Adoption Dreams

I never updated after the last post about the meeting with the adoption agency.  It didn’t go very well.  The laws of the state of CT combined with the policies of the agency all add up to not right for us.  So we’re searching for an out of state agency to go forward with adoption.  So far we’re not having much luck finding an affordable agency in a state that is within driving distance.  We may have to go with an agency farther away which means more money for travel which narrows down our options even further.  It’s kind of a mess.  At this point I’m very at peace with adoption but stressed about the process of finding an agency.  Which brings me to my dream.

A few nights ago I had a dream about adoption.  In the dream we got a phone call from our agency saying they had a baby boy for us and we should leave and go pick him up.  We met with the social worker and she handed a little boy over to us.  There we were with a full diaper bag, a sling, a stroller, all sorts of baby stuff, and she just gave us a little boy.  It was strangely anti-climactic.  When most people get pregnant they spend 9 months excited and planning and everything leads up to the birth.  I guess with adoption nothing is for certain until you have the baby in your arms (and even then it’s not always for certain) and sometimes things happen very quickly before you have a chance to build up excitement.  Also with birth there’s the entire birth experience and the hormones and everything.  In my dream it was surreal.  “Sign these papers and you’re parents.”  It had none of the rush of birth, in the dream at least.  But I didn’t care.  I felt like I had fallen in love with a total stranger.  I was head over heels for a child that I had just met, had no bio connection to and knew nothing about.  Who knows, it may happen for me like that because I fall in love so easily and form connections with people very quickly.  When the real thing happens I don’t expect instant love and bonding.  It may take a while but that’s ok because I know it will grow over time. 

I’ve thought a lot lately about the differences between parenting bio children and adopted children and the grief that goes along with giving up on the dream of giving birth.  I feel strange sometimes because I’m not all that upset about the idea of never giving birth, I think on some level I’ve been ok with it since I got my diagnosis 4 years ago.  They say you have to give yourself time to grieve when you make the decision to stop TTC, but I’ve spent the last 4 years grieving and it’s only now, moving forward with adoption, that I feel like I’m stepping out of the darkness and into the bright future.  Our decision to stop TTC was both gradual and abrupt in a strange way and there will always be a scar left by the deep wound of infertility.  I know that as time goes on I will sometimes be reminded of the pain and sometimes it may hit me out of the blue.  When my child is in playgroups and all of the moms are sharing pregnancy and birth stories I won’t have one.  I will always look at a pregnant woman with a little tinge of jealousy because I will never know what it feels like to grow life.  I know that I will never be able to play the game of “She has her Daddy’s nose” or “He gets his brains from his Mom.”  Of course it would be amazing to grow, birth, and meet a little person that would be half me and half my husband.  But isn’t it just as amazing to meet a child you have nothing genetically in common with and raise and love that child and have the opportunity to learn things maybe you wouldn’t get to learn with bio children?  I think so.  And I can’t wait to experience it all.