While attempting to parent and work at the same time I’ve realized I am no longer the same person I once was. For starters, as I realized earlier this week, I’m much more forgetful then I’ve ever been before.
Yes, my name is the same. My appearance is mostly the same (I am probably slightly pudgier due to a complete lack of exercise in my life right now). And, my personality is basically the same, if you set aside the sleep deprived grouchiness that takes hold some days.
But, yet, I know that I’ve changed. I am no longer the old me. I am now a mom to an amazing little boy. And already I know, without a doubt, I will never be the same person I once was.
Yes, my road to becoming a mom already has made deep and life long impacts on me as everything about losing our little babies completely changed my life. But, becoming a mommy to a living child has forever changed me in more new and different profound ways.
I am no longer the only one that matters. Mr. MPB, our dog and I are no longer my priority. Baby MPB is now my life long priority. No, that doesn’t mean I will forget to take care of myself or to love my husband and our dog. But it does mean that right now, especially while Baby MPB is so young and vulnerable, his needs are the top priority in the MPB household. I experience worry in a way that I have never known before. I worry constantly. I worry about simple things like worrying about if he’s eating enough, smiling enough or getting enough tummy time. I worry about big things like is he still breathing because SIDS scares me in a way I cannot even begin to articulate. His physical and mental health matter more then anything else in the world. Just the thought of something bad happening to him can literally bring me to tears.
The complete and utter love and devotion I have this little guy is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. Everyday single day I am thankful to be his mom. Truthfully, I don’t even have words to describe it.
So, yes I am no longer the old me. But you know what, I am a new me and that’s pretty amazing. And, I wouldn’t trade any of it (including the constant worry and the sleep deprivation) for anything in the world.
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I just realized I never told this part of our adoption match story. And, it’s a good part, so it’s worth going back in my memory to share.
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Once we found out about our adoption match and our potential son, we decided not to tell basically anyone in our real lives. In fact, we made a plan for who we would tell in-real-life. The night we found out about the match, but had no details, we had plans with my very amazing friend. Mr. MPB was so excited he told her partner before I even had a chance to tell her. They instantly offered to dog sit whenever the time came. Then, the next day once we saw the proposal we immediately called a friend, a doctor, who we asked to review the medical history for us (we were required to have a medical review conducted before formally accepting the match). And then over the next few weeks we told another set of friends friends, the back-up dog sitters. And, I told another friend who has been a constant cheerleader for the last few years. So, 4 friends knew. And then, lastly, the day before we left, we told our neighbours who would be watching our house for us (who as it turned out we forgot to tell we were in the adoption process, needless to say they were surprised). And we stuck to our plan. Well, almost, one exception was made when the night before we were leaving I was so excited I called my brother. We told him and his wife and swore them to secrecy.
And then the next morning we left bright an early.
We left not knowing what would happen. But, we were 100% confident in our decision not to tell our families until the relinquishment deadline passed. We knew our anxiety would be too high to deal with the added questions from our family and friends.
And so, we met our birth mom, we met our son, we bonded as a family with essentially no-one in our real lives knowing about it. At some point, our birth mom asked us how excited our families were for us to be meeting our son and we told her the truth – our families are excited for us to adopt one day, but they had no idea we were even in the USA, let alone with her and our son. We planned to tell them once all the paperwork is signed. She was shocked, but seemed to love the surprise. So, once we signed the paperwork we were excited to tell our families, until we found out the relinquishment deadline was days longer then we expected. We were devastated at the thought of waiting through the weekend to tell everyone – we had our son and all we wanted to do was show him off to everyone. And our birth mom was soooo excited to hear about our families reaction to our son. So, knowing how excited she was, we threw caution to the wind and decided to tell everyone that that night.
One by one we texted the people we wanted to tell personally. We asked them to sign into Skype, which was a small hint that something was up. Then we simply showed them Baby MPB on the screen and told them the basic story – his name; his birth weigh, height, time and date; where in the USA we were; about the wonderful women who chose us; and that while we are confident we will be bringing him home, the birth mom has a few days to change her mind. We focused on the happy and the excitement, because we were so happy and so excited. But we made it very clear that they could share the news with whomever they wanted, but if she changed her mind, which was her right, they were responsible to tell everyone and tell people not to contact us as we sort through the emotional struggle that would result.
So, we told our parents and our siblings and our close friends. We told my parents first and my Dad was taking photos of his newest grandson, on the computer screen to share with the extended family, which I thought was adorable. By the time we hung up with my parents we were already receiving texts from numbers we didn’t even know. We spent the entire evening talking to essentially everyone we know.
Everyone was truly excited! I think a few people were shocked that we’d managed to leave the country, be at the birth of our son and take him home from the hospital without anyone knowing. Evidently we were good secrete keepers. A few people acknowledged the Skype request was weird coming from us, two people who only use the service when traveling. Everyone wanted to know when we’d be home so they could meet him in person. Lots of questions were asked, almost all were appropriate and we just politely declines to answers the ones that made us uncomfortable with a simple, that’s not a detail we are sharing at this time.
It was truly amazing to see in an instant just how loved this little boy is. From his birth mom, to his grandparents, to his aunts and uncles, and to our chosen family of friends – every single person was visibly filled with so much happiness to welcome him into ours and their lives.
The very next day when we saw our birth mom the very first thing she asked was how excited everyone was. We told her all about our evening telling everyone, and she was also so very happy! She seemed thrilled to know that Baby MPB is surrounded by so much love and support.
And finally once the relinquishment deadline passed and we knew we were forever a family, we had a special skype conversation with his little cousins who are too little to understand what adoption relinquishment means (understanding this could be very hard for a small child to understand, we offered this as an option to my brother when we told them he was born via text). Then we sent a short email with a birth announcement and photos to everyone.
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