…no we haven’t heard anything from the agency. No, we don’t have a match yet. There. I said it. Now I can move on.
I have avoided blogging for the past couple of months because I SO wanted my next post to be news about our baby. But, now too much time has passed, and people are going to stop checking if I don’t write something.
I’ve heard so many adoptive moms talk about what they call “emotional labor”. Adoptive moms don’t have the physical pain of carrying and delivering a child, but our hearts ache deeply as we wait for the child we have prayed for for so long. I’ve definitely been experiencing that. Even though we KNOW that God is going to give us the child He has chosen for us at the perfect time, we still long for our child in such a real way that we can almost feel him/her in our arms at times. We stand and look at our nursery stocked with all the things we need to care for a baby and imagine what life will be like when he/she is here. It’s both exciting and excruciating.
For some women, infertility is the hardest experience of their lives. For me, waiting for our adopted child is much harder than all of my years of infertility combined. I think it’s because having a child biologically is not ULTIMATE for me. What IS ultimate for me is being a mom. Honestly, at this point I don’t think I would feel a tremendous loss if I never birthed a child. As my friend (who is also an adoptive mom with no biological children) says, “God just had a different plan for how I would get my children. They are no less mine than if I gave birth to them. And, if I had given birth to children, I think it would have been these exact two children.”
For many women, giving birth is ultimate. I can usually tell who they are because when I talk to them about our adoption the conversations inevitably end with their encouraging me to keep the faith that I’ll have a baby “of my own” one day. I can’t explain why God has made me OK with infertility, but I’m thankful He has.
The pain of waiting for our child is magnified with Mother’s Day approaching. If you’ve been following the blog for a while, you have heard me say how hard Mother’s Day is for “infertile” women. It is especially hard for women who go to church on Mother’s Day. Typically churches have a ceremony or some kind of treat for mothers—and they should! Mothers need to be recognized for what they do. It is a rewarding and beautiful thing to sacrifice and serve others on a daily basis. I can’t wait to be included in that!
This year, Andy offered to take me away somewhere for Mother’s Day. But, I thank God that I don’t feel that is necessary this year. Three or four of our close friends are having their new babies baptized on Mother’s Day, and I want to be there for that. I dream of the day we have our little one baptized as a symbol of our recognition that this child belongs to God, not us, and we are committed to raising him/her with that in mind. Part of infant baptism is a charge to the congregation to support the parents and help raise the child(ren) in a covenant community of believers. I want to be there to make that promise to my friends.
