Dear friends of ours: Bob, Lindsay and Hudson are adopting a little girl from Ethiopia, she writes on her blog here, and a wonderful website here that features a new family a week. Also, check out her video, here. She was definitely inspiration for our video and helped us out a lot. She wrote a wonderful article on being paper pregnant.
We have been “expecting a child” for over a week now. What a wonderful opportunity it is to know this. There are many differences to expecting a child through adoption and expecting a child through pregnancy. Lindsay writes so perfectly about being paper pregnant, so I will share her words with you.
"Pregnancy is physically challenging; adoption is emotionally challenging. When you’re pregnant, every month brings a new physical ailment. Morning sickness is followed by the foreign feeling of belly kicks, then your back hurts, and you never can seem to get a good night’s sleep, etc. But each new ailment is reassurance that you’re making progress, and soon your child will be here.
Also, you can’t miss your growing belly, and everyone can see that you’re expecting a baby. Being paper pregnant, no one looks at you adoringly and says, “When are you due?” If you’re shopping for baby stuff at Target, people probably assume you’re buying a shower gift.
When you’re pregnant, you know to a certain degree when your baby will be in your arms at last. Based on this timeline, you know when to start decorating the nursery. You know your deadline for finishing the parenting and birthing books.
Being paper pregnant, none of this is possible. There’s no sonogram to tell you how far along you are and how many more weeks you have left. Even if you wanted to know, you might not know the gender until your referral. Taking prenatal vitamins won’t do your baby any good."
It would be foolish to not look at the other side of the adoption process. A mother out there that is actually pregnant who feels those foreign belly kicks, their back is hurting, morning sickness has ran its course, and is making the difficult decision of what to do for her baby. She does not have the opportunity to raise that child, but rather give them a better life.