Giving Up

Sometimes I fantasize about giving up.

I dream about just saying enough is enough, I am done. I will live the rest of my life childless and never have to feel this pain anymore.

All of this rejection hurts.

19 months of expectant parents looking at our profile and not chosing us.

Now I know logically that it isn’t about them not choosing us, but choosing a couple that they connected with.

But, it’s still a lot of rejection and a lot of pain.

Sometimes it just feels nice to daydream about giving up.

I imagine taking the adoption money sitting in our savings account (we have to have money ready to use at a moment’s notice) and using it to pay off the adoption loan that is so hard to make payments on every month. Then selling everything in our nursery, and taking a nice vacation with the money.

I would never again jump when the phone rings.

Never have my heart race when I check the caller ID and see that it’s the agency calling.

Never again agonize over the decision of whether to be profiled or not.

Never receive another phone call about not being chosen by an expectant parent.

Never have to go months without hearing from the agency and being sad the whole time wondering why they weren’t calling us with profiling opportunities.

Never again have to worry about how we are going to come up with the money to renew our homestudy or pay some other agency fee that comes up that we never thought we would have to pay because we never thought we would be waiting this long.

Then I remember that I would never be happy living my life childless. I have known I wanted to have children since I was a child myself. I made a list of baby names when I was only 11 or 12. When I was younger than that, I loved to play house. My friends would have one or two dolls while we played and I would have about 10 and would name them all and pretend they were my children. As a teenager, I spent every weekend baby-sitting and I volunteered in elementary schools during the week. In college, I worked at a daycare during summers, I was part of the big sister program at school, I did student teaching, and an internship in a school psychologist's office. I majored in elementary education and child psychology. I have spent my entire life working with children. I have always, always wanted to have children of my own. I know in my heart that I would be a good mom.

So, I wait.

I continue with this process that breaks my heart everyday.