I have been working on this post for 4 days now. I keep getting about 300 words in and the deleting it all. My thoughts are all jumbled in my head and the words just don’t seem to want to cooperate. Every time I write a post I keep reminding myself that every one doesn’t need to be a home run. Even with that admonition to myself, I just can’t seem to get to first base.*
Regardless, I am stubborn and don’t give up easily. I keep rewriting this poor post in the hopes that I will eventually get the words out in an order that makes some sense. So please bear with me as I try to get my thoughts out in bits and bytes.
On Father’s Day, a friend posted an image of himself with empty arms. He and his partner recently lost their daughter while she was still in utero. This was meant to be his first Father’s Day and instead of celebrating his joy he is left bereft and alone. I struggle to describe just how devastating that image is to me. Suffice it to say that he, his partner and their daughter have been constantly in my thoughts since Sunday.
I have had friends suffer miscarriages in the past and I have done my best to comfort them in their pain. But when one suffers that devastating a loss comfort doesn’t come easily. As with all losses, it is only time that makes life bearable again. And these friends have not had near enough time yet.
I have another friend who has just been told that her chances of having biological children are very low. She and her husband had hoped for a large family and she is struggling painfully to accept her new reality. These friends are very resilient however, and have started down the long road to adoption. Accepting one’s reality does not always come easily. They still need to mourn for the children that will never be.
Both of my friends’ situations remind me of just how little control we have in our lives. I find this thought disconcerting. I like thinking that I am in charge of my own fate. I like the idea of cause and effect. And there is plenty of that in life too. We cannot just sit passively and expect good things to happen to us. But at the same time, no matter how hard we try, there are way too many forces involved to be sure of any outcome. And it is that uncertainty that I am struggling with right now.
I am on the cusp of handing over the reigns of the adoption process to some unknown force. Until now, the pace of the process depended solely on my ability to make things happen. From here on out, we will need to rely on any number of forces to come together and bring us our daughter. And I am finding that uncertainty and loss of control very discomforting.
People keep telling me that the uncertainty and loss of control is helping me prepare for parenthood. Perhaps they are right. I don’t know. I have never been a parent before. What I do know is that I have yet to make my peace with my own helplessness.
*I really should know better than to use baseball metaphors. My brother, husband and father-in-law are all avid baseball fans and therefore know what they are talking about. Whereas, I can easily screw up and show my ignorance. So to protect the innocent, please understand that any baseball metaphors used in this post are reflections of my own ignorance and bear no reflection on those in my life who actually have a clue about how baseball works.