Pain, Pain, Go Away

It was always a possibility that C might decide to keep her baby. Adoption is a gamble and one never can predict how things will turn out. All the facts pointed towards C not being able to raise him on her own and not wanting to raise him. She already had 2 children to care for, she was homeless, didn't have a job, didn't have a high school diploma, and has baby daddies who don't pay child support for her other children. She knew he would have a better life if she gave him up for adoption. C told me several times that "keeping him would be selfish, not only to him but also to her other 2 kids." Unfortunately, she decided to be selfish. Just to set the record straight, I am not oblivious to the fact that giving up a child for adoption is an extremely hard decision to make and that it's even harder to follow through with that decision.

The whole situation is a perfect example of being kicked when I'm already down. All the emotions from dealing with this failed adoption just made my back pain for all the trampoline fun so much worse. Saying we were sad, heartbroken, hurt, and felt betrayed don't even seem like strong enough words to explain how we truly felt. Several people have told me that the emotions felt from a failed adoption feel similar to that of a miscarriage or a stillborn. I can't vouch for this statement seeing as I've never had a miscarriage or given birth to a stillborn, which I'm so thankful for. The grief we are dealing with just seems like it can't compare to the grief a mother feels that loses the life that was once growing inside her. All I know is any form of loss sucks.

What makes this whole experience so much worse is that adoption might be our only chance of having a child of our own. If we had the ability to conceive biologically, yes we would be sad, but we wouldn't be in such a state of angst wondering if we would ever be more than a family of 2.

Our sadness quickly turned to anger. It is so much easier to be angry instead of sad. We were angry that  C did this to us, that she was the cause of so much pain. We wondered if she even thought about how her decision would affect us. We practically put our lives on hold for 2 months to cater to her every need, expecting to get a baby out of it. We will always wonder is she played us. Did she originally plan to actually relinquish her baby to us or was her plan just to take whatever she could get from us? The combination of her expenses and the adoption agency expenses are more than anyone could probably imagine. Lets just say my salary for the foreseeable future is already spent. This is all money that we will never see again, which caused even more heartache. We gambled and lost miserably.

Now we are back to where we started. Waiting... and waiting. It's not fun and it doesn't seem fair. We know that all of this happened for a reason. God has a perfect plan for us and being parents to this little boy wasn't in His plans. I just pray that one day I will finally become a mom. I won't lie, sometimes I feel like this is never going to happen. It's really hard to be hopeful, when I've spent so much time being hopeful (3+ years of trying to get pregnant, about a year of infertility tests, and 2 months with C) and have nothing. It hurts to want something so bad and not know if you will ever get it, no matter what lengths you go through to try and get it. I hate saying this out loud, but I feel like Ron and I deserve a baby. For starters, we actually WANT a baby, which is more than some people can say. We have the means to provide everything that child needs. And most importantly our hearts are overflowing with love for a child that we haven't even met yet. There are so many people that are undeserving of having children, yet they have herds of them. Sometimes life just isn't fair.

I hate that we prepared a nursery for a baby and now we don't have a baby to put in it. I can't even go into that room. The door stays closed, which is a shame because I love how the room turned out. It hurts too much to look around and see everything that we bought and not have a use for it.

I sure hope I never run into C around town because there is no telling what I might do. I'm not a confrontational type of person but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't hide from her. Ron better eat his Wheaties so he can hold me back from doing or saying something stupid.

We are not looking forward to potentially building another relationship with a birth mother. C definitely ruined that for us. How can we possibly 'trust' another birth mom after all of this? I'm scared that if we get matched with another birth mother that the same thing might happen again and I don't think our hearts could handle that.

So now is the time to start the healing. It just seems at this point as soon as our hearts start to heal something or somebody comes along and rips us to shreds. It kind of reminds me of a scab that keeps getting hooked on your sweater or something else and it makes it nearly impossible to heal. We know we will live with this pain for a long time, possibly forever, yet we are trying to stay positive. If you ask us how things are we may say "fine", we may break into tears or we may rip you a new one. Just prepare yourself because the feelings we have one minute may not be the same the next.

Until next time...