A bit of our story

I wrote this in July 2015 right before we had our home study:

All my life, I thought I never wanted to have kids biologically. Something about the pain of childbirth, gaining weight when I already struggle daily with that issue, and pain (did I already mention that?) caused me never to really have that desire to birth a child. Don’t get me wrong.. I’ve always always wanted kids. But I thought from an early age that my future family would include only adopted kids.

Enter my hubby. Before we even got married or really started dating, he had expressed that he wanted to adopt one day. It’s a small part of what drew me to him.  We both wanted to give a child that has no one to love him/her a family and more love than they might be able to handle! But he also wanted biological kids. For the first 4 years of our marriage when we talked about kids, it was always adopted kids. But I knew that he still longed for biological children. 3 years ago we started our adoption journey. 2 ½ years ago we were told there was a baby girl in our country that needed a family. 2 ½ years ago our hearts were crushed into a million pieces when we didn’t get to take her home. 2 ½ years ago I lost a child. 

It took me a year to get over that pain. I couldn’t look at a baby, hold a baby, be around kids without my heart feeling like it was tearing in two for a year. My grief was real. It was intense and it left me devastated. But somewhere in the midst of all my pain, God began working on my heart. Maybe it was the tiny little fingernails, tiny little pouty lips and tiny miniscule curly hair. Whatever it was, I came to realize how selfish I was being in not wanting biological children. All my reasons were about me. Pain and weight gain. Those were my reasons. So somewhere in the midst of my grief I surrendered my heart to the Lord and asked Him to give me whatever family He desired for us.

Honestly I thought that because this was a huge thing for me, I would get pregnant right away. But that didn’t happen and it hasn’t happened for two years.  We don’t fully know what God has planned for our family right now. There are days when it’s hard especially when so many around us are having kids, whether planned or unplanned.

Almost a year ago now, we started a new adoption process with a different organization and are weeks away from a home study (Yay!!), but there is still unexpected grief sometimes. We know that this is the path that God has us on right now and we are excited. But we still mourn the loss of what this means for our family. We will never get to see our child’s first smile, hear their first words, or see them take their first steps. We won’t get to see their tiny baby fingers with all their little wrinkles and oh so tiny fingernails. We won’t get to swaddle them until they fall asleep in our arms. We won’t get to be there for their first tooth, first fall, or see their tiny pouty baby lips. I'm a mom, right now even, who will miss the first 2-5 years of her child's life. And that hurts in the most real way possible. 

It’s a kind of grief that I cannot even really describe. While friends are getting pregnant and having babies and doing all things baby, I’m sitting alone, wishing I had my baby, my babies in my arms, wishing that I could buy tiny baby shoes and baby onesies. Wishing so badly that my family was together instead of miles and miles apart while trying to be genuinely happy for my friends whose families are together. It overwhelms me sometimes in unexpected moments. Seeing a mom kiss her infant’s nose, hearing a dad in a movie talk about his daughter being born. It brings huge uncontrollable tears because I know we won’t have that with our child.

At the same time, we have peace…if that’s even possible. Peace because we know our children are waiting for us, or will be waiting for us. Peace because we know that our God is in control of our family and our journey and story will be unique and wonderful. Peace because we know God hears our pain and sorrow and longs to fill it with joy. Peace because we know that while we will miss a lot of baby firsts, we won’t miss all of them. We will still get enough firsts to last a lifetime with our kiddos. Peace because we trust that God is asking us to hold out a little longer until our family is together. So we’ll cling to that peace when the grief rocks us and threatens to over take us. We’ll cling to the trust we have in the One whose timing is always perfect. And we’ll pray for our children, through the sorrow and trust, we’ll pray for our little ones until we can be together as a family.

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Our Big News!!!

I know many of you know already, but we wanted to announce it just like any other couple would announce a new member coming into their family! 

It's taken far longer than we anticipated in getting to this point (kinda the story of our lives!!), but my dad always reminds me that this time of waiting is a time for growth, to become the parents we need to be, to grow us closer to Christ, for God to work things out with our kids, etc and so we try not to get bogged down in the wait (try!!) but instead look for Him to work. 

How far along are we? Well we are just about ready to submit our dossier to Burundi! It "should" take about a month for the dossier to be submitted and registered and then we'll begin the wait for a referral. We don't know how long that might take, but we know God is in control of this all and that's all that matters. 

Boy or a girl? Age? We don't know. We want to be surprised on gender :) We did ask to be matched with 5 yrs and younger!

Just one right? Nope we said we were open to siblings! We are praying (please join us) that God will give us siblings and bring our family home all at the same time. Yes this makes us nervous. Yes we might be slightly out of our minds. Yes we trust that what He has laid on our hearts, He will make us capable of! We are currently trying to raise funds in order to proceed with siblings. We need to raise $5000 by the end of the month. If you'd like to help us bring our kids home, we would cherish your support!!

Due date? We don't know yet. Like we said, we should be on the wait list for a referral in a month after our dossier is submitted. The referral time is different based upon what children are available and what kind of care you can and are willing to provide. It could be another year or more before we bring our kids home. 

All in all, please be praying with us in our journey! Pray that God would open doors for our kids and us to be united quickly. Pray that the right people will get our paperwork and work efficiently. Pray for our children to be safe during this process, that they are loved by those around them, have their needs met and are healthy. Pray for their biological family who will have to endure some crisis in order for our kids to need other parents. Pray that God will comfort them during this crisis, and even in the crisis, they will sense His love for them and for our kids. Pray also for Burundi, which has undergone some bit of violence last year. Ask for peace, for calm hearts and for the situations to be diffused. 

All in all, please pray for our adventure of bringing our kiddos home!

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