The Great Balancing Act of '08

What? You haven't heard of it? Ohhhh - well then let me fill you in. It's what happens when you have been waiting for your child since 2005 and finally, three years later, someone actually decides in the great unknown and mysterious world of international adoption, that you might actually be fit to parent. And they don't just leave it there. They go right on and match you with a baby. (gasp!) Then they send you a picture, and a medical report, and a referral acceptance letter. And for about a week - you literally walk, talk, and feel like someone has put you on "C@ndid Camera". You can't quite put your head around it. You smile every time you look at the picture. You find yourself saying "have you met my son?" to practical strangers while you whip said picture out of your purse. You feel elation and a strange tingling sensation in your heart when you talk about him. And you just pinch yourself every couple hours to make sure you're really experiencing the actual referral stage of the process.

But wait...here's where the balancing act comes in:

I'm still waiting. I have no new info. I have a (one, uno, singular) picture of a beautiful, stunning baby boy. I have reports about this baby that give me the smallest fraction of information about him and his start in life. I have 12 outfits, a lampshade, a package of wipes, and two packages of diapers. Oh, and two little pairs of shoes for summer.

And we wait. And wait we shall until the end of the month when we get another update from the agency about him. And after that, it's more waiting until his court date is here and gone and we are free to go and get him.

In the back of my mind where the reality of the wait for Keira has grown exponentially from where we started, I can't help but fall back on my old patterns of expecting the worst. Somehow, with all the disappointment wrapped up in the timing of Keira's adoption, I have grown weary and can't quite get myself to do more than just balance on the life-line of his picture.

For instance, this morning I was getting ready for my day and looking in the mirror in our master bath. I have his picture taped up on the mirror and rather than my usual "hi, son!" I just stared at his eyes and his face and his fingers. He's familiar to me. Something about him...sweet and familiar. Before walking away, I reached up and put my hand on his picture and just sighed. Finally I said "hi...my son"...

Balancing.

Balancing my hopes against my heart. My luck against my fortune. My future against my past. Balancing my need to hold him and touch him and love him in the flesh against my desire to hang on to what little portion of my life as I've known it is left. Selfish. Balancing my deep rooted desire to be a mother and the fear inside that I will fail my children somehow. Balancing my great love for these amazing children born in my heart, and still grieving in some very small way for the loss of the biological experience.

Trying to make lists upon lists of what must be done for his arrival, all the while laughing to myself because how can you really prepare? Fully? The other day I said to Anton "parenting is like riding a bike - you can't tell someone else how to do it...you just have let them get on the bike, start peddling and figure it out for themselves." I actually got a chuckle from him out of that one. Unfortunately, the parenting bike doesn't come with training wheels. Shucks!

I'm also balancing the prospect of working full time from home when we get back. Throw in the fact that a year from now we'll be celebrating a second adoption homecoming and have two kids under around a year old and I start to get a crick in my neck just thinking about it. This calls for some high levels of organization, structure, and a driven attitude. Do I have that? Hmmm...

Don't misunderstand me - this is not a rant, or a pity party, or a sob story. This is a success story. We have a son and a daughter on the way! Life is sweet and I'm nesting like nobody's business over here in Texas.

But I'm also in a balancing act. As excited as I am - this process has taught me a tough lesson about getting too happy, too ready, too excited, too prepared, too anxious, too hopeful. So I feel myself constantly scaling back my enthusiasm just a touch. Balancing on the wire of what could be and what is. Holding on to my hope, but releasing it just the same. Extending my heart into that little solitary picture every morning and throughout my day - calling my son by name, and yet...keeping him just a little bit in the open part of my palm in case he flies away suddenly.

I know that when he is here - and he will be - this balancing act will become a new one of sleeping, feeding and diaper changing schedules. Of playing and laughing, crying, and consoling one another. Of peek-a-boo and patty cake, and firsts.

I'll be balancing my attempts to even remember writing posts like this and the way "we were" versus the tremendous changes that will have taken place in our home...with our sweet boy and our little daughter.

Balancing my time to try to work in another hour of sleep SOMEWHERE.

Balancing my checkbook to make ends meet.

Balancing my love for AB and my love for my kids.

Balancing my love for my animals and my newfound love of being Quint and Keira's mommy.

It's all about balance, really. And I'm somewhere in the middle of trying to process it all, balance it all, and remember that it's really happening - I'm just trying to keep reminding myself that in two months (roughly) my life will invariably change forever. The face of my marriage will change. They way I see AB will change. The way my home looks and my job gets done, and the order of my days will change. The way I see the world, and how I view things will change in the light of my children and how it will affect them. Even our dinnertime routine will change.

It's overwhelming to fathom how you balance that?

But don't worry. It's like childbirth - millions of women have done it before me and I know it can and will be done right to the pace and tune it was intended for our family.

But for today I hang tight to the line and watch myself - changing - balancing - in this world of adoption. Balancing myself...but ready at any minute to let go and just free fall to the safety net below...

Just let me hold him and smell his hair and curl my hand around his. I promise to fall to the net then...

I promise...