Kellen’s Story: Anticipation

Since Serena contacted us extremely early in her pregnancy, we had lots of time to get to know her well and get ready for Baby.

In a lot of ways it was a REALLY hard time for our family. We experienced some tremendous family trials and lots of opposition that wasn’t so much related to the adoption as it was in response to it. Without delving too much into detail, I’ll just say that I know that Satan does not want forever families and I think a lot of what we went through was the darkness that can precede events of eternal importance. I also want to mention that the difficulties our family faced had nothing to do with Kellen’s birthfamily. His birthparents and their families are awesome, wonderful, people and I am not alluding to anything having to do with them. Suffice it to say, those months were a roller coaster, but there were plenty of good moments as well and we tried to focus on those.

One benefit of being contacted so early was that we got to experience things more in real time. Like we had the experience of wondering about gender and then the excitement when Serena told us she was having a baby boy. It was so fun to guess with Serena what we all thought she was having. And Serena was so, so sweet to give us updates about her pregnancy. She sent us ultrasound pictures, told us what foods she had been craving, emailed us pictures of her and her growing belly… I was so grateful to her for including us in so many of those details. And I’ve saved everything she sent us to show Kellen someday because I know he’s going to love reading all about Serena’s pregnancy as well.

When the time got a little closer to Kellen’s due date, we decided to decorate his room. When the boys are older, I imagine there will be times they will share a room, but we decided it would be better for both their sleep schedules for them to have their own room while they’re so little, especially since with a bit of rearranging we had the space to pull it off.

I know couples approach the time between selection and placement very differently, and I know not everyone would chose to carve out a space in their home for a baby until after the baby was officially a part of their family. I can totally understand that and can definitely see where they are coming from. For me, getting Kellen’s nursery ready was one thing I could do that made me feel connected to him and the reality of the situation. It was one of the few things I could do as an “expectant parent” that allowed me to get excited for the baby that was on his way.  

I didn’t do anything major like paint walls or buy new furniture. We moved the baby furniture out of Mason’s room into Kellen’s (Mason was thrilled with his new big boy bed). I hung frames on the wall, made a quilt, and found some adorable stuffed elephants. I picked out some cute outfits for Baby Boy so he could have some things that were all his own, not just formerly Brother’s.  

I know I’ve talked about this before, but the anticipation is such a wonderful part of any good experience, or at least it should be. Adoptive couples don’t always get to enjoy that anticipation, and it can be disheartening or even hurtful when the typical fanfare and excitement that accompany most baby announcements aren’t present in an adoption situation. Or at least not present in the same way. Even though I wasn’t the one carrying him, I adored Kellen and wanted his arrival to be celebrated. 

I decided that I would more regret NOT having gotten excited for Kellen to join our family if he actually did, than having to return some baby clothes or store the crib or hide the quilt if he actually didn’t. Not that we doubted Serena’s decision, but the reality of adoption is you do not know for certain whether or not placement will happen. In any case, in our situation, what we decided was best for us was to celebrate Kellen’s arrival by enjoying getting ready for him. So we did.

I always hesitate to write about the more difficult parts of our experience because I am SO grateful for Kellen and and Mason and their birth families. I wouldn’t change the way our boys came to our family even if I could. Adoption is beautiful. It is also HARD. And that’s ultimately why I included a bit about the less rosy parts of our story.

Some people who don’t understand much about adoption think that adoption is as easy as filling out a couple papers and then going to pick your baby up. Um…no. Adoption is one of the hardest things I have ever done. Definitely the most worth it, but please trust me on this one. Adoption is HARD.

This kind of thinking isn’t just projected onto adoptive couples, but onto birthparents as well. I’ve heard a few people mistakenly say that of the options available to an unwed expectant parent, adoption must be the easier choice. Of course any birthparent will tell you that adoption is EXCRUCIATINGLY hard. Often not just hard for birthmother’s, but for birthfather’s too. Not to mention their families.

I didn’t mean to go off on a tangent there, but I guess it’s just one part of our story that I feel is sometimes misunderstood.

In any case, we planned and prepared and we waited…