Right

This isn’t the right time.

Amidst a flailing of instruction reading and nervousness, we had taken the pregnancy test (as I tried not to pee on my hand), and it came up positive.

We’d only been back in the country four months.

Steve’s dad had only passed away two months before.

Steve had barely started his new teaching assistant job, and was in the process of applying for the extremely competitive and demanding Graduate Teaching Programme.

It wasn’t the right time.

Never mind that Steve and I have a nine year friendship, with a nearly four year marriage.

Great degrees, successful careers so far with plenty of hope for future prospects.

Spent years travelling and serving with a great Christian ministry.

Loving and supportive families excited for the latest member.

Amazing friends ecstatic at the new addition.

A lovely (rented) house with plenty of space.

It still wasn’t the right time.

I had been rejected from the Step Up to Social Work programme.

I was two days from the UCAS deadline for the Masters in Social Work.

I had applied for jobs and not heard back.

I was still working out my career.

That’s what I mean by “it wasn’t the right time.”

Nothing can prepare you for that overwhelming feeling

The pressure of that new life growing inside you

That will be totally dependent upon you

Rely on you for everything

Will look up to you

And you feel you have nothing to give.

Would my child understand all the ups and downs of changing countries, and changing careers? Would my child understand the fact I just got into retail again so I could have a job while Steve looked after his dad, and I tried to find something different but nothing seemed to open up, and then I found out about them, and it was harder to get another job, and risk losing substantial paid maternity leave

For the sake of a

Future career

Future pipedream

Would my child understand?

Do I really understand?

What is my worth found in?

The right career

The right title

The right view of me that I have built up, that I aim for, that I am seeking to have.

I crave that perfect life,

superwoman career mum,

that bakes organic,

giving 100% to marriage

to childcare

to cooking

to church

to hobbies and friends and socialising

and as my belly grows, aches with preparatory birthing pains

my spirit grows more in tune to Father’s whisper

you can’t have it all

so what do you want?

I have wanted motherhood

since spending summers building Playmobile families and homes around my room

since being oldest girl grandchild caring for all oxford cousins

since learning to read early and gathering nursery group for story time

since holding newborn baby brother in my teenage arms

since texas days surrounded by families babysitting for fun

yet shock of motherhood entering my house unexpectedly

made me forget all these things

forget that I have known for a year which nappies I want to use

forget that Steve and I hunted down random family in airport to see brand of their buggy

forget conversations spent learning about family dynamics to be prepared

forget heart racing moments and disappointment of previous pregnancy “scares”

forget burning desire in heart

to nurture

care

create that cute

ginger afro

competitive machine

the world so yearns for

yet is so not ready for

Baby Baby,

I was made ready for you

And your timing, Father, is just right.

CV

Who are you?

What have you done?

What have you achieved?

What characteristics do you model?

What box would you put yourself into?

Thus begins the writing of my Resume

My Curriculum Vitae

One to Two pages of

Words

Describing

Me.

The five years on Pais and elaborate experience

The youth groups worked with

Educational achievements at Keele and Cheney

Progression through the ranks of Dorothy Perkins

Summer camps, mentoring, dance classes

All

On one to two pages of

Words

Describing

What I have done

How do I portray myself?

Motivated?

Hard-working?

Proficient?

Team Player?

Time Manager?

Organised?

Trite and clichéd word after word

On one to two pages

Of adjectives

Describing

Who I am.

Who I am?

On one to two pages?

26 years crammed into two slices of A4

longer letters written to grandma

bigger emails sent in passing to friends

but yet

this is what you give me

for my words

to describe

me.

Angst and stress

Over prepositions and tenses

Am I writing it well enough?

They will judge me as an English student

Am I fully explaining but

Keeping it short

On my one to two pages

Describing

little old me

I have to be honest

Toot my own horn

And lay it out straight

I can’t be confined

To your little mind

Wrapping itself around

One to two pages

I am more

than one to two pages

and even if you get me for interview there
and I sit business-dressed

with a little bit of stylish flair

and we talk for an hour and then you say

yes or

no

I still can’t be confined

To that little bit of time

For I am worth more than one to two minutes

Of talk of pretence

So I have money to pay my rent

And you say yes and hire me

And I work tirelessly

For several years

Before going back to get another degree

Or I move back along

To pick a different path

At the end of it all

The words you will say

Are still not enough to describe

Who I am

You are more than a CV two pages of word

You are more than an interview, two hours of talk

You are more than your job, two years in the making

You are more

You are more

You are more

You will always be more than the job that you have

You will always be more than a yes or a no

You will always be more than an advert in newsprint

So we’ll jump through the hoops

And we’ll say the right things

And we’ll talk a good talk

Have them nodding their heads

And we’ll sometimes feel failed

As if we aren’t enough

Come home from hard days

Thinking it’s just too tough

And feel in a box, in a bind

Misunderstood

Not gotten, not appreciated

Not fully

Who you are.

Because who you are is a person

Intricately made

Worked on, expanded,

Day after day

Father knit you, and made you,

Worked tirelessly

To produce the very best

You or me.

Part time or full

Contracted or temporary

Job centre trawler or permanent lawyer

We are more

Than the titles

We are more than the pages

Don’t find your worth in those places

Or the wages you are paid

Don’t find your worth in their affirmation

Or the commission you have gained

Don’t find your worth in the failures

In the painful traipse across town

For you are more

You are more

You

Are

More.

Wandering

I feel like I’m wandering.

Just existing with no real purpose.

And it feels bad.

Feels like I’m wasting the life that Father God gave me.

Feel like I’m wasting the talent

The gifts, the skills…

But the truth is

Last year

I was

Wandering

Aimlessly

I had a job title

A role

A description

An email signature

A to do list that never seemed to end

Calls to make

Meetings to have

But mentally

I don’t know if I was there

Mentally

I was wandering

Wondering if this was all there was to life

Examining whether I was passionate about this

Knowing that this was not what 100% looked like

Knowing this wasn’t what I wanted my life to be

And I was wandering onto a path I didn’t want to be on

I wonder if it’s better

This way

It might not look like it

Look like the better way

But it feels more honest.

Loss

One of my training sessions for Gladney was on “Grief and Loss” exploring how the different parts of the adoption circle (birth mothers, adoptees, adoptive parents) deal with the various grief and loss they experience…well seems like that training is going to come in handy.

I lost the job.

I got a call today saying they really wanted me for the position, but its not going to work out because of visa issues. For those of you who understand visa stuff, the requirements for the H-1B visa (the normal type of working visa) says:

You are coming to the US to perform services in a specialty occupation with a college (university) degree.

I have a degree, but because the Gladney position doesn’t require a degree (but prefers it) and previous people have worked the same position without a degree, they cannot petition for the visa as it isn’t seen, according to immigration, as a “specialty occupation”.

I cried hard after that phone conversation.

Yes. I cried.

It is so weird to lose something you never started in the first place, but filling out all the paperwork, doing the reading, meeting some of the women, having a tour of the facility…my heart was there, my heart was in the role.

And it just got taken away.

But I KNOW Father God is working in this.

I really felt like I needed to read the first bits of the story of Job. He was described as a “blameless & upright man…who feared God an shunned evil” but God allowed Satan to bring sadness into his life to show that Job would not stop praising God. Job said these words (which Steve had comically put by our shower in the last house):

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

I have NO idea why Father God has chosen to take this thing away from me.

But I do know he works all things for the good of those who love Him.

I don’t know what the next step is, I don’t know if I will still try and pursue some volunteer position with Gladney (part of me would really like to), I just don’t know anything other than I’m really sad, hurt and upset that I have lost this opportunity.

And I guess this is where the poop hits the fan, and your faith really gets tested; are these just songs I sings and nice words in a book, or do I really believe in the things God says?

Do I really believe that good will come out of this situation?

Do I really believe God is on my side and is working this craziness out and going to something more amazing than I can imagine?

Yes.

But it just hurts a lot right now.