Moving On.....Not Hardly

I have to post all of these feelings or I am going to explode. And I am not posting this for anyone else except maybe one day for my posterity (if there is going to be such a thing). I have decided to print our blog at the end of each year and one day (maybe) I will want to look back on this time and remember how much I grew....maybe not......

I was flooded with emotions tonight. I got a text message from a great friend of mine (who I am totally NOT blaming and who I love to death!) about speaking with another couple about our adoption experience because they have gone through a lot and have adopted (successfully).....I couldn't help it and I started to cry, and I felt horrible about it because we just had this great evening, like life was normal.....then I was just overwhelmed.

Partly because we walked by this super cute kids store. The same store where I would walk around when I was dreaming of Olivia before she arrived. Imagining all of the cute clothes I would put her in at each stage as she grew. Wondering what items I would need to buy before she arrived. "Should we do cloth diapers? Should be try to breast feed or just stick with the bottles? If we do bottles, which kind is the best? She can only have the best!" Touching each cute dress and holding up each pair of darling shoes to show Brandon, praying he would say "get them." I feel like that was a different life. I feel like a completely different person stuck in the same body. It sounds crazy. Maybe I am crazy......

Partly because I am not ready. I thought I was ready. But I was wrong. I felt so strong. I felt like I could move on and not look back and just be super strong and not cry and just go back to life as normal. I was so wrong. I am not ready to think about adoption again. I am not ready to think about birth mothers or birth fathers (especially birth fathers). It's too hard. The only way I can describe it is an hole in the pit of your stomach that consumes your every thought. An emptiness that feels like it lives in my bones. So thinking of talking to another couple about "the joys" of adoption or how "everything will work out" seems like my own personal hell wrapped up in one conversation.

To be 100% honest. It feels harder each day rather than easier. It feels harder today than our first day on "vacation" when we left town after they took her back. I think it is because there is a bigger void than there was before. There is more emptiness because we know what we are missing. When I wake up she is one of the first things I think about. While I am driving to work I wonder what she looks like now and how big she is. I wonder if our birth mother ever thinks about us anymore or if we are a distant memory. I wonder what her life is going to be like. While I am sitting at my computer at work I think about how I want to be home being a mother and a wife and a homemake. I dream about the days of having peanut butter grease hand prints on my fridge and having the opportunity to hold family home evenings where it isn't just Brandon and I teaching each other a lesson on parenting, having a better marriage, or building strong families. I dream of days where I get upset about potty training or my kids throwing a fit in the grocery store. On my drive home I think about how I am coming home to a big empty house with just Brandon to make dinner for.....wishing she would be there when I came through the door.

I pray tomorrow will be easier than today. Everyone tells me that we will look back at this and see all of the blessings that have come from it and how everything will "fall into place." Maybe.......or maybe not.