A lot of random thoughts
First, a referral update! The CCAA has matched waiting familes with log-in dates up to May 13, 2005. Our agency received 14 referrals, all for girls from Hunan Province. The children were between 6 and 13 months of age. Congrats to those new families!
What this means for us, we don't know. It all depends how many referrals the CCAA decides to send out at one time. I wish people got this. Tim and I find ourselves explaining this over and over. But we do realize that while this adoption is at the center of our lives, it isn't at the center of everyone else's.
My lovely husband is a Howard Stern fan. Yeah, I know. Sigh. What can I do? Well, he tells me that Howard had Martha Stewart's 40 something single daughter on as a guest recently. She's made a decision to become a mother through use of a sperm bank. The next day, Howard said that he was struggling with her choice, since there are so many kids out there that need families, and he spoke very favorably about adoption.
My response to this was "Well, some women want the experience of being pregnant and physically giving birth". This got me thinking about our own story.
Tim and I knew that if we were to have children, we would adopt. Since we were friends for about 10 years before we got married, we knew this going into our marriage. We cannot have children because of prior medical issues - the details aren't important. We just can't.
I was married to another person before I married Tim in 2004 (Tim claims I was playing hard to get by marrying someone else). There were infertility issues in my first marriage (different set of issues). I've been through infertility treatment...I have experience with Clomid, injections,IUIs, ICSI and all that. I feel for those of you who have been there as well. I would have moved straight to adoption, but my former husband really wanted us to try and have a biological child. Third party options weren't appealing to us. We talked about adopting from China, and went to a few seminars.
That marriage fell apart for a lot of reasons, some of which were my "fault", if there is such a thing. No one cheated. No one hit. We just couldn't click. I think we would have made each other miserable if we stayed together, and neither of us deserved that.
My former husband is one of the most decent human beings I've ever known. However, I did learn through some painful marriage counseling sessions that he didn't really want to be a father for himself. He was willing to become one (and I believe he would have made a fine one) because I wanted to be a parent, but it isn't something he truly wanted for himself. Sorry, not good enough. We are not talking about agreeing to steak for dinner just because I want it.
After my marriage was over, and my friendship with Tim began heading toward romance, I was very straightforward with Tim. I knew I wanted to be a mother. Not right away, but I knew this was a non-negotiable part of my life plan. My attitude was "Don't waste my time if you aren't interested in being a father". Lucky for me, Tim had always wanted a family of his own.
We knew we would get married pretty soon after we started "officially" dating in August 2002. And so we knew we would adopt, and we knew we would adopt from China.
We moved in together in April 2003, and Tim proposed to a very sick chick in her PJs a few days before Christmas 2003. We married in June 2004. A perfect day in many, many ways. We went to our first meeting at CAWLI one month after we were married.
We had to wait a few months before starting the paperchase in February 2005.
I've seen many of my friends become pregnant and give birth to precious children. Do I feel jealous? Sometimes. I do wonder what it would be like to be pregnant and give birth to a biological child. I mean, I've got a stomach that sometimes looks like a 2-3 month pregnant stomach - it would be nice to have it because there's a baby growing in there!
But I never feel cheated. I know some people think having a biological child is "different" than having an adopted child. And they are right. They have an ultrasound picture...I will have a referral picture. And a million other little different things. I feel like we are on our own path, which is no better, no worse. Just different. I also feel truly blessed to have Tim with me, 100% saddled up for this path.
I never pictured having a child that looked like me. Ever. Maybe it's a coincidence...maybe I don't want a child to have to endure hearing "Hey, Red", "Hey, Carrot Top", "Strawberry Shortcake" or "Duracell-the Copper Top Battery". Maybe I don't want a kid to have to experience turning as red as his or her hair in a half second, or painful sunburns, or comments like "Let's play connect the dots with your freckles". But that's not all that bad. I think maybe adopting is just what I am supposed to do, for whatever reason. It feels right. It has always felt right.
The other day I was talking to a lovely older woman that I have known for years. She recently became a grandmother to a Chinese-American girl, the biological child of her daughter. She was very excited about our adoption and said to me "And you know, you'll love this baby just as much as if she were your own".
Yep, we got that. Because she will be ours, as much as any child ever could be.
What this means for us, we don't know. It all depends how many referrals the CCAA decides to send out at one time. I wish people got this. Tim and I find ourselves explaining this over and over. But we do realize that while this adoption is at the center of our lives, it isn't at the center of everyone else's.
My lovely husband is a Howard Stern fan. Yeah, I know. Sigh. What can I do? Well, he tells me that Howard had Martha Stewart's 40 something single daughter on as a guest recently. She's made a decision to become a mother through use of a sperm bank. The next day, Howard said that he was struggling with her choice, since there are so many kids out there that need families, and he spoke very favorably about adoption.
My response to this was "Well, some women want the experience of being pregnant and physically giving birth". This got me thinking about our own story.
Tim and I knew that if we were to have children, we would adopt. Since we were friends for about 10 years before we got married, we knew this going into our marriage. We cannot have children because of prior medical issues - the details aren't important. We just can't.
I was married to another person before I married Tim in 2004 (Tim claims I was playing hard to get by marrying someone else). There were infertility issues in my first marriage (different set of issues). I've been through infertility treatment...I have experience with Clomid, injections,IUIs, ICSI and all that. I feel for those of you who have been there as well. I would have moved straight to adoption, but my former husband really wanted us to try and have a biological child. Third party options weren't appealing to us. We talked about adopting from China, and went to a few seminars.
That marriage fell apart for a lot of reasons, some of which were my "fault", if there is such a thing. No one cheated. No one hit. We just couldn't click. I think we would have made each other miserable if we stayed together, and neither of us deserved that.
My former husband is one of the most decent human beings I've ever known. However, I did learn through some painful marriage counseling sessions that he didn't really want to be a father for himself. He was willing to become one (and I believe he would have made a fine one) because I wanted to be a parent, but it isn't something he truly wanted for himself. Sorry, not good enough. We are not talking about agreeing to steak for dinner just because I want it.
After my marriage was over, and my friendship with Tim began heading toward romance, I was very straightforward with Tim. I knew I wanted to be a mother. Not right away, but I knew this was a non-negotiable part of my life plan. My attitude was "Don't waste my time if you aren't interested in being a father". Lucky for me, Tim had always wanted a family of his own.
We knew we would get married pretty soon after we started "officially" dating in August 2002. And so we knew we would adopt, and we knew we would adopt from China.
We moved in together in April 2003, and Tim proposed to a very sick chick in her PJs a few days before Christmas 2003. We married in June 2004. A perfect day in many, many ways. We went to our first meeting at CAWLI one month after we were married.
We had to wait a few months before starting the paperchase in February 2005.
I've seen many of my friends become pregnant and give birth to precious children. Do I feel jealous? Sometimes. I do wonder what it would be like to be pregnant and give birth to a biological child. I mean, I've got a stomach that sometimes looks like a 2-3 month pregnant stomach - it would be nice to have it because there's a baby growing in there!
But I never feel cheated. I know some people think having a biological child is "different" than having an adopted child. And they are right. They have an ultrasound picture...I will have a referral picture. And a million other little different things. I feel like we are on our own path, which is no better, no worse. Just different. I also feel truly blessed to have Tim with me, 100% saddled up for this path.
I never pictured having a child that looked like me. Ever. Maybe it's a coincidence...maybe I don't want a child to have to endure hearing "Hey, Red", "Hey, Carrot Top", "Strawberry Shortcake" or "Duracell-the Copper Top Battery". Maybe I don't want a kid to have to experience turning as red as his or her hair in a half second, or painful sunburns, or comments like "Let's play connect the dots with your freckles". But that's not all that bad. I think maybe adopting is just what I am supposed to do, for whatever reason. It feels right. It has always felt right.
The other day I was talking to a lovely older woman that I have known for years. She recently became a grandmother to a Chinese-American girl, the biological child of her daughter. She was very excited about our adoption and said to me "And you know, you'll love this baby just as much as if she were your own".
Yep, we got that. Because she will be ours, as much as any child ever could be.
posted by Redheaded Chick at 3:38 PM
1 Comments:
Very well said, I couldn't agree more. We are looking forward to meeting both of you this Saturday. I think Tim & I may have something in common...I'm a Howard fan too. Bob gave me a Sirius radio for Christmas so I can listen. I'm loving it.
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