Nostalgia

I got home late from a meeting and am sitting here waiting for my hair to dry enough that it won't look like crazy town in the morning if I sleep on it. I'm thinking about where I was on this night eight years ago. I was in a city where I'd never been before, waiting to become a mother. I remember the relief of landing and knowing that I was finally in the same place as the little girl whose picture I'd been staring at for the past three and a half months. I wondered if she was asleep already. I wondered if she knew we were coming. I wondered if she felt nervous or scared about meeting us.

I felt nervous about meeting her. Oh, boy did I. But I couldn't wait.

I wanted to mother her so badly. From the first time I saw her eyes staring out from that picture, I wanted to take care of her. Over that summer, while we prepared to travel, the stories started coming out about corrupt adoptions, about children being taken from parents without the parents really understanding what adoption meant. I wondered if taking care of her might mean that we would just get her back to where she belonged, and that it wouldn't be with us. There was so much that we didn't know.

Now we know everything that we could possibly find out in the eight intervening years. And we know her. I feel indescribably grateful for these eight years with such an incredible person. I will have more to say about that tomorrow, when I post my requisite schmaltzy post about being her mother for eight whole years. But for now, I remember that night eight years ago. I remember what it felt like to be on the cusp of knowing her. I remember my last night of going to sleep without checking on someone before laying my head on my own pillow.

Parenting can be stressful. It is not a walk in the park, and we have willingly taken on some additional work that comes with building our family in the way we have. But I don't miss not being a parent. It has changed me in the best and hardest ways, and I know that I am so very lucky that this is my life.