and tonight’s game determines if we get home court advantage over the Mercury or not.  That would be HUGE because it’s harder for us to lose at home than away.  Although, I suppose that’s why they call it “advantage”. 

One year anniversary!

The one year anniversary of being in the baby pool came and went without too much fanfare in the Gonzales-Ryan household.  In fact, I didn’t even really think about it until about 20 minutes ago when I looked at the date on a drawing that was sitting in front of me and realized that it’s been a year.  That’s not to say that I don’t think about it probably every other day, though.  July 27^th of this year Kristen and I were busy making plans for an impromptu work trip to Hawaii that I had to take. (I know, I know.. “had” is a strong word to use behind the word “Hawaii”)

So what’s been going on since I last wrote?  Because I don’t know the date right off hand, I’m just going to wing it.  I think that I posted pictures of Warrior Dash last time which would have been toward the end of July.  I actually think that I posted pics of the kickball tourney too, which was the weekend of the 23^rd.  So that brings us to the weekend of the 30^th and our trip to Hawaii so I guess I’ll talk about that!

Kristen and I have a (bad? Or maybe good?) habit of trying to cram as many things into vacation as possible – so much so that I need like a day or two to recuperate from all of the fun things that we did!  So we left Seattle early Sunday and headed to Hawaii.  Landing in Hawaii at around noon or so we just kicked it around the hotel and neighborhood that day.  We’d never stayed on that side of Waikiki before so we had a lot of exploring to do.  Over the next several days we went  parasailing and jet skiing, riding the scooters around the island again, and meeting up with my friend Jen that moved back home to Hawaii to take care of her grandpa.  We also met up with Stranger and Danger, a couple that plays kickball with us, at a luau one of the nights!  Do you see what I mean about fitting a lot in?  Oh yeah, and Friday I had to work (boo!) but that gave Kristen a change to climb Diamond Head (yay!).  I was super jealous that she went without me, but I’m glad that she had found something to do instead of just sitting in the room that day.  She also got some amazing shots of Waikiki from that vantage but I had taken the camera with me in case I had to go visit the site so all she had was her camera phone!  Maybe I can get her to upload some photos here soon.

Here is where you can find other pics of the trip in the meantime, though! 

www.flickr.com/mistynkristen

Other than that I just had to hit the ground running when we came back from Hawaii because the rental house tenants were moving out and it’s always a process to get the house turned around and ready to rent again.  Overall the house was in good shape, but there’s always one or two things that kick my butt as I’m trying to get them fixed.  This time around it’s going to be trying to figure out how to get the broken bathroom faucet off so that I can replace it.  It’s one of those funky pedestal type sinks and I have no idea how they got it on so tight to begin with.  Yay for life as a slum lord.  Anyway…

Summer is wrapping up and that makes me sad.  It’s be kind of a lame summer weather-wise and it almost makes me miss the warm Tri-Cities.  If it weren’t for those blasted windy winters and the fact that my job is here I’d probably go back in a heartbeat.  This weekend is going to be busy with a birthday party go-kart race and Storm game and next weekend is a trip home to celebrate mom’s birthday… finally!  Then it’ll be Labor Day weekend and the Summer Camp concert!  After that I honestly don’t have anything planned for my weekends, which will be odd.  Except I need to plan a paintball outing that I bought on Living Social.  I’m learning it’s WAY too handy to have my card preprogrammed into that app.  Lol.

All in the blink of an eye...

I really need to get better at writing more than just once a month.  It just seems like a lot goes on between posts that I want to be able to fit the fun into one post.


Let's see.. what's happened since the last post?  Pride was the last weekend of June and as always, that's a treat for the eyes.  There isn't a part of me that takes Pride seriously but it's good for the people watching.  We decided to stick around this year and root on our adoption agency and show support.  So, the parade starts out with float #1, right?  Well, turns out that our agency was float #204.


Yeah.


So almost 4 hours later our agency crosses in front of us and everyone goes crazy and they ask us to walk with them and we tell them not on our lives (are you kidding?  we're shy!) and then we fold up the chairs and say goodbye to the sidewalk friend that we made and then we head to Gordon Biersch for lunch.


Whew.  The End.


The first weekend of July brought around Kristen's 29th birthday and the start of the last year in her 20s.  This was the first year that she's had a party as a big kid and I think that it turned out pretty good.  I really tried to make it special for her.  We had a big ol' BBQ at the house with all of our friends.  With her birthday being the weekend of the 4th of July is always a party around here.


The second weekend of July was the NKOTBSB concert.  Now, had you told a 12 year old Misty (some 20 years ago...) that she was going to see Jonathon Knight is concert (SHUT UP, I LOVED HIM!) I would have gone crazyyyyyy.  But you say the same thing to a 33 year old Misty and I'm like, uhh.. we're both gay now and aren't they like, super old??  Anyway, Kristen was super excited and that's all that matters.  The whole night was a super surreal experience.  Nothing like a Tacoma Dome full of drunk, hot and bothered 30 and 40 year olds!

Jon, Joey, Jordan, Danny and Donnie!

The next weekend was Warrior Dash!  Woot woot!  I'd been waiting on that run since January!  The whole day was crazy fun and I can't wait to do it again next year.  It was just fun to hang out with my gang of muddy friends.  I'm debating wearing a costume next year!  It was really fun to see everyone all dressed up and just having a good time. 

All clean before Warrior Dash!

Andddd... after.

Last weekend was the annual kickball tournament where we have yet to win a single game in the three years that we've been playing.  I get really bummed about losing (who wants to lose ALL of the time?) but then I remember that it's all about hanging out and having fun.  I'm just not a very good loser.  Ha.

Kickin' it at kickball.

I've done a pretty good job of trying to stay busy and keep my mind off of one, losing the cats and and two, the adoption thing.  I definitely go back and forth about the waiting process.  And I've definitely had my moments lately.  For the most part I've been okay... definitely too busy to think about it a lot but then there are those times maybe during the day when I'm drafting or at night when I'm listening to Kristen falling asleep that this whole process has really starts to wear on me.  So much (or is it so little?) for so long that it's really frustrating.




I found out some pretty depressing news about the husband of a girl that I graduated high school with.  Bad headaches led to a brain scan which led to news of a tumor which led to the news of Stage 4 brain cancer.  Just like that.  Here I am, trying to speed up time so that I can move on with my life and I bet more than anything in the world she is trying to find the pause button on time.  I know that everyone says it, but hearing news like that really puts things into perspective, even for someone like myself who isn't really a part of that picture but grieves for my friend all the same.  It's a reminder that tomorrow isn't promised to us.