One year, Come and Gone

Hard to believe a year has passed since we began the "wait".  I didn't think we'd mark this anniversary.  As true as it is that they told us we could possibly wait two years, we never really believed we'd wait even this long.  We had met too many people who'd adopted much faster than this.  We met people who told us "it usually happens much faster than that for people".  We chose to listen to that, while in the back of our minds we knew it was possible.  Just not likely.  And yet, here we are on the one year anniversary of our home study being approved and our profile going "live".  Things just don't always work out in the way that we'd like them to.  We've heard it all... "your baby will find you", "it'll all make sense", "right baby, right time", "it'll happen when it's meant to happen".  Yeah, we know all that and on some level, we believe it, but it just doesn't help to force ourselves to think those things, and it certainly doesn't help to hear it.  After all, is our baby really out there looking for us?  Why doesn't it make sense for us to adopt the next one that comes along?  Why isn't this baby right for us rather than that one?  WHY isn't it meant to happen now, when we're so very, very ready?  Sometimes things happen that put things into perspective, and I question why aren't things in perspective in the first place?  Why do I need something bigger, more challening, or more tragic than this to put my own life and circumstance into perspective?  You know, I feel grateful.  Believe it or not, I've had more than one person offer to "help" us have a biological child, in a different way than we've tried so far.  I've had offers for sperm and for wombs.  I'm laughing as I say this, because it makes me smile to think about the genuine love and caring that goes into someone actually offering that to us, but as much as that offer means, we're beyond it.  We're not hoping for a biological child anymore because it just doesn't matter.  What matters is that we've got a ton of love to give and we just want to be Mommy and Daddy and openly and freely give that love away to our child.  It doesn't matter how that happens anymore.  It stopped mattering last year, in fact.  I feel honored to be able to be a part of the adoption world.  I feel grateful for the people that have come into our lives because of it.  It's a gift that we're being given, and a gift that we can give.  But that doesn't make the longing any less, or the frustration go away while we wait.  It's not up to us to decide when.  Someone else gets to decide that, and we must be patient, as much as we hate that.  We knew about a potential situation recently where a birth mother was looking at our profile.  It was a tough time, because we had to decide if we wanted her to see our profile. There were some circumstances in her history that we weren't 100% comfortable with.  We spent a lot of time talking to our social worker about it, time figuring out our comfort level with it, more time waiting to hear her choice once we became comfortable with it, and then the most time trying to understand why we weren't chosen.  We eventually realized that this in fact was not a situation for us, and that things worked out as they should have.  But what a roller coaster it was!  Shortly after that, we had to update our homestudy.  Our social worker had to come visit, ask a bunch of questions, update some paperwork, etc.  We spent a lot of time talking about how things are going, she reminded us of some things to consider once we get the call, and overall, she was just checking up on us.  So, it's been a busy month, and a busy year.  We were at Coffee Talk the other day and people were talking about the holidays, what it's like to wait during the holidays, and how difficult it is.  I sort of felt like an odd ball because I don't find it more difficult during the holidays.  I welcome them, because it's so busy and our minds are occupied.  Not to say that we wouldn't welcome the call right now, so our holidays can be filled with the gifts of dirty diapers and midnight feedings, but since that doesn't seem to be happening, we need to keep ourselves as busy as we can.  Filling that time with family, friends, chaos, and more chaos is perfect for us.  It's a great time to reflect on what has been and look forward to what's ahead.  I do believe that 2012 is going to be a year of such astounding blessings I can't begin to imagine it.  A friend of mine from highschool looked for and counted 1,000 blessings in 2012.  Her list is not complete yet, but I really look forward to reading her facebook posts that list her daily blessings.  I hope to start focusing my life in that way... focusing on what gifts are set before me each and every day, in the ordinary goings on around me, and maybe among those ordinarly gifts will be the extraordinary.