Whoa.

I look down at the pregnancy test and think, whoa. Tears come from out of the blue and I rush out of the bathroom to tell my husband.

“It’s a boy” He says, and goes back to reading on his phone. “It”, was not.

I got on the phone and called a doctor and 30 minutes later we were in the car to get another test. Pregnant, for sure.

I remember my mother asking if now that I had a child of my own on the way, would I have any more interest in meeting my birth family? The answer was, and always has been, not really. Instead I found myself frustrated. Frustrated that the journey I went on as an adopted child, wouldn’t be one that I got to share with my daughter. I wanted to share with someone what it was like to create a family with no blood relations. It was like making the strongest most beautiful castle out of paper mache. So much hard work, delicate and detailed, and oh so important to me. She would be born and never question if she was loved or not. Her love would be handed to her on a gold platter. There would be no gotcha days that we would celebrate.

Funny isn’t it? To be envious of an unborn child’s bond with yourself. She will get this loving family easily, there will be no questions. I still can’t wrap my brain around it. Is it the love? Is it the family? What am I so envious of. It’s there though, that ugly little feeling that makes me question my own beliefs. FAMILY IS WHO YOU MAKE IT, NOT BLOOD. But now I have blood family and it’s different, why does it have to be so damn different.

I think the envious feeling I get comes mainly from being so scared. So scared that she won’t know she’s my whole entire world and why she’s here. I always knew. I was told that I was loved so much that my birth mother gave me to my mother so that she could raise me and provide me with a better life. That’s big love. I was in Oregon because of all the time and effort my parents went though to get me there. There were tears and joy and very stressful plane rides just to get me to Oregon. You wouldn’t go through all of that for nothing, it had to be because of love.

I hope that Carmen knows that she wasn’t born because mom and dad were bored during a pandemic. That mamma hated the idea of babies and then one day, a little baby girl was the only thing she could think about. There was no accident, I clearly went off of birth control with the plan of getting pregnant. Sometimes, out of weird ass embarrassment of having a child “so young” I will tell people “it just happened”. It did not. There was time, and effort, enjoyment and tears, all to bring sweet baby girl into this world.

After sweet baby girl was born I would look at her and think “whoa, she looks like I did when I was a baby. What a coincidence”. Not once have I resembled anyone in my family because of genetics, my brain just thinks it can’t be possible. My mother on the other hand will hold her grandchild next to her in the mirror and ask “does she look like me?”. Of course not, but it’s cracks us up every time.

Let me (attempt to) clear up some things while we are in the thick of my feels. The lack of interest I have in meeting my birth family is from, I think, being completely content with the love and family that adopted me. I don’t have any doubts on who I am or where I came from. To put it into a rough metaphor, would you go out and look for a new family dog if you already had the best dog in the whole wide world? I wouldn’t. Family is not blood, it is the bonds. Family can be blood, but it’s not a requirement and it shouldn’t be used as a way to keep you in toxic family relationships.

Who knew I could feel so many things all at once. I think this blog post is messy.. I think messiness is what you get when an over sharer decides she can write a blog, when in fact, she is not a writer. This blog post has got a lot of feelings in it and I hope it doesn’t scare you away, dear reader. I hope it makes you feel something too.

Welcome to my world of over sharing.