Overwhelmed

Overwhelmed is the best word I can use to describe myself right now. I like to assume that most new moms would find this to be true within the first three weeks of meeting their son or daughter. And I am most assuredly overwhelmed by all the normal, new mom things. The fears. The sense of duty. The physical responsibility. The spiritual responsibility. Add in the absurd amount of laundry and the sheer number of bottles to clean and the early days of motherhood are just overwhelming.

In light of our circumstances upon meeting and gaining our son, there is an entire additional level of overwhelming feelings... some that I'm just now beginning to feel. The days leading up to the first day we met our son were some of the highest highs and lowest lows. The closest I can compare it to in the infertility world would be if your beta was negative but then a week later, you took a home pregnancy test and it was positive. When I got the news about our little man, I was still very much mourning what could have been with birth mom D. It was honestly hard to even think about putting myself back out there so soon. My heart was hurting and I don't think I had the capacity to feel both the loss and the excitement at the same moment. I sort of just went numb. And I was certainly overwhelmed by the speed and urgency of the situation. So many plans to make and boxes to check that my mind couldn't even really process what was happening. 

And then we arrived. I signed a zillion papers without reading them so that I could hurry up and meet this precious baby. And suddenly we were there and he was there. And it was obviously overwhelming, as I imagine it is anytime someone hands you a tiny baby and says "congratulations." But our meeting had even more layers. In many ways I was in disbelief. Congratulations to me? When I met my little guy I was in a room of 7-8 other babies, several nurses, a number of other parents, and the agency representative. It was anything but intimate. I was so very overwhelmed by the surrealness of meeting this teeny little guy that might one day call me mom, while at the same time the recognition that this might not be forever as the birth father could come forward at any time. Add in the seriousness of the situation... a tiny little four pound baby hooked up to so many wires and monitors. I was afraid to touch him, afraid to hurt him, afraid to break something or set off an alarm. Those NICU days were overwhelming on so many levels. I was dealing with so many different nurses, many with different opinions and different rules. Some I loved and some made me cry. I worried about the first days, those first ten days when I wasn't there, when no one was there. I worried about his development and the effects those first ten days might have down the line. I worried about our ability to bond, particularly in light of little to no skin to skin contact and the very few minutes of each day I was even allowed to hold him.

In many ways I was catapulted into motherhood. I had no time to sit in awe, no time to prepare my heart or mind, no time to anticipate. We hit the ground running. When I wasn't at the hospital I was researching things the nurses mentioned, or calling daycares, or preparing the hotel room for his discharge from the hospital. And then he was free to go and I had a two week old baby to care for. I was overwhelmed by his needs leaving again no time to just be. To think. To rest. To let it all settle. 

And now I sit here just a few days away from the end of our thirty day wait with the birth father and I am once again overwhelmed. It's hard to grasp that my almost four year journey to start a family has ended. My family is here; my child is here. I am overwhelmed by the truth that the Lord's ways are so far and distant from my own, as I couldn't have dreamed this story up if I tried. And yet the Lord has begun the task of healing and softening. I am simultaneously overwhelmed by the journey it took to get here, how long and wide that trench really was, and at the same time I'm overwhelmed by the reality that not everyone has crawled out of the trench. Despite the fact that my season of redemption has begun, others that I love dearly are still waiting. I'm overwhelmed with thankfulness and a nice helping of guilt that I am here when others are still living in fear and doubt and sadness. I'm overwhelmed by the thought that we are free from the NICU, while others still wait or mourn those rooms. I'm overwhelmed that I hold a healthy baby in my arms when others pray over sick and dying children. I felt so deserving of a baby before meeting my son, like infertility had robbed me of a right, yet as I sit here rocking him to sleep, I can't help but wonder if I'm deserving of this grace and blessing in my life. He is a gift. 

Most of all, I am overwhelmed with the reality that the journey truly begins here. In so many ways it has felt like the destination was to get here, to get to the point that there was a baby in my arms, but as I hold this little boy, I'm overwhelmed with the truth that this is his beginning, our beginning together. A former professor from college shared the following with me a few weeks ago. She said, "The birth is over in a flash. The real serious part of parenting comes when you realize you are responsible for that little human and you take him home and realize you’ve got the next 18 year to take care of him and mold him and keep him safe." That my friends is both awe-inspiring and overwhelming… in a good way.