Everything Happens for a Reason

We hear this phrase so often, but I have found it to be so true in my life. It never ceases to amaze me, looking back at the chain of events that led me to this moment in time. What if I had made a different choice 10 years ago...would I be where I am now, or would I be somewhere else? And it's a mish-mash of things beyond my control & consequent decisions I've made that have brought me to this point, each choice building on the last.

When I graduated college, I had grand dreams of being immediately hired & setting up my own elementary classroom...I had absolutely no doubt I would be hired right away. That is, until September rolled around, and I still had no job prospects. But I lucked out...a local elementary school called my mom for a long-term substitute position, not realizing that she had a full-time teaching job already (she used to sub for them in the past). She told them that she wasn't available, but amazingly, her daughter had just graduated with a degree in elementary education, and was available! So off I went...and I ended up subbing part time for most of the fall, then got a seasonal job at Barnes & Noble to cover the gaps. By January I had been hired for a long-term substitute position at another school for the rest of the school year, and was also asked to stay on with Barnes & Noble past the holiday season. With the end of the school year came another round of job applications, and again, no luck until August. I got a call from an elementary school who was looking for a Media Specialist (a fancy name for librarian), a position I had not even applied for...they called me not only because of my education degree, but also because I worked at Barnes & Noble! I ended up working as a Media Specialist in that district for two years. At the end of those two years, certification requirements in NY changed, and I could no longer be a Media Specialist without a Masters in Library Science. I applied everywhere I could, but no luck, and so I turned to Florida, which I had heard was desperate for teachers. Again, I applied for a regular elementary teaching position, but was called based on my Media Specialist experience & promptly hired to fill that position at a brand new school. I worked at that school for a year & a half, before budget issues forced the school to cut my position. (Ironically, this was yet another reason I had left NY, as all the schools were severly cutting budgets up north). After a month of unemployment, I was finally hired at a small public library as the Library Director & Children's Librarian, and I've now been here almost 6 years. If I hadn't had a love of books to begin with, and worked at Barnes & Noble, I would never have been hired as a Media Specialist in NY...if I hadn't had those two years experience as a Media Specialist in NY, I would never have been hired for that position in Florida...and if I hadn't been a Media Specialist in Florida, I would never have been hired for my current position.

And here we are in Florida, where the adoption laws are some of the best in the country (incidentally, NYS adoption laws are very difficult to work with). Adoption was the furthest thing from my mind when we moved here 7 years ago...I had no idea I was moving to an adoption friendly state, nor that I would be in need of such a thing down the road. Kind of makes you wonder if there isn't some larger force at work here. Through circumstances and events sometimes beyond my control, I have been led to this point in my life...my job led me to move to an adoption friendly state, my son's birth led to my hysterectomy, and my hysterectomy led to our adoption plan. Everything happens for a reason.

Song Lyrics

Sometimes I hear a song, and it just speaks to me...it's not usually the whole song, maybe just a line or two, but man, do those two lines hit close to home! And it's funny because usually the subject of the song has absolutely nothing to do with why I relate to it. There are three songs (currently) that really hit me emotionally, in regards to my hysterectomy & what I went through. One is 'Sand in My Shoes' by Dido:

Two weeks away, feels like the whole world should have changed,
but I'm home now, and things still look the same.

Now, of course, in the song, she's singing about a vacation, and my two week hospital stay was nothing of the sort, but those two lines describe exactly how I felt when I got home.

The second is just a one-liner from 'Shattered' by O.A.R.:

How many times can I break 'til I shatter?

I went through so much both physically & emotionally, and there were times I thought I might just break under the strain.

The third is from 'Break Even' by The Script:

They say bad things happen for a reason, but no wise words gonna stop the bleeding...
cause when a heart breaks, no, it don't break even, even, no...

This part is a double-entendre for me...physically bleeding, and emotionally bleeding...and, of course, it did break my heart that I can no longer have children. And later, in the chorus:

I'm still alive but I'm barely breathin',
Just pray to a god that I don't believe in.

The first line is pretty self explainatory...true, again, physically & emotionally. The second line is so ironic...I don't consider myself religious, and I don't really believe in a god, but I certainly pray when the going gets tough. To whom or what do I pray? No one & nothing...and everything. The world at large. Karma. Fate. Destiny. My guardian angel. I don't label it, I just put the prayer out there, and let the world make of it what it will.

I am constantly revising my list of theme songs to my life, but those three will always remind me of what I overcame & how much stronger it has made me.

Home Study is D.O.N.E.

It's been forever since I updated this blog, but that's mainly because I've been so consumed with the piles of paperwork required to complete our homestudy this past month. We stumbled across a stack of savings bonds while cleaning out the office one day, and the combined total was enough to pay for our homestudy! (Don't you love found money?) I figured that was a sign that we should bite the bullet & have one done, and so we began the daunting task of collecting all the information required, scheduling appointments (a difficult task at the best of times, given Ambrose's crazy schedule), and filling out the mountains of paperwork. I was amazed to find that because our fingerprints were done electronically, the results came back within HOURS, not weeks. And then, at the end of all that, came our actual home visit, which was more stressful than I thought it would be. It's not that I was nervous our social worker would see the house, and run screaming in the other direction...it's just the thought that another person has the power to decide whether or not you can become parents again, and the home visit is the culmination of everything leading up to that decision. So even though I knew better, thoughts like, "What if she says NO?!" kept running through my head all afternoon, and by the time she arrived I was a nervous wreck. Luckily, that didn't last very long, and the home visit went so well, and we had so much fun chatting that the social worker ended up staying an extra hour! We worked with Amy Imber of Connecting Hearts Adoption Services, and I highly recommend her. Amy worked quickly & efficiently to finish our home study in record time--3 weeks from the time we started background checks it was done--and immediately put us at ease during the home visit. She also had great recommended agencies, attorneys, and consultants based on our wants & needs. Our next steps are deciding whether we want to use a consultant, or just choose an agency/attorney on our own, and beginning the adoption grant application process. But that's for another post. ;)