All I Know For Now

Julia called me with news today. "Marsha" has chosen us. We get to meet her parents next week! The baby is due about a month from now.

I hang up the phone a little bit in shock. I go back to my desk and try to keep ordering pencils and rubber bands and glue sticks from Staples, as if that's really the most important thing I can be doing right now. Oh, wait. Julia told me I need to call my mom. I grab my cell and walk back over to the corner of the classroom where I get a little reception. 

"Hola Mami, here's the news. It's all I know." I think, somehow, that I'm going to get away with just two or three sentences. Of course, it's not possible. I answer a flurry of questions, each time simply saying "I don't know." Finally, she asks me to put on my wizard hat and figure it all out.

I have no idea what this means.  Seriously. I can't even imagine the context for me having a wizard hat. But she tells me she loves me anyway and that she's so excited. 

I try to do some more work but I'm not really sure what I'm doing. I keep realizing that I don't know what to do next. I'm feeling pretty lost. I think I'm supposed to be excited, but I think I'm actually terrified. I keep going back to the conversation I had with a parent in my class this morning - he knew adoptive parents who'd had kids for 7 days and then the birth mother had changed her mind. We're looking at a 10 day period in our situation. Can I wait a month and then 10 more days to really celebrate? It's exhausting to think about.

I pick up Julia at work and she asks me how I'm doing. She asks if I've called my mom and I say yes. She asks if I've called my dad, and I say not yet. Then she asks if I've called my sisters. I say not yet. I'm realizing that she's going to make me call everyone, and that everyone is going to be excited, and I'm trying hard not to set myself up for anxiety and disappointment. But I guess that's the risk. Julia says "Honey, we're becoming parents. We're setting ourselves up for YEARS of anxiety." Ah yes. As the wise pediatrician said to the anxious new parent: "You've got to pace yourself."

So here's all I know. One month to new baby and parenthood. The clock is ticking!