Expectations

This week my support group and some fellow bloggers have talked about expectations. Life is full of expectations; sometimes they turn out the way you want and sometimes they don't.
As a child I expected to do well in school and with much hard work I was able to do just that. I also expected to enjoy high school, but I didn't.

One of my favorite expectations is that I expected to meet a nice man who would take me to the temple. I hadn't expected he would be a cowboy and that we would be so young. But that is one of those things that I am glad it didn't go like I expected.

When I married, I naturally expected that someday we would be parents. I figured we would be married for a few years before that happened and of course I assumed it would happen the natural way with my becoming pregnant and 9 months later our child would enter the world. That is another expectation that I am glad is not going to turn out like I planned. From the moment we decided to adopt we knew that it was the right thing for our family.

In regards to our adoption, I don't feel like I expect too much. Basically I want a wonderful birthmother (& birthfather) to choose to place their baby with us. We will then wait 6 months after which we will go to court to have the adoption finalized and then we will go to the temple to be sealed as a family for eternity. Then we will wait a few years and start the process all over again so that we can have another baby.

Sounds simple enough. I'm sure it won't go that simple and we will probably have some struggles to overcome, like being chosen and then having the mother change her mind, or maybe we won't have a baby by the time Dallon gets off his mission. As the news has pointed out recently we could also have problems with the birthfather. A number of things can go wrong, but really until that happens there isn't much I can do to prepare for it, expect to know that everything is in the Lord's hands.

At the beginning of the process I wanted to choose that our first baby would be a boy. Since then we have broadened our expectations and not only did we select either sex, but we also decided to be more open about the ethnicity of our baby.

The problem I am having is with my expectations of how the "waiting" should be. While I tried to not to expect to be chosen after a small amount of time, I did expect that we would at least be looked at a few times in the first year. Every time I see our caseworkers number on my cell phone I try to not get excited. He's only ever called to remind us about paperwork, conferences, etc. And yet, each time my phone rings my heart stops and I think "This could be THE call!" I try to picture how it will be when that call comes. Will I be speechless? Will I let out a big yell of joy? If I'm at work, how will I tell Josh the news? Will I call him over the phone or will I run out the door without telling anyone where I am going and go track him down to tell him in person?

Another expectation that has not gone quite like I had planned is that I expected everyone to be just as excited as we are. This is actually a topic of discussion I have started a few times in my group. Our friends have been great in this regard. They are always asking how things are going. But unlike I had hoped for, we have some family that hardly ever (and even some of them never) ask how things are going.

In this way I am different from the norm. Most adoptive couples when they get all approved to adopt actually ask their families to not ask about it. For them it is hard to say that nothing has changed. They tell their families that when there is news to share they will let them know.

Not me. Maybe I am just being selfish, but I want our families to talk about and ask about it. Sure it's the same news it was almost a year ago, but I still want to know that we are in their thoughts and prayers and the only way I can know is to have them ask.

Some of the things that were mentioned in my group have made me stop and think. Some great points have been brought up. Adoption really is completely out of our hands. We are at the mercy of others. Maybe it is hard for some to hope for things that they can't see. It's not like a pregnancy where you just expect to meet the newest member of your family hours after they had entered this work after waiting only 9 months.

Maybe they are scared to see us get hurt and don't want to give us false hope. Maybe they don't know what to say so they say nothing at all. I am trying to realize that doesn't mean they don't support us, it just means that they really don't know what to say.

Maybe it has to do with how I reacted to the last pregnancy in the family. During that time I really was an awful person and nobody wanted to be around me. I don't blame them. I don't know how even Josh managed to live with me. But I have worked on my issues and I have realized that it was me who had the problem and I have moved beyond that. I can't wait until my sister in-law is pregnant again so that I can enjoy it with her the next time.

I am trying to let go of these expectations. Some of them probably really aren't worth the stress I am letting them cause in my life. So this is my New Year's Resolution. I am going to assume that everyone is just excited about our decision to adopt as we are. If they want to tell me otherwise then I can let it roll of my back. After all, when my baby does arrive I don't have to let them hold it. I am also going to let everyone off of the hook; if you don't want to ask how our adoption is going, that's fine. If we have anything important to announce, we will let you know.