The Waiting is the Hardest Part

My husband and I traveled in early April to Moscow to meet our son. When we met him he was 17.5 months old. We left Moscow early on April 10. I can tell you that nothing has ever felt so unnatural and so wrong as when the plane began to taxi down the runway, about to takeoff. We had prepared not to be prepared for how awful the sight of Russia slipping away from us would be-- and we were still not ready.



Leaving him after spending 5 days with him has been surreal, and sometimes so sad that I can't even breathe. I have spent a lot of time with kids, kids that I love, and would walk through fire for. However, I have never felt the way I felt when he cried, that the world was ending, and it was all my fault, and I should be able to fix it. I was immediately his mommy, and I really couldn't fix anything--between the constraints of being in the baby home, and my own ineptitude I was a lost cause. Also-- my mommyhood only applies to the way that I feel about him, not how he feels about me. To him we are funny talking strangers who just wouldn't stop looking at him. I have to earn his love, and show him that I will never leave, and most days I feel like I can do that, and sometimes I go blind with terror even thinking about it.

I know that there are families out there that met their children a year ago, and haven't been able to travel again due to the accreditation mess. I know that the fact that we are on the edge of our seats because it will be any day now, is lucky. Extremely lucky. I know that we have moved through this process with unbelievable speed, we filled out the agency application in November 2006, and we arrived in Moscow on April 4, 2007. I know that when we saw his pictures for the first time, he became our son, and others have not had that clarity. I have not questioned any of our choices, and I know this makes us so lucky. We have only had the best that we could dream for.

I cry. Listen, y'all will know this soon enough, I am a crier. I cry with the happy, the sad, the mad, the frustrated and the tired. (Essentially, I am the Statue of Liberty of crying). So I cry myself to sleep quite a bit, because I know that he has already started another day without us, and that we are ending another day without him.

We have our visas, I am making lists, what to bring, what needs to be done while I am there and my husband is here, I am trying to stock the freezer so he'll eat well without me.

I am trying to breathe in, breathe out, kiss my son goodnight.