Disclaimer: if you haven't seen "Up!" there is a little bit reavealed here, not enough to ruin the movie, though.
Two years ago this month, Nathan and I went to see my cardiologist and we asked him if I was healthy enough to have children. The whole way there I was afraid he was going to say no, and he did. It was an incredibly devastating event which took me a year to recover from. We talked about adopting and decided that we wanted to be parents more than we wanted to have our own kids. I made it my Lenten resolution last year to work my mind around to adoption and it worked. I prayed hard about it and suddenly one day, I was making plans about where in our little apartment we would put a crib and everything was fine.
That is not to say I don't still think about having our own children, especially when the adoption process seems too daunting. And I definitely still have difficulty with some things, pregnant women usually bother me, but I make an effort for some. (Love you, Bonnie!)
But we have been getting in touch with adoption agencies and even though things look a little bleak right now with me not working and our finances not being in the best shape, we are still hoping to be able to start the process at some time soon.
My sister Anne is home this weekend and Nathan thought on her last night we could all go to a movie, so we all went to see Up! Pixar's new flick. It is an incredibly cute film with a lot of nuances that are hilarious. On the way there, we were talking about how movies these days tend to coddle children into thinking that nothing bad will happen and provide some kind of Utopian view of society. Up! is not this kind of movie. There are very few things which actually go right in the movie.
There is one scene in which the main characters, a young married couple are preparing a nursery and in the next scene, they are in a doctor's office and the woman is sitting in a chair crying. And after two years, something snapped. I jumped up and fled the theater in tears.
I thought I was okay, I thought I had moved on. I was wrong. I am very excited about the idea of adopting. I'm excited about bringing our baby home and being parents, but I think something inside me will always experience a tiny little sense of loss. I'm afraid if anyone finds out about that they will think it makes me unready to adopt. But I am, I am very ready and very happy. I just pray that our baby has eyes like Nathan's.
Margaret Mary, I am very glad you make an effort for me. I've probably told you this before, but I think it is so profound and revealing that it's worth saying again: One of my former co-workers told me of her sister-in-law who could not get pregnant. She and her husband did go on to adopt two girls, but she (the mother) had to mourn the child she could never have. Grieving is a long process and, if you think about it, even after grieving the loss of a loved one (ie your grandpa, my first baby) there can still be painful reminders years later. And sometimes these reminders come from nowhere. Right? So I think it's completely normal that the movie scene upset you. I also suspect that for the rest of your life, even when you have adoptive children whom you love unconditionly, you will still have pangs of grief over the child you could never have.
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