Starting Over

Now that our Baby Girl is more than ten months old, we can begin the adoption process again. I’m thrilled by the idea of getting another child, but when I learned that the first step this second time around is the same first step the first time around, namely going to adoption orientation, I began to feel anxious. At first I wanted to blame it on my husband. He won’t want to go because he’ll have to take time off work, I thought. But when I told him about the orientation, he didn’t jump up and down but he didn’t complain either and yet the anxiety was still there.

I admit that I’m a bit discouraged to find that at least in the first steps, the process is the same. I thought things would be more streamlined this time and we would be able to skip some steps. But that’s not what’s really getting me down. I’m worried about the scrutiny we’ll face. Just thinking about the interviews with our caseworker and then putting ourselves out there to potential birth parents again makes me nervous. Picking the photos we’ll use in our collage and web page and deciding what to say in our letter to the birth parents is a grueling process because I want to get it all just right and to present our family in a way that will connect with the right birth parent. And I’m terrified that we’ll never get a second child. It’s hard knowing that we have to rely on the choices of others for our family to grow.

In fairness to our caseworker and to those going through the adoption process the first time, things will be much easier this time. We have a wonderful caseworker who is kind and reliable. This time we have a better idea of what’s going on and we know what it’s like to go from that first adoption orientation to the temple sealing. Even though I no longer feel the need to have a biological child, at times like these, I wish I could just get pregnant. I don’t want to imply that pregnancy is easier and if you’re at all tempted to tell me that adoption is easier, just know that I won’t be very receptive to the idea. Both are hard in different ways.

I’m also hearing rumors that birth parents like blogs, so in an effort to get going on the adoption process, I’m going to turn over a new leaf and try to blog more. I don’t know if we’ll ever link this blog to our adoption web page, but I might as well get back in the habit of blogging for now. I've also heard that birth parents like to read comments, so if you're wondering how to help us out, feel free to regularly leave comments about what wonderful people we are. Now if that's not a pathetic plea for comments, I don't know what is.