Please don't read it as ambivalence

J and I were noting last night how adopting feels different this time. Last time the minute we got the ginormous packet from American Adoptions we tore through it, making lists and gathering info and filling out forms until the wee hours. I think our turnaround on everything but the fingerprints was about 2.5 seconds.

Now that our wee hours include a wee one, we realized that we left the adoption info packet on the front table for, oh, about 3 days. We did get off our assess to bring our social worker, R, into our house on Sunday for the obligatory "have you killed anyone, is your kid thriving, and do you have a fire extinguisher" visit, but that is it. I just made appointments for us to get our fingerprints. I told someone in my department to get me a letter verifying I am, in fact, paid for the labor of love that is my job. I think I asked a few folk to write us reference letters. Haven't sent them out yet.

It is not that we don't want to do this (we do) or that we don't have time to get our acts together (we have from 7:30 on every night when C goes to bed). We are just not in a huge hurry. We agreed that we want multiple children, and that when they are like 4 and 6 it will be awesome, but we are also in a great groove with C and both of us are, I think, afraid to upset the proverbial apple cart.

Don't get me wrong. I love baby babies. I love the drool, the poo, the night feedings (really!). I guess I just wonder if I have it in me to love another little one like I love C. Will I divide my love in half? Will the part that loves J go away and settle on the new baby? Will I ever be able to say I am balancing things well? Cause now we are.

Still, though, when I look at new babies or at pictures of C from a year ago I ache. I do want multiple kids. Hell, if we can afford I want as many as that crazy-as-bat-shit octuplet mom. Except we won't, cause I was raised to take responsibility for myself and we can't afford it.

But 3? Totally in plan.

So we will get this done, and come July when J stops traveling for the year we will put our names in with our referral service and hope for another late-night text saying "your child was born". Or even make it in time to see it this time.

And we are so, so excited for that.