It's Been A While..

So I'm not a regular blogger, sue me:) We have finally completely finished our paperwork for the adoption and are now on the waiting list to be referred our child. I thought I would be relieved to be finished with the paperwork but the truth of the matter is that darn paperwork kept me busy and made me feel like I was making progress, now we just sit and wait, and wait, and wait. I think about our baby every second of the day and dream of what it will be like to get the call that they have our baby ready for us. I have found while I wait I have serious bi-polar feelings about the whole process, one second I feel excitement and can't wait, and then the next second I can't shake the feeling of pure agony our babies birth mother and family must be feeling whether it be that the adoption will take place because of a lack of financial means or an illness, or any of the thousounds of reasons for adoption. I have found myself praying with more ferver than I have in a while for our childs birth mother and all of the feelings and emotions that she must be going through. I feel pain for her loss and joy for our family. I feel sadness for our baby because I will probably never be able to answer all of the questions they will have but feel confident that I will love our baby with everything I have in me and already love them with everything that I have. I never anticipated the strong feelings I would have for a woman I will probably never meet on the other side of the world. When we decided to adopt in the first place the birth mother didn't even cross my mind to tell you the truth. I have been battling these feelings internally and the came across this article in the magazine Adoptive Families that made me simultaneously laugh and cry at the same time. It is an article written by an adoptive mom about the stages of waiting. The stages start with excitement and joy and then I found myself connecting with certain stages 4-14 that go a little something like this:
"Stage 4: ETHICAL QUESTIONING: Many Ethiopian children placed for adoption are not actually orphans. In fact, a lot of them have parents, as well as siblings. The are relinquished because their family cannot afford to feed them. This is when I start wrestling a lot: "If I really cared about Ethiopia, I would take these thousands of dollars we're paying in adoption fees and donate them to an organization that would do everything it could to preserve this family." Stage 5: I AM A SELFISH JERK. My white, privileged need to have a family is much stronger than my need to help Ethiopia...I am a jerk. Stage 7: OUTRAGE: Why doesn't everyone know how bad things are around the world? Why aren't people doing more? Unfortunately, this outrage turns into self-righteousness and judgmental attitude, which send me spiraling back to...Stage 8 GUILT: I feel guilty for judging, guilty for adopting, guilty for eating. You name it, I feel guilty. Stage 9 RESOLVE: I will do something. I will raise awareness. I will start a project that will help. I will make a difference. Stage 14: DISILLUSIONMENT: This is when all of your warm and fuzzy feelings about adoption don't feel warm and fuzzy anymore. They feel messy and worrisome.
Luckily for me the list doensn't stop there, there are stages 16-17 that are: UNEXPECTED, RENEWED FAITH IN HUMANITY and JOYFUL, UNEASY ANTICIPATION. I feel these are just around the corner, the fog is lifting...bring on the joy and anticipation!
Signing off as a Debbie Downer tonight...sorry for that!
Becky