I feel very much like there are two people who have decided on an uneasy co-habitation within my heart and brain. As I struggle to fill out the adoption paperwork, I am bombarded with feelings of elation and desperation all at once. I try to focus more on the positive thoughts, rather than the disappointing ones, but sometimes the Hyde pops out and dashes away all the feelings of goodness Jekyll clings to.
Dr. Jekyll – I am excited to be beginning this journey of adoption. I know that Flaco and I will be good parents and I am anxious to get a chance to prove it. I am thankful that the Lord, working in the mysterious ways He is so fond of, saw fit to soften Flaco’s heart to the idea of adoption, since he had been so utterly opposed. I am grateful there is a way we can adopt that will not cause us vast amounts of money and I am glad I work with someone who is going through this process, blazing a trail ahead for us. Before, I would daydream about bringing our newborn home from the hospital, when now I dream about accepting a baby or toddler into our household. I think about how quickly we will need to buy a crib and other accessories for our child and I have already “window” shopped online for baby/toddler clothes. I imagine our first day with a child we will finally call our own and I wonder if we should stay home or plan activities. Mentally, I have already made a list of the things we will need to move, change, or get rid of once there is a child living in our home. I visualize the dogs and cats adjusting to a baby pulling on their ears and tails and utterly terrorizing them. I have imagined myself washing and folding baby clothes. I wonder how on earth I will know what size diapers to buy and think perhaps I would like to use cloth versus disposable. I think that I need to get a baby bullet food processor (they have infomercials for these things) to make my own healthy baby food using organic veggies from the farm. I imagine putting a car seat in the back of my car and wonder if we will need a stroller. These are not new things I think about – I’ve thought about them before, but under a different context. Before, we were starting from scratch, from 0 hour with a child we conceived. Now, my mind is spinning with the possibilities of having a child that could potentially be a few years old, already walking and talking. I think about finding a daycare for the two weekdays Flaco will not be home to watch the baby (I say baby, but to me this encompasses up to at least age 3). I am excited by the possibility that motherhood is but a few months (and lots of paperwork) away. I can already picture myself finger painting and making blueberry pancakes, taking walks and visiting the farm with my baby. I imagine going grocery shopping with a baby, going to the playground, taking the baby to the Farm Show in January, I think about getting a family picture taken and snapping candid shots during Christmas and other holidays. In my minds eye I can see me feeding the baby breakfast and gently waking Flaco to take care of him/her as I head out to work. I think about me and the baby greeting Flaco with a big hug and kiss when he comes home from work at night. I think of how wonderful our lives will be with our own child. And I want to cry happy tears of joy.
Ms. Hyde – I get new little snippets of things that we will be missing each and every day. They drop into my mind like bombs of napalm, searing everything in their path. Yesterday, I was at a pregnant friends house and I was asking her to be a referral for me and Flaco in this adoption process. This is the first time I have seen her with the baby bump and I must say it was hard to look at; right there in my face were all my inadequacies, all the tears and sorrow of two and a half years. She said how she always thought about adopting, after working at a daycare for several years after high school. She thought it would be a nice idea, yet here she is with her growing belly all up in my face. Then she proceeded to tell me how wonderful this is, how great that we’ve decided to adopt, ad nauseum. It’s hard to hear how happy she is for us, considering she only had to try for five months before Wham-o! She’s preggo and it’s in there. I told her how sad I was to know I would not get to experience exactly what she is going through at the moment. I wanted to punch her when she said, “Well, at least you will get a child.” Which I translated into infertility speak to mean, “Poor dumb schmucks, this is the best you can hope for because your baby-making factory is busted.” I looked at her protruding belly and felt the tears stinging behind my eyes. Other than getting fatter, my belly will not bulge. Flaco will not rub my tummy and whisper to our growing baby that he loves him/her. Pregnant friend mentioned something to her friends about taking prenatal vitamins and some asked why she was still taking them. She turned to me and asked, “But you can take them even before you get pregnant too, right?” I nodded, but my snarky mental response was, “Hell, I’ve been taking the dam things for over two and a half years, so yea you can take them before you get pregnant.” For whatever reason, today the thought popped into my head about a book many expectant mothers rush out to buy when they first discover they are with child. “What to Expect when You’re Expecting,” is not a book I will ever need to read. I did wonder if anyone has ever written a book like, “What to Expect when You’re Adopting.” Maybe not. Back over two years ago, I purchased a book that a pregnant mother writes to her baby as he/she grows inside the womb. After a year and a half, I tucked it away where I would not stumble across it inadvertently. Now, I am thinking that I will not need it and perhaps I should send it along with the two bags of clothes I plan to donate to the Goodwill. Maybe I can find a similar book for adopting mothers. Pregnant friend had baby magazines on her coffee table and a Target baby registry as well. Do adopting parents make baby registries? We don’t even know what age our child will be, so that doesn’t make much sense. When my mom was pregnant with me, my parents were building their home, the one they still live in. The first picture in my photo album is of my very pregnant mother, standing in front of the frame of the house with a T-shirt that says, “Under Construction.” I think it’s the cutest dam thing. I can’t think of anything witty to put on a T-shirt for a mother adopting a baby. “Knocked up? I have an ap for that.” Not as cute. I wonder if our child’s birth mother would give us baby pictures, so we can show the baby what they looked like as a newborn? As I began writing my autobiography, I thought to myself, “What can I say about myself that will convince someone to give me a baby? What are the qualifications for motherhood?” Pregnant friend also told me her sister, a former crack-addict now in recovery, is pregnant with her fourth child with a fourth different man. I mentally counted to 10 before I asked, “On purpose or accidentally?” To which my friend responded, “Well it’s not like she doesn’t know how it’s done.” I know how it’s done, but that doesn’t mean I can get pregnant. Just another example of life’s little injustices.
I pray to God that this adoption process is not as emotionally taxing as the trying to conceive process has been. I pray that He might make a way for us, so that we might quickly find the child He intends us to have; the one He has made just for us. The paperwork I am filling out scares me a bit because it asks about how we will work with a child with special needs, but my friend assured me the definition of “special needs” is pretty broad for the state and might just be a child of mixed race. Flaco and I have no preference when it comes to the race of our child. In fact, we would love to find a child that is Hispanic/Caucasian because that is what we are (to split hairs, Hispanic does not describe a “race” but rather a “culture” but regardless, that is how we identify ourselves).
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