Adoption: additional musings

This was going to be an "edited to add" to the last second-parent adoption post but I think it derailed into its own post.

The more I think about it, the more the fact that we have a date set for our adoption hearing makes me giddy and really excited.

In some ways, it should totally not be a big deal, because I'm already Jolyon's mom in all the ways that really count, and certainly the ones that matter to him right now. It could even be regarded as a hassle that it's unfair that we have to bother with all of this legal stuff. But, much like changing our names, a process which is automatic for heterosexual couples who get married, but which required a court appearance (and generally a whole lot of explaining) for us, I'm actually just incredibly happy that we have the opportunity to do this at all via any means. In many states and parts of the world, that's not the case, and the things which we have done are felony level offenses or worse!

Moreover, in some ways, it's nice that we have, throughout this entire process of becoming a family, had to work for things that can just happen on their own without much thought for other families with different parent configurations. (Note that I say "can" because I know that it doesn't just work easily for all opposite-sex couples, either!)

While it means a bit more effort in figuring out how to get married/become parents and then actually getting those things to happen on every level, that effort isn't entirely a waste. It also means that we really actively, deliberately chose these roles in a way that other families didn't necessarily have to. (They still might have, of course, and we know lots and lots of families who did, but it wasn't out of necessity built into the price of admission to get there.) Back to the name-change analogy: sometimes it happens that women change their names just because it's expected of them, but that was definitely not the case for us. Similarly, some people get married and never think about all of the things they would want the other partner to decide for them in the case of a medical emergency, but we did, because we had to write powers of attorney.

Really, every part of our becoming a family of two and then of three was something we thought about carefully and made happen because we were so sure that we had good reasons for wanting it that it was worth the hassle. And, I think that process has left its mark on our family unit in a positive way. A lot of the new parent literature is geared towards parents with a degree of uncertainty that we never had, because it was such a deliberate choice at every level to be parents. People keep telling me that "Oh, goodness, don't worry, this is the hardest part, it gets easier and more rewarding, hang in there," and I just don't get what they're even talking about because I can't even imagine that things could get easier or more rewarding. We have a BABY. A BABY, people! Seriously! BABY!! The hard difficult part was figuring out how to get a baby after a good six years of seriously thinking about logistics, and nearly ten of having the prospect on the table for us as a couple, and even longer for me personally. Everything else has been downright simple in comparison!

The other thing that I really enjoy about my status as the non-bio-mom, besides the fact that I have an easier time calming our son down, is that as an adoptive parent, I know that I became Jolyon's parent completely by choice. Not out of societal obligation or personal duty or evolutionary puppetry of hormones or a conscious desire to send my selfish genes out into the world for immortality. My becoming his parent is based completely in of love for him and also the mom who gave birth to him... and that's a pretty awesome thing, and one that I think is worth celebrating!