Respecting the Process

This is what it is like to have a baby after 40licious, no matter which way you get it.

Here's a big difference between being 40licious and younger than that.* When you are 7 or 15 or 20 or 33 or even 38, you want what you want now. You want it to happen when you deem you are ready and you will do anything you can to make it happen. Make those phone calls, fill out those papers, get good and feng shui'd, say some prayers, organize and ready yourself so It can happen. Whatever It is to you.

But eventually, you come to realize there is a process -- and you learn to respect that process. This is for a lot of Major Life Events. Like marriage, for example. Thanking all the stars in all the galaxies all the time that I didn't marry the person(s) I really, truly thought I wanted to be married to after a rollicking first three months. And even in my current very new marriage, there was a lot of process that had to happen -- over the course of a year and a half -- before we figured it out.

But tonight I'm referring specifically to adoption. Our adoption. I'm laughing a tiny bit in my head thinking about a couple who signed on with our agency and, upon the first meeting with the social worker, demanded that they have their child "before the holidays," a scant few weeks later.  They laugh about this now as well, several years into it.

Steve and I are all set with our requirements -- together, as a couple. We've filled out every paper, taken every class, called in our favors for referrals, and created what will hopefully be a compelling profile to prospective birth parents. I think they spread out all the classes and make the paperwork slightly overwhelming to weed out the folks who don't really want it.

And now we wait.

We have beautiful, lovely, empathetic friends who squeal with delight when we tell them where we are in the process. We're done with everything -- except the waiting. "When will you know?" they ask.

We could get a call tonight telling us to go to the hospital and pick up our baby. Or it could be two more years and lots of "dates" with birth parents to see if the right chemistry is there.

It's nutty enough to not know when your baby will arrive, or not knowing if it will be a boy or a girl. The only way to go through something like this is to make friends with each stage of the process -- the required class time, the paperwork, the profile writing, the interviews with social workers -- and the waiting. It is not the hardest part, nor the easiest. It is just a part.

* I am speaking of myself. It is my blog, and that's what I do here, mostly. When I refer to "you," of course, I am referring to myself. And maybe some other people who are of a similar experience.