The Military And The Mommy

I'm watching a movie called The Shunning on Netflix. It's about a girl raised in an Amish household and community who finds out that she was adopted.
As I watched this, I happened to be cutting pictures out of October's issue of Vogue and stumbled across an article about a couple who pursued domestic adoption. The woman writing it explained the very difficult path they had walked after finding out about their infertility and the choices they made, the profile they filled out which listed the races, ages and conditions they would accept... No drug or alcohol use, any races, newborns.... And, despite the fact that I knew this woman was so much like me, a mother at heart, someone who could not bear children, to all appearances at least reasonably stable and responsible financially, I found myself so angry at this woman.... So angry. It's not her fault she didn't spend time in the foster care system, it's not her fault she didn't grow up knowing anyone with Downs syndrome, or in a wheel chair.... These things aren't her fault, and, really, her life is better for the lack of those struggles. Yet, to a woman who's been there, but doesn't have the financial ability to pay for adoption, turning a child away.... even a child with Downs syndrome... a child who struggles to live is the strongest of children, and children with Downs... there are no happier people on this planet than those who live with this syndrome. The love of a child, taking a child home and knowing that this child will not face the wrath of foster homes, or the misery of abuse at the hands of their parents, what more can you really want? Your child will love you whether or not you struggle for money, whether or not you're bloated, tired, cranky,if you have zits or a perfect complexion, whether you're a dog person, a cat person or don't particularly care for animals at all.... They won't judge you for the things potential dates might judge you on, or employers--- well, at least not until they hit their teens.
I am looking forward to becoming a foster mother. I know too well that it will be challenging, but I also know that, no matter what challenges I face in this experience, the children who aren't wanted, aren't loved or simply can't be taken care of by their biological families are those who are most in need of a home, of love, and of anything else I can give them.
So, as I transition, all-too-slowly, out of the US Army, I know that this path is the right one for me. The path of loving children who, like I have, believe themselves to be unlovable, or who's families cannot care for them, or who have already survived the unsurvivable... that's where I will come in.

The Childless Mother

It's so difficult to watch my social networking sites and see women talk about the babies they already have and the ones they have on the way.
I'm tired of feeling sorry for myself, but, really, I want it to be my turn already. I want to adopt and/or foster.... but it's such a long process we can't evens start it until we're both out of the military and settled.
I am tired of waiting.

Decision

I have made a decision.
I don't want to have biological children.
I'm sure it helps that it's not as easy for me as it is for most, and that my (sorry-excuse-for-a) mother convinced me to tie my tubes at eighteen years old, so I couldn't pass on my "issues" to any biological children. However, something inside me is shifting, fast and hard, and I'm barely managing to keep up with it all.
First, I think I'm finally accepting the idea of life with Post-Traumatic Stress and some BPD symptoms. Despite these issues, and maybe in some ways because of them- and the fact that neither are considered uniformly genetic- I am coming to terms with the fact that my past frigging SUCKS. My mother, another child, two different adult men and a 13 year old boy changed the path of my life, and took away a lot of happiness for me- but where they tried to leave a void, something else has begun to grow. It's big, it's tough and it's real scary, but I think it's a future.
I don't want to spend another minute obsessing over in-vitro fertilization or birth plans. I have spent so much energy hating that I wouldn't just find out that I was pregnant some day, when, all that time, the woman that looked back at me in the mirror was a child born of that situation. I was, if you ask my mother, an "oops" baby, although she said that about my younger sister at one point then changed her mind. I was a baby born to two married parents who had been together for over a decade. A DECADE!! That's unheard of these days! Two years later, they divorced, and it got worse from there. Why, why WHY HAVE I BEEN SO STUCK on having a child the same way my mother did? Giving birth does not make a mother, let alone a fit one! It's so cliche to say that there are so many kids out there who are unwanted and why not give one a home.... but, dude, I was one of them!!! My mother put me in foster care at one point, and that was the least abuse I underwent!
Why should I do it her way? Why should I work so hard to undo what my mother imposed on me, when I could keep someone else out of that situation? The two biggest positive influences on my childhood were my  stepdad, who never had biological children, but was quick to take care of my sister and I as his own, and my babysitter, Grandma Vera, who was- you got it- a foster mother. She adopted two of her foster children- at least two. The two people who made it possible for me to be as happy as I was when I was little were people who took care of OTHER people's children.
How did I miss this all this time?!
I was talking to my friend C who's teenage sister is pregnant with an unwanted child right now in another state, and I started talking to my husband, and considering the possibility of interracial, open adoption. Then I stumbled across a blog post titled Teenage Boys Aren't Meant To Live At Home and, at about the point the author says that everyone, if they're honest, wishes they could have the easier life of a biological child, it hit me: I don't do anything the easy way, and that's what I've been trying to do here- and, go figure, it hasn't worked. Yes, it WOULD be easier (and probably cheaper) to go through in-vitro, and have "our own" child, but a child who has never known abandonment, who has never known contempt and abuse and who only knows unconditional love.... Can I handle that? Unconditional love is a foreign language to me in so many ways. I still demand my husband explain why he loves me and why he stays with me some days. What about having a child "naturally" would be right in this situation? When all I've known is abuse, when all I can relate to is fear, would I really do more good than harm for a son or daughter who didn't know that life?
I work best under pressure- and I think I've finally found the challenge I've been craving my entire life- loving an unloved, unwanted child. What took me so long?