Fear, guilt, and other companions

We have truly only just begun our adoption journey, but I am amazed at how much drama there has been so far. Not between my husband and I, or even with adoption agencies or birth parents – just in my head. My imagination is a frickin’ war zone.

My main adversaries’ names (you may recognize them from your own battles) are Fear and Guilt. Their comrades – Worry, Anxiety, and Doubt – have also made many an appearance on the battlefront. Fun for all.

Fear is a tricky bitch. She sneaks up on you, hides right behind our sweet friend Hope, and just when you and Hope are having a wonderful heart to heart about your future…BAM! Fear jumps out screaming like a rabid flesh eating zombie (the fast ones from World War Z) with hairy tarantula legs (gross) and sends poor precious Hope racing for door to find covers to hide under. And then it’s just you and Fear, left alone together, stuck playing that awful “Imagine If” game she always brings over. Why can’t we play Scrabble instead? I really like Scrabble.

Now Mother Guilt is something with which I am extremely familiar. This is a special form of Guilt that plagues any and all mothers – good ones, bad ones, working, stay at home, tall, short, thin, not so thin, introvert, extrovert. It is a universal fact that all mothers feel like crap about something at any given time. Newton’s fourth law I think. Be it nutrition, dental hygiene, TV watching, exercise, reading aloud, screen time or a myriad of other things – every mom is sure she’s doing it wrong/not enough/too much. In fact, I feel guilty right now for working on this blog instead of playing Hermione and the Ponies vs. The Wicked Witch of the West with my daughter. Great!

So it is not as if guilt related to parenting is anything new, but guilt before I even become someone’s parent? Hypothetical situation guilt? That’s down right impressive.

What, you ask, have been these specific confrontations? Here's a few nuggets.

For starters, years ago when first began looking into adoption, my husband asked, “So would we, like, get a newborn baby in the United States?”

Tut tut, so naive.

“No way!” I recoiled. “It costs like $50,000 and a birth mom could come back anytime and take her kid back!”

Fear just high-fived herself.

At this point I had done very little actual adoption research and watched one too many Lifetime movies. So in spite of the fact that a newborn baby was exactly what my heart desired, Fear had me convinced it would never work out – too expensive and too likely to end in heartbreak.

So, I completely bypassed researching domestic adoption and pointed myself to international instead, where Guilt was waiting to make her debut.

There is no such thing as a mass international adoption application; each country has its own unique adoption program, and you have to decide on one in order to get started. For some this process comes easy. They have a pull to adopt from a specific country; possibly a family tie, maybe they’ve visited there before or always wanted to, but whatever it is something specifically draws them to it. I didn’t have any of that. I didn’t feel called to a specific country. I was open to any, to all of them. I wanted to love a child. But you have to pick one. But I couldn’t pick. To choose one felt like I was rejecting all the others, and therefore all the other children. How do you choose one child over another?

I found myself trying to manufacture connections/feelings….I think East Indian people are particularly beautiful, so I’ll adopt from India. Yeah, a beautiful Indian baby….Or wait, I love the Spanish language, so we should adopt from a South American country. Then our entire family can learn Spanish and we can travel there and keep our baby’s cultural heritage alive. Yeah, that’s perfect….But I do love Chinese food, so China is always an option….But maybe the babies in Africa need me more, so that would be best….

I was beginning to feel like a serious head-case. Guilt and all its friends were reigning victorious and I was paralyzed, somehow feeling like my heart for adoption really just a way to abandon all the other children. Wow, Kim, really? Obviously this way of thinking was not at all based in reality, but Guilt doesn’t really care. She’ll manipulate you any way she can to get you off track.

Only recently have we returned our sights to domestic adoption. And this time we’ve enlisted a new friend, Knowledge. And she says:

·    Yes, adoption can be expensive, but usually not $50,000 expensive. On average it's more like half that. International is typically the most expensive, followed by domestic newborn. And domestic foster-to-adopt has little to no cost at all.

·    And yes, in domestic newborn adoption birth mothers do have the ability to change their mind and parent their child, but the time frame they have to decide varies by state. It ranges from 24 hours to 6 months after birth, but the average is three days. Once that time frame passes and an adoption is finalized, it is just that. Final. The sensational stories that make it into the news are not the norm.

Booya! Take that Fear. My girl Knowledge just trumped your nasty ass!

But that victory was short-lived because Guilt came back. How selfish are you? You already have babies, you know, from pregnancy? Save the newborns for people with infertility problems. You know, people who deserve to have them. You think you should just get whatever you want?

Defeat.

But something doesn’t sit right. My friends – Truth and Love – nudge me to step forward and say something. Well, Guilt, I stammer. The birth parents are the ones that decide who gets to raise their baby. They have to pick us. And if they pick us, it’s because they see something in us, something they desire for their most precious child. And, WHEN they pick us, they will obviously think it’s okay we have biological children! So…so there!

Cheers from the crowd!

These are certainly not the only things Fear and Guilt have tripped me up over and I’m sure they won’t be the last. But I refuse to feel guilty for what my heart desires. In fact, other adoptive moms have told me specifically not to. It’s certainly easy to feel guilty when it comes to filling out the form for what child you would accept. The list is a gauntlet of things out of a medical text book. Would you accept a blind child? Would you accept a child exposed to drugs? Would you accept a child with a family history of mental illness. Cerebral Palsy. Down Syndrome. And on and on. I don’t know yet how I will answer all of these questions. I will research things first so I’m sure I truly understand what they mean; I will definitely pray about it all. But then whatever decision I make I will make in faith and without guilt. It does no one any good if you take on something you are not prepared for simply because you feel guilty about it. No one at all.

And I will not fear heartache. Anything worth doing comes with the risk of heartache. When you pursue something that truly matters to you (pregnancy, adoption, relationships, marriage, chasing your dreams), you'll know it's worth doing because you have to put your heart on the line – serve it up on a platter, come what may.

We don’t dismiss the need for wisdom. No not at all. My friends Knowledge and Truth will always be by my side in this venture. But the requirement of vulnerability is the litmus test of value. And I can't think of much that is more valuable than a child.