HOPE

The news this past week about the slowdown in adoptions out of Ethiopia hit me hard.  Yes, I was crushed.  I did the ugly cry.  Pity, Table for one.  I felt despair as I wondered whether I would ever become a mom. 

 

What if all Ethiopian adoptions cease?  That is my real fear. 

The wait is hard, but that is what really scares me.  If this door closes, would I have the strength (not to mention the finances) to start another program?  Would I even qualify for another program?  Could we afford domestic adoption?  

 

I've been struggling with such horrible feelings - anger at myself for wanting this so much, helplessness because there really is nothing I can do, grief at the prospect of never being able to look into my child's eyes. 

 

I have walked around these past few days on the verge of tears, like a zombie, feeling envious of my friends with children, of anyone with children. 

 

Adoption is hard.  It opens up feelings of you being a  failure.  You have to open up the most private aspects of your lives to total strangers to prove that you can be good parents.  My social worker knows more about my innermost thoughts and feelings than my best friend of 25 years!  Adoption makes you grieve.  You have to come to terms with knowing that you will never feel your child grow inside of you, that you will miss out on those precious first moments of your child's life, that your child will not have mommy's eyes and daddy's smile.  And you open yourself up to believing that your dream of becoming a family will be realized.  At the same time, adoption is not certain and things can go awry.  You have to face the prospect that it -parenthood- might not happen.

 

It is so hard to describe.  What word do you use to describe a vast emptiness?  Not becoming a parent - that prospect feels like such a huge emotional void.  That something inside you is missing and can never be filled.

 

I cannot go on feeling this way.

 

I realized this morning I cannot wallow in these feelings.  Instead I need to focus on other emotions.  

 

Gratitude.  I am lucky to have a wonderful husband and family.  I have a good job, an education, a nice house.  I have food to eat and a warm bed in which to sleep.  I have many blessings.

 

I also have Hope.  There is a part of me that, even as this adoption threatens to crash down, still clings to Hope.  Even if it takes much longer than we originally anticipated, we will wait.  And Hope. 

 

And I will remind myself that there are far worse tragedies in the world and I should feel incredibly lucky to have the life I have.  To simply be alive, to have my health, to have loved ones.

 

And the true irony is that anyone who knows me would say I am not an optimist.  But I think that if I focus too much on what ifs and what nows, I will miss and dismiss everything that is in front of me.