Life goes on but it's also on hold
Sunday, Mar. 24, 2024 - 10:42 am.

Life goes on as planned while we wait for the judge's decision on our adoption application. Two or three more weeks to go.

Last Monday I kept thinking about the baby and how life would be if he turned out to be our son. But for the rest of the week I just dove into work, sometimes assuming the adoption would come through and I'd have to go on maternity leave, and other times assuming my/our life will not be altered whatsoever. Either way, it's a shit ton of work to do and it keeps my mind busy.

Andrew and I had to tell a lot of people at work about the adoption this week, in case we need to drop everything and take our parental leave. Mine's 12 weeks with the possibility of doubling that period; Andrew's leave is FIVE DAYS long because hey, fathers can only contribute to the household if they're working outside the household, right? But he'll work around our thankfully flexible schedule to be with the baby as much as possible.

In our process of telling colleagues and coworkers about this, I'm often the focus. It's all about my experience as a mother, and Andrew's been often left out of the conversation even though he's almost always standing next to me as we tell coworkers. I realized I was starting to engage with that kind of thinking, and I'm so grateful that he spoke up up the first time to say he's having a child too.

If things are going according to schedule, our family file (along with two or three others) must've reached the judges this past Friday. There's always the possibility that the adoption office and everyone else involved will be behind on this schedule, which is unforgivable knowing that there's a baby living in a hospital with no stable caretaker. But this is how the system works.

In other news, my family life has been a bit shitty. My mom's been sick with multiple ailments, most notably she's having trouble breathing. My dad and Brother #2, the latter a medical doctor, have been monitoring her tests (all of them negative, yay) and treatments. But then my mom's brother and sister (both health service professionals too) got involved, mostly motivated by panic, and told my mom things that had not been resolved by my brother just yet.

To make matters worse, my dad and my mom's sister are at war, so my mom got caught between these two sides she loves but hate one another. My mom is also not great on setting boundaries, so while my dad would be in his right to be upset this time, his way of dealing with my mom's family is lashing out and sending out sensitive letters to everyone involved and oftentimes, for some reason, his own children. On top of it, thanks to the meddling of my aunt and uncle, my mom was also panicking about dying soon and thinking she was gonna be forced to undergo a treatment she didn't want.

The former is unlikely, and as for the latter, she will not undergo any treatment without her full knowledge and consent. A very good thing about my family is that we respect one another's decisions and autonomy, even when we don't agree with them. Whenever she's said no to a certain treatment or condition, my two medical doctor brothers, my dad, and the rest of us seek alternatives that she agrees and feels comfortable with. It's always been like that with my elderly parents. It's basic respect for others.

I'm far away from it all, fortunately and unfortunately. I'm always included in communications, but I don't have much to contribute other than to send love to my parents, act like I don't know some things when talking to them, and support my siblings' decisions, as they are the ones dealing with this turmoil. But it's still affected me a lot. I have a lot of feelings about everything that went down this week, what I said isn't even the tip of the iceberg.

To make matters worse, my parents don't seem to register that if the adoption comes through, Andrew and I will not be visiting in May. When things get unbereable around the house, my parents turn to their children who live far away, who will make everything better by showing up. I don't doubt they're overjoyed when they see us, they cry and hug us so hard; but my dad doesn't know what to do with me after ten minutes and he goes off to take a nap or watch TV. It's a bit easier with my mom, except when she turns all religious or repeats government propaganda as a base to make moral judgements.

I don't contradict my parents when they say our trip is coming closer. And they say it with such elation that I don't have the heart to tell them "let's wait and see". For a bit, I thought about travelling this upcoming week, and Andrew had the same idea. It's a lot of money, but he made a compelling case for choosing spending a lot of money over a lifetime of regret (in case we can't travel in May and one of my parents, well, pass away before I can travel again).

But it still feels like a lot, what I have going on here and what's going on over there, and I gave up on that idea.

Let's wait and see.

prev / next