PRE- Traumatic Stress Disorder

I'm starting to freak out.

I'm coming close to becoming a mother of two. The next step in my adoption is to be matched with my new daughter (called the "referral" in adoption-speak). This referral may happen as soon as the first week of November and will surely happen before the end of the year.

That means that I'll be getting Libby Doodle Doo in the next few months. And that prospect currently has me scared to death. Lately, I've been asking myself, "How in the world can you possibly raise 2 kids when some days you can barely handle 1?"

I had this same anxiety when I adopted Little Zo Peep. In fact on the plane trip over to China, I was fantasizing about landing in China and telling the adoption officials that I had changed my mind about becoming a mother and that I would just spend my time in their lovely country vacationing for a week or two. Did the anxiety pass? -- YES.

When I told people about adopting number 2, some folks shared the wise counsel that "You know, raising two kids is more than twice as much work as raising one." Not the words of encouragement I was hoping for.

And then I did the math over the weekend. There are 168 hours every week. Currently I am scheduled for 161 of those hours. How am I EVER going to fit a second child into my life? Little Zo Peep is a willful, high maintenance child. How will I EVER cope with her sibling rivalry issues? How will I deal with additional Childcare calamities; burgeoning expenses; a plethora of childhood illnesses (that I always seem to get) and the everyday paternal anxiety that a second child will surely bring?

I guess the simple answer is that I intellectually know that I will. Emotionally I'm not there yet -- at least not this week. I hope this stress will pass soon. It's sucking some of the joy out of my days and nights lately. I want my referral to be a time of celebration and I need to work through these concerns to be able to enjoy the special moment that a referral is meant to be.