he brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.

We're more than knocking down those brick walls, Little One - we're taking a wrecking ball to them. We are pushing onwards and upwards, as much as humanly possible.

At this very moment, your Dad and I are sitting side by side in the lobby of a beach front condo complex, laptops in hand, doing online adoption courses required for the homestudy. We thought we had enough credits, but last minute it was discovered we had to add more in- so we've been sitting here, swapping out computers for each other to watch the presentations the other has just seen. The air smells like sea salt and we still have sand caked in our hair from our day getting to know the belly of the ocean (that kind of sand that doesn't want to leave your scalp even after two showers). And even though we've spent the entire evening and most of the night in this lobby on our vacation, it is so incredibly worth it.

We've gotten a few crazy stares, and just moments ago I actually had to stop feverishly typing to field questions from another condo goer who asked if working on vacation was my hobby (in his defense, your Dad was in the bathroom so it looked like I have two laptops at midnight alone here, which would definitely signal an unhealthy dependency on technology). Once I explained to him the situation, that we're trying to adopt, his eyes gleamed and he smiled a mile long and wished us luck. 

Life has been kind of crazy lately, sweet baby. Mainly it's craziness at work, busy time at home and feeling like there are too many things on the to-do list and not enough minutes in the day. But in the end, your Dad and I get it together every time, and we always will. 

You've been on our minds quite a bit lately -  though you never really leave our minds. You're always there at the surface, and even when we're on vacation and trying to leave all our worries behind, I worry about you. I worry about where you are, have you been conceived yet? Are you on this earth right now? Or I am I just writing to your soul, and you're waiting to hitch a ride in the right body at the right time? It's an odd place to be for a Mother, because I know I'm your Mom. I know I'm meant to be, and will be your Mom. But you're not physically here yet, at least not to my knowledge, and I worry about you like a toddler running headstrong into the surf of the beach. 

I had an in-depth conversation with my Mom a few weeks ago about how hard the unknown part of this process can be. We talked about how .when I was young and had to have a very involved surgery, my parents held me in their arms as the doctors anaesthetized my tiny body. I collapsed in a heap, and they begrudgingly handed me over to a surgeon and gave my life to his hands, my soul to a black abyss made up of half faith and half science. My parents talked my whole life of how traumatic that moment was as a parent, how much it hurt to give their precious gift over to a relative stranger. It's not the same as our situation, but it has the same nuances. We've done what we can do so far: the rest is up to a lot of strangers- social workers, lawyers, potential expectant Moms. We've handed you over, and now we're anxiously waiting for the okay from an over-the-moon portion of this equation. My parents got their okay so many years ago, and I know we'll get ours one day also.

But this is a test of patience, a test your Dad and I desperately needed. Patience is one virtue neither of us possess, but we're learning. Well, we have patience for a lot of things - each other, other people- but not situations that are out of our control. Things we can't plan for, that don't have a date in the calendar- those are the things we have difficulty with. Your Dad and I are planners, thinkers, reservists. When things are unknown, it drives both of us crazy. But we're learning that it simply cannot be that way, not just in adoption but in life. Life isn't planner friendly, and sometimes the unexpected happens for a reason and it's the most wonderful outcome possible. 

We didn't expect to spend our night in the lobby, but we've learned a lot of valuable information from these presentations and it has brought us closer together. And now that they are all completed and we feel accomplished we've decided to take a moonlight stroll on the beach just the two of us. 

We've been coming to this beach for three years in a row now, almost our entire marriage. Sitting on the beach with my sister today, I remarked how weird it was that when we were on the beach last year she had just found out she was pregnant with her second son, and now he's here, a big four month old taking a peaceful nap as the sound of the crashing waves lulls him to sleep on his mothers chest. So much can change in a year, she said, Maybe next year you'll be sitting on this beach with LO, saying isn't it crazy that this time last year we were finishing our homestudy? 

I sure do hope that is the case, Little One. Because there are so many memories that I can't wait for you to be a part of. Hopefully next year you'll be sleeping soundly on my lap, and my motherly worries about your whereabouts will be put to rest. Until then, I need to keep thinking of the waves along the shoreline- they don't stop, they just keep crashing until the tide comes in when the timing is right. 

 

Until then, I'm waiting for you.

 

With four footprints in the sand, waiting for six, 

Love,

Mom