waiting

waiting on an adoption is weird.

some days i forget that we've been waiting 4.5 months. it feels like it's only been a few days since we got on the waitlist. other days i feel like we've been waiting years, and it seems impossible that we probably have another 4.5 months of waiting in front of us.

i think of our children often. i wonder what they look like. how old they are. if they are still with their birth mother or already in an orphanage. if they have enough to eat. if they have enough love and cuddles and kisses. it is very strange to dwell on someone that you know nothing about, and yet that is really the beauty about all of this: i love my children, and i know nothing about them. my heart just feels bound to them in a way i can't really explain. i know, it's weird.

when i get to work in the mornings, i always take my phone out of my purse just in case. i tell myself that today is certainly not the day we'll get our referral because there are still several families in front of us. but just in case...

sometimes i daydream about what it will be like when we finally get that coveted call from our case manager. i wonder how i'll tell jamie that we need to go home and get on the computer to see our babies. i think about how i'll call my friend, erin, and tell her the babies are here and we need her to take pictures of us seeing them for the first time. and i think about how i'll probably have my friend, leigh, on speakerphone freaking out with us.

i think about what it will be like to send an email to our friends and family introducing them to our babies. sharing their names (if we ever think of a second boy name). being able to say these are our children.

it often seems very unreal that at the end of however much waiting we will endure, there will actually be two little ones who will call us mommy and daddy. i think this is the one thing i envy about pregnant women. i'm sure it's still unreal to think that a baby will leave your womb and suddenly be yours to care for. but at least for those 9 months, your baby is inside of you, and you are affirmed everyday that this is real. and people around you affirm you too by commenting on how cute your baby bump is or asking about your due date or guessing whether the baby will have your eyes.

i guess what i realize is that many people still don't know how to talk about adoption as if it were equal to being pregnant. no, i don't want people to say they are the same because they aren't. but they are both equally valuable ways of becoming a parent. people can ask a pregnant woman a million questions about what it feels like to have a baby inside or what she thinks of public breastfeeding or if she'll deliver her baby naturally. but seriously, the minute an adoptive mom starts talking about attachment or racism or how there are 147 million orphans in the world...people really have no clue how to handle that.

if you're an adoptive parent, there are many people like me who understand the funk of the wait. i know that so much of the affirmation you have of your children is the feeling you have deep in your soul. and i know that people really don't get that or don't know how to engage that because we live in a society where pregnancy is normal, and adoption is...well, not as normal. i don't say any of this to disparage pregnancy because hey, i plan to at least try to be pregnant one day. i just pray that some day people can truly walk alongside one another in journeying to their children, appreciating the beauty and joy and validity of both pregnancy and adoption. and if you're not an adoptive parent, find an adoptive family to affirm today!