Emptiness and broken parts. I'm still trying to make peace with this broken body of mine...the rippling causes and effects. The pain of it all, it still ebbs and flows. Looking back on my journal, 3 years later today I've realized that those feelings have never really left me, and I still ache just as strongly.
We get asked all the time now..."
Are you going to adopt again?" "
When are you going to adopt again?" "
Isn't it about time that you adopted again?" The short answer is...yes.
The long answer is...yes. The emptiness still aches. There are more missing pieces of our family out there. But as for the nitty gritty details of who-what-when-where-why-how...we simply don't know. We need to find the courage and strength to start again. If this were an easy journey, we would have jumped right in again in a heartbeat.
But every story has two sides right? We let everyone in on the positivity and hope we felt during our first search. The very private second side of our story isn't so magical and starry-eyed. The aching depression, anxiety, worry and hopelessness we've experienced is downright ugly. I think people are very surprised when they catch slivering glimpses of that. Now just wait a minute...shouldn't we be so grateful and happy!? We are! We are so, so, so grateful and happy to have Loo in our family!
She completes us. But...that has come at a very great cost to someone else. Adoption is so incredibly emotionally difficult and complex. It doesn't end after 9 months. It doesn't end after you are placed with. The ache, the heartbreak and sadness you feel for your child's birth family can be so sharp in moments it takes your breath away. Lucy was snuggling Steve the other day, and BAM...it was her birth dad's eyes staring right back at me.
His eyes. Or BAM...a simple look on her face, and it's her birth mom smiling at me.
Her face. BAM...when her hair is in a ponytail, it reminds me of her birth sister. BAM...she is so snuggly, just like birth brother. I know they are somewhere hurting, and there is nothing I can do to change that or take that hurt away, it can utterly gut me somedays. There isn't a ache I've known like that. It's a painful love story, filled with a deep empathy few understand and see. It has been one of the hardest things we've ever done. And it still is now...2 years later.
So yes. We will do this all over again. We'll fight on to our next missing piece...it will be worth it. But right now, we're trying to build up our reserve of hope, strength and courage to get us through...
May 15th, 2014: Emptiness and Broken Parts
"I was talking with one of my wonderful new co-workers today, and we were talking about the ups and downs of adoption. I told her that I try and stay as positive as I can...but I have the occasional down days. She smiled at me and said wisely that I wouldn't be human if I didn't...and that she'd be worried if I didn't. I think she's so right. I think that being sad and allowing ourselves to feel those feelings is part of the healing process.
So, that being said...I was sad this week.
The room was warm, cozy and dimly lit. Almost spa-like...but without that cheesy new age'y music they play to lull you into a realm of relaxation. I wonder if they made the room that way on purpose...to calm patients jittery nerves. Because going to the doctor I've found, is nothing like a spa experience.
I struggled to make a picture out of the black and white noise on the screen as the very nice ultrasound technician pushed and prodded on my belly. I nervously joked with her..."I'm sure glad you can see something in all that fuzziness...because I sure can't!"
"Oh don't you worry...if you'd done my job enough...you'd know what to look for too!" Was her reply.
And then the sadness swept over me for the first time.
They found what they were looking for in there. And it wasn't the thing I've been longing for. There's nothing but emptiness and broken parts in there."
