Becoming a Lawyer

Oh, little one. I've been reading and taking in all the information  I possibly could for the past two nights. Every moment I have free I've been looking at adoption forums online, reading up about success stories, attempts, failures...and I'm feeling each and every emotion from happiness to anguish with these women as I'm reading each story.

And I have to admit, I'm overwhelmed.

The laws are so fuzzy, the agencies are hard to navigate- which ones are scams? Which ones are genuinely trying to help us unite? It's so difficult to tell. Are the laws that apply the ones in my state or another state? Where do we go from here?

We won't know more information until the first weekend in February. And little one, that feels like light years away. RB and I are trying to take this slow, one step at a time as to not get overwhelmed. But reading all these words, these flat words on pages that could jump out and halt our dreams at any moment...

It's terrifying.

My emotions are all over. In forty eight hours I've gone from which herbal remedy am I going to try this week to try and make my body work properly to make a baby, to Oh my Goodness, my baby might already be here in this world. It all feels like some amazing dream that I'm going to snap out of, that tomorrow I will wake up and nothing will be the same. I think thats why telling this story is so imporant for me too, little one, because I need some record to show that it is in fact real.

I'm reading all these stories about women who have sweetly detailed and decorated nurseries with freshly painted walls and brand new baby supplies, little tiny onesies and scapbooks they've been keeping since day one waiting patiently at home in an empty, babyless room. They have dotted all the i's, crossed all the t's. They have the proper number of smoke alarms in their home, a fire extinguisher daintly placed next to their ovens, a first aid kit in their pantries and all their toxic household items in a locked, up-high container per the Home Study (and trust me, that is a pretty accurate term for that proccess. It seems there is a LOT of studying you must do before completing one).

And these women, with their hospital bags stuffed with supplies and the tiny little outfit they spent weeks picking out for their newborn to come home in , (the same outfit they've been dreaming of having on the baby for pictures for the birth announcement), all in a bag thats been packed for weeks-  they wait and pray and show up for what is meant to be the best day of their entire lives... and something that to them is terrible, awful, horrible and unthinkable goes wrong.

The birth mother decides to parent.

They are crushed. Every dream of parenting they've ever had has gone out the window. Their trust is forever broken, their wallets empty for a long time, and their only option after months of preperation, care and passion is to go back to their empty home. No children crying, no bottles warming, no diapers taken out of the packs. They go home to a place stuck in an infinite time warp, a life that they were not planning on ever having- a big empty hole in their heart and home.

And it scares me to no end.

I can't imagine knowing you're mine, and not getting to experience it. I cannot find it fathomable to prepare so lovingly and carefully for your arrival only for there to be no arrival at all.

But, as we've said from the second we've decided, no matter what it will be worth it.

Regret is worse than pain. We've known pain. We've been through pain, and we've made it through for better or for worse. Infertility in and of itself is nothing but one long painfest. But regret? Thats something foreign to us. Something we've never, ever had to deal with and regret is scarier than all of my fears combined.

 Basically little one, I am trying to become a lawyer in less than 150 days. We are trying everything we can on our end to make this work, and I am trying not to break down before the beginning of February when we know more about what is going on.

We are going to push forward, no matter what. Come hell or high water. You're worth more than any pain, anguish, anxiety or hurt that could be thrown at us.

 

Regret is worse than pain.

You are worth more than anything.

We will prevail, no matter what.