We have been fully approved and are now in the adoption pool. We’ve contacted our adoption lawyer, are editing our wills and have all the basics we need for the first week of having a baby at home. From here on out we just wait for a call asking if we want a given birthmother to see our book. We have no idea when that call will come. Or even if the first, second or third call will result in a birthfamily choosing us.
As you might imagine, this is making future planning a bit of a challenge. Not that that has stopped us. This summer David and I have already been to Bermuda and Lake Placid, NY. In addition, I have made one trip alone to Westchester to see my brother and his family.
Coming up in the next few weeks we have tickets to see Wicked, my Mother and Stepfather-in-Law are arriving in town, I head out for a week of work in Toronto and I return home to a friend visiting from out of town. Then in October we head out again. This time to Western Massachusetts for David’s stepsister’s wedding.
Looking at my life now I have no idea how we are going to fit a baby into it. And the short answer is we aren’t. When the baby comes we are going to fit our lives around her. Not the other way around. That’s just the way things work when you have 24/7 responsibility for a tiny human being. And I am completely okay with that.
I love traveling and I love theater and I love my work and all of the other things I do to keep myself busy. But if the past few months of reading baby books and writing essays and responding to endless questions has taught me anything it is that I am ready for a change. A big, scary, somewhat overwhelming change that will come with serious sleep deprivation on a level I can barely fathom. It will also come with some very disgusting moments involving bodily fluids not my own. But it is not all about fear and anxiety. It is also about the wonder and joy that comes with raising a child.
I have certainly spent my fair share of time wondering who my daughter will be. But I more often than not try to stop myself because I do not want to be too prescriptive with my expectations. What I want more than anything else for her is that she grow up to be herself. Whoever that may turn out to be. So I am patiently (well, at least most of the time) waiting to meet this little person who will become the centerpiece of my life. And in the meantime, I am just continuing on with my busy, occasionally chaotic life.