Back to the Drawing Board

Nope. Last week we found out that we are no longer in the running to adopt the two brothers we had wanted to parent. Now it’s back to the drawing board, which is everyone’s favorite place to be in the adoption process. There weren’t any major problems or anything on our side that took us out of the running and DFS said it was a tough decision. DFS just found parents who were a better match for these kids, and obviously that’s priority. There are other children out there and we’ll just need to start again.

What upsets me is that we waited two months of back and forth just to get to “no.” Waiting is part of this game and I understand that the process needs to be slow to make sure we are addressing the children’s needs as best as possible. It doesn’t make this any less frustrating.

Logically, I know I shouldn’t take this personally, but adoption/parenting is pretty much the most personal thing there is. In this situation, it’s hard not to feel like you’ve failed something before it even started. So much of this process seems to hit at the heart of who you are as a person. You ask so many big questions. What have you done with your life to this point to prepare you for parenthood? What have you not done that might impede you? What special needs can you handle in children? Which kids do you accept and which do you reject? Exactly how wide can you open your heart?

Sometimes you have to compartmentalize for your sanity, so you can pick up and start again. It can be easy at times to keep a positive attitude but then the clouds shift and it looks darker. Sometimes I feel like it doesn’t matter if I take this personally or not because the end result of this setback is the same: No kids. And I’m staring down 43.

I have a hard time seeing the bright side in general but I’m trying to do so here, in my own way (I never bought that Hallmark Horseshit like “Everything happens for a reason”). I tell myself this is a setback and a delay but we’ve only been approved to parent for seven months. It’s not as if we’ve been rejected over and over.

Plenty of people know what this is like. Plenty of parents, adoptive or biological, probably felt, before kids came along, like it would never happen. It did happen for a lot of those people so I’m trying to have some hope, no matter how high that mountain seems sometimes.

After all, what choice is there but to have hope? With hope, there’s at least a chance that you’ll be happy, and if you give up, there’s none. I am trying to steel myself for the challenges ahead, especially since the real challenges begin after we actually become parents.