Big Decision

Well - we have decided to just wait wait wait. We had thought, indeed we had already discussed, that our next child would be a Waiting Child (WC) or Special Needs Child (SN) from China. Our agency's list came out and we did see two children we felt we would love to have as our family - but a small nagging little voice kept saying... it is too soon to add a child to our family. Even at one year (the possible time line for a WC) I just don't feel that EFP is ready to be a sibling to a big or a little. I know that kids get sibs sometimes within a year or two - but she is just really at the point where she accepts us totally and completely as her family. We are, on some level, the only parents she knows or remembers at this time. I can't imagine - given her propensity to cling and be really needy at times - how she would react with a child who needed my attention and invaded her space to some extent.

I am saddened on another level because I really like the idea of parenting a WC/SN who may not otherwise have a chance at a family. But I keep trying to remember that the timeline is not of my making - I was rushed to make the leap again and honestly at times I feel all the weight of this decision on our life, pocketbook and heart. While I know that we very much want a second child and I know there will be room (in our hearts and home) for a second - at this moment I truly feel that EFP needs all our attention and love just for herself for a while longer and I need more experience as a Mom before I can do this again.

There is so much about being a Mom that you just can't know until it happens - no way to prepare for the way your whole body reacts when the phone rings and it's the daycare calling. Or when you hear something unusual and in your mind your child is in some dire straits that you can only barely imagine. I don't know that this ever goes away - though I hear that at some point you do get to sleep through the night without interruptions by night terrors or erupting molars/canines! In short I am just not ready to contemplate another child. Of course I have also had my heart broken recently over a child and so it may be that I need to have some time to deal with how that has effected my willingness to embrace another child. I know that 2 years (maybe three!) will allow us the time we need to resolve some of this and be those anxiously waiting parents we have in us!! We really felt that this new list would be our last chance - as our agency will not allow us to switch after our Dossier has been logged in for six months. I have to say there were quite a few children who we would have liked to wait for.. and I already know that both of them are being considered by more than one family so they will be united with forever families!!

So with that in mind we are preparing to be DTC early in March and wait the long wait... I am thinking that we may not see a referral until early in 2010! Can you imagine? But if things continue at the present pace of 1/2 a month of Dossiers being referred each month - well I can (and do!) do the math and that is when our referral should arrive. Another plus is that my darling would be nearly ready for Kindergarten by 2010 and so we will reduce the number of months that we will have two in daycare - yay! So here's to the long wait and keeping our minds off of it!