Tonight, we received news that the little girl we were selected to adopt is staying with her birth mommy. In all honesty, I am not sure how to feel right now. There are so many emotions that are fighting each other, along with a really loud, annoying voice telling me to suck it up. Thankfully, this year God has brought people into my life that have been teaching me that it is okay to experience emotions. I have come to realize that when I don’t take the time to experience my emotions, they come back later much uglier and often hurt the people I love. Despite this realization, though, I continue to struggle with working through my emotions. Why does it seem easier to brush them off? The only answer that I can come up with is simply other people. I don’t want to come across as an overly dramatic, pessimistic person. I would rather wear the mask of the strong Christian who never doubts God or His plans for me. Tonight, however, I am going to fight that voice that is telling me to shove and I am going to do what is the most healing for me-write through my emotions. So, here goes.

Right now, I am...
Angry-This is the scariest emotion because I feel so guilty being angry with God. The truth is, though, that I am mad and that He can handle that. I am most upset that God brought a potential adoption into our lives that just happened to fall on the same due date as my sister and sister-in-law. As dangerous as I knew this thinking was, I honestly thought that it was meant to be just because of that! Three little girls due on the same day in the same family? That just had to be a God thing! However, I am now feeling like it was just a cruel coincidence.
Scared-I don’t want to go through this again. To put it bluntly, the past week has been AWFUL! Patience is a virtue that I ran out of on Tuesdayish. It has been so hard to have our lives in limbo…preparing for a new little one while simultaneously guarding my heart against the knowledge that it could all fall through. The thought of doing this again (and possibly again and again) is enough to make me feel ill right now.
Jealous-yes, that ugly j word! This week, I had the joy of experiencing the birth of my niece and am looking forward to the birth of Becca’s little miracle as well. As I watched the joyful aftermath of Bella’s birth in the waiting room, though, I did have some pain creeping in. I saw for the first time how having a baby is supposed to be. I realized that the knowledge that the child that has been born is all yours and that you will be taking it home 2 to 3 days later is something that we will never experience. The hospital will never be a joyful experience for us. Instead, it was and will be overwhelmingly stressful.
Guilty-I know that as hard as this has been for me, it has been ten times harder for the birth mom. I can’t even imagine the amount of stress and pain she has been experiencing the past 9 months. (Please continue to pray for her and her precious little one.) Because of this, I don’t feel like I even have a right to be upset.
Hopeful-Finally, in the midst of all of this pain, I do feel an undercurrent of peace and hope. It is a small undercurrent, but it is there. I still trust that God has a little one in mind for us and understand that we just aren’t ready for each other yet.

So, there they are…all of the emotions that I am experiencing right now. Along with these emotions is that voice of rationalization that is telling me that everything is going to be okay, that this just wasn’t meant to be, that we will have another little one someday, that I am being too dramatic about this, and that I was foolish for letting myself get excited in the first place. As important as I know that voice probably is, I am thinking that for tonight I am going to tell it to shut-up. Instead, I am going to go kiss my precious little boy and then, I am going to let myself cry.

The Wait

While I'm Waiting
By
John Waller

I'm waiting, I'm waiting on You, Lord and I am hopeful.
I'm waiting on You, Lord.
Though it is painful, patiently I will wait.

I will move ahead, bold and confident.
Taking every step in obedience.

While I'm waiting, I will serve You.
While I'm waiting, I will worship.
While I'm waiting, I will not faint.
I'll be running the race even while I wait.

I'm waiting, I'm waiting on You, Lord and I am peaceful.
I'm waiting on You, Lord.
Though it's not easy, but faithfully I will wait.
Yes, I will wait

We may be expecting...

a second little one! Last week we received a call from the adoption agency telling us that we had been chosen by a birthmom. The birthmom is due on August 11…the same day that my sister and sister-in-law are due! Do you have goose bumps yet? I get them every time I think about it!

Just as with Brayden’s adoption, this is a time in our lives when we are again requesting lots of prayers. We especially ask for your prayers for the birthmom as she deals with the stress and pain that comes with making this decision. We met with her yesterday and she was understandably very overwhelmed. Her mother has offered to take the baby, so she has a lot to work through in the next few weeks. We also request prayers for safety and peace for her little one. Please pray that God would give the birth mom the wisdom to make the best decision for her and for her baby…even if that doesn’t include us! As with our last experience, I am finding that my biggest source of pain in all of this is a heart that is breaking for the birth mom. I can’t even imagine what she must be going through! Finally, we ask for prayers as we are preparing for our new little one, whoever or wherever he or she may be! This is bringing back a lot of “uncomfortable” feelings that I forgot about after Brayden’s adoption was finalized. (Even though I have no experience with childbirth, I imagine that it is a bit like forgetting the pain of labor after the baby is born!) We know now that the emotions are just part of the adoption package and that they will, in God’s time, result in indescribable joy. But, they are still there and we are again working through them!

To close, thank you for joining with us on this second chapter of our adoption journey. Your prayers, your support, and your love are so very much appreciated! I will do my best to keep you all updated. (I have to admit that I am finding it harder to do that with a one year old this time around!:-))

To my little one,

Welcome to the incredible journey that God has our family on! Last May, God blessed us with the birth and adoption of your big brother, Brayden. Brayden has brought us more joy than we have ever known and has been teaching us so much about what it means to love unconditionally. When we look back on our journey to Bray, we are still and will probably always be amazed at what God has done for us!

Soon after the finalization of Brayden’s adoption, I sensed that God wasn’t done with our family yet. While we always knew that we would adopt again, we didn’t realize how soon God would knock on the door of our hearts a second time. Fortunately, this time around, it didn’t take me nearly as long to realize that He was and continues to be preparing us for YOU! You have been on my heart and in my thoughts so much throughout the past few months and I am finding it impossible to describe how much I love you already!

Sometimes it is so frustrating that I don’t know the details or the timing of your adoption. Just as it was with Brayden, though, we know that God is preparing us for each other and we trust that His timing will again be perfect. We truly can’t wait until the day we can hold you in our arms. But, until then, we will trust you in the arms of our precious Father.

To close, we are praying for protection, love, and peace to surround both you and your birth mommy. God is still at work in writing our family’s story and we are so excited to meet the final piece of our happily ever after! Grow in peace, my little one, knowing that you are already unconditionally loved.

Love and prayers,
Mommy

Our Adoption Journey, Chapter 2

The adoption bug has bit us again…already! In the past few months, Seth and I have been discussing when to pursue our second (and final?) adoption. Ideally, of course, we would wait for 2 to 3 years for our second child. However, as adoptive parents, we have some reasons why that is not necessarily the best option. The main reason is that our home study is set to be renewed next March. Even though we have heard that renewing a home study isn’t nearly as stressful as starting from scratch, it would still require redoing quite a bit of things. In addition, it would be an additional expense on top of the other adoption fees. Despite these reasons, though, Seth and I had still decided to hold off on our second adoption until we recovered financially from Brayden’s adoption. In addition, we wanted to be sure that we were building a strong enough attachment and relationship with Brayden. The mistake in this decision, however, was that we forgot to include God and His plan for our family in the process. Seriously, did we learn nothing on our journey to adopt Bray? :-) Soon after being okay with our decision, God dropped several possibilities for adoption into our lap. This caused us to begin rethinking our decision and reminded us to add prayer into any future decisions. Our biggest obstacle, of course, was still finances. While I know that if it is meant to happen God will provide, I still had a lot of worries. The last thing that we wanted to do was to jump into an adoption that we can’t afford, so I decided to schedule a meeting with our financial advisor. After talking with him yesterday, we got the “go ahead.” Wow! Honestly, I wasn’t expecting to hear that! I thought that it would be the meeting that would close the door on any adoptions in the near future. It is looking as if God wants us to move forward with this, though. So……here we go again! Despite some lingering fears, I am excited to be on this journey again. God, the author of our family story, is still at work and we are looking forward to what He has in store for the three of us! I, of course, will keep all of you updated throughout this next chapter in our journey. Prayers for wisdom and clarity would be greatly appreciated at this point!