Mourning furniture with music

So, here's the update. We finally touched base with our home study worker and asked her to revise our home study to fit the Hague format. She was surprisingly accommodating and agreed to make the changes (for a fee, of course). We just have to obtain child abuse clearances from every state we've lived in since high school. My list is a short list of three, but Craig's list includes six. Some states were simple, while others involved several layers of red tape and wacky bureaucracy. I found two Yahoo groups for waiting children (or the special needs kids) to help me better understand the process and what to expect. While my original intention was to alleviate my anxiety and uncertainty through enlightenment, I instead found myself feeling overwhelmed by what I found. Young babies with mild impairments are few and far between. The available children are mostly older children (8+) with pretty significant impairments (cerebral palsy, congenital heart defects, genetic disorders, etc). That was when I came to the slow realization that baby Sera may never be. She may be toddler Sera, but never baby Sera. Then I realized all the things I would lose with baby Sera. Bottle feedings. Crawling. A crib. A crib! I had always dreamed of a crib in our nursery and its hard to imagine there being a Sera without one. I know she will still be Sera. She will still be our daughter and we will love her at any age, but I can't stop mourning all these things I will never have.
I feel selfish for wanting a baby who is relatively healthy, but then remember, that's what everyone wants. However, I can tell you, from my work doing advocacy with Resolve, other people are not as understanding. I tried to raise awareness about infertility and the need for insurance coverage for infertility treatment and was told countless times, "You are selfish for wanting your own baby when there are plenty of older children to adopt." Well, you know what? That just doesn't seem fair. Its not fair. I see some unspeakable things in my line of work and the fact that horrible people get a crib and I don't, isn't fair. I'm angry. We've done everything right, yet it seems like we have setback after setback and have had to make one compromise and sacrifice after another. Don't get me wrong.... we'll still do whatever it takes, but it feels like an endless frustration at times, but I know that the end result will be worth it and I'll feel foolish for whining so much.

So, what to do when you reach that point? I've always found comfort in music. It started with a fisher price xylophone. When I outgrew that, I attempted to use my brother's Simon to make songs. Then I moved up to the recorder, the Glockenspiel, and the flute. My parents purchased a cheap keyboard, which I never properly learned how to play, but I still used it to accompany my silly songs. While learning the Glockenspiel and flute, I participated in Tri-County choir, singing the most awesome rendition of The Battle Hymn of the Republic ever. I continued working on the flute and then the piccolo, but my singing (in public at least) dwindled after a move to VA. Since then, my singing has been isolated to the car and occasionally fast-paced song-and-dance shows while cooking in the kitchen. The songs depended on my mood. Sometimes, I wanted some fast and fun and sometimes, I wanted something slow and poignant. Even now, I find myself wanting to sing on bad days. You would think that the songs that seem to apply to my life and what we're going through would be the most difficult to sing, but they actually seem to be more soothing. As far as I know, there is only one song that is specifically about infertility (its a bit preachy in the beginning, but still appropriate):

Like every musical theatre junky, I have also been watching a lot of Glee and like a total dork, found myself identifying with Rachel this week. Her reasons for singing this song are very different from mine, but I take solace in the song:

Then Glee made me remember that the prior week, they had covered Fleetwood Mac's Landslide (done Dixie Chicks style) and while paying attention to the lyrics, they took on new meaning:

I suppose I am afraid of changing because for the past 10 1/2 years, everything we've done and all the hard work we've done has been focused on bringing home baby Sera. But Sera will still be Sera, even if she's older.