Word Scramble

August 13

September 27

January 2014

The last baby we hoped for is due on our anniversary. Her mother chose a family to parent her-a different couple than us. 

The next one up is September. So very soon!  I want to be excited that this one could be it. We know our profile book was in the pile of books to be taken to this birth mother. She should have looked at them sometime between Friday last week and now. Maybe she's still looking. Once she chooses, the chosen family receives a phone call and then an email goes out to the other families so that everyone knows the birth mother has made a decision. 

We haven't heard anything yet. 

I hope this one is ours. I don't know how to hope without being excited. I feel the two go hand in hand. I'm slowly breaking down. Every time we are picked over, my heart breaks. Each time, I feel like I might be kidding myself and wonder if I'm going to have to find something to do with my life that doesn't involve raising a family. 

I have plenty of days where it's a little further back in my mind. But most days, especially days during a specific wait like this one, its front and center. Everything I think of is filtered through a parental lense. Whatever I am doing makes me think of how I will do it differently with a baby.  

I don't know how to hope for tomorrow but live in today. I'm trying. I'm learning what it means to "not be anxious about anything." And to "not worry about tomorrow."  I have to stop my thoughts when I realize I'm stressing over when we will be matched with our baby. Sometimes I feel like that's an "if" we get matched with a baby. But as I stop myself and ask, "but what about today? Today, I can do ___", I generally feel sad about today being empty of a baby, but at the same time blessed to have what I do and the ability to choose a lot of what today may hold for me. 

I'm not really "headed anywhere" with this post. I'm just getting it out. There's a lot inside that just feels jumbled and broken and messy and in the way. I want to learn whatever I'm supposed to learn on this journey so it can be over. I want to enjoy it....but the downfall of not being chosen again and again...makes it hard to celebrate the whole way through our path to Baby. 

I feel like the pain is toxic. I'm trying not to become bitter. I'm trying not to get angry about what I don't have that seems to come so easily for so many. I'm trying to understand why God chose me to take this specific journey. And I'm trying to be obedient and trustworthy and humble and calm. But all of that is really really hard some days. Manageable at best. 

I need a sign from God. I need something to feel less alone, less "picked over", less doubtful and less sad. I have no idea what to ask for.

Every day isn't a depressing struggle-at all. Very few days are. Really, there's grieving or there's tense hope. There's rarely anything else. 

I hope my baby is here soon. I have no idea what to do. I'm just waiting. Powerless. Hopeful. Tense. And relieved that God knows what is coming.