Sometimes I wonder what life is going to be like to live day to day not waiting for the one big thing. Some days it seems that for as long as I can remember – and I will actually go so far as to say almost as long as Gregg and I have been married, we have been waiting for someone to tell us that we can be parents. If I’m being perfectly honest with myself, at the very beginning of this journey I was the one who wanted it, and Gregg really wasn’t ready yet. And honestly, that’s OK. By the time we had figured out what direction we really needed to be headed (the Philippines) and got our health issues under control for the required amount of time (phew!), he had not only climbed on board, he was a willing and active participant.
We’ve gone through some tough stuff in our marriage – in the first five years we had stuck together through and overcome more obstacles than many couples will see in a lifetime together. And somewhere in the back of my mind there was always the hope that completing this adoption, bringing home this little person, would be the light at the end of this very long tunnel for us. It was one of the things that helped push me through the mess and gave me hope.
And yet despite the good that waiting seems to have done for me, there is still the nagging feeling that I have been waiting forever. More than seven years is a long time to wait for something – and I don’t mean to complain, because I know how worth it the wait for this child will have been in the long run. I’m glad that we’ve been able to spend time on each other and our marriage, because I know things will be different when our little one comes home. And yet there is still that underlying theme of waiting that runs through the day to day. I’m always wondering how to make the wait easier. (Become a workaholic? Work-Eat-Sleep-Repeat? Check. Have an activity every weekend from the end of June through the end of August? Check. Holy cow, did those months go by quickly.)
I guess what I’m saying, without rambling on and on about nothing, is that I almost can’t fathom what life will be like when it’s time to sit back and enjoy life, getting to shower all of this love I have stored up on this child I haven’t even met yet without the thought of how long I’ve been waiting running through my mind. I know it will happen when it should, but in the meantime – this waiting thing, boy, it’s kind of exhausting.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
She said what?
Once we made the decision to become adoptive parents, we started to learn new things about the people who share our world – some good things, and some not so good. I’ve learned that you can hold a garage sale fundraiser and someone you’ve never met before will give you $5 for a 25-cent item and tell you to “keep the change – just bring that baby home.” I’ve learned that there are people out there who will do whatever they can, whenever they can because they know adoption and family are beautiful things and they like to see others happy.
And I’ve learned that there are still people out there with incredibly prejudiced attitudes who just don’t get it and have no problem speaking their minds. It is this type of person your adoption agency warns you about in training classes, that you read about on listservs, adoptive parent magazines, and books. It is this type person you think you are ready to handle – until you meet them and they open their mouth.
Gregg and I were at a party last weekend, where I had the displeasure of overhearing an adoption-ignorant tirade by a woman neither of us had ever met before. To set the scene, we had just passed this woman to walk into the kitchen to get our food. Gregg excused himself for a moment and I started digging in. As I’m plating the food, this woman, who is now behind me, says to her two companions, “Seriously. If they must adopt, do it from the United States. Why do they have to go bring a child from another country here? There are plenty of kids here already.”
Now, I don’t know who “they” were, but I do know she wasn’t talking about us (like I said, I didn’t even know her). I do know that that was one way to get me good and fired up, though. I had a few things I would have loved to have said to her, but I didn’t. I bit my tongue, because I didn’t know her – actually, I didn’t know anyone there (including the host – an old friend of Gregg), and more importantly, because she was not speaking to me. Gregg came back, calmed me down, we ate; I stopped considering poking her in the eye with a beef kabob skewer, and life went on.
But then I started thinking. What would I have done if we actually had our child with us and the same situation had occurred? Would I have ignored it then? Believe me, I had more than one snotty comeback running through my head for this woman, none of which would have been appropriate to say in front of a child. (I guess I’d better start working on more child-friendly speech while I have the time.) My answer, though? No. I couldn’t ignore that if my child could hear it. A child needs to know that while people are entitled to their opinions, some things are just plain rude and wrong to say. So what would I have said to this woman if the situation (hopefully never) presented itself?
“I went to the Philippines for my child because my child was born in the Philippines.”
And I’ve learned that there are still people out there with incredibly prejudiced attitudes who just don’t get it and have no problem speaking their minds. It is this type of person your adoption agency warns you about in training classes, that you read about on listservs, adoptive parent magazines, and books. It is this type person you think you are ready to handle – until you meet them and they open their mouth.
Gregg and I were at a party last weekend, where I had the displeasure of overhearing an adoption-ignorant tirade by a woman neither of us had ever met before. To set the scene, we had just passed this woman to walk into the kitchen to get our food. Gregg excused himself for a moment and I started digging in. As I’m plating the food, this woman, who is now behind me, says to her two companions, “Seriously. If they must adopt, do it from the United States. Why do they have to go bring a child from another country here? There are plenty of kids here already.”
Now, I don’t know who “they” were, but I do know she wasn’t talking about us (like I said, I didn’t even know her). I do know that that was one way to get me good and fired up, though. I had a few things I would have loved to have said to her, but I didn’t. I bit my tongue, because I didn’t know her – actually, I didn’t know anyone there (including the host – an old friend of Gregg), and more importantly, because she was not speaking to me. Gregg came back, calmed me down, we ate; I stopped considering poking her in the eye with a beef kabob skewer, and life went on.
But then I started thinking. What would I have done if we actually had our child with us and the same situation had occurred? Would I have ignored it then? Believe me, I had more than one snotty comeback running through my head for this woman, none of which would have been appropriate to say in front of a child. (I guess I’d better start working on more child-friendly speech while I have the time.) My answer, though? No. I couldn’t ignore that if my child could hear it. A child needs to know that while people are entitled to their opinions, some things are just plain rude and wrong to say. So what would I have said to this woman if the situation (hopefully never) presented itself?
“I went to the Philippines for my child because my child was born in the Philippines.”
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
And so it began...with the help of destiny and a lot of faith
So. A blog. A lot of waiting parents have them, and I wasn't sure about starting one, but thanks to a little convincing, here I go.
Our story started 10 years ago when I first met my husband, Gregg. At the end of our first (blind!) date, he asked me if I was really serious about a relationship and if I wanted kids one day - because he really did. Well, he pretty much had me hook, line, and sinker right there. Two months later we were engaged, and two years after that we were married. We both believed it was our destiny to be together.
I will never forget the morning of our ceremony. I went to church with my father, and the priest who was going to say the wedding Mass mentioned that I was there and would be married that afternoon. After the Mass a woman came up to me and told me she prayed that I would have lots of babies - so when the sextuplets came, I should remember her! Little did either of us know there was a huge twist of fate coming. Two months after we were married, I found out by fluke that I couldn't have kids biologically, and thus began our adoption adventure.
Over the last seven and a half years we have dealt with health problems (his and mine), country shut downs and now...Now we are 17 months, 2 weeks, and 6 days into our wait for a child from the Philippines. This is an amazing program we wish we had become involved with sooner. It is an ideal fit for us, and we cannot wait to meet our child. This blog will chronicle the rest of our wait to meet our child (hopefully not too much longer!) and bringing him/her home to us.
Thanks for coming along for the ride!
Our story started 10 years ago when I first met my husband, Gregg. At the end of our first (blind!) date, he asked me if I was really serious about a relationship and if I wanted kids one day - because he really did. Well, he pretty much had me hook, line, and sinker right there. Two months later we were engaged, and two years after that we were married. We both believed it was our destiny to be together.
I will never forget the morning of our ceremony. I went to church with my father, and the priest who was going to say the wedding Mass mentioned that I was there and would be married that afternoon. After the Mass a woman came up to me and told me she prayed that I would have lots of babies - so when the sextuplets came, I should remember her! Little did either of us know there was a huge twist of fate coming. Two months after we were married, I found out by fluke that I couldn't have kids biologically, and thus began our adoption adventure.
Over the last seven and a half years we have dealt with health problems (his and mine), country shut downs and now...Now we are 17 months, 2 weeks, and 6 days into our wait for a child from the Philippines. This is an amazing program we wish we had become involved with sooner. It is an ideal fit for us, and we cannot wait to meet our child. This blog will chronicle the rest of our wait to meet our child (hopefully not too much longer!) and bringing him/her home to us.
Thanks for coming along for the ride!
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