Sunday, January 13, 2013
Where am I going?
I know I haven't been regular but I needed to post this and... this is the place.
Josiah. Sammy. Owen. Shaun. Philip. Eddie. Vanessa. Xenia. Tatiana.
Mason.
Genesis.
Names of kids I loved and prayed for over a year ago when I first started following RR.
I decided I wanted to adopt. We were having trouble conceiving--maybe it was time. I saw a description, a little boy who just needed a family to love him, and DH said find out more. He was half a year older than our daughter. Soon we were trying to start a home study with an agency deciding whether they would even do one for his country. They said yes... and we found out he had been adopted and was no longer available. I questioned whether we would still adopt. We thought about other countries and/or going blind. But I still looked at RR. How could I look and not love them? I saw a little girl I hadn't noticed before. I hadn't noticed her happy picture, but I noticed her sad picture. We didn't have much to go on. But I fell in love with this sweet girl... and I decided not to go blind after all. I decided we would pursue her. DH agreed despite the unknowns. She never felt like mine, really... not like the first one did. But we went forward... slowly. Educating ourselves took a long time, and we were already up to our ears in our two kids. We sent her Christmas presents, participated in a program to send presents to other kids at her institution. By mistake she was put on MFFM. I thought some other family had adopted her, and I was not sad for her.... Did we want her, though? Yes we did. We did. And she stayed on MFFM. And we got an update. Not a happy update. Not what we'd pictured. Extreme delays... delays that might or might not be from her disability and a new disability we had not known about. If we had older children, or no children, we could give her the attention she would need, but we had two very young children. And two days later... two days... we found out it was actually 3 children. Not exactly unplanned. We weren't avoiding. Certainly not unwanted. We debated. What was a sign? What wasn't? How did we know whether to pursue? RR gently said that they would take her off MFFM, and I didn't say no. We told the agency we were pregnant. They said see you in a few years, and no your HS can't be on hold. Not till baby is 18 months (had been 12 before). We could have found a new agency. We didn't. We weren't sure we could give her all she needed.
Days later that little girl found a new family more perfect than we ever had been. Who had a son JUST LIKE HER. Who completed their adoption in barely more time than we'd been working on the home study. The little girl had a family... and I was pregnant through my parents' divorce, which was a comfort I badly needed then and couldn't have known. I had complications, surgery around 17 weeks, and there's no way things would have gone well for us to be travelling in my second trimester. God knew all of it. And we DID help that little girl come home.
Sasha. Ivan. Kacey. Gianna. Cherie.
I watched RR. I always look at the newly listed kids. Maybe one day I'll say, "that's my son" or "she's my daughter." But it hasn't happened.
I get crushes like a teenager in high school. Ten at once, some more intense than others. They come and I fall hard... and they go. Some have families. Some still don't... but they stop resonating the way they first did. Mostly.
There's one little boy in a place I didn't want to consider the first time around. Growing up through four pictures.... four pictures where he never smiles. My daughter wants a sister. My husband wants a handle on the three we have now. I don't know what I want. The newest little girl I crushed on, in the safe (ish) country? The little boy I loved from the beginning, my first RR love, the one I thought of late on the night before my induction and thought about when I heard about the ban and talk myself into and out of--too old now. Don't know his prognosis. None of those cute stories from anyone who met him. Never quite out of my heart.
Is this what it's like? I fall for them--but then I un-fall. I want to--but I am afraid (and I'm not even the reluctant one). Is it really for real, when I keep falling out of love as easily as in, when I wait and it passes, when I see a potential family member in one picture but dismissed an earlier one? I am overwhelmed already with my 3 bio kids (4 1/2, 3, 6 months). I can't stop thinking what if--pros and cons. I know that if God wants it He can show my husband--I have faith in Him that he can move and in my husband that he would follow. I'm not patient enough, not loving enough, not perfect and wouldn't I have to be? I don't know how to find the drive to get done what needs to be done... when, how will it come together?
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