Rounding the Bend

So. I’m pregnant.

I’m pregnant.

I’ve said those words dozens of times at this point, and at times they still seem foreign, like I’m referring to myself as the wrong name. At times, it is still hard to believe this is my reality now. For a long time, it was something I was terrified to embrace, like the moment I held the I’m pregnant reality in my hands, it would certainly get taken away. I held it arm’s length, desperately wanting to hold it, feel it, believe it, but somehow keeping my emotional distance helped give me some sense of control. It’s not rational, but it’s real.

 On the outside, it might look silly to still be “assuming” something will go wrong. By this time, the vast majority pregnancies do just fine. Being that I have taught sixth grade math and consequently am an expert on probability, I do know that a 97% chance of things turning out fine is good. As a friend of mine said: “Would you go to Vegas on those odds?” And while spending time in Vegas to me sounds about as fun as drinking the “juice” from my gestational diabetes test, I most certainly would go to Vegas on those odds.

And yet, still, I have found myself taking a couple steps toward this potential reality and then one away, wanting to embrace it as real and then inching away. I remind myself of one of the dogs we’ve fostered who desperately wants human contact but is also afraid of it. Being both drawn to and afraid of something is a complicated set of emotions. Two steps forward and one back is still a net positive, though, and I do sense that progress is being made. Slowly, bit by bit, I’ve felt myself inching closer to this possibility, this chance that this could be real and not a terrible trick.

One big fear for me was the 20 week ultrasound. The big one. The scan where you go to a maternal fetal medicine specialist and they use a machine that was probably made from parts of the space station and cost more than my entire net worth including sellable organs, and they tell you if your baby is growing properly. We had had every genetic test you can safely do, but this was the next big hurdle. I hoped it would be the next thing to loosen my emotional corset, so to speak.

We arrived at the appointment about a half hour early, which is the earliest I have ever arrived at anything my whole life, save my own wedding. My legs bounced like an oversugared toddler as I filled out the forms and waited for my name with equal parts anticipation and fear.  I still struggled to accept the idea that we could have a pregnancy free of complications. I still steeled myself for the answer not to Is anything wrong? but  What is wrong?  As they called my name, I walked back to the ultrasound room with my heart attempting to crawl out of my throat.

As the images popped up on the screen, I was immediately shocked at their detail. I searched immediately for the familiar flicker of a heartbeat and instead of the typical blip blip blip blip blip on the screen, the ultrasound tech pointed out the actual chambers of the heart and valves opening and closing. Instead of seeing just an arm going back and forth, I saw fingers making a fist. I saw a face and toes and brain and kidneys and could count the vertebras of the spine.  

This – the growth of a baby inside of a woman, cells becoming tissues, tissues becoming organs – has happened billions and billions of times over the course of history. It is commonplace. And it is also one hell of a miracle.

The maternal fetal medicine specialist - who looked surprisingly like a 32-year-old ski bum despite his job requiring about 35 years of schooling - came in after the ultrasound was complete, and I did my best to not jump off the table and demand all the answers immediately.  He wisely began with a blanket, “Everything with the baby looks good,” and shared some more specific information on the baby’s development. He then asked, “Did you have genetic testing done?” My heart simultaneously stopped and sped up to 309 beats per minute. “Yes. They were clear. Why? Why do you ask? Is something wrong? Is everything okay?” He smiled, clearly accustomed to anxious moms verbally assaulting him with questions. “No, everything looks good. I was just asking because of your age.” Ah, the joys of pregnancy in the 35+ category. “Oh, you mean because I’m so young,” I responded. “Right. Yes,” he said with a wink. Don’t wink at me, Doogie Howser who looks like he should be smoking weed behind the lift shack.

Later, he did share one potential complication. Because of the uterine surgery I had (which possibly was making this pregnancy possible in the first place), there was an increased risk of complications with delivery. I quickly asked if there was any risk to the baby; the answer was no, just a slight risk to me.  When I heard that, I exhaled in relief and felt almost dismissive of additional information. It’s interesting, this shift that is already beginning, when self-importance begins to fade and your attention shifts to your kid.  It’s like I can already feel my priorities changing.

Doogie explained that, because the placenta was located near the surgery scar, there was a chance that it could get stuck on the scar. That’s the exact word he used: stuck. He explained that the possible outcomes for this were wide, ranging from no complications to “something might go wrong, so we will just monitor you during delivery,” to a possible additional surgery. I would get an additional ultrasound at 32 weeks to see if the placenta was attached to the scar tissue, and we would make a plan from there.  When I asked more probing questions, his responses were remarkably indecisive and casual. “That’s the thing about medicine… We give you a range of possibilities but we really can’t be too specific, because we don’t know. I’ve been in delivery rooms where I thought we would definitely be surgically removing the placenta, but then I give a little tug, and then pop! Out it comes,” which is about the same level of precision I use when my Fritos get stuck in the vending machine.

So, I continue to emotionally inch towards this possibility that we are actually making progress towards parenthood. At the latest appointment, my doctor told me that I am “at viability” which means that I am to the point where, if something goes wrong, there is a chance the baby could survive thanks to the miracles that occur in a NICU. This caught me off guard. Whoa. That means this being inside of me is almost capable of survival.  That if something starts to go “wrong”, we have moved from the land of I’m So Sorry, There’s Nothing We Can Do to There Might Be Some Very Expensive And Very Intensive Things We Can Do.   The abstract puzzle pieces that had been forming in my subconscious were slowly beginning to form a picture without my conscious effort.

Lately, I have found myself reflecting on Fear and Anxiety, as well as their cousins Doubt and Uncertainty. I’ve long since struggled with anxiety and have learned that fighting it merely fuels the fire and have had much more success simply noticing it, reflecting on its purpose and root, and then gently setting it aside as I move throughout my day.  Pregnancy and impending parenthood have brought with them a new glossy catalogue of things upon which I can dwell and perseverate.  The terrifying realization that we will soon be responsible for keeping a human being alive can stop me in my tracks. I have heard that parenthood is to forever have your heart walking around outside your body, vulnerable to the risks and hazards that are an inherent part of existence, because living is dangerous.  

So, why do we do it? Why, do we as adults with full agency and control over our decisions, make conscious efforts to plan to procreate? Why subject ourselves to the pain and fear and worry and devastation that can occur when you love another human with such ferocious intensity? Certainly there is biological wiring at play that ensures our species will continue to exist and evolve.  And also, for me – it is to see how my life can expand. I know that with every person or animal or activity or thing or experience I open myself up to loving or enjoying, my life expands and grows along the positive end of that spectrum. I will experience new joys and celebrate new successes. And yet, I also know that for every step I inch forward on the positive end, there is potential for equal amounts of pain and anguish on the other. I cannot open myself up to love without also opening myself up to pain. And yet – isn’t this being alive? It’s certainly how I want to live. I want to continue to expand my life so that I take advantage of all available experiential real estate, overflowing onto the margins and coloring on every possible square inch of the page.

For this next adventure, I think I might need another notebook.

And so – onward we go. With every week that passes, this little being inside me grows and develops more, as evidenced by my growing abdomen and the squirms and wriggles I feel daily.  The apps on my phone tell me each week what fruit our baby most closely resembles (which at first was cool and now I find entirely weird). The reality that we will soon be parents approaches slowly but steadily in the rearview mirror, the images growing in detail and complexity. It is a bizarre feeling, really, to feel so thankful and also so terrified at the same time. We naively check off our to-do list (as if painting the trim in the baby’s room renders you to better equipped to sustain human life) while also knowing we will never be prepared. And as my belly expands, our excitement and trepidation also grow in what feels like an equal proportion to one another. In some regards, we feel so anxious to be parents and in others so ill-equipped to be solely responsible for the care of another human being. And, yet, despite our anxieties and questions, this reality continues to approach.

And so – then I pray. I pray not so that my fears to be taken away but as a way of acknowledging their existence, root, and purpose. For me, holding on to Fear and anxiety is like trying to wrestle a helium balloon under my jacket, trying hard to cling to something that was never meant to stay a part of me. Prayer allows me to open up my jacket and examine Fear, gaze at it and see it for what it is. Sometimes prayer results in me letting out a little bit of string so Fear doesn’t completely block my field of vision. Sometimes, with me barely noticing, several feet of string slip through my fingers, with Fear floating so far above me it rarely enters my gaze. Sometimes I pray and start to feel myself loosening my grip on Fear but then become so afraid of letting go of Fear that before I even register what is happening I am back to shoving it in close to me and struggling to zip up my jacket over it. And sometimes – far less often than I care to admit – I watch as my hand opens almost involuntarily and the string is whisked from my hand. I stare upward, craning my neck to watch Fear slowly fade into the sky, smiling softly as I realize it was never mine to carry.

And also – I know that likely soon I will find another balloon in my jacket, and I will once again find myself attempting to wrangle it into submission. I will forget to pray, or I will avoid praying, or I will tell myself I don’t need to pray, and I will attempt to live my life as if I have everything under control, all the while shoving balloons in my sleeves. And then, I will hear that still, small voice: You don’t need to carry all that. Please, let Me help. And slowly, warily, I might let some string through my fingers.

I will do this when I suddenly think, I haven’t felt movement in two in a half minutes. Something is certainly wrong. I will do this when I find myself suddenly wide-eyed at two a.m., worrying about whether my milk will come in. I will do this when I get close to my due date and think poetically, Oh wow, shit’s about to get real. I will do this when I find myself on the way to the hospital, passing all the cars of people living their life as if our whole world isn’t about to change. I will do this when I stare at a child that is half me and half the man I love most in this world and consider the enormous responsibility that lays before us. I will do this when I feel inadequate and useless and have no idea what to do next.

I’ll do this because I know it’s best.  I’ll do this because I know I was not created to carry fear. But mostly, I’ll do this because babies can be a lot to hold, and I just don’t have enough arms for all those damn balloons.

Moving Along the Track

So, a new train. A new path forward.

 After several rounds of feeling pressure to work on adoption stuff, then procrastinating, then feeling guilty, then doing something to avoid adoption stuff, then feeling relieved for a minute, then feeling guilty again, I finally got some positive momentum going. We made progress on our adoption profile and I started to feel confident about moving forward with the adoption process.  It felt right, really. I felt like we had found our train. We were ready to move forward. We had done a lot of work to grieve the potential loss of us having a biological child. There was sadness there, but it felt more distant, like clouds on the horizon. We stepped aboard the adoption train with clear eyes, steady feet, and hopeful hearts. I began to envision our path forward as different and beautiful and uniquely ours.

While a large part of our journey was spent sitting on the train platform unsure of which direction to take, there were a couple instances of feeling like we had climbed aboard a train only to be yanked back off. As we worked on our adoption profile, which felt like preparing a profile for a dating website, we found ourselves abruptly and unexpectedly yanked off the train once again. Our summoner?

Two pink lines. For the third time, two pink lines.

The Monday morning after a trip to Lake Powell with some friends, I began to sense that I might be… late. I assumed my schedule had been thrown off by the post-surgery meds I had been taking, but I still found myself rummaging through the bathroom cabinet, hunting for a leftover pregnancy test. I took it without telling Seth what I was doing, assuming my compulsion was driven by a desire to confirm that I was not pregnant and could stop the spinup of that thought in my mind. Yet as I watched the color move across the window, I noticed a “blip” where there was usually a blank space. No way, I thought. Not possible. I blinked a few times and waited for the test to “settle”. And then I blinked some more. It was faint, but the second line was absolutely, undeniably there. Shocked, with my heart taking temporary residence in my throat, I heard myself utter five poetic words:

“Are you (expletive) kidding me?” (Sorry, Grandma.)

I continued to stare in disbelief. The rest of the morning is a blur, but I remember calling Seth in and us sitting in stunned silence for several minutes. I remember blurting out frantically, “Crap! I haven’t been taking any prenatal vitamins!”, throwing open the cabinet door, popping a vitamin in my mouth, and sticking my face under the faucet to swallow it, as if I was racing against the embryo growing in my uterus. I remember going through the motions of getting ready and walking into work in a daze. I remember feeling several emotions at once and the most prominent one not being what you’d expect one to feel upon finding out she was pregnant while battling infertility.

I was mad.

I found myself in a subconscious inner dialogue, unsure if I was talking to myself, God, or a panel of therapists I conjured in my mind. This is not cool, I said to God. I worked really hard to move past our miscarriages and get to a place where I was ready to adopt. Now I’m pregnant again, and I KNOW it is going to end in miscarriage like the others. No fair.  To my team of therapists: Help me understand a more effective way of coping. To myself, a Grade-A Guilt Trip: Why can’t you be more hopeful and positive? Why do you go to worst-case scenario? Why do you have to be so negative?

I had a hard time shaking this anger. I had little faith this pregnancy would turn out any different than the others. I found it hard to believe my doctor when he said there was “a chance” the surgery I had in February would help us avoid miscarriage. I imagined that three weeks later, I’d be sitting in an ultrasound room staring at a still and silent ultrasound screen. I was certain I’d endure the physical and emotional pain of another miscarriage. It felt like a cruel trick, a distraction from our goal. It had taken a lot of time, thought, prayer, and therapy to get to a point where I felt ready to fully embrace adoption. I had reframed and rewritten how I imagined our family would be built. I had mourned not being able to be pregnant, give birth, or breastfeed. I had wrestled with the thought of not sharing any DNA with my child. I had changed my mental slideshow of the moment I’d birth our baby to the moment Seth and I signed adoption papers so our baby was ours forever. I had worked really freaking hard to do these things. And it felt like someone was messing with us. Just has we had started to settle in and get comfy on the train and pulled out our little travel pillows, a cow had wandered in front of the track and we were forced to get off, again.

I was absolutely certain that first ultrasound would end like the others. I knew it. I walked through the next few weeks in a daze and waited for the appointment where my assumption would be confirmed. I felt like I had to put my emotions on ice – don’t let your feelings thaw, or you’re sure to be hurt.

Around 7 weeks, which is the typical time for a “viability ultrasound” when you get pregnant after struggling with infertility, I found myself in the same exam room where we found out about our first miscarriage. The ultrasound began and I heard the typical mutterings of measurements and medical jargon as they searched for the heartbeat. As the search continued, my heart slowly sank.  I heard my doctor say, “It could be too early, or it could be that this pregnancy will not continue.” I knew it, I thought. I knew it would end like this. As I began to mentally steel myself for the all-too-familiar road ahead, I heard the medical resident say, “There it is.” I startled. “What?” I asked. “The heartbeat. There it is.” I looked but couldn’t see the flutter they were referring to, and remained unconvinced. They zoomed in to measure the heart rate.  There was a detectable heartbeat before our last miscarriage as well, but it was about 60 beats per minute – half of what it should be.  My own heart rate picked up as I waited to hear the number that would tell me the fate of this pregnancy. “The heartbeat is…click click click… One twenty-seven.”

One hundred twenty-seven beats per minute.

That is a viable heartbeat.

The rest of the appointment was a blur. I remember my doctor saying, “You did it! I’m proud of you.” I remember more numbers and me asking questions. But the memory that stands out in stark relief is when they handed me the ultrasound picture, complete with a paper frame with the inscription Our family is growing. I held it, and once again, I found myself crying in the same room I had cried in months ago. I held the picture, shaking and struggling to catch my breath between big heaving sobs. “They put it in a frame,” I choked. “The other times, they threw the picture away. But this time, they put it in a frame.”

The drive home felt surreal and otherworldy. I started to process that we could potentially be experiencing a new reality. This was farther than we’d ever made it before. We were breaking trail in unchartered territory.  It was exciting, and it was scary. I struggled to accept that it could actually be real. As the days went by, I told Seth, “I can’t help but feel that someone is playing a dirty trick on us.” A week went by and we had the follow-up ultrasound our doctor recommended. I went into that appointment once again convinced that it was over and there would be no heartbeat. But there it was, blink blink blink, a little faster than before. The embryo looked to have doubled in size. And while I exhaled a bit, the relief didn’t extend much past the surface. It felt like my emotions were bound in a corset, and every positive appointment undid one lace at a time.

We were traveling back east to visit family, so while it was early, we shared the news with our Georgia and Michigan people, one announcement at a time. We wrapped baby onesies as presents and Grandma Foster got a “Fourth Time’s the Charm” grandma t-shirt.  We snuck ultrasound pics in family slideshows and had friends’ kids show them to their parents and say, “Mom, what’s this?” We cried, cheered, laughed, hugged, and high-fived with many of the people we love most in the world.  We dreamed and joked and sat in wistful silence. It was a beautiful, sacred time.

And right next to that beauty sat uncertainty. At times, I felt like I was watching the celebrations from the outside.  Seth would ask, “But you’re happy, right?” Yes, absolutely – happy. Excited. Grateful. Elated. And also, terrified to fully embrace this as a reality. Still certain that at any moment I would feel cramping or bleed and it would all be over.  It felt like everyone I loved was having a pool party, and I was gripping the ladder, afraid to truly join the celebration.

And also – I hesitate to type this for fear of being misunderstood – I felt like I was “reverse mourning” again.  This time, I was mourning having a child through adoption. As I type the words, they seem a little odd and foreign. But they are true, and they are real. I – we – worked hard to paint a picture in our minds of what a beautiful adoption story could be. I had mourned and grieved the prospect of never having a biological child and opened my mind and heart to embrace the amazing parts of adoption. I acknowledged that there were parts of pregnancy and postpartum that really scared me, and I had felt a little relief knowing I could experience being a mom but avoid some of those things. I had taken the “The Moment I Birthed Our Child” DVD out of my emotional DVD player and had inserted the “The Moment We Sign The Adoption Papers” DVD instead. I had learned to love and cherish these dreams, and the abrupt about-face left me tripping and struggling to find my balance.

When we arrived back home, we continued sharing our news with our community in Utah.  As we widened the circle, my heart grew with it. I sat with my other pregnant friends and we chatted about our kids playing together. We swapped “foods I can’t stand” stories and those with kids shared advice and guidance.  I shared my difficulties in believing this could be real.  Many shared they had the same struggles.  One wise friend said to me, “You know – it’s totally normal and understandable that you would be feeling this way. And also… when you began dating Seth, you didn’t enter that relationship assuming it would end soon. You enjoyed each moment for what it was, and eventually it grew into what it is now. I wonder if there is any joy that could be found in looking at your pregnancy in a similar way.” I let the words settle for a bit; part of me wanted to push them away and retreat into my fears, but deep down, I knew she was right.  Caution was understandable, but I couldn’t let my fears and anxieties stay in the driver’s seat forever.  At some point, I was going to need to take the wheel.

At nearly 11 weeks, we arrived at the OB office we had selected.  It was another surreal moment – in the infertility community, there is a feeling of “graduating” when your reproductive endocrinologist (fertility doc) passes you off to an OB. It means you have overcome several hurdles are ready for Next Level Baby Growing. And again, intermixed with the excitement was fear. I sat in the office waiting for the doctor to arrive with tears slowly streaming down my face.  At first I didn’t even realize I was crying, but I couldn’t stop the tears. They trickled out like a broken faucet that just wouldn’t tighten.  Seth would ask what was wrong, and all I could do was shrug: “I guess I’m just really scared.”

Our doctor arrived, and seeing my emotional state, she hurried through the preliminary questions so we could get to the ultrasound. As the images appeared on the screen, I was shocked to see the changes in a few short weeks. I could see the outline of a head and a body. Our doctor quickly found and measured a viable heartbeat. And then, I heard Seth say: “Is that an arm?” And there it was, an unmistakable arm moving back and forth across the screen. “It’s waving!” I exclaimed. Now, in many ways I’m a very logic-oriented person. I like data and science and I can’t stand cheesy, scientifically inaccurate quotes like Shoot for the moon; even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars. And the logical parts of my brain knew that our child wasn’t actually saying hello to us. I mean, I KNOW that. But my limbic system was driving the bus at this point, and I smiled as I thought, My baby’s waving. My baby’s waving. My baby’s waving.

My baby.

There was a noticeable, discernable shift inside me at that moment, like I had been trying to pick a lock for weeks and finally heard a click. My baby. That was the first time I had dared use personal verbiage; prior to that, I mostly spoke abstractly or used scientific terms.  For the first time, I felt a connection, and I began to warm up to the idea that this might be real, like I was opening the front door just wide enough to peer through the crack to see who was there. Seth and I walked out of that appointment with our arms around each other, a bounce in our step. It was the first time I had ever left a doctor’s appointment feeling true joy.

And from there – the weeks have progressed. Aside from one more terrifying appointment where it took several minutes to find the heartbeat, checkups have been relatively uneventful. My belly has grown and I have a new wardrobe of hand-me-down maternity clothes. We have had every genetic test that can be safely done, and thus far everything has checked out clear. As I type this, the four baby apps I have on my phone say 19 weeks, 1 day. There are still fears, worries, anxieties.  Currently, we wait with equal parts anticipation and anxiousness for “The Big One” – our twenty week ultrasound.  At times, the thought “What if this is all some dirty trick and it ends tomorrow?” creep back into my head. The thoughts come, and then they go, and then some time later they come back again. And that’s okay, because I’m slowly opening the door wide enough to let some light in; some Hope that maybe, just maybe, this train will take us to our baby.

So, it is with excitement, nervousness, hope, and great joy that we announce:

Baby Foster, due to arrive February 14, 2019. Our Valentine.

Climbing Aboard

So, the train station. The platform.

I hate them, and yet they have become a source of weird comfort. They are familiar; even though the snack selection sucks and the bathrooms are gross, there is comfort in familiarity. You know what you’re getting and what to expect. You know which hot dog stand will let you take all the ketchup packets you want and which bathrooms to avoid. It’s not fun, but it’s predictable.  Hopping on a train, though the whole point, can be hard.

After the surgery, we examined the map again, so to speak, and considered our next move.  Move towards adoption, or try again at giving it a shot at growing one?  Deciding felt like a loss either way. It was like we were toddlers who wouldn’t decide which shoes to wear and cried whenever we put a pair on because we wanted to wear the other ones, but then the grown up side of us wanted to JUST PICK A PAIR SO WE CAN LEAVE THE DAMN HOUSE ALREADY.

As we sat the two options in front of us, we noticed that there was something about adoption that continued to draw us in. It felt a little brighter; there was a sort of shine to it that gave us hope. While we knew there were difficulties and potential heartbreak with that path, it was new. Unchartered territory. Like that boyfriend named Pierre who still can’t decide if he wants to commit to a relationship or spend the next year working on an organic soybean farm, we remained unconvinced that biological kids would work “for real” this time.

As we continued to stare at Thing 1 and Thing 2, I noticed a pattern: every time I would lean towards adoption, an anxiety would well up inside of me – What happens if we adopt a child and the second it’s in our arms I spontaneously conceive?  I continued to perseverate on this like my dog stares at shiny things until my inner parent interjected with that condescendingly patient tone, Well, Bethany, 1+1=2, so that would mean that you would have two kids instead of one.  Oh. Right. If I DO get pregnant, then… I have an additional child. Right. And the human race has continued to evolve, so while challenging, it IS humanly possible to raise two children close in age. And then another fear crept in – What if we decide in a couple years we want to try fertility treatments again? Well, as it turns out, it is not a requirement of adoption that I hand over my uterus and say Here you go, I hear I must trade this for a baby?  And also –if we DID get pregnant naturally (which is unlikely but certainly not impossible), the likelihood of having two kids (which we would like) biologically IS very slim. So, we finally came to terms that some of my biggest holycrapholycrapholycrap worries could actually be incredible blessings (as well as a multi-year sentence of about fourteen minutes of sleep a night.)

So, onward. We filled out over thirty pages of paperwork that detailed some of the most intimate details of our lives, had multiple interviews, and allowed a (very kind) stranger into our house to look in our closets and ensure they did not house a meth lab or exotic animals. We did several background checks and I was waiting for someone to tell me how to prepare for the cavity check when our caseworker looked at us and said, “Well, that’s it.”

“What next?” I asked, expecting her to pull out the Bill of Rights and asking us to translate it into Latin.

“That’s it. I’ll polish up your home study, and then you’re ready go.”

By ready to go, you mean…

“Ready to advertise yourselves. There are several different options out there. You can just advertise on social media, or there are websites that expectant parents look at that have varying prices…”

Wait. We’re done?

I had become accustomed to assuming that there was always going to be one more thing to do. One more test to run. One more pill to try. One more piece of paperwork to fill out. One more background check to get. One more class to attend. Every time we had started to get our hopes up that we were nearing the end, or at least nearing a mile marker, we’d find out there was further to go. It was like running a marathon where the finish line kept getting moved farther and farther away. Eventually, you start to assume that you will never be done, even when you see the finish line on the horizon.

As we wrapped up that conversation with our caseworker, she reminded us of how there were no promises with timing. We could be matched with a baby in two years or in three months or never or tomorrow. She recommended that we get a few essential items ready – carseat, onesies, diapers, portable toddler urinals – in preparation.  The thought of gathering tangible items for a baby seemed odd and foreign, like buying windshield wipers for a car we didn’t own. She gave us some more advice about making an online adoption profile and reminded us to call her whenever we had any questions. We thanked her for her time and walked her to the door.

We stood inside our doorway, silent. Seth hugged me, and I cried. And cried. And then cried some more. I cried out of relief. I cried because answering pages and pages of questions that ask about everything from childhood trauma to our biggest fights to how infertility has affected us takes a lot out of you. I cried because it was hard to believe we were done. But mostly, I cried because of a feeling I hadn’t felt in awhile when thinking about parenthood – hope. I felt Hope.  I felt ready to get on another train. I felt excited about the future. Letting Hope in when you’ve shoved it in the closet and shut the door as fast as possible to keep it from sneaking out feels strange at first.  It’s like, “Hmm, what’s that smell? Did someone leave the oven on? Who lit that lovely scented candle? Is Joanna Gaines here?” Opening that door and letting Hope waft through the house takes some adjustment, but I felt a lightness and joy I hadn’t felt in awhile.

After a round of spousal hugging and crying, we decided to move on with our evening, and Seth went outside to do a couple things in the yard. My mind wandered to our storage shed that still had baby items a friend had given me when she cleaned out her kids’ things. “I know it’s premature,” she had said, “but I’d rather give this stuff to you than someone I don’t know. Put it in storage out of sight until you need it.” I had followed these directives and shoved them in the back corner of the shed; every time I went out there, I would avert my gaze from that corner and try to pretend they weren’t there.  And now, mere minutes after our caseworker had left, my feet carried me without my brain’s full consent outside and to the shed. I pulled the bags out and brought them inside, folding the clothes and sorting them by size. And, also - sobbing. I sobbed as I touched each item as if it already belonged to a baby.  I sobbed as I marveled at the insane tiny-ness of each item. And I kept sobbing. Months of grief and deferred hope that I had shoved in the freezer to keep moving on with life was rapidly defrosting.

And then, Seth walked back in, work gloves on and walking with the intention of a man in project mode.  He stopped in his tracks when he saw me and a mound of baby clothes on the couch. From his perspective: Ten minutes ago Wife was getting ready to go take a shower. Now Wife is crying over newborn baby onesies. He sighed a loving but concerned sigh with a half-smile, took off his work gloves, and sat next to me on the couch. He held me for a minute before he tentatively asked in the voice a man uses when he is treading in uncertain emotional territory – “Um… this is good, right?”

“Yes! Yes, it’s good. It’s very good. It’s just… I never wanted to look at these clothes, but now all of a sudden I want to. It’s the first time in while that… I’ve… had… hope.”

“I know. I know, babe.” He sat with me for a few more minutes, and when I had recollected myself, left me to continue my catharsis.

So, now, we have accomplished another step in the journey. We have the legal document we need to be eligible to begin the adoption process should the opportunity present itself.  The only thing we need to do next is to get the word out that we are ready to adopt. The quickest way to do this is through websites that allow you to make a profile that expectant parents seeking to place their child for adoption can look at. They are easy to use and simple to complete when compared to the mounds of adoption paperwork. But this time, there is a new thing that seems to get in the way of getting that done. Not time, or collecting the right documents, or figuring out how to navigate the system. It’s different than that, and writing it down makes me feel very vulnerable and small –

I’m scared. I’m really, really scared.

Waiting for awhile to have a kid is kind of like standing on a diving board at the edge of a pool that you’re really excited about jumping into, but when you have to stand on the edge for awhile, you also have a chance work yourself up about how cold the water’s going to be and wow this diving board is really high and what if you bellysmack and what happens if you realize you don’t know how to swim once you hit the water?  All the lovely friends and family watching say they’ll be there to help you stay afloat, and you believe them because they are indeed very lovely people, but what if you’re really cranky with them at times because you’re so tired and what if you feel like you’re asking for help too many times and will they be annoyed when you say it’s hard because you also wrote a whole damn blog about how hard waiting was?

This time, I don’t have thirty-seven pages of paperwork to blame. Just that I’m scared and have become really good at finding other things that MUST BE DONE IMMEDIATELY the last couple weeks to avoid the scaredy feelings. Because in swift succession after the fear comes another from the Hall of Mom Feelings – guilt. Guilt that I am feeling scared in the first place because I also want this so very badly.  Guilt that I put off doing a simple thing that could make our dreams come true. It’s a crappy cycle that often leads directly to chocolate.

I’m learning a lot, though. I’m remembering that I have felt the most scared before best and most life-changing things I have ever done. I’m reflecting on my adaptation of an Anais Nin quote: “Our lives expand in proportion to our courage,” and envisioning what that expanded life could look like. I’m learning that fear is not a chain I must completely untangle myself from before I move forward; that sometimes you shake off just enough anxiety to get some traction under your feet so you can take the next step. I’m realizing that fear and uncertainty will probably creep in a lot in this journey, and that it’s less about trying to shove them away and more about recognizing the fear for what it is, discerning what thoughts are helpful and what are not, and then gently nudging them aside so we can continue forward.

And so, a new train.  There is a lot that can go wrong on this line. There are spots where the track isn’t perfectly straight and the weather might get bad and at some point a cow will probably wander on the track and block us from making progress. But there are also a lot of beautiful things to see and some amazing potential destinations. We know that fear and guilt and sadness will probably hop on the train from time to time, but we’re determined to keep moving forward.

Onward.