Reaching
I reached out to touch a bat sting ray at Sea World(they are squishy with slimy wet-noodle skin, and are strangely cute in an alien sort of way)It has been an eventful November for our family, with eventful events happening in our personal lives, our family members, & also our close friends (see previous post.) We finished up our adoption classes: learned & re-learned about attachment, learned about the kinds of crisis that happen in foster children's lives, learned about the foster adopt process, and examined our own family histories. It was a full November.And now I find myself, in the span of one month, questioning- Can I really be a mother to one more child? Am I kidding myself? It has nothing to do with anything I learned in the class, rather- it's me. I didn't anticipate internal stress this fall. Does anyone ever get the warning Danger! Sharp Turn Ahead! for life things? Because I could've used a heads up that this Fall would be this hard.So- can I do this? It's not adoption that I question. It's having a third. I don't know. I just don't know if I can do it. And then I wonder- if I back off, slow down, will it mean my daughter is out there waiting for me, waiting for me to come around? And how can one start a process like adoption with such fanfare and then reconsider? For all I knew, I was sure, I really was! And with getting pregnant, it's not like once pregnant, I would have changed my mind. But with adoption, there is this window of option, of opting out just as I opted in. I am sort of hoping this is just one notch of experience in our journey to adoption. Sort of. Because I don't know if I really want to have another child anymore.I have wonderful boys. They are not extraordinarily hyper or aggressive or intense. Active? Yes, very active. Loud? Often. Bonking my head unexpectedly? Almost very day. I often find myself falling short. I have enough friends to know that parenting 2+ kids can be done, and it seemingly gets done well by them. But me? Not so sure.Am I over-reaching to think of having a third child?Do I need more strength or do I need to accept where I'm at?