Baby Steps

I have made a teeny step forward. I have placed Lana’s picture in my curio cabinet to display. While living in Alaska I was exposed to a strong Russian influence and while I was there I purchased a set of Matryoshka dolls. They are displayed next to her. I don’t know whether I want them lined up or leave them nested. Currently they are nested.

Her picture, for the past several months, has been on my desk in my bill holder basket invisible except for the top of the plain wooden frame. Today I made myself take it out and look at her. I traced with my finger the shape of her head and I imagined what her soft hair might have felt like. I wondered if her hair was longer now. I hoped she was happy. Is she walking? Is her grandmother providing what she needs? I looked at her tummy and I wondered what her belly button looked like. Inny or outy? I wondered what it sounded like when she laughs.

I am watching people who lost their referrals bringing their kids home and I wonder what would have happened had we waited for another referral. Part of me chickened out, and part of me didn’t want to cause any issues for E’s career. After we moved down here, we didn’t have the money left to finance an adoption because of the costs involved in starting a new household. We also had to get E a truck and, thankfully, we were able to pay outright for it. I wonder if we made the right decision but honestly, I was really starting to lose faith (ha) in our agency. We had been shuffled to 3 different case workers, the office had closed their TX location, and they didn’t relay information that was pertinent to our case. I was discouraged. Add on the pressure of having to move and drive across 2 countries and I was a total wreck. In fact when we got our referral, E wasn’t even at home. He was gone for 6 weeks at a school. So I was running around gathering paperwork during the 3 hours that Dani had preschool. I was just ready to be finished.
It just wasn’t the ending that I had been hoping for.

I am so happy for Elle, and Rhonda, and Jen(who will be bringing her Pineapple home soon). But at the same time, reading their posts about how magical their time is with their children is like a knife stabbing me in the heart.

It’s not only adopting friends that I am experiencing this with. E got an email from one of his buddies in Vegas. He met and married a girl that he met during a tour in Korea. They have been married for 4 years and they have a 5 year old son together. She also has 2 older girls. They have had issues with Visa conflicts and marriage license issues which delayed them living together for their entire marriage. She has been living in the Philippines with the kids for their entire marriage. His email told E that they were expecting another baby. She is already 10 weeks pregnant. They have only been here about that long. It just drives me crazy.

When I read that email, my heart just dropped. I am so happy that they are together as a family but sickened that she got off the plane and got pregnant. It hurts. And then I feel guilty for being angry because I would just be devastated if something happened to her pregnancy.

In a lot of ways, trying to conceive has brought up a lot of my feelings with infertility. I feel the need to lash out and I wait for people to say insensitive things so that I can release. But people are generally nice. So, my anger just festers.

But I am proud of my baby step.