Sometimes my heart breaks.
Today is one of those days.
A friend, another adoptive family, found out there baby was born. And then, they found out the birth mother decided to parent*.
My heart sank when she told me. I felt myself catch my breath as tears fell from my eyes ever so slowly.
All I wanted to do was wrap her up in a hug and silently hope that this doesn’t happen to us.
.
Here’s the thing, most people who choose to adopt have suffered immensely before they chose adoption to build their family. Some may have struggled for years with infertility or experienced loss (like us) or experienced countless medical procedures to no avail.
When we turned to adoption to grow our families, all future adoptive parents understand the risk of a failed adoption**. We know the potential exists. For Mr. MPB and I, we’ve deemed the risk of a failed adoption to be lower then the risk of another miscarriage, so it makes logical sense to us.
.
Yet, we fear it. I’m yet to meet an adoption family who doesn’t fear the potential. We fear it and we dread it.
In fact, just thinking about the possibility of a failed adoption makes my heart race and my eyes well up. I catch my breath and have to deliberately refocus my attention on something else. The fear can easily become debilitating.
I hope for an instant placement in which our baby will be a few days old and the paperwork has all been signed solely so that I don’t have to deal with a potential failed adoption. I would rather meet my child a few days after birth then at birth in order to spare myself a fail adoption (saying that aloud and writing it for the world to read makes me cringe – I should want to be there when our child is born as not to miss a moment of their life, and yet I’m too afraid to be for my own selfish needs).
I work desperately hard not to obsess about the fear of a failed adoption. In fact, this is the first real post I’ve dedicated fully to the topic because I cannot bring myself to sit down and think about it long enough to write about it.
My fear is intense. It’s palpable and it’s unlike anything I’ve experienced before.
I honestly don’t know what we are going to do if we experience a failed adoption. I know I have many friends around the world who will help pick up my broken pieces, and I’m ever so grateful that I have such amazing support. And yet, I also know it might just break me in a whole new way, and a way that I wont know how to survive.
Yet I know, there is no real way to prepare for a failed adoption, if it’s going to happen it will happen and we will have to find a way to get through it.
And so while I’ve voiced these fears today and gave them life, I am going to stuff them right back down and hide from them once again. I cannot live my life based in this fear or I just may not really live at all.
.
*Please note that I 100% firmly believe in a birth mother’s right to parent. But that decision does cause heartbreak for the potential adoptive family
** I hate the term failed adoption. I know it’s from the perspective of the adoptive family, but it implies that a birth mother choosing to parent is a failure. A change of heart yes, but not a failure.
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I usually count myself as a survivor of life. I’ve survived losing my mom and sister when I was 14 years old. I’ve survived 5 miscarriages and learning that my uterus is destined to kill any baby that attempts to grow. I’ve survived. Heck, at times I’ve even thrived in the face of all of this.
And yet, sometimes I am reminded that I have lasting breaks within me.
No matter how much healing occurs, no matter how far I come, I will always hold pieces of me that are broken.
- I always had a very healthy relationship with my body. I never thought I was perfect, but I also wasn’t bothered by my flaws. Now, I realize I will always struggle to accept that my body is flawed in such a severe way. I have no realistic ability to overcome this break. My body is broken.
- I no longer ask friends how their pregnancies, unless I see them in person. When I see them in person, I can confirm that the baby is still alive based on their growing baby bumps and so I’m okay with asking. Over the phone, or via text, well I just don’t know. And I just wont go there. What if they lost the baby, and they don’t want to talk about it? I no longer see pregnancy is an exciting thing, or a magical thing. For me, it’s the scariest thing I’ve ever faced and now it simply means death. The death of our child, and possibly even the mother. I no longer think like a normal person. My mind is broken.
- I’ve had too many hurtful comments from people in my life (some well meaning, others not). I’ve lost friends who chose not to contact me again after telling them about our losses. I’ve pulled away from others who are growing their families and experiencing everything I dream of, in order to help protect my heart. I don’t trust people the same way I used to. My heart is broken.
Photo Source: Office.com Clip Art
I have no idea what the future will bring. I do not have a crystal ball or magical cards that will tell me the future.
I wish I did. I wish I knew that in 2 years or 5 years or even 10 years, my many breaks will heal and vanish.
But, that’s not how life works, there are no glimpses into the future. Instead, we have to live to unravel the mystery that is tomorrow.
Instead, all I can do is hope. Hope that these experiences turn me into a better person, not a bitter person.
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My Perfect Breakdown 