Unpacking

I finally just unpacked my bag from Georgia yesterday. It was a really big bag. I had already unpacked most of my own stuff when I got home but was happy yesterday to uncover some clothes that I had forgotten about (and had been looking for these past weeks - like a moron!) Most of the suitcase was filled with stuff for the baby - cute little pink and purple onesies, a frilly little baby dress, tons of soft swaddle blankets, cloth diapers and teeny tiny socks. I unpacked slowly, and over time, not wanting to feel the full weight of the disappointment all at once. 

Emotionally unpacking this experience is something I really didn't want to have to do. It's something that I still don't really want to do.  I want to bundle it all up in a bag and forget about it.  I want to leave it on the bedroom floor, like I left my suitcase, and just pile other stuff on top of it.  I want to forget what is in the bag and maybe even pretend it didn't happen - because there is just too much to unpack and it is too intertwined with the much more crushing loss of Maxie. If he hadn't died, I really don't think this experience would have happened at all.  And packing up baby stuff - looking for places to put it all - and wondering, with a heavy heart, whether it will ever be used, is all too familiar.  Much different - but still familiar.

When I got home, several people offered to put me in touch with their friends who could talk to me about their failed adoption experiences. A few people told me that they knew it was "like a death" - words that stung to hear.  Not bringing home this baby was not like a death.  The death of a child doesn't only mean an end to the fantasies that the parents had for their child but it also (and much more horrifically) means the end of that child's life. The little girl I fell in love with in Georgia still lives - she has people who love her, an older sibling, a bunch of experiences waiting for her in the future. Do I wish she was mine?  Yes!  Totally.  Am I completely turned upside down by having to leave her there?  For sure.  But, all this really is is the end of a certain dream of mine. It doesn't even compare to having to know that Max will never have dreams of his own - but I'm still sad.

I have finally unpacked the contents of that suitcase but I need to leave almost all of the emotional stuff packed up.  There are so many layers of hurt and I just haven't gotten to the point yet where I can look at it at all without becoming completely unglued....and unglued was exactly how I felt on my last day there. It was awful and I am scared to let myself go there again. I've definitely learned by now that all wounds, great and small, take time to heal.  I guess I will have to postpone the healing with this one (and so many others that have come over the last few years) because I am still working on trying to heal (as much as possible) the heartbreak of Max dying.  I do know that leaving Georgia without that baby girl opened up the Maxie wound.  When I have allowed it to surface, even momentarily, it hasn't been pretty.

I have no reason to be posting the photo below except that my grandma used to always tell us grandkids that we were her best medicine.  I never really thought about the meaning.  I just thought it was one of those grandmotherly things to say.  But, just look at this kid!  It pretty hard to stay sad with this guy around. 

Mosie - he really IS my best medicine.

Besheret

My gut was telling me from the very beginning of the failed adoption story that there would be no adoption.  Ted's too.  We had many conversations before my leaving for Georgia about the possibility that this family wasn't actually going to place this child for adoption.  But, having had no experience in this whatsoever, we just trusted the guidance we were given.  Regrettable.

I can't blame it all on bad advice however, there was something else that was telling us that everything would all work out.  Not just someTHING else but a whole slew of someTHINGS.  Like the universe had aligned to send us message after message that this baby would be ours.

About a year ago, I had a reading with Moriah (the medium).  She made some predictions that sounded fairly far-fetched at the time.  She told me that my grandfather predicted that I would be visiting Israel at some point during the year - this seemed highly unlikely to me last May, but my work did end up sending me to Israel in February.  She talked about my being among trees and getting some kind of healing from that experience - and as you know, I visited Maxie's Forest and it was peaceful (as much as it was also awful and painful).  She also predicted that we would adopt a baby about a year later.  We'd never really discussed our adoption plans with anyone other than very close friends and we had signed papers with an agency the day before.  She also then predicted some basic facts about the baby and about the lawyer we would use (someone who we didn't even meet until much later).  If it was a guess - it was a VERY good one. 

If you know us, or you've been reading for a while, you know that 27 is our lucky number (well, it's really Ted's lucky number but I've adopted it.  Mine is 7 - so it isn't a complete stretch.).  Ted's birthday is the 27th of December and Maxie was born on 10-7-10 (adding up to 27).  There were so many crazy 27s on this trip.  I wish I had photographed them all.  My mom and I changed hotels nearly every night and for two nights in a row, stayed in 27 rooms - 427 and 227!  We also waited the whole time we were there to eat at the town's "fanciest" restaurant, which also had a 27 in the address.  Small stuff - but signs nonetheless.

When a baby is born that is going to be placed for adoption, the birthmother can choose the name that goes on the birth certificate.  This name can be changed by the adoptive parents (and usually is) later in the process.  Imagine our surprise when we found out that the name given to the baby is also the name of one of our dogs....you may recall that naming babies after pets and pets after people is a favorite activity in our family (even if it isn't ever intentional).  Our dog has a pretty unusual name.  Call me crazy that upon learning that baby was given the same name, I believed it to be a sign.

Though the town we were in in Georgia was fairly diverse, I felt pretty confident that there was no real Jewish community to speak of there.  And diversity certainly does not mean integrated.  One of the nurses in the hospital was telling us that one of the nearby towns had just held it's first integrated prom!  WHAT?  I can't even imagine how a segregated prom has been legal anywhere in the US at all up until this point.  Sometimes I realize that living in Los Angeles is a different kind of sheltered.  There was one nurse who was incredibly helpful through the whole experience.  We really bonded with her (but - ALL of the nurses were wonderful - some of the nicest people I've ever met).  We were talking a little bit about the backwardness of the town we were in and so I asked where she was from.  "Tel Aviv", she answered.  I think my eyes nearly bugged out of my skull.  "Tel Aviv?", I asked.  "Do you speak Hebrew?", I asked - in Hebrew.  Her Hebrew sounded a little rusty (like I should talk) but indeed this woman was Israeli.  She was almost as surprised to meet us as we were to meet her.  It felt like another sign. 

As all of these signs were showing up, I was sending them to Ted.  He was getting excited: "Done deal!", he'd write back.  And it really felt like it was - like, despite all of the drama and nonsense and all of the cues we were given by the family to the contrary - that we'd end up with this little girl.  Our nurse friend seemed to think so too - she kept encouraging us to give this baby all of our love - which we did.  As her shift ended, she gave my mom and I big hugs and said, "Hang in there - this is Besheret (destiny)!"