Can we just talk about baring one's soul for a minute here? I've done it, I am doing it and I have a love/hate relationship with it. On one hand, I am or at least used to be a pretty private person. On the other hand, blogging about this has become such a great source of coping with what has become a very public journey. Anyway, some thoughts on feeling like you can all see through me now.
I find so many parallels between adoption and becoming a transplant recipient. In the process to be evaluated for my kidney transplants, I had to bare it all. Every nook and cranny of my body was explored, my psychological state had to be "signed off on" (literally had to see someone who wrote a letter stating that I was sane.... good news! I am!). I even had to run on a treadmill hooked up to a bunch of wires to prove I was healthy enough to handle surgery. During the treadmill test, the nurses made jokes like "it's cool, we have revived every person who has temporarily died in this room!". Yay! I was nowhere near dying, so I was cool with the morbid jokes and I am always down with the medical humor. By no means is kidney transplantation a walk in the park, but I really didn't have to put myself out there so much, because I had two living donors volunteer without me asking. Could I ever feel more loved?! People who are searching for a kidney donor do in fact have to put themselves out there a little more. Generally by asking friends and family and using social media. How interesting that we are doing the same thing to find our potential birth mother.
In the process for adoption, I have had to bare it all emotionally and psychologically. I am not talking about having to be signed off on by a psychologist, though I did have to explain why I saw one during my transplant evaluation, I am talking about exposing my soul to my friends, family and strangers. To those who know me personally, there is no question that this "soul baring" has been harder for me to grasp than either transplant ever was. Here is what is in my inner most thoughts: I want a family, I feel it in my heart, my brain and my soul. I feel it in every single cell that makes up my body and I know for sure that adoption is how my family will become complete.
It has taken me months to come to terms with having to use social media to get the word out that we are adopting. The blog I could handle fairly early on, because I can use it as a way to document our process and keep people updated on what is going on. I eased into making a Facebook adoption page by initially posting adoption related stuff on my personal page. Making the Facebook adoption page and sending out requests for people to "like" it was hard! I don't like to ask for help! I don't like for people to see my guts! The recent addition of Instagram and Twitter was HUGE for me. I shook like a crazy person when I made the post on Facebook to ask people to follow us on yet another social media outlet. Is it asking too much of people? To me, it was a lot like saying "Please click here to see what I look like nude". Another level of letting the world in. Deep breathing, hit submit....
We went through quite a bit a of research to make sure what we are doing is ethical. We have a lot of faith that our agency, the Independent Adoption Center, is the most ethical agency around. We want a family and there are people out there who cannot parent for one reason or another out there. We offer a stable, loving home and only want the best for our future child and his/her birth family. If I have to do some exposition of my inner thoughts, some swallowing of the pride, some asking for help in getting the word out, then that is what I am going to do.
Lastly, I may have written about this before, but it really has been on my mind lately. The parallel between adoption and organ transplants. Often, if not always, both situations are bittersweet. One family's happiness is a result of another family's loss. In organ transplantation, often a family member will be lost and the organs donated. Many people will get a second chance at life and at happiness due to that loss- families will be created and maintained. In adoption, there is also loss. The birth family is experiencing having to place a baby, which can trigger those same feelings. As a result, another family is created. Happiness from grief. Quite the difficult scenario for all involved in the adoption triad ( child, birth parents, adoptive parents). We can only make the best of it and promise to be great and supportive parents and keep an ongoing open relationship with the birth family.
To end things on an uplifting note, I went to the zoo with my sister-in-law Heather and nephew Henry yesterday. I included a couple of pictures. I like that Henry wanted to be the big lion instead of the baby. It is very representative of him wanting to be a big boy. He is two going on five in his head.
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| Henry and I conquering the carousel. He used my entire head for safety. |
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| Heather and Henry being lions. ROAR! |
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