December 2008, Part One

I told H (read about it here). He wasn’t thrilled, which I can’t say surprised me any. He’d mentioned several months ago that he had no interest in ever having children. I went to LDSFS again to talk to S, and although I enjoyed visiting with her, I wrote in my journal that I definitely felt more pressure to adopt this time, which irked me.

The pregnancy itself was going well enough. I didn’t throw up once, despite severe and persistent nausea. I was ravenous most of the time but not many things were palatable. I could eat probably five or six different things, and I ate so much of them so often that I can’t eat most of them today. I was exhausted all the time and desperately looked forward to the second-trimester energy surge I’d read about.

At S’s suggestion, I agreed to go to the birth mom support group. The first week I went happened to be the week they were going out to eat at Oregano’s, to celebrate a few recent placements. It was awkward, because I hadn’t even decided what I was going to do with, and because I was one of only two pregnant women there – everyone else had placed. The other pregnant woman (I’ll call her G) was due in April. I felt sorely out of place. Everyone else seemed to know each other. I don’t have the most developed social skills in the world. I found myself wanting very much to go home. Finally, one birth mom turned her attention to me. She asked me all sorts of invasive personal questions, and everyone listened in as I answered. I was encouraged by at least four people to go on-line and look at adoptive couple profiles. But the food is good, and I got along well enough with G.

The nice thing, of course, was that for a few hours I’d been surrounded by women who had been through what I was going through, who knew what I’d done and weren’t going to judge me for it because they’d done it too. That was comforting, and although I didn’t feel any sort of kinship with anyone, I didn’t have any friends or confidantes, so I decided I’d attend group the next week as well. I didn’t want to let S down. She’d been so kind to me.

I went to group again. There was supposed to be a speaker, but he canceled, so we all just visited. It was nice on one level – to be once more surrounded by people who weren’t going to judge me, people who knew what I was going through. But at the same time, I looked at the two women who’d placed a month ago. Both of them absolutely lit up when they talked about their babies. They lived for pictures and visits and updates. They talked about them a lot. Would that be me, too, if I chose placement? Living my life waiting for another picture, another letter? All I’d ever wanted was to be a mommy, and this was my chance. Once more I shoved adoption into the back of my mind, and I concentrated on taking care of myself and my strawberry-sized baby.