Last week Saturday my husband and I went to a potluck at church with other young couples. We used to attend a Bible study with this group, but people stopped going because they had to get babysitters. The group kind of fell apart after one of the leaders moved away.

At the potluck my husband and I had a nice time. I'm ready to start connecting with other moms now. I talked with some of the women who I hadn't spoken to in a long time. It's the women who I've pretty much avoided for the last year. They talked about kids and preschool and I was okay with it. Thankfully I wasn't a part of any pregnancy conversations.

The strangest part about the gathering was that we were the only couple there (out of nine couples) without children. What made it even weirder was that everyone had at least two children. So there I was, watching these cute little kids, and none of them was mine.

It's funny how when you are with a group with young children, that the parents call the women, "moms" and the men, "dads". I don't like to be called a mom. What I did appreciate is that at this gathering the announcement was made to let the "women and children" go first to get the food. I was glad to be joined with the women, not separated from the moms.

I must remind myself when I have kids to not call the women, "moms" if not everyone is a mom. I'll call them "women" or "ladies". Maybe this seems like a minor thing. I know the moms at church don't mind grouping me into the "moms" category, but to me there is a big distinction between being a mom and not being one. I've tried to become a mom for over four years now, and I don't want to be called one until I really am one. Mother and mom are very special words. You can't assign them to someone, the title is something that is earned.

At the potluck I talked to the woman in charge of nursery attendant scheduling. She said that there are four more babies on the way. I said that I could have a baby as soon as two months from now. She said she had heard only a week ago about our adoption plans, but didn't know it would most likely me a newborn. I talked to her about adoption and to another girl sitting nearby.

My sister-in-law joined in while I was talking about when the best time would be to get a baby. She said that she and her husband would take care of our baby if we had to leave him/her behind for my brother's wedding. It was nice of her to offer. I didn't tell her that she would need to fill out paperwork in order for that to happen. I will keep her offer in mind if my huband's parents aren't able to care for the baby.

Yesterday at the Good Friday service at church I talked to a few more people about my adoption plans. They've heard we're adopting, but no one knows it's domestic infant. As usual, everyone talked about the people they know who have adopted. This time it was all about international adoption. I was able to share about a family adopting two or three children from Africa. They used to go to our church, and I had just heard about it from people at school.

Everyone kept saying how exciting it was that I'm adopting. I just smiled and tried to act excited. Waiting is not exciting. Maybe when people start saying how exciting it is, I should say, "It's not so exciting now, but it will be much more exciting when we have a baby."