in which i stop torturing you and just tell you already!

so the short story behind this quilt is that after 4+ years of trying various methods to start our family, we are thrilled to be anticipating a domestic open newborn adoption possibly sometime in the next 5 weeks or so.  there’s a whole lot of weighty words in that sentence, so feel free to read through it a few times.

during those years, this blog, where i can come to focus on happy things, has sustained me and reminded me to come back out of some very dark holes and remember that there are still good things in life.

the friendships gained and new crafts learned online have proven to be fantastic distractions and have brought me so much joy.  thank you all for being there.

and now, although there may will probably be more bumps in our road to familyhood, i’m feeling confident that we are on the right path to bringing a new human into our family (as rebekah put it) and so i’ve created this quilt.  there’s an old legend that says that a red thread connects the hearts of people who are meant to be together in life.  in this quilt, the red thread connects our hearts to our baby’s, but also to his birthmother because she  is an integral part of this story and she will become a member of our family too.  sort of like when you marry and gain a whole new family of in-laws.  sort of.

i don’t plan on turning happy stuff into a mushy gushy baby blog, but i may have to post a few baby-related projects over the next few days.  i’ve been keeping them a secret for so long and now i want to show them all to you!  and so, my apologies to anyone who’s not at a place in their lives where baby chat is interesting.  i won’t be offended if you skip past the next few posts, but please come back later!  i’ll do my best to get back to the regularly scheduled program soon!

but until then, here are answers to some questions you’ll be likely to ask:

1.  yes, it’s a boy.

2.  the birthmother lives in texas.  (where i spent 5 of my childhood years)

3.  yes, she could still change her mind and choose to parent.  in texas, birthmothers must wait at least 48 hours after birth before they can choose to sign adoption papers.  no binding agreement of any sort can be made before that.  if she were to choose to parent, we’d go back into a pool of prospective adoptive parents and wait to be chosen again.

4.  we began our adoption process last may, finished our homestudy in september and were matched (meaning a birthmother chose us by reading a “profile” (a 6-page scrapbook of us) we’d created for that purpose) in november. yes, it’s been a blessedly speedy process for us and yes, we absolutely know how lucky we’ve been.

5.  we went to texas to meet her in person last month and i think all of us enjoyed the opportunity to get to talk in person.  she’s funny, talkative and refreshingly honest.  she told us that she picked us because we looked like regular, normal people, but a little big goofy.  yup.  that’s us.

6.  no, we still haven’t decided on a name.

7.  yes, i pieced all of those circles, front and back, using dale fleming’s 6-minute circle technique.  it really is quite easy.

anything else?