I Am Skinless. I Am Raw.

I am in love with a child I've yet to meet. I am in love with the idea of a child I may never meet. I am terrified of that thought. 

These are the words I tell myself when either someone else we know adopts or a possible match for us falls through:

You are not good enough. You are not pretty, fun, smart, thin, ANYTHING enough. Not enough.

But this is not okay. This is not what teenage me overcame self-esteem issues for, or what a functional adult tells herself. The adoption wait is hard. The longer you wait, the harder it gets. It’s not you! It’s not me or John or anyone for that matter, it just is. 

I hate the word “just”. In our battle with infertility people would often say “just adopt” or “just hire a surrogate”. There is nothing “just” about any of these paths. They are filled with trials, grief, and financial hardship. In this case, I think the word just is acceptable. It just is what it is. It’s a hard pill to swallow. It doesn't make it okay or more tolerable.

We have done all we can outside of hiring a facilitator who will charge us thousands for who knows what level of ethical behavior. We have accounts on just about all social media, I keep this blog, we have networking cards, we redid our letter with a professional designer. Our letter goes out often from IAC due to how open our profile is. Despite our efforts, here we sit two plus years later, waiting.

Wondering if we will ever be parents. 

I know there is nothing wrong with us. (I wrote that and felt a twinge of “but is there?”) No Sarah, stop it. We are young, healthy, fun, educated people. We are ideal for this. We have more love in our pinky fingers for our future child than there is love in the rest of the entire world. 

My heart hurts. Literally. There is a heavy deep ache in my heart where our child belongs. It’s been there since May. I can remember the first moment I felt it- after the nearadoption fell apart. I miss feeling lighthearted. I miss being my goofy self. I’m now serious and solemn. There is a darkness following me around. I miss the person I used to be before I knew this level of grief. My chest hurts and my guts are in a constant state of being twisted. 

I want to call up our agency and beg them for the answers. Tell us what we are missing! Tell us what we can do to make this happen! Tell us the secret to it all! I'm not surviving this and I need answers. (FYI, there are no answers). 

Friends and family don’t know what to say to us anymore. See: What We Need: A Guide if you have that problem. Invitations to events with our friend’s kids are dwindling, because no one wants to hurt us. Honestly, sometimes that’s a good thing. There are days I could snuggle my friend’s kids for hours and then there are days that the thought of being around children makes my entire body ache in longing to be a mom. Nephew excluded- nephew time welcome all day, every day. He makes my heart feel joy and love and all things light and wonderful about the world.

The problem is no one, not even myself knows what version of my adoption world I will wake up to each day. A Facebook post from a friend about her successful adoption (Yay...and cue to the self criticism). It's not under my control. I feel selfish, but it happens without my permission.

I am skinless. I am raw. My nerves are exposed and the world is poking at them with sharp fingernails. I wear my grief on the outside of my body these days. I have cried until I just don’t have any water left in my body to cry.  It’s apparent and ugly and drives people away. Please stay strong for us, please understand it’s not intentional. Please stick around for the end of this, as I believe the finale will be remarkable.

Until you have walked in our shoes, you just don’t know. Until you have wanted something this bad and had it dangled just out of reach, you can’t judge. There is no grief like feeling like you have a hole in your soul that may never be filled.   

This is the point in the daily adoption emotional roller coaster that I feel a little better. I got some stress out by writing this post. Some steam has been let out, I'm letting myself fantasize about "what if". Feeling a little exposed for what all I wrote, but I'll probably publish it anyway, because my goal is to be completely transparent. I'll blast my headphones as I work to drown out my own judgments of myself.  I'll stress about any judgments that may be flung my way and then scream away those judgments to music or maybe just a nice long stress relieving scream in the car. Yes, that would feel good.