I was on the train this morning, reading one of my favorite Enneagram books again. This mornings portion was, happily enough, the chapter devoted to my own ennea-type. And I was reminded, again, that one of my challenges, always, is to stay connected to my very own self, even while I'm running around happily redesigning websites and talking to clients and juggling two jobs and a marriage and some friends and and and.
And part of staying connected to myself is being here, with you. So here I am.
The era of insanity has, happily, ended, and we've settled into a much more reasonable life-routine that doesn't involve things like impromptu driving trips across the country.
In fact, the only traveling we're planning anytime soon is a trip to Boston for a friend's wedding. And since we'll be in Boston, and since the state we actually live in is considering (considering, mind you, don't hold her to this) recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other states, we're going to go up a little early, have a belated (*cough* 5 years later *cough*) honeymoon / vacation and actually make it legal. We've told everyone, but no one is invited. We're planning to buy flowers on the street, wear something pretty, and have someone take our picture.
I've been avoiding this space in part because I didn't know how to talk about our decision not to adopt. Not now, and probably not ever. Parenting -- the idea of parenting, planning to parent -- took up such a huge space for me, and it's no longer on the table.
What we said, when we made the decision not to go directly into the domestic pool when our home study was done, was that with Ms. P going back to school full-time and then going to seminary, we didn't have the time or the money right now. And while that was true, it wasn't the whole truth.
The truth is, we hit a fork in the road of our lives. On the one side was parenting and on the other was seminary and life coaching and the utter transformation of our lives and our selves. But it also wasn't as simple as a choice between them, because our parenting options had, as all of you well know, been reduced to adoption. And, more and more, we were uncomfortable with it.
In my wide and varied blog reading, I had -- and still have -- blogs from people at all angles of the adoption triad. I read what first moms have to say, what adult adoptees have to say, and what adoptive parents have to say. And we could not escape the truth that at the heart of adoption, always, is loss, no matter how wonderful and open and supportive the adoptive parents are, no matter how much contact there is. And we could not escape the truth that adoption is powered by the money paid by adoptive parents and that, in the vast majority of cases, the women choosing to relinquish their children could parent and could parent well if they had different kinds of support available to them. And in the end, we were not comfortable supporting a system that, in our view, is exploiting vulnerable women and children for the desires of the privileged few. No matter what it felt like.
I can't say there's not still grief around it, because there is. I can't say I don't get sad around babies and pregnancy announcements, because I do. But that chapter of our life, barring some incredibly unusual and unforeseen circumstance, is over. We are past the fork in the road.
Does it sound strange to say that I think you made the right choice even though we're still pursuing adoption? I'm sure there is grief (and should be!) but I'm glad you were able to make the decision that felt right to you, even if you do have to deal with that grief. Best wishes as you enter this new phase of your life. It sounds like you're headed for many good things.
Posted by: Thorn | September 25, 2009 at 12:57 PM
Oh, hugs. How difficult. It's been what you've steered by for so long.
But it sounds right to me, too.
xoxo
Posted by: dale | September 25, 2009 at 05:13 PM