My 18 month labor

Every time I read something about the joys of motherhood that focuses both on pregnancy and the precious first days, weeks, and months, a small part of me shrinks. After years of trying to conceive, we are faced with the decision to follow a complicated path that would put us in a more advantageous position to possibly conceive (a dubious proposition at best), or we could adopt and know that we would definitely have a child. .

We choose adoption … and we never look back.

However, the vast majority of blogs and endearing articles about motherhood emphasize the pregnancy part. The feeling of the baby kick, the months of waiting, breastfeeding once the baby is born.

So for all of my fellow moms who had a baby by adoption, here is the list of experiences that we can finally relate to. Here is our testimony of the determination to have a baby.

1. Push and push. The joy and anticipation of holding that bundle of joy is preceded by the most invasive list of conditions known to man. First there are the exams … physical, mental / emotional and even financial. Then come the fingerprints (local, state and federal) and the FBI background checks. After that comes the home visits from the social worker, then the children’s services, who wants to verify that you have (of all things) the correct type of locks on your doors, and finally the fire department, who wants to see your fire escape plan. of each room in the house, as well as the 50,000 fire extinguishers and emergency stairs that are mandatory.

2. A picture pays off … As you present your life story in a 20 page picture, all you can do is hope you have chosen the right image, the right vacation photo, the right caption for each snapshot. Then the concern arises: do we look like fun? Do we look too funny? Do we seem excited or desperate? Does our home and lifestyle seem comfortable or do we seem pretentious and trying too hard? Does my hair look weird in that photo? Oh shit, he’ll hate my hair! Who wants a woman with hair like this to raise a child? Oh that’s just a shadow … Wait, what’s that on my face ?!

3. Emotion and devastation. Once you finally drop the profile and send it to agencies and birth mothers across the country, you receive phone call after phone call with opportunities … which are then followed by phone call after phone call choosing someone else ( it was the hair, right?), or that the adoption failed. And suddenly you’re back where you were when you were trying to conceive, with loss after loss and failure after failure. All you can do is try, wait and cry.

4. Pure joy. The day. The day you found out you were going to be a mother. (Mine was July 12). You got the call that you were elected. YOU! Of all the profiles in the world, they chose yours. And in three, five, seven months, you will be a mother. Again, all you can do is wait and cry.

5. Oh … my God! I’m going to be a mother … in three months. All that preparation. All that planning, punctures and punctures and here it is. Only three short months, your child will be in your arms. Silly stuff! Do I tell someone? I have a shower? What if it fails? Don’t I take a shower and buy the essentials myself: the crib and the car seat? What if something goes wrong and I have to go through that crib day after day? Okay, car seat yes, crib no.

6. The call. Of all the moments in my life, whether it is my husband proposing to me, getting married, offered his dream job, or even getting the call, my dad died suddenly, nothing will compare to the fact that my Biological mom called me to tell me Kennedy was here. . Come to Philadelphia. From a simple image, he was in love like never before.

7. The first kiss. The nervousness of walking into the hospital room after a hectic 2 hour commute, preceded by an even crazier packing session (what do you wear to meet your daughter!) When you have no idea how long you’ll be out and about. What time will it make. like where are you going! Then the conflicting emotions of meeting her birth mother for the first time (incredible gratitude and sorrow for her at the same time), who is quickly overwhelmed by tears that just won’t stop flowing down her face as she holds her daughter in her arms. . and kiss her sweet face.

And you know, for the first time, why you didn’t get pregnant. Because her son had not yet been born. She just needed you to be a little patient because perfection takes time after all.

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