What Should I Feel?

Everyone knows that I am very excited about this adoption. I will get to be a mom! I am enjoying the anticipation, and I am very much looking forward to the moment that we can hold our child for the first time. 

But, adoption is not all warm and fuzzy. It involves significant loss and pain for both my child and its first parents. 

While we are gaining a family member, the other parties are losing theirs. 

It makes me wonder if it is even appropriate for me to feel the way I do. Does my wish for a child automatically mean that I wish for the first parents to lose their child? For the child to lose its first parents? Is it right to feel joy about becoming a parent when this event will likely cause so much trauma to others? 

But what would the appropriate feelings be, if not joy and happiness? 

Would it be fair to this child if I felt sad about its arrival? Would the first parents be able to raise this child themselves if we weren't adopting it? 

I will continue to look forward to the parenting experience, but I hope I will always remember that adoption means both loss and gain.

A World Away

In the next few weeks or months our baby will be conceived.

It is such a weird thought that somewhere on the other side of the world two people are making the child that will be ours to raise. It is easy to forget that while we are waiting impatiently for the arrival of our child, and the thought of holding this baby fills us with love and joy, this time may be one of great sadness and fear in our child's birth parents' lives.

I wonder what circumstances our child will be conceived under. Are the birth parents in love? Do they even know each other beyond a brief encounter? What tragic circumstances will make them consider not raising this child themselves? When and how will the birth mom find out about the pregnancy? Will the birth dad even know? Will the birth mom be loved and will she have support? Or will she be all alone?