On the eve of our home study home visit (one of many, realistically), my wife sleeps peacefully (as she should be; as I should be). I tear around the house, trying to make it look like the person who lives here is… well, not us. I can’t help but suddenly notice how incredibly cluttered our house is. Between the two of us, I am ABSOLUTELY the messier one. Like, barely-functioning-as-an-adult-human messy. So I wonder if this sudden frantic activity is in some way an attempt to erase the “personality” from our home that is largely mine (I know, I know. I can’t help it. I’m a psychologist.)
All of this homestudy stuff and hemorrhaging money and talking vaguely about being parents has happened mostly in the background of our lives. It seems so far off and so far from complete that I am aware I am protecting myself by pretending it’s not happening until it gets closer. Ironically, this is more or less what the adoption agency recommended– don’t buy anything, don’t decorate anything, don’t plan anything. You don’t want to be disappointed. So it’s a weird backdrop to the rest of our lives which we don’t talk about.
And we don’t know anyone who has gone through this. So we don’t really know what to expect. I am literally not sure what a home study “home visit” IS. I know as much as you probably know, reading this, based on pop culture and my assumptions, but I actually don’t know what it is. The uncertainty is hitting me now, and it’s bizarre.
There is no other way to describe the experience for me except bizarre. This is not something I have a template for; I literally do not know what to feel. And I am, for the first time, acutely aware of how much our “expectations” impact how we feel about things.
Even when I am aware of what I am feeling, I have been so hesitant of talking about it. My minimal exposure already makes me tired of hearing that either a) our “hardships” are just the same as any heterosexual having a baby (e.g. lots of people have fertility issues and have to spend tons of money to have a baby, uncertainty is part of parenthood, leaving the entire possibility of being parents in someone else’s hands is exactly the same as what every parent faces, because once you have a baby you realize you have control of nothing) of b) we will never truly be “parents” because we don’t understand what it’s like to conceive and birth a baby. It’s very confusing, really. And why people feel the need to say such things is baffling– because god help me if I should ever suggest that my experience is in any way similar/different from another woman’s natural birth/breastfeeding/babywearing/cloth diapering journey, lest I want to bring the fury of an entire internet MOVEMENT down upon my head. (Let’s just pretend we already had the discussion about how we all have different experiences and they’re all fine and jump ahead to the next part of human existence when we all accept that and are not threatened by it. K, thanks.)
This is not a cohesive story. But perhaps, that’s the point. I don’t know how to sum up my ramblings. Other than to say, this is a messy journey, a lonely journey, a weird journey. Just like life in general. Show me one person who doesn’t feel that way about living in this world, and I will say to them, “I don’t want to be friends with you or talk to you anymore.” haha. Wish us luck tomorrow. As on the eve of all important things in life, I wish to be neither Hillary nor Donald.
Some Supervision Required. 