Grief

This weekend I grieve...

for the women who so desperately want to be a mother but struggle to conceive

for the child who has a mother but wants her to act like one

for the birth mother who chooses to give her child a better life than she can provide

for awaiting adoptive families who just want to hold their new child in their arms

for families that have lost a child and just wish they would have had one more night

for Conneticut...
       
          for all of those who hurt.

An outpouring from my heart

My heart is raw. The past two weeks have been very
difficult for me.  I started this blog as a way to share our journey with family, friends and other adoptive families so I want to be honest here and share my heart, pretty or not.

This past week we changed our request back to one child. It was a long time coming and something we really struggled with. A day later in our agency, there was a referral for a sibling set and then a few days later another sibling set referral, both were within our age ranges. To be honest, this was hard. I wish I could say that I was praising God and celebrating for these families, sending them heart felt words of encouragement. But I wasn't.....I was sad and angry and hurt. Knowing that if we had not changed our request we would have two new sons right now was difficult. Yes, I have three amazing wonderful children in my home who I love and cherish- but in that moment I missed our Ethiopian child(ren). My heart sank. I felt like we had lost something, we had missed it.

To say adoption is easy is a lie. This is tough stuff and I mean gut wrenching, pain in your heart, earth shattering longing like you would never believe hard. Seriously- hard stuff people.

But out of this pain and hurt, I get to see how much God loves me. If we love this child so much before we even know them, how much more does our heavenly creator who adopted us! I can place my trust in God and know that he has plans for us. The boys that I cried over and missed were never really mine, they were intended for their new families and have been heavenly matched.

Now, can I say this every moment of every day? Nope- some time I just want to throw up my hands and run back to the days before I felt that half my heart was missing. Back to the days where I had hidden the knowledge about oorphans and hunger, extreme poverty and AIDS. Back to the days when I thought three was just fine with me. No constant e-mail checking, cyber stalking other adoptive parent blogs, or constant research on race or health or behavioral interventions.... But then, no one said life was going to be easy, pain free or boring. Our child is out there somewhere and he is waiting for us too!