Sounds like an episode of Star Wars, right? It’s been a while since I last posted. So buckle, up, this is going to be a long post! I will be brutally honest with you, I let life get the best of me in 2018. So many curve-balls and soul crushing days in 2017 – that I allowed it so snowball into an avalanche. I allowed myself to be buried in 2018. This lead to stress, weight gain and downright being unhappy. Well as I titled this post, New Year, New Hope.
I have dug myself out and ready to take on 2019. Sounds pretty cliché, right? Sure, Natalie it’s 3 days into 2019 – you totally have this! For som e reason, I feel different about this year. I truly feel, deep down, that 2019 is going to be great. Maybe we will adopt. Maybe someone will leave me millions of dollars and I can chase my dreams. For what this year holds, I am not sure. But what I do know, I’m up for whatever is thrown my way and I am taking back control (of what I can actually control).
Control – this is my word for 2019. Not in a bad, sense of the word. But I am taking control of the things I can actually control – my health, happiness and wellbeing. I can control what I feed my body. I can choose to be positive and be happy. I am going to work on it every day in 2019. I am also going to stop dwelling on what I cannot control. Like when/if a birthmom will choose us. The fact that I have crappy eggs and can’t get pregnant. I realized I wasted so much time trying to control those uncontrollable things, that I made myself so unhappy and downright miserable. I am confident it impacted my relationships, my work and my self-respect. Therefore, I will leave all of those things that are out of my control to the Big Man Upstairs. Afterall, He is way better at this than me. Do you pick a word for the year? If not, I urge you to take 15 minutes and think of a word for 2019.
I warned you, this was going to be a long post.
So where are we at with the adoption? Well, if you couldn’t tell from above – no baby in my arms just yet. We got through the homestudy with flying colors. It is a ton of paperwork. Sometimes, ok a lot, I questioned why they need to know this information. We have a great case worker and agency doing our homestudy. They made it so much easier. Really do your research and meet with them before signing up. You need to feel comfortable with them and asking sometime downright stupid questions. If you aren’t comfortable, it might not be a pleasant experience.
We made our video for our website and make profile books. I was ecstatic when the agency emailed the first time that we needed to send in more profiles. That meant we were being presented to lots of birthmoms, one would surely choose us. Well, we weren’t chosen. Then I started to doubt. Was our profile wrong? Did the photos so carefully chosen not show what a great family/ experience this child would be given? I was seriously going to creat a whole new profile from scratch. My hubby, shut that madness down real fast (a saint, he is). I would lay awake at night thinking of all of the reasons we weren’t getting chosen. Never, once stopping to think about maybe it’s not the right time. God has other plans for us right now. Nope, I thrived on the negative and self-doubt (it is seriously, what I do best). Which lead to, this is never going to happen. Which lead to heartburn every time we had to shell out money to pay for something for the adoption. Snowball into avalanche.
We have a 2 year contract with our agency, we signed the paperwork to “go live” in December 2017. Our homestudy was completed in March 2018, so that is really when we actually were “live” to be presented to birthparents. I swear that contract clock ticks way louder than any biological clock. Mirissa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny, doesn’t have anything on me. I was focused on it. Every month that went by, I saw as one month closer to my dream being over. I am happy to report, that I am taking back control (see, there is that word again) and choosing not to look at it this way. I trust our agency and their process. Plus, I also am assured that they extend contracts. I don’t hear the ticking anymore. I am taking control of what I can, and chosing to take it one day at a time.
We also told some family members, immediate ones obviously. But, I/we (mostly me) didn’t want to shout from the rooftops that we were adopting. See with IVF, no one knew. I wanted to spare them the heartbreak if it didn’t work. To me it was easier to be like, well we tried and it didn’t work. Rather than share it with them, in realtime. Slowly through the course of the year, we told more people of our hopes to adopt. People at work, at church and finally, I made it Facebook offical in November. Everyone’s responses were of pure elation and joy for us. It was judging us. It wasn’t saying, “you are broken”. This helped reassure me that people wanted to share in this journey with us. We were not alone. Of course, there were people who told me “not to give up on the old-fashioned way. Miracles do happen.” When I was told this, I smiled and said, “they sure do!” Thinking my heartgrown baby is my miracle, just waiting to happen.
We are currently in the process of updating our homestudy. Seriously, more paperwork?!?!? Yup. At least now you can skip a bunch of boxes and reduce some of the hand cramps if nothing has changed on some of the forms.
So we continue to keep ourselves busy and try not to dwell on the actual adoption process. But rather, I take a few sweet moments a day (sometimes multiple times a day) and say a little pray for my baby out there in the universe. I pray for the birthparents who will ultimately make the courageous choice to give their child a better life by chosing adoption. I thank God for these people who will help me achieve my dream of a mom to be.
I think that brings you up to speed. Rest assured, I am going to be writing more this year. Sharing our adoption journey and my dream of mom to be.
Until next time, be kind to one another.
XO,
Natalie
Dream of Mom To Be... 