Holiday Struggles

I’ve struggled with whether or not I should chronicle the most intimate parts of our adoption journey. After lots of thought and prayer, I’ve decided that I need to write about it. Not only is it for my own benefit, but also I feel that part of my purpose is to write so that others can relate. These painful two and a half years of struggling with infertility and beginning the adoption process has left me feeling alone and looking for someone who I could relate to. It’s human nature to want to connect with someone who is in a similar life situation. So—every once in a while I will be writing about some of my inward thoughts about adoption and infertility in hopes that it will be of help to those experiencing something similar and to shed some light for those who aren’t familiar with the processes or emotions of adoption and infertility.

Some holidays are tough for me now. I love spending time with our families and friends and their children, but there are moments where it is a constant reminder that I don’t have children. At the most random of times I will be swept up in uncontrollable emotion. Today we helped my mother in-law set up her Christmas decorations. Our two nieces and one nephew dug into the boxes of their Christmas ornaments that contained a variety of ornaments displaying photos of them from over the years—a kind of time line of their lives. Their parents stood by with the video camera documenting the special moment—the girls, still pajama clad, weighed down one low branch with seven ornaments and sang fragmented Christmas carols and our one wobbly nephew held a musical ornament up to his ear savoring the sound of Deck the Halls. It was a beautiful moment until my eyes began to well up with tears. For the past year it had been my hope to be pregnant by Christmas time so I could give gifts that would reveal our pregnancy--coffee cups with cheesy phrases about being grandparents, picture frames that donned sayings about how important aunts and uncles are, and more importantly coining my husband with the title of dad. I quickly stood and ran upstairs so my tears would not ruin the beautiful moment my nieces and nephew were giving their parents and grandma. We quickly packed our car, said our awkward and rushed goodbyes, and hit the road towards home.

The minute I shut the car door I let the tears fall down my cheeks and squeezed my eyes shut thinking that if I didn’t open my eyes, maybe I would just fall asleep and let the emotions die down. But it didn’t work. I cried from my mother in-law’s house in Grand Island until we reached the interstate near Alda--nearly eight miles of tears. My husband didn’t have to ask what was wrong; he just held my hand as he drove.

I wonder if these sudden outbursts of emotion will ever go away. My fear is that even after our child is placed with us I will start crying during those important moments--birthdays, holidays, etc—because the pain of infertility will catch up with me. How would I even explain that to my child?

It’s amazing how emotions can take such a strong hold on a person. I guess I will just continue to take life one day at a time, trusting that God has ordained a specific child for us to love and raise in His ways and pray that my heart would slowly be healed.