Memory Boxes

A friend today asked me what your personality was like. I hadn't been asked this question before, and I don't think I drew an accurate picture for her. So I thought I would try again, and share my answer with you. You are a morning person like your daddy. You are also full of funny little wry smiles and eyebrow raises. You are insatiably curious. You reach for everything behind, above or around you that would pull you out of your seat, or off the changing table. You keep me on my toes! When you're sleepy, you like to be held upright and slumped over my shoulder with your arm around my neck. I love those moments, and sometimes I hold onto you long after you've fallen asleep.

In our last letter I mentioned that I had to figure out what to do with my sadness about not growing a baby in my tummy. But, maybe I didn't put that quite right. With big sadness sometimes you can't really "do" anything to make it go away. You can only figure out how you are going to live with it. When our biggest sadnesses are very heavy, they are often all we can think about. Then, other times we might tuck them away inside a memory box for safe keeping.
Every once in a while we will pull them back out again to remember. I think that is how this particular sadness is, and will be for me.

So, even though a new love was growing in my heart and mind because of what I'd learned from Teddy and Julia and Tim and Wendy, I wasn't quite ready to put my baby sadness in a memory box just yet. (Daddy's sadness had already been boxed up by then I think!) I decided I wanted to try one last time to make my sadness go away. I knew I wasn't comfortable with the choices the baby-doctor gave me. So, I decided to make my body as healthy as possible and see what happened. That was a way I could fight the sadness that I felt okay about.

I tried some things that might sound a little nutty to some people. Actually, they sounded a little nutty to me too! I went to a place where they put tiny little needles all over me, and they gave me herbs to drink. After that I tried rubbing a cream on my arm. Then I changed my diet, started exercising and drinking more water and taking vitamins. But, you know what happened? Those herbs made my lips itch! The cream turned my arm red and bumpy. And the big vitamins made my tummy feel yucky.

Eventually I had to look at all my attempts at fighting the sadness and just laugh at myself. Nothing I tried worked to make a baby. I felt a little bit like a cartoon character who keeps ramming himself into a locked door and getting swirly stars above his head. I just felt silly. Not silly in a way that made me ashamed, but silly in a way that made me start to chuckle a little bit at myself.

A tiny part of me began to realize that there might be a reason I wasn't comfortable going to the baby doctor. Maybe even deeper down within me was a different desire.

It still bothered me that I didn't know any other women that had decided not to fight their sadness with the choices the doctor gave them like I had. I wished someone would just tell me what to do next. I didn't want to make my own path. I just wanted to walk in a path someone else had made. But, I couldn't find one that suited me.

All those thoughts and stars were swirling over my head one day when I had a very important conversation with a good friend.

Listening

It is so easy to believe that life is about making ourselves happy. Most people who are selling us stuff are tugging on our self-pity, or our desire to look good to everyone else. They know that we are usually focused on ourselves. So, when you finally find people who remind you that the world is much bigger than you are, you should listen to them.

That's what I heard when I listened to Tim and Wendy.

Daddy and I met Tim and Wendy at our church. They were really friendly and kind. We were excited to talk with them since we didn't know any foster-parents back then. They told us about a podcast they had made about being foster-parents (www.fosterpodcast.com). So as soon as we got home that day I started listening to their podcasts. Before long I was walking around the house humming their little program jingle. I listened to podcasts while I worked on my computer. I listened when I took walks. I listened while I did the dishes. I listened and listened. Pretty soon Daddy started listening too.

Tim and Wendy shared the hard stuff in their lives, as well as the good stuff. Sometimes they were really silly. Sometimes they were serious. Most of the time I would get teary when I listened. But every time I would hear something that sunk deep into my heart. Pretty soon there was a big pool of challenging stuff welling up in me, and I knew I needed to do something about it.

But, while I was listening, I was still kinda sad that I didn't have a baby growing in my tummy. I still had to figure out what to do with that sadness before I could go searching for you.