Every time we inch a little closer to the adoption I take note of how I feel in hopes of gaining insight into how I'll really feel when it's really all done, for real. Because I have absolutely no idea and not knowing how I'm going to feel seems very, I dunno, unnatural, or something.
In the days leading up to each birth I already knew that I loved this baby fiercely. Of course there were the usual fears about the health of the baby or complications from birth, but under-girding those fears was the deep knowledge that I would absolutely, unquestioningly, unwaveringly, love my baby. I knew I was the kind of mother who could look a seriously deformed baby right in the face and love it no matter what. I knew I was the kind of mother who could do a horrendous stint in the NICU and still show up every day, a fierce advocate for that child.
Regret was never going to be a part of my relationship with my birth child.
But adoption, especially after 14 months of foster care with two high-stress investigations by a staff I deeply distrust, will not be like a birth. There will be nothing new, no highly anticipated arrival to share.
Really, the only emotion I know for sure that I'll experience, will be relief.
I'll be relieved that our time in foster care is done. I'll be relieved that the girls truly have permanency. I'll be relieved that I don't have to silently codify the phrase, "my daughter" every time I speak or write it with the silent, unspoken thoughts: well, kinda, almost, soon. I'll be relieved that life will just be that much simpler and clearer. I'll be relieved that I can send that letter to birth families that's been written for awhile now detailing our boundaries and how often the girls will be seeing them.
I'll be relieved. But I may also feel regret.
And I don't know how to talk about that to people. I fear people will expect big joyful hurrahs and wonder if we even love them if we're not ecstatic over-the-moon in love with these girls the way we were with our new babies.
Love is a choice. But it is also physical. I love my husband and sons with a physicality that comes from knowing their bodies and scents and sounds and moods. I can recognize my eldest from across the football field even when he's in marching band uniform identical to 120 other kids, even when he's marching in formation, just by the way he uniquely does his heel-toe roll, or the shape of his butt when he's marching away, or the angle of his elbows when he's marching straight on. I know my son because...well, because he is my son. He is mine.
I can choose to love these girls. I can choose to finally utterly and completely let down my guard and open my heart to loving them. I will choose to attempt to fall in love with them and make them mine as fiercely as I have my sons.
Because every child should have a mother who says: you are mine. I love you unquestioningly and unwaveringly, even if you come with unsightly deformities.
I think I'm ready. I think I can freely and whole-heartedly make that choice. But I am not sure, yet, if ultimately that choice will lead to regrets.
Let's be honest. I only fear I'll have regrets about Jane. For all the reasons articulated over the months of writing this blog. As for Kate? Yeah, I'm so ready to fall fully in love with her it just hurts to wait even one more day. That girl is cuter and funnier to me every day. She is full of sass and I love it. She's gonna be the sassy little spitfire who runs our house and I can't wait. She may give me heck but our relationship is always going to be in-your-face honest. She will love and hate fiercely and loudly--just like me. In some ways I think she's going to be more like me than even my own sons. She's going to be short and chubby and curly haired, like me. She's going to be strong and loud and...sturdy. I adore Kate.
Whereas Jane. sigh. Jane is...foreign. She's tall and thin and beautiful and fragile and weird and awkward and inauthentic and afraid of her own shadow and needy and hyper and loves the opposite of anything I like. She likes sequins and dance class and the most insubstantial social interactions that are all about attention and nothing to do with depth. It is going to be hard to love Jane. Heck, it's hard to even know Jane.
So, I feel obligated to write some kind of FB post when the adoption is really, truly final. I feel obligated to say something moving and heartfelt because that's how I've written about the foster care process so far. But I got nothing. Or rather, I've got too much.
In the days leading up to each birth I already knew that I loved this baby fiercely. Of course there were the usual fears about the health of the baby or complications from birth, but under-girding those fears was the deep knowledge that I would absolutely, unquestioningly, unwaveringly, love my baby. I knew I was the kind of mother who could look a seriously deformed baby right in the face and love it no matter what. I knew I was the kind of mother who could do a horrendous stint in the NICU and still show up every day, a fierce advocate for that child.
Regret was never going to be a part of my relationship with my birth child.
But adoption, especially after 14 months of foster care with two high-stress investigations by a staff I deeply distrust, will not be like a birth. There will be nothing new, no highly anticipated arrival to share.
Really, the only emotion I know for sure that I'll experience, will be relief.
I'll be relieved that our time in foster care is done. I'll be relieved that the girls truly have permanency. I'll be relieved that I don't have to silently codify the phrase, "my daughter" every time I speak or write it with the silent, unspoken thoughts: well, kinda, almost, soon. I'll be relieved that life will just be that much simpler and clearer. I'll be relieved that I can send that letter to birth families that's been written for awhile now detailing our boundaries and how often the girls will be seeing them.
I'll be relieved. But I may also feel regret.
And I don't know how to talk about that to people. I fear people will expect big joyful hurrahs and wonder if we even love them if we're not ecstatic over-the-moon in love with these girls the way we were with our new babies.
Love is a choice. But it is also physical. I love my husband and sons with a physicality that comes from knowing their bodies and scents and sounds and moods. I can recognize my eldest from across the football field even when he's in marching band uniform identical to 120 other kids, even when he's marching in formation, just by the way he uniquely does his heel-toe roll, or the shape of his butt when he's marching away, or the angle of his elbows when he's marching straight on. I know my son because...well, because he is my son. He is mine.
I can choose to love these girls. I can choose to finally utterly and completely let down my guard and open my heart to loving them. I will choose to attempt to fall in love with them and make them mine as fiercely as I have my sons.
Because every child should have a mother who says: you are mine. I love you unquestioningly and unwaveringly, even if you come with unsightly deformities.
I think I'm ready. I think I can freely and whole-heartedly make that choice. But I am not sure, yet, if ultimately that choice will lead to regrets.
Let's be honest. I only fear I'll have regrets about Jane. For all the reasons articulated over the months of writing this blog. As for Kate? Yeah, I'm so ready to fall fully in love with her it just hurts to wait even one more day. That girl is cuter and funnier to me every day. She is full of sass and I love it. She's gonna be the sassy little spitfire who runs our house and I can't wait. She may give me heck but our relationship is always going to be in-your-face honest. She will love and hate fiercely and loudly--just like me. In some ways I think she's going to be more like me than even my own sons. She's going to be short and chubby and curly haired, like me. She's going to be strong and loud and...sturdy. I adore Kate.
Whereas Jane. sigh. Jane is...foreign. She's tall and thin and beautiful and fragile and weird and awkward and inauthentic and afraid of her own shadow and needy and hyper and loves the opposite of anything I like. She likes sequins and dance class and the most insubstantial social interactions that are all about attention and nothing to do with depth. It is going to be hard to love Jane. Heck, it's hard to even know Jane.
So, I feel obligated to write some kind of FB post when the adoption is really, truly final. I feel obligated to say something moving and heartfelt because that's how I've written about the foster care process so far. But I got nothing. Or rather, I've got too much.
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