A Waste of Time

Recently a professional colleague and his wife were involved in an adoption of a newborn baby. They were there for the delivery and held the baby.  Finalization was all set once the newborn overcame some breathing issues in the hospital but the mother backed out of the arrangement at the last minute. This indeed had to be difficult to endure.  Both he and his wife traveled two states over, took a huge chuck of vacation time and spent a significant amount of money.

I expressed my sympathy for this difficult situation.  He said to me that it was an incredible waste of time and money.  His frankness startled me a bit, but I certainly could understand his sentiment.  After months of anticipation, large sums of money and too much time and to still be empty handed is a much like a kick in the stomach that doesn’t go away for a long time.

We’ve all been there, dealing with expectations, hopes and plans that don’t materialize for some reason or another.  When it comes to pouring our lives into someone to love, the hurt and disappointment is magnified.  Despite the hurt, is investing in a personal situation such as this a waste of time?

Many people may perceive that, yet no experience has to be a waste of time. There are many things we would like to forget, but learning from experiences can be a way of making those miserable or hurtful experiences seem less wasteful. Even if all we learn is to not do that again.

Yet on the other side of this is a young mother who decided to keep her child and however cruel that may seem to this empty handed couple, the hope and focus they provided to this woman may have been the difference in her life to make her the mom that she never thought was possible.

This couple may never know the outcome but their investment probably was not a waste of time in the lives of this young mother and her child.