Emotions

Days 22, 23 and 24

Wow. My emotions have run the gamut the last few days. If you're reading this, you most likely know me and/or my family, so some of this won't be news to you. If you have somehow stumbled across my blog, let me tell you a little about what my family and I have been preparing for the last six months or so.

My husband and I have five children, but have felt that our family is not complete. However, for some reason, I no longer seem to be able to carry a baby to term. Through much prayer, we have felt directed to look into fostering to adopt. In December, we were fingerprinted. In February, we started classes. We completed them the 15th of April.

Turns out there's much we didn't know about fostering. It will be more difficult than we expected in many ways. Time, patience, ingenuity and emotions will be tested, but we still feel this was the path we were supposed to take.

When we finished the class, we had three months to ready our home for the new additions. Rooms needed to be switched around, items needed to be purchased, we needed to bring our house up to family services code. We had plenty of time.

Fast forward to Wednesday. I woke up completely mad at myself for my failings during Tuesday's workout. I felt some of the things Steve was having me do shouldn't have been as difficult as they were and I was angry that there were things that I simply couldn't do at all. I vowed then and there that I would push harder and overcome these obstacles.

Then the realization hit that soon more of my time would be eaten up by the addition of two or three new youngsters in my life - youngsters that I've wanted for a long time. Anxiety hit me hard. What if I couldn't handle it all? What if life got so crazy that something had to go? The first thing that has gone out the window in the past when things got crazy is my health goals. That can't happen. Doubts began to flood in.

Thankfully, I actually received a fairly quick response to a fervent prayer: have faith and you can do anything.

OK, so we're still on the path and I am going to be able to handle this.

Funnily enough, that afternoon I received a phone call from family services telling me they are overrun with kids and they need us licensed immediately, instead of by mid-July. Panic set in. We are nowhere near ready to have kids in our home. What we had planned to do over the next two months now has to be done in a weekend! AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Thursday my emotions were all over the place. I was (still am) worried about whether we would find the "right kids." The stress of what we have to accomplish set in and I had to fight to keep myself on track with my fitness goals. Somehow I managed to complete one of the two things I'd planned on completing that day, get my workout in, get my kids where they needed to be, help with homework, make dinner and log all my calories/nutrients despite my head being everywhere except on what I was doing. I went to bed jumbled, but somewhat pacified.

This morning when I woke up, I remembered that I forgot to weigh in yesterday. People, let me tell you, I was so frustrated when I looked at the scale. My weight is going UP! I have done everything, EVERYTHING, I'm supposed to do. I have not deviated! I sat and watched my girls eat cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory on Wednesday night after their concert and had nothing, for heaven's sake! If I'm going to gain weight, at least let me have had some pleasure in earning those pounds!

Needless to say, I'm a bit put off. Now I'm not only feeling everything I've been feeling the last few days, but I'm angry at my lack of progress. Instead of throwing in the towel, though, I headed to the gym to run off some steam.

I had a really good run. I got on the treadmill (it's getting to hot to run outside where we live), set a pace and just kept on running. About 20 minutes in, a switch flipped and all the negative emotions just dissipated. I could feel a physical change. I was calm. I was relaxed. I felt good. I was running longer than I'd ever run before. I was making progress.

When I turned off the machine, I turned to get off and the older gentleman walking next to me smiled as if to say, "Good job." I did some leg weights then headed home.

Of course, once I got home I stretched and relaxed myself right into being tired, so some of those emotions are returning, but at least I got a break from them for about an hour.