Friday, July 2, 2010

I can't *not* do anything

For the last 2 months I've tried living with the fact that we're done having children.  We put it out of our minds.  We focused on paying down debt some, and splurged and bought the kids a swing set.  Life went back to "normal".

It just doesn't feel right.  I am not happy, because I feel pulled to add to our family and I can't do it.  We're literally working as hard as we can and haven't really made much headway to getting all of the money together.

I gave away our crib.  I packed away the profile books.  I stopped daydreaming in the baby aisle at Target and have tried to distance myself from anything baby related, except for my new nieces (who are absolutely perfect) and only my closest friends/family who are expecting.

I still can't shake the feeling that we're making a huge mistake.  I feel like if we had more faith in God we could just move forward, trusting that He will provide when the time comes.  Instead, I'm stuck in limbo trying to find a different path that feels as right as adoption felt.  We've discussed changing jobs, moving, getting a puppy....those are all obviously not what God has planned for my family because none of it fills the hole.        

So what do we do?  We've considered foster-to-adopt.  That would certainly be less expensive.  But I can't seem to reconcile the fact that the goal of foster care is to eventually return the children to their biological parents.  I've done a lot of contemplating that, and I don't know that I can ever be in that place, where I would not feel bitter in the end when the child is reunited with his/her parents.  And I don't want to even start down that path with the wrong attitude.

So now I'm stuck.  I just don't know what to do.