Trials and Tribulations

When I have nothing else to think about, and that doesn't happen very often, I sometimes wonder why The Dervish and The Girl are as intense as they are.

There isn't much point to this train of thought and while I do like puzzles and I enjoy a good mystery, I usually prefer that they can be solved.

Dervish and The Girl are not only intense, they are anxious. Are they anxious as a part of being intense or are they both intense and anxious? Another thought to ponder.

Dervish is anxious about his place in life. His gauge of self worth and self importance seems to rely on how well life is going at any particular moment in time.

He doesn't get freaked out about the average things. He loves insects, thunder and lightning don't seem to bother him as they do the girl, he rode a 2 wheel bike when he was 3 1/2 - without training wheels (no fear of failure or falling or trying something new) and there's never much fear of trying anything save for a new food or a ride at the amusement park.

However, when things aren't following "the plan" life gets bent out of shape and his perceptions follow closely behind. That's when the downward spiral of anxiety goes into full swing. He becomes convinced that he isn't worthwhile, that his life is awful, that it will from now and forever be awful and worse than awful. It just goes on and on.

The Girl on the other hand doesn't seem to have any concerns about her self worth or the worth of her life. She is anxious in other ways. She has fears, perhaps even phobias. Loud noises, rain, the washing machine... and none of these things are what can be considered 'rational'.

A rational fear would be one that has developed as a result of a life experience or lack of life experience. The girl has never been injured by rain, nor has she ever known anyone who was afraid of rain or storms for that matter, in fact, The Dad and I love thunder storms.

So why are these two children so anxious by nature?

One theory is that perhaps their birth mother was anxious during her pregnancy. This was discussed at this parenting information site. One of the articles states that research suggests that stress during pregnancy can pass stress hormones to the baby causing anxiety.

I haven't read the study, I don't know for sure but I'm presuming that their birth mother was quite likely under a greater than normal amount of stress during her pregnancy - and, if the research is correct, and stress can translate to an anxious child - then perhaps the mystery has been solved after all.

What to do about it though, still remains a mystery.

I believe in destiny and I believe in fate. I also believe that we have a say in it... perhaps that is a contradiction?

I believe that things happen for a reason. I believe we are presented with opportunities and our choices create new paths for us.

For instance, The Dad and I chose to pursue fertility treatments while simultaneously pursuing adoption. In our minds, it was the family we wanted, the getting there was not the issue.

I would have loved to experience pregnancy and, to this day, I own a small place inside that hurts when I contemplate the reality that I will never know what it's like to feel a life inside me or know what it's like to give birth. But most times the pangs are fleeting. After all, I wasn't trying to get pregnant so I'd know what it felt like, we wanted a family and we got our family.

I believe the months and years of buying ovulation kits and then pregnancy tests and being disappointed over and over again are things that we needed to endure. I'm not sure why. I know that the infertility experience changed me, it changed The Dad, but I will never know in what way - but I do believe there was a reason for it.

I believe that we were destined to have the children that we have.

The Dervish and The Girl were pure serendipity. We were on different paths when each of them came along and they suddenly happened out of the blue (on separate occasions to boot!)

We were in the process of applying to adopt 2 little girls when we suddenly got a call that a baby boy was available and did we want to be put on the list the birth family would look at. What's meant to happen will happen, but only if you are open to allowing it to happen.

Yes, of course we wanted to be on that list. Two days later we got the news that we had been chosen to adopt him.

Three years later, and having had decided that our 2 boys were enough (honestly, it was Dervish's intensity that had us convinced that we were good with 2 kids) we got a phone call out of the blue that Dervish had a sister and did we want her. How can that not be 'fate' or 'destiny'?

So, while I never did get pregnant, I don't regret the journey, I don't regret trying and, even if we had been successful once, we probably would have adopted after that to complete our family, but that wasn't what destiny had in mind for us.

Destiny, it seems, had another plan. We were meant to have a Pie, A Dervish, and a Girl. Intensity and all.