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!