Today is January 1, 2012 and tonight is the eve of the eve of our trip to pick up our little girl.
We had a short and exciting trip to Calgary on the Tuesday before Christmas to have our 'information sharing' meeting; to those of you not in the know of adoption lingo, that is when all of her people, our adoption worker and ourselves gather to share information about her and us. The meeting lasted three hours and we learnt more than we could write down and were able to see photos of her for the first time. Of course we knew before the meeting that she was ours but by the end of it there was no doubt. We learnt that she is crazy busy, she doesn't sit still for long and loves Toy Story. Our Brandy lives in Okotokes with a wonderful foster family, they have had her since she was three days old. Melinda is the mom and Shaun is the dad, they have three little girls themselves and foster two, Brandy and a little boy. She is loved deeply by her family and truthfully that is something that I am struggling with. At the meeting and the two times since that I have talked to Melinda she has cried. They love Brandy and they were going to adopt her. When I asked them why they chose not to they told us that they had three of their own children and wanted to be able to let a family that couldn't have children adopt her. They also were so very honest when they told us that her Williams Syndrome was perhaps too much for them to commit to for the rest of her life. Melinda was hoping that the decision would be made for them and that Brandy wouldn't have ever been matched to a family and that they would be able to keep her by default. She says that they struggled with what was best for their family and what was best for Brandy. I empathise with them and the struggle it was for them to make this decision. We too wondered if adopting was best for our family, how it would effect our biological children and if we could be the family that an adopted child would need us to be. I am sad for them, I don't know how they can let her go, how after having her since the third day of life they can let her go. I am so thankful for the decision that they have made and I am so thankful that they have loved her and cared for her so well, they have been taking care of my daughter, knowing that they would one day give her to me. They have shown her that life did not need to be a struggle and that people wanted her and love her. They have shown her that she can rise above the circumstances of her biological family and her birth. They have given her the gift of safe and loving attachment. For those things I will be eternally grateful.
I cannot begin to type here all of the things that we learned about Brandy and quite frankly some of the details are not mine to tell, those are her details, and she can choose to share them when she wants to. Some of the things we learned were exciting and some of the things scared the shit out of me. A good thing? she loves to swim. Scary? She is a disgusting, messy eater who needs a shower every day just to get the food out of her hair! A Good thing? She is happy most of the time. Scary? She jumps in her crib for a couple of hours a night before falling asleep. A good thing? She likes people, even big crowds. Scary? She has NEVER slept in the car. A Good thing? She is from a Native reserve in Ontario that would like to help us teach her about her heritage. Scary? She has a very limited vocabulary and is close to completely non-verbal.
As I sit here typing this I am overwhelmed with feelings on inadequacy. What if I don't feed her the right foods? sing her the right songs? play the right games? bathe her right? read the right books? What if I don't understand what she needs or doesn't need? What if she cries all of the time for her foster mom? What if she doesn't like me? or worse what if I don't like her? I mean I am 99.9% sure that I will like her, after all I already love her, but what if our personalities and temperaments are so different that we don't fit? I know from teaching playschool that some kids you fall in love with instantly and others you struggle to even like. Some kids it comes easy and some it never comes. I really don't want it to be a struggle. I really want it to be instant and perfect and movie worthy. I want to walk into her foster home and fall to my knees in front of her with tears in my eyes and the feeling of completeness in my heart. I am scared. Really scared.
So, tomorrow I will fill my day with last minute errands, laundry and packing; then first thing on Tuesday morning Paul and I will drive to Okotokes to meet our little girl for the first time. We will spend the days after that getting to know her and learning as much as we can before it is time to leave. On Thursday morning we are going to take her to a cardiology appointment (a routine check-up for her heart murmur) and then either we will be bringing her home or Melinda and Shaun will follow us home with her. Either way she will be home with us by the weekend. By Sunday of this week we will finally be a family of five.
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