40 Weeks

For the "normal" expectant parents, 40 weeks is the ultimate finish line. In many cases, when a woman is pregnant and having a smooth pregnancy the goal is getting as close to 40 weeks as possible and at the end of that finite time, she will deliver their much anticipated bundle of joy and go home to begin a big new adventure.

Not so here in this household. Today it has been 40 weeks since we officially became waiting adoptive parents. 10 whole months! And not a single little nibble or contraction I guess would be a better analogy. Nope, no basic assumption that after a long wait we would ultimately get what we desperately desire. No big swollen belly waddling around, no baby room to look in on excitedly, no oh my gosh can you believe we've made it here, no anxiously awaiting a phone call, the phone call that it's time to meet our baby.

Instead we sit here wondering why hasn't anyone picked us, is there something not appealing about our letter or worse us?! What should we do next? Should we start looking at working with an agency AND our lawyer? Where do we even begin? How do we know if an agency is a good one, do they get a lot of prospective birthmothers? How much is that going to cost? Will this ever happen? How long will we wait? When it ever happens, how will I be able to take care of a baby 24/7 living in this body? Will we ever be anything but the fun and cool aunt and uncle/friend (don't get me wrong here, we LOVE these roles SO much, but we want to be Mom and Dad too)? The questions are endless and hard.

I HATE having absolutely NO control!

Now for the facts that we are well aware of and on most days believe:

• There is no typical wait for adoption and it hasn't even been a year. Just another fact that reminds us that this isn't like what everybody else gets to experience.
• And when it's our time, our experience will be ours and it won't matter what everyone else has gone through. But until then, that's very little comfort.
• We are young. Yes we know that in the grand scheme we are young. But would that be comforting to you when you were trying desperately to be patient for one of your heart's biggest desires?
• Our little soul will find it's way to us when the time is right. We believe this yes, but in the dark moments the "right" time seems like it will never get here.

Ok so this is all just a bit of rambling and really I just needed to type it and get it out of my head. It's that whole time thing, swirling around 40 weeks, almost a year and it just reminds me that like the health stuff, we just have no official answers or paths and this may just be the way it is. And that sucks. And wait did I mention I HATE that no control things.

It's hard staying positive all the time. Let's be honest that's really not possible. And although we don't think this way every minute of every day, or really even every day or every week, it's hard not to go there sometimes.

We do a darn good job of "Keeping Calm and Carrying On." Enjoying our life, because even despite it's MAJOR trials, it's a darn good life. But I also believe, it's good to let people know, and maybe mostly ourselves, that it's ok to be sad, scared, mad, overwhelmed, envious, annoyed and lonely.

We still believe adoption is the way to our child, but as we knew it would be, it's hard and tiring and we still wish things were different. But this is our path, windy as it is and hopefully our proverbial pot of gold is at the end.

Here's to not having to wait another 40 weeks. We have some research to do...