On Patience and Not Always Knowing it All

My cousin-in-law and her husband (my cousin) will journey to Ethiopia this week to meet their son.  They are adopting him after years of struggling with unexplained infertility.  Something about her journey really resonates with me. She is one of the most adoring, genuine women I know.  She is kind, open-hearted, and has such a sweet spirit.  She is going to make an amazing mother and I'm so excited for her. 

I can't imagine what she's feeling right now. Anticipation, excitement, anxiety.  She gets to hold her son for the first time.  Even though she can't take him home yet, she gets to meet her child.  The child that she has wanted for so long.  I know this road has not been easy for them.  They have had to have so much patience to get here, and I'm sure that at times it's been frustrating not knowing when they were going to get their baby and then when their court date would be set.  What a true show of faith, hope, and patience.

I wish I could say that even in my "easy" journey to motherhood and now four months in that I have shown such strength.  A little over a year ago I posted about my love/hate relationship with Fertility Friend.  I always wanted to know it all. WHEN was I going to ovulate.  Do my symptoms compare with others, could this or that show that I'm pregnant.  Then I got pregnant and I wanted to know even more.  Is the heartbeat too slow, too fast, too rhythmic.  Is he moving enough, too much, too little.  Am I eating the right things to make him strong and smart.  And now, I'm a mom, and I still yearn to know it all.  Is he eating enough, too much. Is it gas? Am I producing enough milk? Is he teething? How do I know? Is this a growth spurt, developmental, physical? 

For each of these stages, I've researched obsessively. I've joined birth clubs and asked other moms.  I recently downloaded the Wonder Weeks app only to find that D is smack dab in the middle of one of the biggest developmental leaps.  Does this solve his fussiness? No, but something about knowing that he's there makes him easier to handle.  I always feel that way: if I can just know more, I'll be ok.

But when does knowing more stop? Or moreover, when is knowing more a bad thing?  I overanalyze everything, always looking for an explanation or an answer.  I find myself doing this so much that I forget to live in the moment and enjoy my son, even at his fussiest.  I ask my mom why, I ask myself why, I ask D why and really, I come up with no answers besides he's a baby.  My cousins have endured many moments where they've known nothing about their son, and they had nowhere to turn, no app to explain what was going on, no message board that could tell them what it would be like to embark on this journey.  And they're still coming out ok, more than ok, because in the next few days, they will hold the product of their patience.  A precious son. 

And I'll end with a pic. In a rare moment of non-fussiness, D found his feet.