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.