Turns out, there is a tremendous lot of waiting in this adoption business, even if you are waiting for an older child, a sibling group, any race. Waiting and waiting and waiting.
Besides meeting the child or children themselves, many other things are held up, so that the flow of one’s life can be like the water behind the beaver dam.
For example, we realized a while back that we had forgotten to update our will after the birth of our daughter almost nine years ago. We don’t think this would cause serious problems in the event of our untimely demise, but still. One wants to have all of one’s children named as heirs.
It’s already been almost nine years that this has needed doing. Do we go ahead and update the will now, when we may need to add one or two more chilldren any time now?
Our cars are both getting old, and we need to replace them. Now that the kids no longer require hoisting in and out of bulky car seats, I could get a smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicle. But if we have three or four kids, we’ll still need a minivan. Guess we’ll hold on to the van a while longer, until we find out how our lives go.
It’s been too long since we had our family picture taken, or even a portrait of the kids together. I suppose a portrait of how our family looked just before the big change would be good, but I can’t seem to schedule the sitting. It feels like an acknowledgement that we’ve given up on ever getting a placement. It’s only been six months since we got the thumbs up to adopt. Our looks won’t change too much if we wait six months more.
If you clear space in your garden and then don’t plant, nature will cause something to take root there anyway. All those drawers we emptied, the beds we set up, the room we made in our hearts, the time set aside, the mental space cleared — noxious weeds are starting to sprout in those open spaces. Doubts and worries flourish on the ground where children were supposed to grow. And like the black locust seeds now popping up everywhere we look in our back yard, those weeds seem to grow tall and leggy over night.
In the first few months after our family was approved, we were able to fill time with work. Looking through photolistings, checking leads, researching medical and mental health conditions, taking parenting classes. We exhausted ourselves, without moving things forward much. Sysephian indeed, this undertaking. To mix a metaphor even further.
It could still happen any day. The water could flow free, the seed could sprout and grow, the rock could find a resting place at the top of the hill. Maybe it will.