I have felt almost on cloud nine since the Education and Preparation programme on Friday. Okay - maybe not cloud nine - but in a pretty good space. And for this SI; good spaces are so very welcome!!
Something shifted on Friday. Whether it is the fact we've made a big leap up the ranks as far as the actual adoption process goes or the simple fact we attended a day-long course that made it all seem so very real and possible - I'm not sure.
I have recognised that I have been in grief for a good couple of weeks around letting go (once again) of my dream to have another biological child. How many layers there are exactly to this grief, I'm not sure. Just when I think I've closed the door on SIF; along comes another lot of intense, raw grief. Yet every time I allow myself to grieve; I come out with more acceptance and there is somehow more of a space between SIF and myself.
So I've just been through another one of these phases. I have made the jump emotionally towards embracing adoption as the way our second child is likely to come to us - if we are so lucky to be picked. After hearing various stories about open adoption here in Nelson on Friday; I know that we can do it as a couple. We're a pretty open and accepting couple as far as people's life-styles go. What I'm trying to say is; with open adoption often the birth families will come with some issues and it is certainly not the place of the adoptive parents to judge.
I can imagine driving/flying somewhere to pick up our baby. It doesn't seem so bizarre although as some of the adoptive Mums said; it is very hard to not feel as though you are stealing someone's baby under the circumstances - mainly at the start of proceedings.
We went up to the hospital yesterday to visit our neighbours who are both under twenty and have just had their first child. I was genuinely happy for them. We were even one of their first visitors. It felt so good to be rapt for someone else. To be resentment-free, even!
I don't expect all my SIF issues are completely behind me. But I do have a strong sense of having moved along quite a way over the last couple of days. We've decided we will stay in the adoption pool for just two years. After two years you have to renew things. I figure if a baby hasn't come along by the time I'm around 43; then it really wasn't meant to be.
I feel as though I can start to plan a bit more around some other things in our lives as really, there is nothing more I/we can do right now than hand our adoption dreams over to God. We're moving through the process - got accepted at the application assessment stage (medicals, police checks and references) as I found out on Friday, so that's pretty exciting. Apparently it's only if they notify you of problems that you need to worry. I'm pretty confident that we will make the final cut, as such. There are a few more stages to go, but we are well over half-way through.
Yesterday our daughter was pretty excited to meet the neighbour's baby in hospital. It was not hard to imagine that one day she could be face-to-face with another newborn that could become her little brother or sister.
I'm full of hope, faith and love right now. Sometimes you have to let go of one dream before another one can fully emerge. I think that is what has happened here.
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