My Kingdom For A Horse (errr Baby)

Okay, I am going to get a little emotional here. It's just going to happen and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. I am going to be 100% honest, John gets the brunt of all of these crazy ups and downs I have had and continue to have in this adoption process. I am a terrifying erupting volcano of emotions spewing happiness and sadness and whatever else hits me randomly. This is not a lifetime affliction, it is an adoption specific condition I find myself in. John often comes home from work to find me in a puddle of my own despair and has to figure out how to pick me back up again.

I work really hard at finding ways to stay happy, despite our lack of success so far. I can tell myself again and again that we aren't outside of the average wait time yet or that everything happens when it is supposed to or even that the right person just hasn't come across our profile yet, but ultimately, that doesn't end the hurt that comes along the serious lack of any contacts from people considering us to parent their babies. Sure there have been contacts, but how do you count them as real when they end in so many questions?

There is this Frank Turner lyric that rings through my head when I have fallen all the way down to the bottom of my emotional state. It's from the song My Kingdom For a Horse and it goes:

So if I tell you all the little things that I think that I need, 
Will you tell me how to tell the world from the woods from the trees? 
Because I've been stuck inside my comforting familiar disease, 
And I need you now because I can't get out.

It really makes me think of John and I and the roles we have played in this adoption wait. I keep looking to him for clarity, because he is so level headed and rational. I am always wanting him to tell me exactly what I am looking at, since all I see is uncertainty and can't always seem to see the light at the end of this. I see the little things that individually make this whole thing seem so hard, like a Facebook news feed full of friend's kids in their Halloween costumes, baby showers I cannot bring myself to go to, the pregnant woman at the Thai restaurant demanding special treatment based solely on the baby on board and I fail to see that these are the good things in life. But they totally are.  

I get angry at the thought that for once in my life, something is too stressful to "smile and nod" through. I totally thought I was made of steel before this. Seriously. I thought I could get through anything with a little wine and dinner out with my friends and some exercise to burn off the negativity. This experience goes so far beyond that. The further we get into it, the more I see that John can't always pick me up when I am down, because he is down too. I see the changes in his demeanor and the changes in the way he looks at me when I am yet again discovered in that puddle of my own tears. The look of "yeah, I am there too".

We feel pretty left behind by our friends. We met so young and got married before pretty much all of our friends. We had the thought to adopt years before we tried to get pregnant and years before our friends started having babies. We fought through some fruitless fertility stuff and watched as our friends had baby after baby. Now we fight through adoption and watch as they celebrate holidays and birthdays and more babies being born with their families. We don't always get invited to things anymore, because we are childless. We have officially been left out and left behind.

We do know that it is going to happen. We do know that we will make superbly awesome parents. We do know that there actually is some sort of "fate" in how people are brought together and that will include our baby and our baby's first family. It's a matter of coming to terms with the fact that fate doesn't always happen on our watch.

This is a really harsh lesson in patience and self acceptance. Accepting the fact that you don't always deal with things with humor and strength is a lot harder than you would think. I am working on accepting the fact that it's ok to melt into your own little puddle and grieve, as long as you find a way to pick yourself back up at the end. I am learning that I have to pick John up too sometimes, because he can't always do all of that on his own.

There, I did it again. I wrote super sad and emotional blog post. I always say I wont do it again. I want to portray happiness and optimism. I also have always said I would stay true to how adoption really is. I wouldn't want to read someone's adoption blog and only see the glossed over happy bits. I would want to see the truth.

The truth is -- We are hopeful and optimistic. It sometimes is hard to let that shine through.