Tuesday, December 4, 2012

The Very Big Thing

Well, actually he's Quite Small, but Hugely Enormous in impact on our lives.

We're adopting a little boy.  He's two.  We met him last week, and he came home to live with us yesterday.

While I know we're actually the same people we were before, I don't feel the same.  Up to a week or so ago, I felt flawed and broken, set apart from other women.  Incomplete.  I felt defined by the number of years we'd been trying to have a family, the surgeries I'd had, the injections, the examinations, the embryos who'd perished, the so-early-they-barely-count pregnancies I'd lost.

Sometime last week, in between saying thank you for a bogie he'd passed me, laughing at Daddy being commanded to sit and play building block towers, changing a poopy nappy and exclaiming appropriately at Peppa Pig, someone hit the reset button.  Suddenly, almost overnight, I didn't feel like a woman missing something, but I woman who'd unexpectedly, undeservedly, been handed something Extra.

I still find it hard to shake off the number of years thing.  As of my birthday next April, it will have been ten years.  Count them.  TEN YEARS.

But that's only a number.  He's a whole little boy.

And that's a Very Big Thing.

(The above post is very much my own feelings and perceptions, and not meant as comment on ANYONE else!  Sadness - and happiness! - is always personal.)

14 comments:

  1. So very deeply happy for you, Anna. x x

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  2. Crying.

    Never say 'undeservedly', though. Very, very much: deservedly.

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  3. Oh Anna! I am so happy for you all.

    love lx

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  4. I have tears in my eyes and a smile on my face. Congratulations on becoming a mother!

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  5. Congratulations anna. Here's to sticky hands, felt pen along walls, only finding one shoe AND more love than you could ever know. Blessings work both ways, for you and or him x

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  6. Never, ever undeservedly - and Scarlet's right - those blessings work both ways. I am happier than I can express for the joy in your life (and DH's) and his. What a wonderful gift you have given him - as he has given you.

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  7. Thank goodness you all found each other! Congratulations to you all, and much happiness always!

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  8. I have tears in my eyes too - it's obviously going to be your best Christmas ever! Huge congratulations, I'm so happy for you all!

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  9. So happy for you! And never undeservedly. You were always meant to be a family, it just took you a little longer than most to get you all together xxx

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  10. You are going to have such a wonderful Christmas! Enjoy every second - there's only one common experience in parenting, and that's the feeling when you look back a few years later that the time passed in a flash (yes, even the poopy-nappy-endless-broken-nights bit. Promise.)

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  11. I'll third, or fourth the teary exclamation that this is not undeserved about the happiness the three of you are now giving/sharing/creating. Enjoy the first of many family Christmases

    Vicky

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  12. Anna, so happy for you. And you and Ian will be SUCH fabulous parents. Your little boy is lucky indeed because you'll bring him as much joy as he brings you xxx

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  13. Late, as always, to add my comment here, but I know you know how incredibly happy I am for you and Ian. Lucky, lucky boy, to have found you.

    (And maybe that fortune-teller in Greenwich wasn't entirely off her trolley, after all...)

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  14. Late, as always, to add my comment here, but I know you know how incredibly happy I am for you and Ian. Lucky, lucky boy, to have found you.

    (And maybe that fortune-teller in Greenwich wasn't entirely off her trolley, after all...)

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