The Darkside of Procrastination

or How is an Adoption profile like a Horcrux?

For the last couple of months I've have been procrastinating getting our profile done and sent to our adoption agency. My brain has been constantly fighting with me about having to do the work.

In all honesty, I don't want to do the work. I feel like I've (we've) been doing the work for 9 years now to try to have a child and doing all the work hasn't done anything for us.

Part of what was fueling this feeling of anger, sadness and resentment was two friends of ours had recent placements within a year or less of waiting...and here we are going on two years and still waiting.

And it doesn't help that it's coming upon a year since our failed adoption and everyone around us is getting matched. Hating myself for being so angry and stubborn, I had some words with God, and naturally He won.

As gently as possible He revealed to me an interesting point: If I don't complete this profile and send it in, I can't honestly say that I did everything in my power, or everything that was asked of me (us) to further our endeavors to add a child to our family.

He's right. If I don't finish it, I'll always wonder what would have happened had I finished it. And not finishing it, would be giving up on this entire journey.

*sigh*

I finished our profile yesterday and sent it in.

I'm a harsh critic of things I do, and while I like the story part of our profile, I'm not excited about the finished product. However, Michael and two of our friends that I showed it to, like it. I'm just waiting to hear from our social worker to find out if there are any additions or corrections that need to be made.

I'm elated that this part of the adoption process is finished. I had such a hard time with it. It seemed like such a simple task, but I quickly discovered that it was not so simple.

My two friends, L and N were keeping me on task with this profile as they were eager to see it finished. One particular Monday, I was asked what part of the profile I was having trouble finishing, and that is when I started crying and ranting about having to do all this work, when I felt others didn't have to do anything*.

My new good friend N (who is a huge Potter-head and someone I get to geek out with every Monday morning about Doctor Who) said this to me in the midst of my tears, "It's [the profile] your Horcrux**. It's an object that you are having to pour your soul into, and that is hard to do."

Leave it to someone to use Harry Potter as a way to illustrate my difficulty with making an adoption profile.

So having poured my soul onto a piece of paper, complete with pictures was both exhausting and exilarating.

And now we wait...again.

*To my RL friends, I apologize for making this assumption. I know you each had your own struggles to add to your families, and I know it wasn't easy being in the midst of the struggle. I was sad when I said this, and I apologize for saying it.

(**Yes, I understand that a Horcrux is a dark object in the Potter-verse, but the sentiment about having to pour my soul into an object (profile) was spot on.)

Jumping the Shark

If you don't know what this term means then you either don't watch tv or you were born after 1985. It refers to when in a tv show, whether it be an hour long drama, or a half-hour tv sitcom, makes a desperate attempt and often absurd execution in their season plot line that virtually renders the show unwatchable. In other words, its television suicide.

In my opinion, this usually happens more commonly in half-hour sitcoms when one of the main characters (in many cases the 'mom') gets pregnant.

I remember when Elyse Keaton on Family Ties got pregnant and after she had the baby the show was okay, but it wasn't the same. The family dynamic changed not only between Steven and Elyse, but also the three siblings (Alex, Mallory and Jennifer) to accomdate Andrew (who seemed to age 5 years in one season).

I remember when I was a kid not liking it when sitcoms would do that. The same thing happened on Growing Pains, again changing the dynamic of the show between the characters. I don't think I watched it after that.

Even on Friends, when Rachel got pregnant I didn't like it, but I watched the rest of the season and the show until it wrapped for good in 2004. That season just happened to be the funniest season Friends had since season 6 (in my honest opinion).

I'm about to say something controversial on here, and some of you might not like it. But I wouldn't be accurately expressing myself if I didn't voice it.

There is a genuine joy and yet a constant fear that I have at the prospect of a baby entering our family of two dynamic.

Its been just the two of us for more than 10 years. Its something that I've been used to for all our married life, and to be quite honest those years have been beyond wonderful, dynamic to be exact.

I love having Michael all to myself. I'm grateful that we can still have 'Date Night'. We can go to Disneyland at a moments noice (or when our passes allow). Go to the movies every weekend in the summer. Stay up late, and sleep in. *sighs* All these things sound so stupid and petty, but its what I'm used to and what I'm comfortable with.

Its these things that I savour to keep me sane and prevent me from wallowing in self-pity.

I'm grateful for a freedom we have that most of our friends don't seem to have anymore now that they have children.

I think a part of me is scared of losing that freedom, of having to share Michael with someone else.

Overall, I guess I just want some reassurance that when the dynamics do change, I'll be up to scratch.

I don't like this feeling I am feeling

Lately everytime I think of us having children, either through natural means or adoption, I get a little...ambivalent about the whole thing. There are just some days I don't want to have anything to do with babies or adoption. Is this normal?

Now before you start judging me, just hear me out. Its not that I don't want to do the work involved with adoption. I'm thankful they ask for so much because they care where they are placing these children. Its not that I don't want to do adoption, I do. I really feel like it is what God wants us to do. And its not that I regret pursuing adoption, I don't.

I guess its just the fear that the adoption won't work out, so I'm finding it hard to get excited about the whole process. The fear that we won't pick the right agency. The fear that we will be taken advantage of by the wrong agency.

The weird thing is the fear is not enough to stop me from wanting to go forward with adoption. I think all the information or lack thereof scared me.