Living In The Land of Guilt
Originally published at Welcome To The Dollhouse. You can comment here or there.
As you can tell from my previous post, My Past/My Present, I live in the land of guilt. I think that guilt was the biggest weapon used by my mother and grandmother as discipline. As a result, I always feel undeserving of the good things that come into my life and totally responsible for all the bad. Logically I know that this is all ridiculous, but when I go back to these almost primal, childhood emotions, logic goes out the door.
Yes I was feeling terribly guilty for being hopeful about our recent match with an expectant mother. How dare I do that to Zappy?! That is where my head automatically went. But your replies to that post helped me reground myself. They helped my logical brain kick in and I am feeling much better. Thank you all.
I still am stuck in an emotional limbo about the match, though. I don’t know whether to be excited and plan for a baby to arrive in mid-late April or whether I should just pretend it isn’t happening since it can all go south very quickly. I’ve heard so many adoptive mothers say that their first match (or second match) didn’t work out as the expectant mom decided to parent or there was a disruption after a placement. Though our agency says that these events are rare, I know that this is a real possibility for us.
So where does that leave me? Should I plan for a little girl or just wade in the river of denial until we have a placement? Part of me feels that by doing the latter, I will be denying myself the joy and excitement that comes from being paper pregnant with a due date in hand. I learned the hard way with Zappy that one shouldn’t deny oneself happiness and joy in order to try to steel yourself for possible pain. Steeling oneself does not mitigate the pain in the least. Thus my inclination is to be happy and deal with whatever ends up happening. I think that sounds logical.
Thanks to my dear friend Millie for lending me a great book written by adoptive mothers. It really helps me understand the sorority of women I hope to be joining very soon.
I also found this humorous one on my own. It isn’t adoption-focused, but is instead a fun little read on the changes that having a baby make in a life of a diva.
I’ve been reading snippets of both and am really enjoying them. You might want to check them out.
Technorati tags: baby, adoption, guilt