Family Photos

Nothing like some old family photos to cheer a girl up! I received the photo album of Michael's childhood from my sister-in-law today. My hubby sure was cute...not that he's not cute now but...what a sweet little boy! Anyway, now all I have to do is round up a few photos from my younger years and then I can get started on our adoption book. I've decided to go digital since it will be easier to make changes and order multiple copies that way. Plus, the new digital books I can create through Creative Memories are pretty sweet. This photo album is a daunting task, but now that my crazy semester is almost over I should have a little more time to work on it.

Will it ever be?

You know...I try to maintain a positive outlook with this whole adoption journey we're going through...especially here on my blog, but today I'm just not feeling it. There's a saying for bridesmaids who feel like they'll never get married: "always the bridesmaid, never the bride," but there isn't really a saying for the woman who wants to be a mom but feels like she may never experience that joy. Always the nanny, never the mom...always an aunt, never a mom. Those could both describe me. And it's not that I'm unhappy with those aspects of my life. I love all the children I know very much but I'm so ready for more...for family and bath time and bed time and children that don't go home at night and don't call me Melba. I think I'm just tired. It's finals time at school and with five professors expecting stellar final projects and high ending exam grades from me (and me expecting that from myself) I'm finding these days exhausting.

Then there's all the pregnancy showing its lovely face. I have one friend who is pregnant with twins, another who wants to get pregnant soon and I also just found out my sister is expecting again. While I am thrilled for each of these families, and I would never want to subtract from their joy...it's still hard to realize our baby may still be years away. In a weird way I'm "expecting" too, but there's no guarantee for me like there is for them. There's also no sense of timing and that's hard. This could all happen in the next year or so and it could also take three more years. Or my greatest fear of all...what if it never happens?

I knew when we started all this that it would be hard--as if all the preceding years of infertility and disappointment weren't--but I guess I'm feeling generally overwhelmed right now.

As my dad's mom, Ma B always used to say...this too shall pass. Hopefully I'll feel better soon.

Letters

We're in the process of creating our "Dear Birthparent" letter, which is just plain hard. Even as someone who loves to write and who has written a lot of letters throughout my lifetime...I'm finding this to be the hardest one I've ever had to undertake. I read a whole bunch of examples online to see if that would give me some ideas. They're all well written and sweet...but they all sound the same to me. How do you provide the fundamental assurances this letter requires and still stand out from the crowd? We've gotten as far as a rough draft but to tell the truth I really don't like what we've got so far. It seems canned and almost cheesy, which is not how I want to present "us" to people who will become very important in our lives. I guess the only way to figure all this out is to forge ahead and keep trying. Eventually we'll end up with a letter we can both feel proud of. I'm feeling more than a little impatient with the process though and I want to get this done!