A poem

This is a poem that I found on adoption.com and is also a part of my adoption workbook that I am completing for our agency. It really put things into perspective for me. And when I am bummed because our child won't be a tiny infant when she comes home this poem helps me to remember we are not adopting for 0-8 months we are adopting for a lifetime, and that it is better to give up that first year then to never experience a child at all.

You may want to have a tissue handy when you read this.

DIFFERENT TRIPS TO THE SAME PLACE
Author Unknown

Deciding to adopt a baby is like making a journey to New Zealand.

You have heard that it is a wonderful place, you’ve read the guide
books and feel certain you are ready to go. Everyone you know
has traveled there by plane. They say it can be a turbulent flight
with occasional rough landings, but you can look forward to
being pampered on the trip.

So you go to the airport and ask the ticket agent for a ticket to
New Zealand. All around you, excited people are boarding planes
for New Zealand. It seems there is no seat for you! You will have
to wait for the next flight. Impatient, but anticipating a
wonderful trip, you wait, and wait, and wait. . .

Flights to New Zealand continue to come and go. And come and
go. People say silly things like, “Relax! Be patient! You will get
on a flight soon enough.” Otherpeople actually get on the plane,
and then cancel their trip, to which you cry, “That’s not fair!”
After a long time, the ticket agent tells you, “I’m sorry, but we are
not going to be able to get you on a plane to New Zealand.
Perhaps you should think about going by boat.”

“BY BOAT!” you exclaim. “Going by boat will take forever. Not
many people go that way – the journey is very uncertain and
you never know where you will end up. It is also very expensive.
I really had my heart set on going by plane.”

So you go home and think about not going to New Zealand at all.
You wonder if New Zealand will be as beautiful if you approach
it by sea, rather than by air. But you have long dreamt of this
wonderful place, and so finally you decide to travel by boat.
It is a long and uncomfortable journey of many months and
over many rough seas. Just a few people are on board. You
wonder if you will ever see New Zealand.

Meanwhile, your friends have flown back and forth from
New Zealand two or three more times, marveling about each trip.

One glorious fine day, the boat finally docks in New Zealand. It is
more exquisite than you had ever imagined, and the beauty is
magnified by the months, even years spent on a rough sea.
You have made wonderful and close friends during your long
voyage and you find yourself comparing stories with others who
have also traveled by sea rather than air. People continue to
fly to New Zealand as often as they were, but you are able to
travel only once; perhaps twice. Somesay things like, “Oh, be glad
you didn’t fly. My flight was awful, if was really uncomfortable.
Traveling by sea must be so easy!”

You will always wonder what it would have been like to fly to
New Zealand. Still, you know that you have a special
appreciation of New Zealand. You realize that the beauty of
New Zealand is not in the way you got there, but in the place itself.