Kaya

Well, we adopted a new dog! Her name is Kaya and she is an 8-month old border collie. It’s all very new (she just came home with DH on Monday) and I am not quite sure what to think yet. She is very sweet and seems to like us and our lifestyle. She is soooo passive, which is quite a shock compared to our time with Max. Honestly, I feel like something is wrong because we are not being fought, tooth and nail, for everything that we try to do. She is so easy that it seems too good to be true. She lets us touch her anywhere, she doesn’t complain when bathed, she doesn’t run off, she has no food aggression, she is so gentle, she plays nicely with other dogs and is very excited to meet new people, she lets us pick her up, she walks fairly well (except when there are birds around), she does not bark… the list goes on an on!

I think, though, that I am still processing feelings about Max(Past dog). As wonderful as Kaya is (and I know we’ll grow to love her), there was something so special about Max for us. He was the most difficult living being I have EVER encountered, but he played such an important role in our lives. I can’t quite figure out what that role was though. He was wild and free-willed, yet fun and loyal. He gave us structure in the chaos of our lives at that point in time. Somehow he stood for something we wanted in our lives. And though he wasn’t quite like a child, he had such a personality that I think he somehow fulfilled part of that longing in us. It sounds so crazy to put that down, but I think it is true. While Kaya is a great dog, she’ll always be just a dog. Max was something more. And I still miss that.

I’m not sure if this is a result of that, or having friends come visit last week, or knowing that my closest friend here is pregnant… but I have had a tough week. Despite feeling well overall, I have come close to tears a number of times and had moments of feeling “down” here and there. I’ve had a lot of great times, but somewhere down there is an unfulfilled longing that keeps popping up. It probably doesn’t help that I read a statistic saying that couples who have not gotten pregnant after 5 years of trying only have a 20% chance of conceiving naturally. I’ve started to think of the “What if…” What if we can’t get pregnant, or don’t? What if we try assisted technologies but still can’t do it? Then what? What if we have to adopt? I feel like it would be such a long process (the number 3 years is in my head, but I’m not sure if that’s accurate or not). I don’t know if I can wait three more years. I don’t even know if I want to adopt. I feel like having someone else’s kid could never be the same as having your own. I feel like how I feel about Max and Kaya. Max was our baby. Despite his flaws, we loved him so dearly. Kaya is great and she fulfills her role (so far), but she is not “ours”…at least not yet. I’m sure that will change in time, but I can’t make the decision for adoption based on the type of feeling I have about it right now. It’s not enough for me.

So does that leave us as one of those couples who just doesn’t have kids? Sometimes I can picture it. We could be happy. We have one another. I think we have a love that could be enough just for the two of us. Maybe that’s why I’ve always felt we had an extra special type of love. It’s unfortunate not to be able to share it though. I think this has also hit me because I feel like I’ve been meeting a lot of young couples without kids. For a minute it gives me hope… and then I find that they are younger than my little brother! We are in the same place of life as them and we are at least 5 years ahead of them. That bothers me. I don’t know how to move on or past this place without being honest about where we’re at. But I don’t feel free to be honest about it yet because we don’t know what to say about it. So I’m stuck.