Promise of the Somewhere Between

And just like that, sometimes your heart is just relieved of all of the anxieties and worries you've placed under it.

Just like that.



Although I've never been "opposed" to adoption, and I 100% believe in it and think it's a beautiful thing, IUI's and IVF and the good old fashioned way of making babies are a whole lot cheaper options, and that had always kind of been my plan. But post-last-days-of-being-29-heart-attack-freak-out, I stumbled into this documentary, and just watching the preview alone? I felt this sudden sense of peace and calm. And I got that just off the preview.

A lot of you who know me in real life probably don't know this, but my family kind of looks like the United Colors of Benetton. My sister's kids are Mexican, my cousin's on my mom's side are black, and my dad's family is Chinese. I just never think about it. It just is.

My aunt's second husband immigrated from China in the late 50's or maybe early 60's with a little boy. (The mother abandoned them or something. The story has always been somewhat unclear.) My aunt adopted and raised him and she and the husband had several children together as well. The oldest son who came from China is my cousin, he calls my aunt his mom, and he just IS my cousin. I never think about the fact he's not biologically related to anyone. I don't actually have any memories of meeting his dad at all and they have been divorced for 20+ years. It probably occurs to me about once every 10 years that technically, we're not actually related, and usually I remember this when I start to make a comment about how alike we are and it must be our genes. Erm.

He married a Chinese woman (pretty sure from China) and they have three children together.  My other [Chinese] cousins also all have [interracial Chinese] children. They all had red egg parties and did all of the usual cultural stuff. Mixed with you know, German traditions. The oldest son's wife used to pick all the honey off our honey baked ham every year, which always pissed off my aunt, and always made off with the expensive $4 cookies my dad would bring from the pricey bakery, which annoyed him. All in all we're a great big happy Chinese-German-Mexican-Afghani (cousin's husband) family.

Anyway. I watched this preview, just the preview alone and I just exhaled this huge sigh of relief. All of that pressure just blew out of me. I don't know why. I've never really felt strongly about adoption, and I can't really say that I do now either, but I feel like I was spiritually (and quite condescendingly I might add) patted on the head and told "It's going to be just fine. There's a whole plan in play no matter which route you go here. Whichever way you go, it is TOTALLY cool. Go on little grasshopper. Take your time. [pat, pat.]"

L o n g,    s l o w    e x h a l e.

I looked all over the internet to find a free copy of the film and I found TONS but all required I download an extra media thing to watch it, and I was spooked since I've had such had luck with this computer that I'm afraid to download any software on to this computer, so it took me 24 hours to commit since I'm having such financial issues, but as a sort of birthday gift, I spent $2.99 and rented the movie on Amazon. It's wonderful. It's called "Somewhere Between," and if they make it free on Prime I'm going to be pissed.

But right now I'm just so grateful I got to watch it because it was beautiful. I'm also, once again grateful for Sex and the City, my favorite show ever, and Charlotte, who adopted a Mandarin baby herself in the series finale. (With her Jewish husband after discovering she was barren with her Scottish 1st husband, who refused to explore adoption or fertility treatments with her.)  As Charlotte said after she and Harry had been disappointed once again in their journey to try and grow their family together (failed placement- yes, they showed a failed adoption placement on a show called "Sex and the City" for those of you spooked by the title) she smiles, kisses him on his cute balding forehead and says, "Honey, that wasn't our baby. Our baby is still coming. "

I've re-quoted that a million times to friends who were trying to conceive, and wiped tears from girlfriends eyes after negative pregnancy tests and chemical pregnancies and lost babies.

That wasn't the baby you were going to get to raise. Your baby is still coming.

My baby is still coming too.



This post was sickeningly positive, and in order to even the score, I'd like to say that someone said something nasty to me about my relationship with Matt that pissed me off. So there. (sticks tongue out.) It all evens out. I'm still glass half empty after all!