I’ve sat down a couple of times in the past week to write this post. It’s been difficult though. I’ve felt in a slump again. It all started last week on a high note. We had our first of three interview sessions for our adoption home study. It was exciting to feel like we were finally there, finally taking the next concrete steps to reach the ultimate goal. Our adoption specialist is fantastic and made us both so comfortable during the interview. We both left feeling pretty hopeful that we are going to be awesome parents, in the not so distant future. There is always that part of me though that holds me back and says, “be realistic, ” “you still know the average wait time,” “don’t get your hopes too high.” But every once in awhile I let the hopeful side win a little bit more than the logical side. I think that is where I was at after Monday’s meeting. Enjoying the hope, letting myself have a small moment of bliss. Then came Thursday. Thursday was an emotional roller coaster and in only a 2 hour block at that. We had our first group meeting for the adoption process that night. It was a panel discussion. The first hour hosted by adoptive parents sharing their story and answering questions and the second hour hosted by birth moms sharing their story and answering questions. Intense. To be honest, Kurtis and I went into this meeting with a bit of arrogance. We had already done our months of research, spoken with people who had adopted, who had been adopted, read up on the process, the agencies, read opinion pieces, and talked about it endlessly together. We felt we would not have much to gain from this meeting as it was structured for those who had not done this amount of due diligence already. While we were not completely wrong on this point, I never expected the emotional reaction I would have to this meeting and the processing that took place afterward. It was a unique one for me. There were moments of choking back tears, moments of anger, moments of deep sadness, moments of hope, moments of disconnectedness, and moments of pure reflection on my own human nature. When leaving this event, I was still all over the place. As Kurtis attempted to discuss the meeting with me I simply could not understand my current condition and struggled to have any meaningful conversation about it. It’s taken me almost an entire week to figure it out. That moment of hope I allowed myself on Monday, that small moment of vulnerability I indulged in came crashing down on me on Thursday night. It certainly was not a bad or weak thing to give myself that moment on Monday, but I simply was not prepared for what an influx of information and emotion might do to that moment of vulnerability. Up to this point in the adoption process, I have been strong, I have been efficient in focusing on what needs to get done and keeping myself on a realistic timeline. I have felt confident in checking off the boxes of the to-do list for this process and knowing that every box gets us closer. But vulnerability does not care about those things, it cares about the heart and what the heart deeply desires. Thursday was difficult because my heart had to truly accept that the grief is not over yet, the heartbreak is not over yet, the highs and lows are not over yet, but more than anything this journey is not over yet. For all the joy and pain it will bring this journey still has an unknowable amount of time left. That was hard to take in when I have been so focused on getting us there, getting us through each gate, getting all the more closer. In reality, this journey that we are on does not have a start point and an end point. I am beginning to fully embrace that this is a lifelong journey we are on. Not only lifelong because of the parenting piece, but lifelong because there are so many unknowns and things to navigate for years to come. I’m not sure either of us fully understand what that wholly means right now, but we have a lifetime to figure it out.
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