Expectancy
I’ve been thinking a lot about expectations lately as they have to do with the pregnancy and adoption process. Several years ago I worked with a life coach with who I explored the concept that we all create expectations of our lives and the people in them based on our past experiences.
Sometimes this is helpful, yet often these expectations can stop us from exploring all of the possible outcomes of a given situation or relationship. And so recognizing and letting go of our expectations can be a liberating act.
Pregnancy can often be surrounded by expectation. We say we are “expecting” when a woman is pregnant, or “there is a bun in the oven” to connote a developing life. It seems like we tend to ignore the possibility that the fetus or child will be anything but a healthy, live newborn that is destined to go home to a perfect situation.
Yet sometimes women aren’t keeping their babies; or else it isn’t even possible to birth our own children biologically. In our situation, it seems foolish to say we are expecting when we have no idea what to expect. We may be picked and end up as parents within months, or we could end up waiting years with no idea if we will be dads ever.
No woman knows if the baby they are carrying will come to term. Yet in a sense it also seems like bad luck to assume the worst. Besides; the momentum that comes with the pregnancy process is part of the fun, right?
We aren’t even matched with a pregnant mother, yet I still want to start decorating the nursery, much to K’s chagrin. I probably won’t do much though. I have no idea how long we will wait. I don’t want to have a nursery to stare at for years.
More than anything I want to be open to every possibility. It seems somehow inauthentic to try to fit our child into the place we have carved out for them, rather than adapting our environment to our child. Part of me is afraid to let go of the fantasies and expectations I have about parenthood. But If I come take every situation in stride as it comes, I will be all that much more happy.
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