A year later-how the adoption process changed me
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A Year Later-How The Adoption Process Changed Me
John Paul Derryberry
A year ago, a snowstorm raged throughout the weekend, much like this weekend here in Iowa. I was standing in our tiny downstairs bathroom rehearsing, saying our first daughter's name. I don't want to break down on the witness stand during the hearing for our adoption finalization. We were tweaking her name a little, it was s surprise to everyone in the room, especially two people I much admire and love. I didn't want to break down on the stand in tears, so I visualized as much as I could in our bathroom and rehearsed like I was going to deliver this name in a way that would win me an oscar.
It's not a moment that I thought would occur in my life. I don't think too many of us visualize an adoption hearing as the way to start a family. Then again, I don't believe many of us envision the moments we don't see coming, good or bad. Still, it's those moments that have a lasting impact on us. We are forced into situations to examine who we are, who we want to be, and have to process it all and come up with answers, meaningful answers.
The time came, and I delivered the name, and our small crowd cooed. I held it together with only a few tears rolling down my face. My voice did not crack, I think Tom Hanks would have been proud. A year later, when I reminisce about that day, the first memory is always me alone in the bathroom, thinking how the hell did we end up here? My elation status and joy played out in my rehearsal of our daughter's name. I would look in the mirror, laugh, take a big breath, make an attempt to say my daughter's name, and tear up. This played on repeat for ten minutes while I attempted to get my proverbial stuff together.
This was never the plan: two kids a little over 8 months apart. One adoption being completed, and one adoption through the embryo donation invitro process. A brave soul entrusted us with their child as our own. A fellow mom and dad passed on a gift to our struggling family by leaving their embryos for families dealing with infertility. Even Hallmark would have rejected this movie script, but that's what happened. This wasn't the textbook way to start a family, but who gives a crap about the textbook way. Parents are parents: step-parents, birth parents, grandparents thrust back into the role of parent, and on and on. However, your family was formed, it's a family.
A year later, that's how this process changed me; it imprinted into my life, what I attempt to follow every day at work. What I know in my heart to be accurate, there is no one road to happiness, to fulfillment, to love. We need to create as many possible ways to experience a full, happy, and healthy life as possible. To be flexible, not stubborn, to be open not closed off, to not write in pen how you think your life should progress and then force it. Too often, too many of us stubbornly attempt to bend life to what it should be, and we miss the beauty it is. I'm guilty of this from time to time.
Adoption changed me way more than it changed either one of my daughters. The adoption process forced me to understand emotions in more depth, to reevaluate what love is and how we recalibrate after discovering meaningful answers to life. This journey reminds me to soften, to become more malleable to life, and to not overlook solutions because they are not mine. It revealed to me how to be a better father, husband, son, brother, friend, and professional who fosters those qualities in others. So yes, a year ago a delighted and nervous John looked in the mirror and asked how did we end up here? Today an excited and full of love John looks around and says, why would I want to be anywhere but here.