Stalking the Stacks with Library Lil
*Stalking the Stacks with Library Lil* |
2001-03-21 Today was one of those days that had me saying “Where did the day go?” and “Is this week over yet?” all at the same time. I had a dentist appointment this morning, which meant I got into the office late, I was planning on using a few of the 8 sick hours I have accumulated since I have been officially back at work. What this meant was that I had no intention of staying any later than I had to. However, this does not mean that any of my work got pushed back. I spent most of my library day zipping around, hanging signs and preparing classes. This was instead of the 50 other things I was supposed to be doing. I actually felt guilty leaving at 6.What today has confirmed for me is that I need to quit, or cut back. I absolutely can not pursue an adoption and work 50 hours a week. Sure I know that husband’s schedule is flexible enough to allow him to take care of “daytime” chores, like calling agencies. But in our experience with adoption we have found that there are things we both need to do. We both need to go to informational meetings. We both have to go to appointments with agencies or social workers. And there are things that only I, as the woman in our group can do. Only I can do the “woman stuff” like going to the ob-gyn with a shy pregnant woman. The bottom line is, that we both need to have flexible schedules. Oh I’m sure my workplace would say that it offers a flexible schedule, to me it isn’t flexibility if leaving for 3 hours to go to the dentist means you’ll have to work into the evening to catch up. It has been really interesting to talk to people since the adoption fell through. Evidently my absence at the library was announced to a few patrons. One woman today told me she heard my great news and once again I had to explain that bad news doesn’t travel as quickly. She confessed to me that her mother had wanted to place her for adoption and changed her mind. She also told me something I wondered if Zoe would feel; she wondered what her life would have been like if she had been adopted. It was interesting and left me with nothing to say. I have also found that many people believe that this could have happened at any time in our lives, that Zoe could have lived with us for years and this could have happened. That is just how horrible of a job we as a society do in discussing adoption, particularly open adoption. But of course I have saved the most entertaining bit for last. My mother called Sunday and in the course of the conversation she mentioned her cousin B-- and his wife. They adopted two children, the youngest is now 19. Of course, somehow my mom got this piece of advice from them: Tell them to go to Catholic Social Services, that’s where we got J-- and (good lord I couldn’t remember the girl’s name) S-- and if you go there, you won’t have to deal with any of the complications of birthparents! I told my mom that she needed to remember that 20 years ago many adoptions were closed or traditional adoptions and that today many were more open and “experts” (ok so I even used my authoritative librarian voice on this one) agreed that this openness was a good thing. It is truly a coincidence that the Catholic Family Services informational meeting on adoption is scheduled for next week. We are going, but we have been on their list since we made contact with them in October. Perhaps, I’ll pick up some literature for B--. |
