This Is It

For awhile there, Leslie and I were talking about adopting a second child. We talked and talked about it and it seemed that we could really fit two children in our lives. Except that..... Well, the process is so expensive and the waits so long now that it feels like something that we can not do. Evelyn would be at least 8 years old before we crossed our thresh-hold with another baby. I don't know. Mostly it feels silly to say "oh it's too much and too long" and those be the viable reasons for not going after another baby. That's the reality though. Money does not grow on trees. But then , well, with the wait being soooo long , we could space the money out and it wouldn't be such an immediate suck on our finances as Evelyn's adoption was. So, okay, then I say, The Wait. Oh my. We would be paperchasing and updating things for YEARS. Even if a fairy godmother dropped the dough into my lap, I would have to think long and hard about signing my family up for that roller coaster and then I would be, what 39 with a baby/toddler. eee gads.
It feels like, well, I don't know , sad really. I look at Evelyn and I know that she is enough, she is. I just wanted more for her, more love, more faces, more to turn to when Les and I are old. Also, as selfish as this sounds, I wanted another chance to do things better. There are so many things that I have done wrong with Evelyn , that I wanted a chance to say to myself, "see there, you can get it right, second times a charm".

I have just said this and I have said it many times before now, but I am going to say it again because it needs to be said before I move on. Evelyn is such a blessing and a miracle in my life. She is enough. Really and truly. I do not feel a hole in my life or a longing for that "biological" child. I don't.
However, when I hear people talking of getting pregnant again, or I see a pregnant woman with a child Ev's age tagging along with her? I get this sick, sad feeling inside. Not because I can't do that. Because THEY can, so easily it seems. I don't have the option to add to my family when I see fit, I can't just decide to "jump in " and do it. I can't have a quiet conversation with my husband where we decide, yeah,two would be nice and THEN GET PREGNANT. That option has been denied to me.
Some days I wonder why I have been denied this ability. Some days I think it's because I really am not a good Mother and someone , somewhere knew that about me. Okay, most days that's what I think. Some days I get sick and mad about it, yes , after all of these years.
BUT every day, I look at Evelyn and I know that because my body is a train wreck, I got her and you know what? It seems like the trade of a life time.
So this is it.
Evelyn.
She is enough. I hope that I can be enough for her.

Someday soon I will head up to the attic and go through all of those totes full of clothes that Evelyn has outgrown. Clothes and shoes and toys I was saving for the myth of a second child. I will go alone and I will grieve, I will cry and then I will take the things that I don't want to save, out of the house and out of my mind.