Calling It Off

Well, this is it. When Amy and I started the process to adopt a fourth child two years ago, we told ourselves that if there was no match by now, we’d call it off.  And here we are.

It is, as you can imagine, bittersweet.  The devastation last year of three separate near-matches in short succession I’ve shared about, but the whole two years has been a low-level limbo for the whole family.  Imagine the anticipation of childbirth, with all of the ways it will disrupt your schedule, sleep, and house…only instead of a certain due date that becomes known several months in advance, you have to just hold your breath for the possibility that it’s going to happen within a few months or even less, and alternatively that it will never happen.

Now that we are no longer waiting, a lot of things that have been up in the air can now settle.  We can make longer-term vacation plans.  We can give away some baby items.  We can figure out how we want to configure our house.  We need no longer dread the phase of sleeplessness, the delay of being done changing diapers.  After two years of uncertainty, it’s good to get on with these things.

There’s also good in the clarity and finality of being done bringing kids into the family.  This is it: me, Amy, Jada, Aaron, and Asher.  We’re done.  Financially, logistically, and mentally, these are the people we need to get our heads around as our immediate family.  And it’s a good crew.  So it’s nice to stop waiting and start living.

But.  There is also loss and grieving and pain and regret.  I can’t imagine my life without any of our three kids, but now we must live our lives without an imagined and desired fourth kid.  What would s/he be like?  How would our family dynamics change?  What do you do with the love that you had prepared to love a new life with?  We now know we will never know.  And never is a long time.

You never really get over losing a child.  What we’re feeling is far easier than that.  But it’s still a loss, and that of something we never had, so the feeling is on level even more empty – not harder or more painful, but more empty in that there was nothing in that hole in our hearts before it went away, so there’s nothing to hold on to.

At any rate, life goes on.  Our lives are full with the joy and responsibility of three kids, each with their own challenges, each on their own path, each of whom we are so grateful God intersected their paths into our family path.  So we go forward, heavy of heart but also full in our hearts.  This is it for another adoption.  And so, moving ahead, this is us as a family.