Emotional Rollercoaster

Don't worry. This isn't a "pity-me" post, but more of an explanation of how crazy this adoption thing can be.

It started with the arrival of a present from Lisa. A darling onsie with my daughter's name on it. I opened it at work and got all mushie because someone was thinking of me and look, there's my daughter's name in writing like she really exists and will one day be with me. This was a happy morning.

At lunch I stopped off home to check e-mail and cool off (it's almost 100 degrees out there!). I checked the Rumor Queen site. (Don't laugh. You know you do it too.) And her site had some bad news out of Australia. The wait may climb to 18 months or more. It wasn't all that shocking. That has us getting our referral in June '07 with travel to China in August '07. To beat that the CCAA would have to issue more than 2 weeks of LID's every month between then and now. At their current pace, that sounds ambitious.

Over the course of our adoption I've had to readjust my brain to the floating timeline. We'll have our daughter in September .... December .... Feb .... June and now August. I can readjust. August sounds fine. I wasnt upset or sad, but instead filled with this kind of resolve. Determination. I thought of all the things I wanted to do before Zoe, but hadn't yet. We'll no more excuses. I've got plenty of time. Life book, quilt, nursery, baby proofing, running, organizing, home imp., etc. No problem. August? OK.

Next day, our stroller arrives and I go shopping for my secret pal. I'm floating on a baby-cloud and the world is good.

Today, as I mail my package I ask the window clerk if our supervisor (who a couple years ago lost his first born at birth) would be trying again. She says, "Don't you know? His wife is due in November." Now, why this would be the trigger for a downward spiral, I'm not sure. I'll just add it to the other babies coming this fall.

August - a boy to my friend who wasn't sure if she wanted a third child, but went off birth control "just to see what happens".
September - a girl to Jeff's coworker
October - a girl to a coworker
November - a boy to a my supervisor and another boy to an old friend
December - a grandson to another co-worker

I'm going to spend the next 5 months being happy for other people's babies. And then when it's over, I'll still have another 8 or so months to wait for Zoe. It's so hard when I think about it that way and made worse when my co-worker says, "So many babies coming and only D's is a girl."

WHAT?? Mine's a girl!! I'm having a girl, too!! What about me?

And Jeff's so cool about the whole thing, which just cooks my goose even more. "Why get upset over things you can't control?" Hogwash.

So now i have an incredible amount of pent up emotion. Something inside me has to get out or I will explode. The beast can be soothed with either enormous amounts of ice cream or beaten into the ground by running until I hurt.

All day I planned on running. I'll go to the park. There are hills. It's hot. It will hurt in a way that feels kind of good. And hopefully the beast will have been beaten into submission and I won't have to yell at my husband for no good reason, or avoid people at work who want to talk about babies.

Oh crap, this is a "pity-me" post, afterall, isn't it?

I gotta go run....and then maybe pick up some icecream.