Ch-ch-ch-ch Changes...

I have been giving a lot of thought to "growing up" lately. Yeah, I know, I am 34 and technically grown up. The thing is though is no matter if you are legally an adult, you never stop growing and changing. The experiences you have in life change you. Really, every single experience you have alters who you are at least a little. From something that is small in the scheme of things, like coworkers treating you disrespectfully- to huge things like, illness, loss, marriage, college, and the adoption process, who you are gets tweaked just a little (or sometimes a lot). Sometimes (usually, hopefully) you are stronger from your life experience and sometimes you have a bit of setback before you find your strength.

Going over this infertility and adoption saga in my head is what has me really thinking about who I am now vs. who I was when it all started. Even though we knew pregnancy would be hard on my two time kidney transplanted body, we still headed into trying to get pregnant with optimism and naivety. When month after month and then a year of negative pregnancy tests piled up into soul crushing disappointment, we were no longer naive. We were educated and worn down, though a little hardened on the inside. We had become people who knew too much about ovulation and too little about actual pregnancy.

The same has happened with adoption. We were so relieved when we finally decided to pursue adoption. I will never forget the moment that we said it out loud. I had just had the test where we found out it wasn't going to happen without corrective surgery and even then it wasn't a given. My mom had gone with me to this awful, painful test and driven me home that afternoon. John came home later that night and I had to tell him the details. Sitting on the bed- I cried and tried to sputter out the words that once again, my body was betraying me. I felt like I was failing him. He held on to me for a while, so I could pull myself together and we then looked at each other like we knew what was next. I think John said it first- time to go back to looking at adoption (we had already researched it years prior). We were changed forever. We had a new identity: infertile couple, couple who want to adopt a baby.

We went into adoption naive as anyone ever could. No amount of free information sessions or pamphlets could prepare us for what adoption truly is. No personal experiences told by people who have already adopted could compare to what our process would be like. They are all so different. Having your home, your health, your finances picked through to be approved by the state to adopt, suddenly looking at those aspects of your life and questioning if they are good enough, looking inwardly rather than looking forward. We are changed again for good. We live our lives better, healthier, in a way we would want our child to live. We have another new identity: we are people who are cleared by a bunch of databases as "people fit to adopt".  What a feat!

I really can hardly remember the people we were before now. I remember being a little less worried all of time. I remember focusing on the fun part of our lives rather than the business side, saving money for vacations rather than legal fees. I remember being more lighthearted, but it seems so long ago that it's barely even a memory. I remember being less suspicious of people and feeling less judged. But I also have a feeling I was a weaker person back then.

I am honest to a fault, empathetic, sympathetic, and eager, while being a realist, cynic, and pessi-optimist (that mood swingy place people find themselves in sometimes). John is strong and stoic, he is warm and a great caregiver. He is level headed and soft hearted. We are changed for the better. Our new identity: People who can grow from this.

Here we sit. With hope in our hearts and fear on our minds, waiting for that day we can say that this adoption journey is not over, but starting another chapter.