So many people...

So many people around us are having kids. Lots of them. Since we started this journey, there have been literally dozens of kids born to friends, family members, coworkers, and acquaintances.

And I'm happy for most of them. A few of them, not so much, and I'm a little ashamed it takes me to a place where I compare Ann and me to them as potential parents, and judge myself a superior candidate.

Which makes it all the more disheartening that we haven't been selected yet.

I'm so tired of hearing that the one we get will be the one that God wants us to have and all of that sort of stuff. I'm not saying I don't believe it; I'm saying that it's not all that comforting.

I've half-joked with some friends that I feel like the last kid on the playground getting picked for kickball... but really, it sometimes feels worse than that. Because in this playground, other kids keep showing up and getting picked before me.

I thought about not writing this post, because I want people who read this to know that I'm fighting the good fight and remaining patient and optimistic and all that. But the truth is that there are days where there's a hole in my heart, where I want to ask God why years of praying to be somebody's Daddy has resulted in nothing.

You all know that poem about a dream deferred? And at the end it asks, "...or does it explode?"

When we get this kid, he or she is going to be directly in the blast zone of all this ready-to-pop parental love we have. This kid is going to be drenched in love.