Words Are Difficult, Part 2

Part of this adoption plan is weekly communication between us and the birthmother. We were told from the beginning that this kind of communication would be primarily between me (Katie) and the birthmother. “Mother to Mother” was what the adoption agent told me.  And it may be the most difficult part about the last few months.  It’s not difficult as in “hard”…it’s more like difficult as in “something I’ve never done before and I don’t have any guidance or idea of how to handle it.”  We began with the plan to talk once a week. It was understood that I would make the first few calls. The calls were … again….”difficult”. It’s hard to know what to say. It’s hard to know what to ask. It’s hard to have a conversation when you don’t know what to say or what to ask! She always answered my calls. Sometimes had to call me right back, but always did. In the beginning, she answered my questions with little detail and never asked a question of her own. About a month into the phone calls, she FINALLY asked me a question. She said “So, how is your week going?” Now…that may not seem like much to you, but I was so excited that she might be getting to the point of comfort with me!

Unfortunately, that was the first and last question she asked me. By the beginning of March, communication was coming to a standstill. With the advice from our adoption agent, I began using text-only to talk with her. That went ok for a while, now she doesn’t even respond to those. And that’s ok. 

It’s hard for me to put into words this “relationship”.  It is not something that I feel I need or necessarily want for myself. In the beginning, there were two motivating factors for me to work at something this “difficult”. The first was our baby. One day, this baby will be a big girl and might just want to know about her birthmother. It will be invaluable to us to be able to tell our big girl about her birthmother and about how I got to talk to her and hear her voice.  The second motivating factor was our birthmother’s possible desire or need to get to know us and feel as comfortable as possible with us. Unfortunately, I do not feel I’ve accomplished either of those two things. I will be able to tell our child that I spoke with her biological mother and learned a little about her, but I didn’t form the relationship that I had envisioned we would. It’s hard for me to imagine that our conversations taught her anything about us. We rarely got past weekend plans or the weather. I know I should not assume what she needed or wanted and what seems logical to me may not be logical to her.  It’s hard for me to understand.

The birthmother has begun her meetings with the adoption agency that will facilitate the adoption after birth. She is now being faced with the realities of her decision, and I can’t begin to imagine how that feels. There is a part of me that thinks talking to me now only reminds her that she will soon give up her baby to me. It’s easy to see how communicating with me would be hard.

So…I’ve updated our adoption agent on the lack of response and will do what she thinks is best from here on out. She told us the other night, she does not think the birthmom will want to see us or spend time with us at the hospital. That’s hard for me to understand too.

Words Are Difficult

I haven’t posted in quite a while. No…I haven’t been busy. Things haven’t been uneventful. In fact, quite the opposite. We’ve been very busy with the ins and outs of “everyday life” and things have been steadily progressing with the adoption. I haven’t posted because finding the words to describe what the past few months have been like is difficult for me. It’s difficult to describe in conversation and felt next to impossible to describe in words. But, I find myself wanting to try.

Let’s start with how two people mentally and emotionally prepare for an adoption. In our hearts, we are so looking forward to being parents and to meeting this little one. We can’t wait to see what she looks like…what color hair she has…her tiny fingers and toes. We can’t wait to bring her home and introduce her to our families. We can’t wait to hold her and snuggle her when she cries. But…just on the edge of that excitement, just at the tip of that anxiousness, just as we begin to smile from ear to ear and buy paint for the nursery…we remember that this adoption is not a 100% sure thing. We remember that it MIGHT not happen. We remember that the birth mom MIGHT change her mind in the hospital at the last minute. I know that puts a damper on all of it and that is not why I bring it up. These things are a reality for us and we can’t walk blindly through this process pretending it’s not a possibility. We have spent the last two months preparing logically for this adoption…maybe a little emotional preparedness on my part…but mainly logically. Buying only what we will need….well, mostly just what we need! (I might have gone a little crazy at Pottery Barn Kids one day…but we’ll leave that story alone for now. )  People say to us all the time, “Aren’t you just so excited?!?!” or “I bet you are just counting down the days!” Honestly, it is our least favorite question. It’s hard for us to answer. Mostly we just nod our heads, smile really big, and say “Yes, yes we are.”  But, what we really want to say is this, “Right now, we are just taking it one day at a time. We have travel plans to make, four hotels to choose from, and rental car reservations to confirm. We are trying to get through our weekly communication with the birth mom. And now, the adoption attorney has contacted us and we are working to get through our meetings with him. We are cautiously excited and optimistic that the adoption plan will be carried out as planned. We know we will be very excited when we take her home from the hospital.”  But you see…this answer would take far too long and probably be hard for most people to understand. It never feels like this is what people want to hear.  

 The baby is due in nine weeks. Nine weeks. We can hardly believe it.  Due to the above mentioned realities of an adoption, we really don’t talk about what life will be like after we bring the baby home.  I have started thinking in recent weeks, that if we were having our own child biologically in nine weeks there would be me A LOT more conversation about how life is about to change. Although I fully understand why we’ve refrained from conversations up until now, I expressed to Carlie last night that maybe, just maybe it was time to start talking about life with a baby. We both agreed and we talked about how it is probably a good thing….to talk about it. And that was all we talked about. :) We sit here together and laugh about it now…but man, we won’t be laughing in nine weeks!