Everything is crazy and we feel hopeful again. After our first adoption match and disintegration, we’ve been pretty quiet about our process. The first time, we told everyone. There were announcements, and plans, and baby gifts. And then, there was an adoption “miscarriage” of sorts. Too early on to be a real tragedy, yet laden with a complexity of feelings even we didn’t understand. The kind of thing where no one knows what to say. The kind of thing where people say “I’m sorry” and cast their eyes down, and I brush it off dismissively, because I don’t want them to feel bad and I don’t want me to feel bad.
But here we are again. Another match, another maybe-baby out there. I’m starting to get my hopes up. I don’t know why; I can’t help it. This is the fourth time we’ve been here, a possible match. So I should know better.
We’ve been so pragmatic. I was literally just telling a friend 3 days ago that Wife and I are at peace about whatever happens, that a year into our two year contract with the agency we’ve already decided not to renew it if we don’t match. And it’s true, a weird calm has settled over us, such that we have contingency plans B, C, D, E, F, and so on. I don’t think most people are this methodical… maybe it’s just selection bias and the people who are open about this sort of thing are willing to be more… vulnerable.
I’ve been surprised I don’t see myself in their stories at all. I thought I would. I haven’t (yet) experienced the longing, desperation, and devastation that seems so prominent in people trying to “make a family”. I’ve never felt the heart-wrenching desperation and agony of losing a maybe-baby, or realizing I might not be able to make a family in the way I’d hoped.
Does that make me a bad person? Or a bad parent? Is it possible to want a child and at the same time not be desperate? To go into it thinking of all the ideal plans and not feel completely heartbroken when they don’t come to pass?
Last week I saw a “pregnancy announcement” on facebook from a couple who is “pregnant on paper” because they got approved by an adoption agency. I won’t lie, I felt bitter about it. It didn’t have anything to do with adopting a child, or jealousy of their already healthy baby/potential older sibling. I just couldn’t really believe or imagine the certainty that someone must feel to post something like that on social media. Maybe as a straight, white, god fearing couple, they know something I don’t. Maybe they’re naive. Or maybe I am.
Secondarily, at the back of my mind, I thought “Hahaha. haha. ha. ha. (insert sardonic laugh here). You are SO early into your journey. We aren’t even that far in, and that feels like ages ago, to me.
But now there’s this new mom, and this new baby.
I would be lying if I said I wasn’t excited, hopeful, terrified. We have officially “matched” with her and are moving forward. We haven’t told anyone beyond immediate family, because we learned our lesson last time.
But the thing that gets me more than anything is that we talked about a name with the expectant mom. And we decided on a name, like a family. And now he is a “he” and he has a name.
I know now the thing I never knew before– that no matter what happens, even if we don’t end up adopting him, that will be his name. No other child of ours could ever have that name, because it is his. No matter what happens, we will always love him. We will always want what’s best for him, even if it is not us.
And wherever he goes in this world, that will be his name.
Some Supervision Required. 