First Choice

Welcome to post #2. I'm thinking the first couple of posts here are going to be introductory, background stuff.

I think it's necessary to do a post about why we want to adopt, for a couple of reasons. People are curious. They make assumptions when you adopt. If you adopt a child and then have biological children, some people assume that you were impatient and couldn't wait until your body was actually ready to have a baby (and that maybe your adopted child was a premature "consolation prize" before you got what you really wanted.) If you have biological kids first, some people assume that you wanted more babies and when they didn't show up, you went the adoption route. And if you never have any biological kids, people assume there's something wrong with you and adoption was your second choice. The general mindset of the public in general is that adoption is second choice. Second best. A last resort.

For me, that's not the case. Adoption has always been my first choice. When I was little, I didn't really think about having babies myself- but I knew that I wanted to adopt, because I think it's important, and my mom is adopted so the concept isn't completely foreign and weird to me. It's just always seemed like part of life. It seemed normal (and that's because it is normal!) At one point I decided that I'd like to have a child from each continent, which is a funny thing to say because that sounds like child collecting, and people make fun of folks like Angelina Jolie for doing that (and I want to slap them when they do.) But my heart is as big as the world. There's room for a lot of kids in there.

Weirdly enough, people do ask me why we want to adopt. Or if they ask me about having kids, or why I haven't had any yet, or when I'm going to pop out some of my own since all my friends and relatives seem to be having babies, I tell them "oh, we're adopting our kids." And they give me The Look. It's a weird one. There's some embarrassment for asking such a personal question (too late) and there's pity and sadness. They make assumptions. Some people think that I want to adopt kids because I can't bear my own, but that's not true. And it's weird that I should have to explain that. I mean, I know I don't have to, but people are pushy and personal and sort of well-meaning and I think it just needs some explaining. As far as I know, there is nothing wrong with me that would keep me from having biological children- though my genetic condition (EDS) can cause high miscarriage rates in some people, and so can my PCOS. But I've never been warned by my doctor "omg don't get pregnant or you'll die." You don't have to look at me sadly when I tell you "my husband and I are adopting our kids." I'm not sad about it. What I am sad about is the waiting-to-get-started-again part. The "when will this ever happen" part. But we'll talk more about that later.

And you know what? Some people just don't want to have biological kids. And that's ok. I think a lot of those individuals fall into the "no kids ever" camp, and that's not me. I desperately want to be a mom. So much it physically hurts my heart at times. But I do not ever want to be pregnant. I think it's gross. I can't imagine being comfortable with feeling something moving around inside me- scenes like that in movies make me want to barf, and the pictures of little baby handprints poking from the inside of mommy's tummy that people share on facebook? Oh, my gosh, do I hide those things so fast. That is not in the cards for me. I would be miserable. I am uncomfortable just thinking about it. Oddly enough, no one ever asks a pregnant woman why she decided to get pregnant.

Brandon and I are adopting because we want to be parents, and we feel that this is what we are supposed to do with our lives. And I am excited about it. And that's it. Please don't look at us with pity. Please don't think of adoption as a consolation prize. It is wonderful and awesome and beautiful. Amazing. I can't think of enough cool words to describe it. Language is insufficient. We want to adopt because we want to be parents. Because reproducing our genetic material is not really that important to us. Because I don't care if my kids look like me. Because birth is a gross process. Because there are over 100 million children in the world who need a mom and dad to love them. Because there's room in my home and my heart for at least a few of those kids. The list goes on and on and on and on. And on. So don't feel sad for us!

Anyone who would make fun of this is just a blithering idiot. 

An Introduction

Surprise! I have a new blog. I have been thinking about this blog for a while now. This is a blog about me wanting to be a parent. On the whole, it's about my journey to be a mom, even though at this time, we are not officially on the Paper Path to Parenthood (which is a phrase I am going to use from now on, because I like it.) But I have so many thoughts and feelings to share. And people are always asking us where we are in this process. If I had to compare it to writing a book, I'd say that right now we're working on the plot outline. The last time we tried this, we were in the middle of the prologue and got stuck. But the book is happening, people. Great works of literature just take time.

So why did I start this blog? As I mentioned above, I have things to share. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings. I don't think that I want to necessarily put all that on my other blog, which started out as a record of my life with Brandon and is mainly a Compassion advocacy blog now. And I knew that when we started the process of adopting, I would want to start a separate blog for that.

As it so happened, I was reading some other adoption blogs recently and was marveling at all these cute and witty and adorable names people have for their blogs. How do they come up with those?? I don't know. But one afternoon, one popped into my head. I think I was thinking about going out to eat for someone's birthday, and when we go out to eat, we always have a bunch of people, because Brandon has a big family. So it's usually "Jones, part of 7," or more if someone else joins us! And that's where the name for this blog popped into my head. I went ahead and registered the name before I was planning on starting the posts, to be honest. I didn't think I'd write on here until we were starting paperwork. But as I said, I have a lot of thoughts and feelings. Anyway, I think that the name works for this blog in this season because it has to do with waiting, too- except we aren't waiting for a table at a restaurant, we're waiting to be a family. And we don't know who will be joining our party yet.

So welcome to my blog/journey/journal of stuff. If you decide to follow along, you'll be hearing the heart of someone who is burdened with an overwhelming desire to be a momma. Someone whose heart breaks for so many children that she'd really like to adopt from every country where that's a possibility. Someone who has tried doing this once before and failed (pretty early on in the process, though, so that saved some heartache.) And someone who has been WAITING and WAITING and WAITING and still has some waiting ahead of her.

And I also want to share prayer requests on here, too. Probably one per post. So for this entry, I'd like to ask you to pray for patience for me. Some days I am more restless than others. Today is a restless day. Yesterday was a restless day, too. Not a weepy one, for which I am thankful, but it's still hard to deal with. And in the next few posts on here, I'll share a little bit about how I got this way, and what we are waiting for, and where we think we are going.