Loss-Of-Control Eve

Tomorrow we're taking the girls, our unsuspecting, happy-to-oblige-this-stop-in-our-day girls, to do something we firmly decided we'd never do. I can't write about it; I will someday, but for now I can't. It's not scary or bad or really that controversial; I just can't write about it because it involves the part of our adoption that's private right now.

The problem is that I can't not write about it. Five years ago we researched, prayed, wavered, then decided a path for our family, and now we're being forced to go a different way. It was nearly a deal-breaker for us on the adoption, as simple as it may seem to some people. It's the forced part of it, I think, that makes it so unsettling.

I have a mantra of "They'll be OK, they'll be OK" running through my head. I won't sleep tonight; last night I had nightmares about it. And really, it's probably no big deal. But it is a big deal, because as a parent you make decisions -- you choose which schools to attend, which shoes to buy. Which food to feed and which dog to own. You pick babysitters and sidewalk chalk and TV shows. And no decisions are ever very simple. The hard ones are really hard. They change lives, for the ones you love the most. So when you make a decision based on research and consideration and pure gut instinct, and then someone comes along and tells you that no, you can't have that choice anymore, you feel like turning your back and saying "forget it then. I'm going back to my life before I knew you."

Oh, but that's not an option, is it? I mean, I suppose it is, but that baby is already in someone's womb, and you've already started loving him or her.

I never thought this would be easy. But I didn't think that adopting a baby would challenge my core values as a parent. Rather, I truly believed this process would enhance them, strengthen them, grow them into a better, more productive set.

I don't think I'll be entirely sure that we're going through with this until it's done. There is a chance I'll pick the girls up at the last minute and excuse us, and then our adoption will be over. I hate to sound so ridiculous, but I feel like stomping my feet and saying, "It's not fair." It's not fair to the girls. It's not fair to be so regular about it, so whatever, after I've spent five years knowing and re-knowing that it's right for us.

Ah, when I write about it (if I have the time and brainpower once the little one is here) you'll laugh and say "Really? Because it sounded much more important than that." So I'm sorry if in the end I sound whiney and silly. But tonight, just before I have to do this, this thing that is apparently the one thing wrong with my parenting skills, the one thing they have to fix before they'll allow me to adopt an orphan, I am feeling whiney indeed.