Edited to add: You’d think that this being my 200th post I’d have some significant thing to share about the future of this blog or my life or whatever. Instead, I am letting go of planning, at least for now.

One of the most surprising things to me about this process of grief (and keep in mind, we are grieving two things: the loss of the Samantha herself, and the loss of our children as a whole) is that my desires can change so rapidly. I now understand why it is that people say if you’re grieving to wait on making big decisions. We talked about getting a second dog, even before Samantha died. We’ve talked a lot about this idea over the years anyway, but we figured now would be the time, to give us something to work on and focus on. But then, when it came right down to the moment of taking a dog home, we just couldn’t do it. We weren’t ready.

Similarly, this idea of having another baby or adoption keeps swinging one way and then the other for me. I was completely sure I didn’t want to have another baby physically. Then out of nowhere, I had this strong desire to have another baby. I mentioned recently that I thought this desire was more related to wanting a do-over on this past year. Now in the past day or two, I’ve had my thoughts and desires turning back towards eventually adopting rather than having a baby again.

I’ve started to realize that what I want is too fluid right now. Ultimately what I want is my little girl back, and it’s the one thing I can’t have. So then all of my other wants and desires and wishes and dreams fluctuate. And while I still can sense the clock ticking, I am also reminding myself that it’s God, not me, who controls our fertility and parenthood and all of those things. I told myself that we needed to take a year to mourn before starting the adoption process. And for pregnancy, maybe that’s wise too. I worry that would be too long, though, and making long-term decisions about anything, even waiting to decide, is too hard for me these days. So I think I’m just gonna give myself a break and remember to take it one day at a time. No decisions have to be made today, or even tomorrow. I’ll deal with anything beyond that when I get there.

I don’t need to have a plan right now, not even plan B. In fact, reading this helped me to see that today.