Letters to the Editor
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unsolicited advice
I agree with Cary, this is a touching letter. But, I find it nearly impossible - without the benefit of details - to take for granted the statement that the LW and her partner have decided that adoption is the wrong choice.
Unsolicited to LW: I would advise you to reconsider it. Maybe I don't understand, but can I intuit that your worry is that the birth mother will back out at the last minute? All expectant parents worry about losing their children - that there will be a miscarriage, a complication, SIDS, etc. You can't let worries like that stop you. You can't be out of resources. Find some. Change your mind. You're holding yourselves back. Trust me, I'm a parent: if you want to have a child (and you are equipped and responsible enough to do so, within reason) then you simply owe it to yourself to make it happen. There are no excuses and no choices. You must be willing to give up everything for it - that is what parenting is.
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So why exactly isn't adoption an option?
"But we will not, cannot, get on a new merry-go-round of waiting and disappointment."
But if your current marry-go-round is giving you such absolute, interminable despair then why not get on the other one?
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Self-Expression
Do something creative. The relative availability of technology that makes it possible to conceive and create incredible art makes it possible for people to make their own experimental films, music, images, etc...
If nothing else, pouring the same passion and energy that went into the letter into another personal expression will likely be cathartic.
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Beyond your control
Yes on Pema's books and Cary's advice : "You must grieve the loss of this dream and prepare for something new. You must find something to look forward to, some joy, some vision of life to sustain you."
The idea of preparing and moving on to something new seems exactly right. Perhaps adoption can work, even though you say you can't handle any more disappointments. There may be some small soul waiting just for you.
I am sorry for your suffering but I also believe that last part, about the soul. The Buddhists are onto something there.
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you need something more in your life...
Dear LW,
My heart goes out to you. My own marriage ended while we were halfway down the childless road you describe. I'll never know how the quest would have ended for us, because the stress of that and other things ended us as "us" first.
I hope that you can take comfort in the fact that this emptiness and lack of purpose in your life is something most thinking people feel, whether they have managed to produce children or not. It's in some sense, I think, part of the burden of being alive, the paradox of something that is seemingly senseless and full of wonder at the same time, a curse and blessing simultaneously.
Cary's right: take a break for a while. You're worn out. Take time to heal. Maybe in a while you'll feel OK about adoption, and maybe not. I'm sure that if you do decide to bring a child into your life, it will be loved and appreciated all the more because of your struggles.
If you don't, though, I think there's still a much richer life out there waiting for you once your wounds have healed a little bit--dare I say it has to the potential to be equally as rich as a life spent raising children? To make it that way, though, you'll need to invest all of your love and personal energy into something different. Corporate America stinks, and if you don't have kids to provide for perhaps you have the option to follow your heart down a different path, one of service to mankind. But make it personal, and about relationships. Stacking green beans at a food bank just isn't going to cut it.
There are so many people in the world that need love, and you have so much love to give. I hope that with the passage of time you are able to share your gifts with those around you, whoever they may be.
All the best,
AC
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Amen
I too am moved to tears by this letter. Your dream was beautiful, worthwhile, and practical. You must honor your dream by mourning for it properly. You must give it a proper burial so to speak. It is important that we honor someone that we love who has died, so it is with dreams. You and your husband sound like the kind of people my husband and I admire. All the best...may you bask in compassion in your time of grief.
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Yup.
Cary got this one exactly right.
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re: will not, cannot...
I can't help but think that a classic Cary Tennis line from long ago applies here (I don't even recall what the original letter was about anymore): "Sometimes it's the one thing you can't can't can't do that you must must must do."
I've always remembered that line because I find that I need to apply it in my own life so often.
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Maybe this is what's next?
And once you heal, you might find yourselves volunteering to work with children. Something you might consider doing is becoming a CASA (court-appointed special advocate). There are plenty of good kids out there who have messed up parents and who need someone in their corner once they’ve been placed in out-of home care. Someone to listen to them, find cool stuff for them to do and to fight for what they need. I have worked in foster care and only a tiny fraction of the kids who need a CASA where I live (in the San Francisco Bay Area) have one. If it takes a village to raise a child then maybe your old dream had you living in the parent part of the village and maybe your next dream has you living in the CASA part. It’s rewarding over there too...
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what pilotlight said
Currently sitting here wiping away the tears. What a touching, heartfelt letter this is. I wish you the best as your journey continues. For what it's worth, I have faith that in time, a new dream will emerge for you. And though the scars from this unfulfilled longing may never disappear, they will fade, and assume a proper place in your heart as it fills with new treasures.