Waiting in the adoption pool

Last weekend I organised a get-together with the women who have had babies from the local Infertility Support Network I started. It was really nice. Three women have had babies over the last eighteen months and the babies are aged between three and six months old. Another woman has a baby on the way. I wasn't sure how I would feel going along to this morning tea, as although I invited everyone from our infertility network; there were only two of us who went who haven't had babies since the group started. But I felt okay. More than that - it felt good to hold and comfort some of the babies. It was the first time in a long time I had been in a situation with a lot of babies in a room all at once as I have avoided such scenarios for years. I actually found it to be healing. I'm not sure I would feel the same holding babies in a room full of "fertiles" - and am probably in no hurry to find out!

Seeing all the success stories as such together has inspired me to keep going with our infertility network - to keep putting the word out there so I have been doing that - creating a page on Facebook and advertising in more than one newspaper now. I just want to keep the group alive. It will be two years since I started the group in October.

I had a rather wierd situation this week. One of the Mums of a boy in my daughter's class at school is pregnant. She told me when she first found out about the pregnancy how much she didn't want the child. I was so hurt and angry about what she said - for all sorts of SIF reasons - that I have kept my distance from her. However we were sitting next to each other in the playground after school yesterday as our kids played and she shared that she only had two more weeks to go. There was a bit of an awkward silence and then she said she was giving the baby up for adoption. She then told me who the family was - a family with eight (!) children that had strong Christian beliefs. I said to her it must have been very hard to make that decision and she revealed that it was an open adoption and that she and her son would be able to have a lot of contact with the baby. She then said she had seen our profile! Hmmm. That was very wierd. I just joked how small our town was and she said she hadn't told anyone that she'd seen it. She also said our profile had been to Christchurch as after the earthquake some more profiles needed to go down there. Interesting. I haven't heard anything about our profile been viewed or travelling out of the town we live in.

I have felt a bit triggered around the above. I mean it's good to know that our profile has been looked at. But obviously the content hasn't interested any prospective birth parents yet. I cannot help but wonder or tick off the reasons in my head why there is a lack of interest: Is it because our daughter is autistic? Is it because I was on anti-depressants for six months? (during my dark days of SIF). Is it because I said I might have to put our potential adopted child into child-care? Do we not earn enough money? Are we not outdoorsy enough? Does our profile not read well?

I dunno. At the time when we carefully put our profile together, I felt we did the best we could and that it was an honest account of who we are. It just does hurt that we may not be what prospective birth parents are looking for. I haven't even updated our profile yet but need to do that since my husband started his new job. Our social worker didn't seem to think there was much of a hurry to do so. I also needed to settle into our new working week now my husbands work hours have changed so I know what I want to write there.

For the first six years of our daughter's life my husband worked until 4.30pm which meant he was very hands-on with the whole dinner/bath/bed routine. Now, in his new job, he is working 12 hour days - from 7am - 7pm. It means sometimes when he gets home our daughter is asleep. She is missing him and so am I. I feel as though I am solo parenting during the working week. It is a good change for us financially - this new job of his is much more secure. He is working extra days too - over 60 hours a week while the overtime is there.

It feels like another new era. In a way it is like going back to the early years when I was a fulltime at home Mum as it is just me managing the house and cooking tea and taking care of our daughter during the week. Even though my husband was home at 4.30pm, I still had long days at home with my daughter before she started Kindy. I do wonder how I would go with a baby on board knowing it would be mainly me doing it all during the week.

I'm not sure how to take the strange situation of crossing paths with a birth Mum whose son is in the same class as my daughter's! What is God trying to tell me? That we aren't viable candidates as adoptive parents - or that we have a chance. I guess it's nice to know that an adoption is about to happen locally - but it hurts that it wasn't us - even if I know in my heart there is no way adoption would have been right with this particular birth Mum.

For many months it has felt "secret" being in the pool of prospective adoptive parents - now it feels kind of like we've been exposed. Not only that, the birth Mum mentioned is the Mum of the son who put a skipping rope around my daughter's neck a few weeks back in the playground. I've always been wary of this Mum anyway - now especially so. Even when she first told me she was pregnant and that she didn't want it, I knew it would be wrong to mention we were hoping to adopt. It would not be right obviously to have two children in the same class, at the same school being connected by adoption. Apparently the birth Mums son, six years old, is quite upset at losing his sibling. I understand that. It would not be fair to have a classmate calling his sibling her sibling - too, too wierd in so many ways! The birth Mum is a solo Mum and doesn't want to be a solo parent again.

If anything this encounter has given me an insight into a birth Mum's situation. I guess it was interesting too hearing what she was looking for - some things we aren't/can't offer. Not that she said that of course but just from the descriptions given of the families she was interested in - there were two in the end - and they sound quite different to us. It is easy to feel that we don't compare. I know I shouldn't do the comparing game - but it is hard not to.

I know she is just one birth Mum - but the fact that we are so close to an adoption happening - as in by degrees of separation - is bizarre. My daughter still talks daily about a sibling. Sometimes I don't know what to say to her. I can't say I enjoy waiting in the adoption pool all that much. Obviously I'd probably see it differently if we'd been picked - or a birth family was interested in us. I suppose at this point it just feels like rejection once again - rejection from God initially that we couldn't have another child - and now a possible rejection about being adoptive parents.

Despite all this, I have been doing okay. I have biked to work a few times - a half hour each way over the last couple of weeks. This simple act has brought a new energy into my week. I also feel like bits of the old me are merging with the post-SIF me. I feel lighter. My daughter is befriending kids with siblings and I'm okay with it. I don't have envy around every Mum of Two I cross paths with. I still apply self-preservation and won't always view photos of completed families on Facebook. I know what my triggers are. And some aspects of SIF are less painful than they used to be. So I must still be moving forward and healing in my own time - ever so slowly. AF has been visiting for two and a half weeks - very odd - and quite unexpected. I have been applying estrogen internally and that could be contributing to my well-being - not sure. It feels as though I have accepted my SIF/early menopause fate at least, using a cream that I was resistant to using for quite some time.