I am trying very hard to navigate through each of those feelings but today for example, I ended up laughing at myself! I was opening the windows in the nursery to allow some life into the room and I stopped, spun around a bit and visualized all of the moments that this room will hold. Starting with the cozy glider that is yet to be bought. The many diaper changes that we will be happily opening windows to air out the room for and each morning, waking up and seeing our child grow. Its amazing feeling and I felt as if for that moment, I was in tune with the world - the blue of the sky was brighter than it has been for days and I could smell we were on the cusp of spring! This photo below surely shows how my soul was feeling in that exact moment.
Then...as I was closing the room and opening my email to nothing again, I thought - "What if this never happens for us?" then I hear our social worker's voice saying "This is not if it will happen...this is when it will happen", in regards to the waiting period. The other question for us is "What if we are waiting years, only to be the longest waiting family and not having the blessing of being chosen?". One of the best parts of open/semi open adoption is the birth parents choose the family for the child. That is an amazing concept that maybe at first seemed odd to us but after speaking with many of my friends and family who adopted and were adopted - its truly a blessing. We believe that God is present in their choice and this child was meant to be for us, they just had to send them another way and we chose to lovingly accept them. It is very odd to us the way some look at adoption...as if you cannot have the same love for your child whom you did not carry. I personally look at my husband and the amount of love I have for him is infinite yet he is not my biological family and silly as it sounds, we love our dog just as much.
The entire idea of open adoption was foreign to the both of us when we decided to make our way down this path. We just thought our name would be on a waiting list until we were called and at that time, we were matched. For us, that seemed a bit more distant than we really wanted it to be but when we chose our agency, we really had our eyes opened to what open adoption means and what are the benefits and to be honest, we have found there to be a lot more benefits than we expected. To be able to know the medical history is gold and for our child to have the opportunity to have an extended family who came together in love is priceless. I do know that I have heard a lot of worries about it, from family, from doctors, friends and even strangers but in the end, we know within the depth of our souls - that this is where we were placed by God. So although our downs are down sometimes, just knowing the plan is in His hands, really helps the both of reach for those ups.