My hope is not floating

We went to our first adoption information meeting over a week ago. I cried the entire way home and for the rest of the night. I thought I might feel better if I had some ice cream, but my bowl with said ice cream ended up being flung across the room. I do not waste ice cream, especially if it's chocolate.

The thing is, I knew the statistics for adoption were not exactly encouraging, but hearing it in a presentation made it so much more real, for me. I became angry. Extremely angry. Angry that for some types of adoption, because my DH is in a certain age bracket, he is not "fit" to parent a newborn baby, but is somehow "fit" to parent a 2 year or older child. Angry because unless we want to adopt a baby who's mom drank alcohol or did drugs, or who is mentally ill or has other such emotional problems, we shouldn't expect a baby anytime "soon". Angry that after all the thousands of dollars we have already spent, we have to spend tens of thousands more just to take home a baby. Angry that after 4 years of waiting, we have to wait some more, and more and more. Angry that after traveling the already difficult path of IF, our road just gets harder, not easier. Angry that we have to go through SO MUCH when all everyone else has to do is just have 20 minutes of fun in bed - and they get their baby, no questions asked. It's just not fair.

After a day or two, the anger subsided for the most part. I have to remember that at the beginning of this year a vowed I would choose hope over despair, I would choose joy over anguish. I would choose God's comfort over my own understanding. I have to make this choice, because if I don't, the anger will eat me up and kill me. And then there's that whole trusting God thing. If I really trust him, can I really be angry about any of this? shouldn't I be at peace? I think most of the time I am at peace, but there are those MOMENTS that are so hard.

Despite everything I've just written, I do feel ok about adopting if we are led down that path. I believe that someday someone will plop this baby in my arms and he or she will be mine and I will love that baby like no other. It's all that other stuff we have to through to get there that makes me feel like I got the short end of the stick. And, the truth is, I still want MY baby. I still want my beautiful blue eyed, olive skinned, curly dark haired Sophia(after my grandma) or my bouncy, blond haired (Mike had blond hair until 2) blue eyed David James with skinny legs. There is so much of me that still wants OURS, not somebody else's. Most of the time, my desire to be a parent overrides this, but there is still so much of me that wants me to be a mommy of OUR baby, the one that grows inside me, and it kills me that I can't have that. It kills me that Sophia and David may never exist. It kills me that having a family, something so natural and wonderful has turned into something so complicated and difficult and sad and hard. It just shouldn't have to be this way.