URGENTLY silent
It has been an intense rollercoaster of a week with adoption, and I feel like we got to the top right before the scary drop and the car just stopped. And you don't know why and you have to figure out how to climb back down on your own.
A week ago we got an email saying that there was an urgent case of a sweet baby girl that was 8 months old with Turners Syndrome that needed a placement. We, along with a small group of other families, were asked if we would be willing to be shown. Jason and I quickly said yes, and started to dream. Since it said URGENT, we quickly imagined being chosen, immediately flying to Southern California where the baby is, spending a week or two in California waiting for approval to come home and returning to Texas as a family of four having two little girls and Jason being a "girl dad." The title URGENT made it hard to say yes to things later in the week as we felt like we were on pins and needles expecting some sort of news any moment. I stared at my phone for days, anticipating, hoping, see sawing between "this is it" and "we won't be picked." My insides were butterflies mixed with what I imagine the washing machine feels like when you wash tennis shoes. Bump. Bump. Bump.
Then silence. Friday. Nothing. Saturday. Nothing. Sunday. Monday. Nothing. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday...
When I finally reached out to the pregnancy counselor and our own domestic coordinator early in the week, they did not have any other information. The mom had opted out of placing her child in temporary care, as opposed to what our form said she was going to do. She then went silent and can not be reached. Whatever her URGENT situation was, she must of changed her mind.
My tendency at this point of a story is to write out all of what this mom must have been feeling, how hard it must be for her, etc. That is all true, but often, I do this and then feel like because her situation is so hard and complicated, that I am not allowed to feel the pain and hurt that I experienced on my side of the situation. I am trying to get better at giving myself to permission to feel what I feel apart from anyone else.
So it was awful. It is awful. Adoption is messy, complicated, not the way the world is supposed to be, but can be beautiful and redemptive, and I so wanted to be that little girl's mommy. I wanted Jason to be her dada and Rosie to be her big sister. The mom wanted families to have a picture of her as they decided to be shown or not, so I have seen her face. I could imagine life with her. With her Turners Syndrome, I could even imagine the doctor's appointments. Imagine Rosie being her protector and defender if she ever needed it.
Besides not getting this little girl, I hate that now there is just an ambiguous amount of waiting again until we are shown. It has been 2 years since we started this adoption process. We were approved in February 2020, but we started the paperwork in September 2019. Two years of waiting and anticipating another child. Jason said it well the other day that with covid and the adoption wait, which basically have the same timeline, that we've had these two heavy underlying weights that we feel like we have no control over, yet control our decisions and make anything in the coming months look hazy, feel heavy and feel so unknown.
And I've started seeing physical ramifications of these heavy things on both of us. Jason doesn't gain weight for anything, lucky man, but we have both thrown caution to the wind with our eating habits and unfortunately for me, the weight has shown up on my body. We have started drinking wine a lot more. Yes, it is fun to learn about and really get into the technicalities of what makes a good wine and what all of the different types are and what we prefer. That part is fun. And I know we technically aren't drinking an unhealthy amount by any means, BUT I know us, and I know in some part, the weights of Covid and the adoption wait have created this new habit. In some way, it is a coping mechanism. We have talked about these two areas a lot lately, and have thankfully reigned them back in and I'm proud of us for making better decisions, but deep down, I hate that the burden of the unknown in these areas has created these habits and we have to deal with them too.
Add on that our adoption agency has switched our point person twice in a month now (I could write a whole different post on that about feeling unseen and insecurities that arise having to tell our story with another person), plus our friend's foster son that was Rosie's little friend that had to go to a different foster family removing him from our lives too without getting to say goodbye...and it's been a doozy of a week.
This isn't me just being cliché, but God I know that you are still good...and this song has been on repeat.
"I Will Carry You"Ellie Holcombe
I know you're tired, I see it in your eyes
All that anxiety that rules your mind
I'll be your shield when you don't feel
Like you've got strength enough to fight
I'll stand by your side
I will carry you
Through your darkest night
When you're terrified
I will carry you
When the waters rise
When your hope runs dry
I will carry you
You are not the sum of your mistakes
You don't have to hide the parts of you that ache
I choose you as you are a million times
'Cause I am not ashamed of you
I won't walk away from you
I will carry you
Through your darkest night
When you're terrified
I will carry you
When the waters rise
When your hope runs dry
I will carry you
Up and over the mountains
Valley deep as the oceans
When you can't keep going
I will shoulder your burdens
Up and over the mountains
Valley deep as the oceans
When you can't keep going
I will shoulder your burdens
I will carry you
Through your darkest night
When you're terrified
I will carry you
When the waters rise
When your hope runs dry
I will carry you
...And Now Notes from the Couch
- 3 Types of Grief
- concrete - measurable
- Concrete losses involve separation from real people and real things in the external, concrete, physical, visible world.
- existential
- An existential loss is a loss that the individual feels and experiences on the inside, whether or not there is any corresponding loss in the external, physical world. There’s a great deal of overlap between the two categories; most if not all concrete losses will also have an existential dimension. For this reason, existential loss could also be defined as the emotional or psychological impact of a concrete loss.
- ambiguous
- can't measure, very few people have gone through the unique situations, so few truly understand the loss
- Type One: Occurs when there is physical absence with psychological presence. This includes situations when a loved one is physically missing or bodily gone. Catastrophic examples of physical ambiguous loss include kidnapping and missing bodies due to war, terrorism, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and natural disasters such as earthquake, flood, and tsunami. More common examples of physical ambiguous loss are divorce, adoption, and loss of physical contact with family and friends because of immigration.
- Type Two: Occurs when there is psychological absence with physical presence. In this second type of ambiguous loss, a loved one is psychologically absent—that is, emotionally or cognitively gone or missing. Such ambiguous loss occurs from Alzheimer's disease and other dementias; traumatic brain injury; addiction, depression, or other chronic mental or physical illnesses that take away a loved one's mind or memory. Psychological ambiguous losses can also result from obsessions or preoccupations with losses that never make sense, e.g., some suicides or infant deaths.
- Adoption, and added on, Transracial Adoption requires more work than biological families
- My strengths: Equipping and Empowering people
- This is an alternate economy than what are country values. There is not a final "product." It is hard to measure and say "I did this."
- Continue to think through what are the resources the Lord has loaned ONLY to me
- The goal is to enjoy the garden (me) for what it is versus for what it can produce
- I am not simply what I do or perform
- What is the beauty that only I can see in me? What parts of who God made me would be wasted if I waited for someone else to validate it?