Waiting well

Anybody who has been anywhere near adoption, or anyone engaged in the process of adoption, will know that the process consists mainly of waiting. If you've had infertility treatment (which I didn't), you have to before you can apply. When you first ring an agency, you have to wait for a social worker to be able to come and see you. If you've been approved to be a parent, you have to wait to be matched. If you've been assessed, you have to wait for a panel meeting to be approved. And so on and so on....

Andy and I have been waiting since November 2007. We're now part way through the adoption preparation course, after which, we will be allowed to make a formal application to adopt. And then we will get assessed. And if we are thought to be fit to be parents, we will probably be waiting to be matched. And I find myself saying again, "We might have children by next Christmas!"

Although there have been excruciating moments, when the whole thing has felt really difficult, it has been OK. If someone had said to me in November 2007, that we would still be waiting to be assessed in 2010, I would have been horrified, and we might not have gone ahead at all. Interestingly though, here we are in 2010 and I am no less enthusiastic about adopting than I was back then. I'm excited about the assessment process and looking forward to all the planning and adjusting to possibly having kids that we are going to need to do.

So what's helped? Quite a few things actually. Here are some:

• Focussing on the other things in our lives and not being obsessive about becoming parents.
• Trusting God that He is ultimately in control of whether and when we become parents.
• Going with the ebb and flow of my emotions around adoption. In the first year or so, I spent a lot of time trying to work out how I felt about it and whether I really wanted to do it. Nothing was happening, and as a defence mechanism, I pushed the whole thing to the back of my mind. Then when I realised I hadn't thought about it for a while, I felt guilty and wondered if that meant I didn't really want kids after all. That was completely pointless and quite painful at times. So I think about it when I think about it. We talk about it when we talk about it. If I haven't thought about it for weeks, I don't worry. If I'm thinking about it every day I don't worry.
• Enjoying the moment! Taking things one step at a time and not thinking too far ahead.
• Enjoying the occasional maternal moments when I feel emotional about seeing children and feel that pang of longing as being part of who I am. Sometimes I feel sad and that's OK. I don't have to live in that place but it's OK if I need to visit it sometimes.
• Making the most of not having kids yet! We went to Africa for three months in the summer and it was fab. It would have been a great deal more complicated with kids in tow and we probably wouldn't have done it. Tomorrow night we're going out for curry and we don't need a babysitter! On Thursday, we fancied popping along to the pub and we did.

Today I'm excited and pleased that we are on this journey.