We are signing with an adoption agency this week. It is becoming more real every day... we are working on home study questions and I have begun to pull together the mounds of paperwork that will hopefully prove that we are worthy to love and raise a child of our own.
There will be more about the whole process to come. But for the last few days there has been something on my mind. I feel like it is time I let some dreams go to make room for new moments... so with you as my witnesses I am going to say goodbye to a few dreams that I have had for myself. Although we never know what the future holds... for now I am letting these things go so they can be replaced by new dreams that perhaps I have never even thought of
Goodbye to the dream of...
Watching the two pink lines appear on the pregnancy test
Getting to be the one that lets Mr. D. in on the secret that we are expecting a baby.
Having the first ultra sound and having Mr. D. hold my hand while we hear our babies heart beating for the first time.
Telling our parents in some
uber-creative way that they are going to be grandparents... mine for the first time.
Announcing on my blog that I am pregnant and having all my reader friends congratulate me and support me through the scary parts.
Standing in front of the thousands of pregnancy books at Barnes and Nobel trying to figure out which one or three or ten to buy.
Finding out what "pregnancy pops" actually taste like.
Having my husband baby me like crazy and tell me not to lift things.
watching my baby bump grow each day.
Showing people my
utrasound pictures of my little blob!
Craving
weird foods and trying to guess what that means for the baby growing inside me.
Bitching about all my pregnancy symptoms.
Putting a
pregnancy ticker on my blog.
Shopping for super cute maternity clothes with my mom.
Feeling the first flutters of movement in my belly.
Having Mr. D. touch my belly to feel our baby.
Having strangers want to rub my tummy.
Finding out the gender of our baby and picking out nursery colors based on a sonogram.
Having people want to be nice to me just because I am pregnant, swollen and grumpy.
Random people sharing their birth stories with me.
Drinking some sort of sticky orange
flavored stuff and taking blood tests.
Having a 3D ultrasound.
Having a baby shower wearing a cute blue or pink maternity dress and balancing my plate on my tummy while people guess how huge I am with squares of toilet paper.
Going to classes to teach you how to breathe.
Looking at Mr. D. and saying "I think it's time..."
Joining the millions of women who have birthed a child and joining " the club."
Being proud of myself that my body "did what it was designed to do".
Having my baby place on my chest immediately after being born and sobbing.
Mr. D. cutting the cord.
Looking down at our child and saying "she looks just like.... (me, you, my mom, your niece..." )
I am saying goodbye to the fantasies today. I am officially making room for new things to come into my life.
*** I know that many of these things may seem unpleasant or mundane to many of you who have had a child... please please don't feel the need to say things like "maternity clothes never fit well" or "you are so lucky not to have to go through morning sickness"... because actually I wanted every single one of the experiences that come from being pregnant... good and bad. Those are the moments that you are somehow being prepared to become a mother... moments where your body is reminding you of what is to come... moments where you feel the life growing inside you. It is very sad for me to give up these moments and I grieve them. But, we are making the decision and the choice to move past that pain and step toward creating our family in a different way.
Thanks for being my witnesses.
Today we signed and mailed out our first adoption paperwork and sent in our first $1500 to Agency #1... the small agency 5 hours away. We are now working on all the homestudy paperwork and gathering all the financial records and all the other stuff that you have to do. My fingers are tired from typing up all the homestudy questions the last few days but I wanted to check in and let you know that we are officially in a line.
