GUEST POST: A Dream Deferred

Does your family unit look a bit different than you always thought it would? Are there more children than you thought? Less? Did it take longer than you expected to conceive? Shorter than expected? Were the genders of your children different than you had secretly hoped for? Have you ever dreamed about adding an addition to your family through adoption? These are all questions that come up while deciding how to expand a family. This is why I am thrilled to share something with you today.

My dear friend and creative confidante, Jamye Shelleby Doerfler, recently wrote an amazing and refreshingly honest essay on her unexpected third pregnancy and how she has dealt with an adoption dream deferred. I simply had to share this with you. Her words are raw and real and I love that about her. Thank you, Jamye, for giving me permission to publish this as a guest post on my blog. And also for simply being a light in my life.



Jamye, with her third son, Eli.


A Dream Deferred

I’m not living with the family I would have chosen.
It pains me to write this. I wince when I think of my youngest son reading these words in twenty years. But if I’m here to honestly collect the stories of my family, it would be a cover-up if I didn’t share this part of the history.

When I found out I was pregnant with my third child, I cried for three days. Given the two years it had taken me to get pregnant with my second, Isaac, it should seem that any spontaneous pregnancy would have been reason to celebrate. But Isaac was only 8 months old when I realized I was already four weeks along, and I’d already decided that I was “done” after he was born.

“Done” with pregnancy and birth, but not necessarily done with raising children. For 12 years I’d wanted to one day adopt internationally. I had always asked, what had I done to deserve being born into a loving, stable family in a country where I could accomplish anything I wanted? Nothing. And what had these children done to deserve being born to mothers who couldn’t—or didn’t want to—care for them, in countries where orphans have little chance of living past 30? Nothing. So even though I wanted to have children biologically, I always expected that my third would be adopted. It would satisfy Peter’s desire for three children, and my desire to adopt. Perfect.

Within weeks of Isaac’s birth, I was already planning it: when he was about 2, we would start the application process, which would take 2 more years to complete. That would give me 4 years of bonding time before we added another child who could potentially have medical or emotional issues. (Mind you, this was all in my head. Peter wasn’t on board yet with adoption, but we still had years before that would need to change.) But this pregnancy threw my plan out the door.

Four children? That was out of my comfort zone. And adopting a fourth after having two babies 16 months apart? That sounded like a recipe for disaster, or at the very least, utter exhaustion.

This baby had derailed my dream.

And then, to add insult to injury, we found out he was a(nother) boy. Now I’m really getting uncomfortable about admitting this to every single person who reads this. This reveals exactly how shallow I am.

We didn’t find out the gender of either of our first two children. Though each time I had hoped that one of them would be the daughter I’ve always envisioned, when we looked a few minutes after they were born, I truly didn’t care that they were boys. They were the children I’d wanted, and they were here, and they were healthy. This time around, we decided that we would find out the gender. If it was a boy, I reasoned, I would need those five months to adjust my attitude, and if it was a girl, then this disruption of my plan would be redeemed. I’m quite sure the ultrasound technician knew exactly what was going on when she announced, early in the appointment, “It’s a boy,” and none of us—not me, not Peter, not my mom—said anything besides, “Okay.”

As I drove back home in my car, crying, I dreaded facing the babysitter when I walked in the door. My friend Lucy has been trying to conceive for years. I knew how insensitive it would be for me to walk in bawling over the fact that my third, healthy child was a boy. I knew this, and I hated it.

I hated myself for being such an ungrateful snot. I hated that Lucy, whom I love dearly and know would make a stellar mother, didn’t have children of her own. I hated that she had to be the one to see me at this moment.

But she was. And when I couldn’t stop myself from crying as I told her, and when she said exactly what I didn’t want her to, I was miserable. But not miserable enough to be snapped out of my self-pity.

As I had grieved the child I’d always wanted to bring home from another world, I now grieved the little girl I would never give birth to. Because I knew that even if you could guarantee me a girl the next time, I couldn’t do pregnancy and birth again. This was it for me.



I discussed my sadness with no one, which is the way I always deal with sadness. And I was not gracious when people tried to cheer me up. My cousin—my poor cousin, who has such a sympathetic heart and loves me and wanted to help me—called on the phone and said, “A boy! That’s exciting.” I snapped back, “You think so? You want him?”

I stewed, I grieved, and I got rid of a particularly painful box. That box contained leftover scraps of material from when I’d made skirts or dresses. I had put this surplus in the box, imagining that someday I would make some things for my daughter—maybe skirts or aprons. Or little patchwork quilts for a doll’s bed. Or mismatched fabric banners to string up on her bedroom walls. That box was a tangible representation of my hopes for the future. Every time I saw it, it pained me, so one afternoon I unceremoniously dumped it into the outside trash. I didn’t even want it in the indoor trash. I just wanted it out.

I realize that some readers find my attitude offensive. I realize that I was being ungrateful. I realize that I was a whiny baby. But I’m just recording the truth, unflattering as it is. Here is where my theology gets a little self-serving and myopic. When we’d finally conceived our second, Isaac, after a struggle, I reasoned that the child we’d finally been given was the perfect one for us. That the unique set of DNA in that baby was the one we were supposed to have, not the ones that could have been over the years prior.

Yet when the shoe was on the other foot—when I had conceived a baby I didn’t plan for—I lost that perspective. There had been a mistake. This was the wrong one. In my adult version of a temper tantrum, I pouted. I was ungrateful for all the good things in my life and focused only on my disappointment at not getting this one thing that I wanted. I was consumed with self-pity. Nothing else mattered, except that I was being denied what I thought I deserved. After a couple of weeks, I got a grip on myself. I forced myself to stop looking longingly backward at the child I had dreamed of, and to look forward instead to the child I was given. I knew that when I finally met this baby face-to-face, it would be okay.

And it was. This boy, Eli, gave me the most perfect labor and birth I could have asked for. As soon as he was born and we were settled, he nursed for an hour. An hour! My first two had struggled to latch on, but within minutes of being born, Eli was bonding with me, was imprinting me on himself, and himself on me. In his infant days, even while the memory of my disappointment still close, I would sometimes look at Eli and think, “I wouldn’t love him any more if he were a girl.” I get a little sad when I hear of a friend bringing home a child they’ve adopted, or feel my breath tighten a bit when I see a photo of a little girl who looks like what I imagined my own looking like. But I’ve also broadened my dreams a bit. Maybe I’ll never adopt but will be able to help someone else realize that dream. Maybe I’ll never raise a daughter but will be a mentor and safe haven to a girl who needs it. Or, who knows, maybe I will someday be the mother of four.

As for today, right now, I am the mother of three boys. Three bright, joyful boys. My cup runneth over. The other night, as I was giving Eli a bath, he threw a rubber ducky out of the tub at me. When I jumped and made a surprised sound, he laughed hard. So of course we did it again. Back and forth we went; him throwing the ducky at me, me jumping back in mock surprise, him laughing. He laughed as hard as a baby can, and I, addicted to that sound, wanted to hear it forever. I felt tears prick my eyes as I watched him.

One minute later, he pooped in the tub. The magic was lost. I swiftly pulled him out of the tub and got to work cleaning it out. Back to the everyday work of being a mother. As I wrestled him still to towel him dry, I realized that I’m still getting to know this one-year-old. We may be imprinted on one another, but we have years ahead of us of actually learning about one another. I have yet to see who he will be, or why he was given to me to mother. But I trust that someday that Why will be answered.
And then, I will write that story.





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If you'd like to read more of Jamye's essays, please visit (m)othervoices.com. Currently she is at work on a novel. I can't wait for that one!