Being a worrier by nature, the question “what if” is one
that can get the better of me - never more so than during our adoption.
While paper chasing, it was “what if I’m not doing this
right?”, “what if this document doesn’t get to the correct person?”, “what if
our wait time is longer than 18 months?” (ha ha!), “what if I don’t fall in
love with our baby the moment I see her?”, “what if I don’t have enough time?”,
“what if we don’t have enough money?”, etc, etc.
After receiving our referral, my worries multiplied. “What if she has attachment disorders?”, “what
if I don’t love her like I’m supposed to?”, “what if she doesn’t love me/us?”, “what
if it totally screws up our family dynamics?”, “what if there’s something wrong with her?”.
OK, so I may sound a tad neurotic, but when you are about to
travel across the world to adopt a child, you must be extremely faithful or a
tad naïve to not question at least some of these things. Adoption is not for the faint of heart.
But now, after having Junie home for 2 and ½ years, my “what
ifs” still plague me. They have
just changed in nature.
What if she didn’t have a mommy, a daddy and 3 brothers that
loved her fiercely?
What if she was still sleeping on plywood?
What if, instead of that spark in her eyes, there was still
the sadness, the emptiness?
What if she didn’t know what it felt like to be read to and
rocked to sleep?
What if she didn’t have a full belly?
What if she was cold?
What if she wasn’t in a preschool with teachers who adored
her teaching her about God, Music, Science, Spanish, Art, and PLAY?
What if that funny sense of humor was not appreciated?
What if she never got to be silly? Or rough with brothers?
What if she never got to be a princess and have a royal
birthday party?
What if she never got to go to:
The beach
A museum
The pool
A family vacation
The puppet theatre
Disney
Legoland
A friend’s house for a playdate
A park to swing
What if she wasn’t told every single day that she was
loved? That she was special?
What if she didn’t get to snuggle?
What if nobody knew how very
smart she is?
What if nobody kissed her boo-boos?
Or held her when she was scared?
What if she hadn’t gotten her palate repaired?
What if she wasn’t in speech every week?
(Seriously…
what if? What would her speech have been
like on China’s timeline for repairing her palate and improving her speech?)
And then, I can barely ask myself:
What would her future have held?
Every time I haul Junie to a doctor appointment I have a
number of other things I would prefer
to be doing at the time. A two hour ENT
appointment (the doctor only sees her at our location on one of her two school
days) is not what I want to do after her Thursday AM speech appointment. But it is what I do. Because I am her mommy. And I
would do anything for her.
Every time they check her hearing in the little soundproof
box, I ask myself, “what if?”. What if
she didn’t have a family making sure she was hearing like she should be?
When we hauled down to CHOA for a swallow study on my kids’
day off of school: What if she were in
China still? Would she have food trickle
out of her nose forever? Would anything
ever be done about that?
And yesterday after her ENT appointment, with a big pit in
my stomach, because I actually got to see the yucky tumor growing on her ear
under the microscope (“which can cause permanent nerve damage and hearing loss
if left untreated”), the first question is not how much is this going to cost
or how many more appointments or surgeries are we talking (those come later, of
course I do ask those, too! J). The first thing that pops into my mind is “what
if”. What if she didn’t have this great
team of doctors keeping such a close eye on her? What if this tumor was just growing and
growing while she grew and grew in an orphanage? What if she ended up with permanent hearing
loss?
Adoption can be scary.
The “what ifs” can feel overwhelming.
Now, they overwhelm my heart.
What if we had listened to the doubts in our heads?
Or the questions of others?
What if
we had not taken the leap?
What if
we had not said “Yes. She is our daughter.”
What
if?
