I recently saw this online and had to steal it...love it!
Paper Pregnant: How Adoption and Pregnancy Are Similar
Posted by Diana on June 14th, 2012 at 5:17 pm
Pregnancy has wait times most every woman goes through. The two week wait, the shower countdown, and of course the highly anticipated due date. Among others like the ultrasounds or the first heartbeat.
Adoption has it’s own wait times. The completion of the homestudy, the referral of a child or children, and then the travel date. After that, it’s a finalized adoption later on when the post homestudy is completed.
This process is incredibly different from and yet so much the same with being pregnant with Bella and then my twins. I’ve been told we are “paper pregnant” which fits well (and I think is a cute term). Although, part of me thinks we won’t even be that until we have a referral.
Pregnancy is an instant “Yes! ___ months to go!” Adoption is more of reliving that moment several times over as the process gets closer to an actual time frame you can talk about. Usually the two week wait comes at the very end when you wait for your travel call and get 10-14 days to pack up and head overseas.
This is a very emotional journey of it’s own. We notice a complete difference in reactions when telling people we are adopting – it’s not that they aren’t excited, but there isn’t a actual child (yet) to be excited over. They are more curious and often taken aback (We hear a lot, “So you’ll never have kids again?” and we assure them that isn’t the only reason for adoption), and always eager to know more about it.
The referral of a child to us will be a huge moment – probably the biggest one of this until we go to get them. We will have things to tell people about them, a picture to show, skills and personalities to brag on; as all parents do. We will be able to find out what special needs our child has and research how to best care for them, how it will impact them and us in the future, and connect with others who may know about it. We will be able to get to know our child and see them grow up before we even can hold them and call them ours.
It’s such a different thing to go through in becoming a parent, yet each step reminds me so much of parts my past two pregnancies. So many emotional highs and lows (“We can’t wait!” and “Are we doing the right thing?” and “Can we do this?!”) hit us each and every day. We know in our hearts we were meant for this, that our family isn’t complete yet and our boys didn’t leave us here with the inability to move forward – their memories are always on our minds.
No matter how long this “paper pregnancy” takes, just like when you carry a child in you, it’s always worth it in the end.
Happy Father's Day to the best Dad in the whole world! I am so blessed to have such a supportive and loving father in my life- I can't imagine my life without him!
And to my hubby, you are an awesome Dad to our four-legged children and I can't wait to see what an awesome Dad you will be very soon!
Love you guys!!
I have had many comments about my blogging (or lack therof) lately. Apparently, my friends think that I need to update a little lot more often. I will do my best to (try) to update weekly.
After going through months of emotional ups and downs with infertility treatments, I think that I thought switching gears to adoption would be a relief- man, was I wrong! Adoption is a constant waiting game and emotional roller coaster.
For those of you that don't know, in the private adoption world we must be chosen by a birthmother. We have had a couple opportunities for our profile to be submitted to a birthmother. I haven't decided if I like knowing when we are presented or not- it may be better to not know, then I don't have to stress out about it.
In the first case, the birthmother loved us (yay!!); however after we were able to reveiw her medical records and background and talking with our social worker it was a situation that we were just not comfortable with so unfortunately we had to decline. I was perfectly fine with this decision at the time, but as the days pass by I keep hearing a little voice in the back of my head saying "maybe we should have jumped on that situation- what were we thinking?!?" I know, I know, the right situation will come along, but you can't help but wonder, right?
The second time, I found a situation posted online by a referral service. **Another side of adoption I have learned about in private adoption- there are agencies, adoption attorneys, referral services and facilitators. All are very, very different. Some are expensive, some are not; some are ethical, some are not; some require large down payments, some do not...what I have discovered is that domestic adoption is not nearly as regulated as I once believed it to be** The referral service I happened to find this situation on is a pretty good one and the situation was perfect! Awesome birthparents, medical history, etc and our social worker told us to go for it! Of course, Q was out of town at the time and I was working 3 12 hour shifts in a row and all paperwork had to be submitted within 2 days. So, I got to spend my evenings filling out applications, reformatting our online photo album, and going to FedEx at 5am to send our packet to the agency. I was SO excited- I just knew this one was going to be perfect! I. Was. Wrong. Apparently, the agency shows their clients that have already paid fees first, we on the other hand were "outreach clients" since we are registered with another agency and only paid a small application fee to apply for this situation. Long story short, they showed their clients first and the birthmother chose from that group so our profile was not even shown after all that work. So frustrating...
So, the roller coaster continues. Please keep us in your prayers!
Pregnancy has wait times most every woman goes through. The two week wait, the shower countdown, and of course the highly anticipated due date. Among others like the ultrasounds or the first heartbeat.