Inviting Tragedy

Waiting is hard. No joke. I guess in the back of my mind I thought we'd be picked fast. Super fast. And now it's been 2 weeks of waiting and it feels like 10 years and I get down thinking about how long it really could be. But that's not what I meant to write about.

S and I know a few couples who have gone/are going through this process. And one of them recently completed a successful placement. And they posted a picture of themselves with their new baby. They are SO HAPPY. They have these huge smiles and happy, exhausted eyes, and a beautiful baby nestled between them. And it made me so sad. It made me sad for the birth mother and birth father and their families sitting in some other room, with their hearts broken. And it made me feel a little awful inside to want something so bad that is going to cost someone else a broken heart.

The other thing I've been talking to S about is that it makes me sad (and frustrated) that I can't protect our future peanut from the loss and heartache of their adoption. You want to protect your kids from hurt and pain. And I hate it that on the first day of their little life our peanut will experience loss.

I know the world doesn't revolve around me and clearly me wanting to add children to our family does not directly cause loss and heartache. And that there's lots I can do, in the way I parent and in the way I work to maintain peanut's relationship with his/her birth family, to make the situation a positive one. And I truly believe in the benefits (to the children and to the birth parents) of open adoption. But sometimes it all just makes me a little sad.