Getting Our Hopes Up

My dear friend Katie sent me a link to this post.  And it has gotten me thinking. 

Our family is growing.  You can’t see it yet, but we are. 

So many times I have hoped for our baby, but not allowed myself to get too excited yet.  Adoption has quite a mysterious gestation period.  I haven’t wanted to get my hopes up too high when we very likely have a long wait ahead of us.  We could potentially be parents in a few months… or a few years.   

But what good is it to have your hopes down?

I don’t know how long we have to wait to find our baby. 

I do know that he or she is coming.  I have felt it. 

So I have let myself do a little planning.  We decided on a theme for the nursery, one that will work for a baby boy or baby girl.  And I made some vintage hot air balloon models to hang from the ceiling.  They make me so happy.  It was so much fun to make something for our baby. 

Sometimes people don’t know how to react when we tell them we are adopting.  They know, as we do, that sometimes failed placements happen and sometimes adoption can be hard.  Some well-meaning individuals have felt the need to warn us of possible worst-case scenarios.  But you don’t tell someone who announces their pregnancy, “You, know, you might have a miscarriage.”  You are happy for them and hopeful that all will go well.

There might be some bumps in the road.  However, I believe that things will work out.  I would rather live with positivity than with fear or skepticism.  We’re choosing to take problems as they come, rather than fretting about what might be.  We are not naïve, just optimistic. 

It’s a much happier way of being.