After hitting the one year mark since we began this journey I realized that I’ve gotten depressed due to not progressing during this time. Our adoption journey has been quite an emotional roller coaster. When I realized how bad my first feeling from contact from the social worker was complete and utter fear, I knew that I had some work to do on changing my perspective.
I was completely unable to be rational when I saw that she had emailed us. Terrified that it would mean we have been denied, scared that our dream will get shattered, and honestly a bit panicked because this single person has the dream of our adoption in her hands. We’re past the happy and hopeful honeymoon stage, while we are now in the worry and pain stage instead.
Adoption is completely worth everything we have gone through and I wholeheartedly believe in it, and I will hopefully be able to advocate for these children in some way someday. The waiting part, especially once it goes beyond a month without hearing anything, is pretty much like having PMS, in my opinion. Sorry male readers, but I’m totally going there since it’s a great comparison of feelings. Anyway, after that honeymoon phase the PMS sneaks in. You notice that you’re a little more emotional than usual; you can cry from either a sweet or heartbreaking commercial even. You then hear that internal clock ticking down to THE DAY, but you have absolutely no idea if the train is running on time, so you’re on edge. Sarcasm drips from your comments without you meaning to be that way, so then you withdraw to keep from sucking the sun out of someone else’s day. Sometimes you swing from happy to sad, over to being sensitive to every little comment or action, get withdrawn and cranky, and you then go straight to being miserable and on edge. Tick tock. Tick tock. You feel like you’re losing all control over your emotions and it just keeps getting louder. Tick tock. Tick tock…
This too shall pass. Yep. It’s still an emotional roller coaster regardless of the encouraging quote. You could throw glitter at this mess and it’ll just be a shiny mess now, so you cry when you watch a car commercial with parents saying goodbye as their kid heads off to college.
Even though this sucks, deep down you know it’ll get better. You just have to hold on until that train comes to town. You just have to wait for the adoption to progress to the next stage. Try and find a way to drown out the sound of the clock; cover everything in glitter and crank up cheerful Christmas music if that’s what it takes to make you feel more in control of your emotions. I’m taking inventory of the deep freeze and food expiration dates, while listening to Celtic Thunder, to help get me through today. I’ll transfer all the info to a spreadsheet tomorrow, so I’ll feel a little more in control yet again. Take it day by day and lean on that support system you wrote about in like the fourth section of the adoption paperwork. Find your glitter and empower yourself to get through this. You’ve come this far, so don’t you dare give up; and I will be saying that exact thing to myself over and over. A child depends on your ability to find a way through this. Like the old saying goes – you can eat a whole bear all by yourself. You just have to take one bite at a time.
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