This post is not about all the things 40licious is. It is not inspiring or informative. It is just that I wanted to write about how hard it is to be in the waiting phase of an adoption.
I keep wondering if we had better pictures that make us look more, I don’t know, suburban or Malibu, if that would make a difference. Without looking for them I keep seeing stories about how a mom drives her van with the kids into it in the river, or how the boyfriend kept the kids in a tiny cage until CPS freed everybody. And I can’t believe the unfairness of it all.
They mean well, the people who say, “Enjoy this time and take an amazing trip! Because your life will change once you have kids!” You know what? I have been to France, the Netherlands, Italy, Greece, Yugolavia when it was called that, Israel, Ireland, England, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, Turks and Caicos, Jamaica, and probably some other places that I forgot. I think I’m OK to have a kid. And maybe take her with us to the next place for a vacation.
The ones who say, “How’s the adoption going?” also mean well because they are really interested. Like my Mom. Who keeps sending me sweet little things for this baby we don’t know yet. But if I had something interesting or good to say I would say it. I don’t think she wants to know that I crumbled into a wet gooshy pile the other day when another “maybe but not quite” situation came up, a baby girl abandoned in a hospital where my friend works in another state. Too many systems to navigate. Too much paper to cross.
And the worst part is the people who hate adoption. The ones who had terrible childhoods with abusive adoptive parents, who have made it their mission to share their angst with people like us. We just want a family, and their truth is not our truth. I’ve been called “baby grabber” and “too white” and some really nasty other stuff by people who came across our adoption website. Which is why I’m about to unload the bulk of my savings on a different agency that specializes in marketing people to birthmothers considering adoption.
It is like planting a seed and watching, not knowing when it will come up, what it will be, or if it will even ever appear. And it is hard to believe after a while that anything will ever sprout. But you just wait. And there are infinite temperatures and flavors of waiting. And tonight is one of them.