Failure. Not one of my favorite words.

Failure: a lack of success or a falling short.
Bottom line is this is not something I do.
I have never been the smartest, the most athletic, the most popular or the best at anything since high school but that said I don't like to fail. I am actually very competitive in nature and like to prove that underdogs can succeed which has served me well over the years because it makes me work harder to get what I want or need. IE getting in to college early decision in spite of a terrible SAT score or getting jobs that clearly I didn't have the experience for. But when infertility reared it's ugly head in my life I realized that this was not something I could not control ---no matter how hard I worked. For a type A person this was very difficult to accept. Furthermore, if I thought I lacked control of the IVF process it was even worse during the adoption process. I had to consistently put my trust in others and move forward on blind faith.

One of the hardest things about the adoption process is that it is not a perfect system. It's an amazing system and thank god for millions of us that it exists, but it is far from perfect. I mentioned in my last post that we had a failed adoption in December and one of my readers asked what does that mean? There are many reasons why an adoption can fail but in our specific situation it meant that a birth parent changed their mind about placing the child for adoption. More interesting still, in our case, it was the birth father. Had this been my first adoption this news would have destroyed me. But since it is my second adoption and I am a few years older and wiser I realize that this was not my child. I won't lie to you---it was not a great phone call to get. I felt as if someone had kicked me in the gut with all their might. I was so numb I didn't cry. Am I angry? Yes, furious if you must know. I can't believe I am "18 months pregnant" (as I call it) with no end in sight. I can't believe that I am 38 years old and only have one child. I am furious that adoption takes this long and clearly I still don't understand why. I am furious that by the time I have my two children it will have cost me $200,000 (between the IVF and the two adoptions). And I am furious that other people in this world aren't parents yet because they can not afford adoption (but that's another post).

I do know from my journey to Jake, that the bumps in the road on this second adoption will lead me to the child that I am supposed to have. That is the only certainty I have in this process and I can tell you from my experience with my beautiful boy----it will be worth the wait.

I thank my reader for your question and invite you all to comment. Let me know what you want to know about infertility and adoption----chances are I've been there done that.

Love much,
xob