Paper Pregnant

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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.