From the Redwood Forests to the Gulfstream Waters

While my wife and I were in the adoption process, there was a period of slightly less than a month wherein we were waiting for certain permissions to bring Sam and Caleb into our home. Having the boys come home to us was something we wanted very, very much, but had very little actual control over the decisions of others. This was an incredibly tense and anxious time for us -- sleep never seemed restful and dreams were either disturbing or hard to let go of, which in some ways was the worse of the two. All that tension and anxiety manifested itself in our bodies -- tightened jaws, pinched shoulders, furrowed brows and slouched lower lumbars...

I probably have already made the point, in other posts, that I've been similarly -- if less drastically -- affected by the election. But, here's another important thing: for some time, I didn't want to buy anything that presumed we would get the boys. (I'm realizing now that I do carry a superstition, of the "Don't count your omelets before you buy the eggs" urban Midwestern pragmatist variety.) My wife, on the other hand, is a pre-planner, and so she wanted cribs and linens and clothing and diapers all ready to go.

I didn't want to face the prospect of having a room all set to go for twin boys, and then not have the twin boys. That seemed too difficult to imagine, and so I held out. But as my wife pointed out to me, this was just a defense mechanism, an artificial heart-hardening, that I used to try to pretend that I wasn't already fully emotionally invested in the situation. I would have felt just as horrible staring into an empty guestroom, had Sam and Caleb come to us, as I would have felt staring into an empty nursery.

All of which is to say, at great risk of jinxing things: Thanks in advance, America, for what it seems you are about to do.