Why do you ask?

I asked R when we were chatting today (yes, we still talk, open adoption plans make failed adoptions...complicated) whether or not she felt like she really did make the best decision.  She said she did.  That the reasons she thought she was making that decision have changed, but that she thinks it was good nonetheless.

Then she asked me, "Why'd you ask that?"

And it took me a bit.

I tried to allude the question a bit and just tell her I was having a hard day, feeling sad, and that it helped to know that she was happy.  All things that are very true.

But she asked for follow-up.

Well.  The last 2 months have sucked so, so hard.  Because my parents split up and I'm currently mostly estranged from my dad.  And then I lost the chance to parent Mordecai.  Then my mom's skin cancer came back.  All with the underpinnings of how last year ended so hard with conflict surrounding racial tensions and ideologies with family, friends, and church.

There were other hard things said by both of us.

The reality is that a lot of days and a lot of moments I feel like I'm hanging on by my fingernails.  Where I sit there and think that this can't all possibly be happening right now.

God and I have had some talks about this.  I've been angry with him.  Clung to him then pushed him away.  Because grief and processing aren't linear.  It's not as though each day I get a chance to feel a little bit better.

Some days you just feel like you survive and that's good enough.

It's Her Due Date

It's her due date.

I've been counting down to this day for the last 143 days.

It seemed so fitting that I would most likely be spending a day to celebrate love with the newest little love in our lives.

Instead, he's not born yet, and I may never get a chance to hold him.  I'll still always love him, just not as my child, and not in a tangible way.

The stages of grief we have gone through in the last 2 weeks have been bitterly painful.  We've had denial, depression, anger, despair, and peace.  It generally shifts from one day to the next as well as throughout the day.  We will get a new piece of information that crushes us or gives us hope.  But in the end, the odds are not with us that we will ever get to parent this little boy and we have to come to accept that.

I hung a Bible verse on my bedroom wall when we were first matched that I clung to as we went through the 18 long weeks that we were matched.

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God.  And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

So we rest in hope right now.  Hope that doesn't disappoint the way circumstances in this world do.  Hope that doesn't disappoint the way that an empty nursery does.  Hope that doesn't disappoint us the way people do.

Hope right now feels like riding on top of ocean waves as they crash against the shore rather than trying to stand up to them letting them topple me over and pull me under.  Because the waves are going to happen right now no matter what, so I have to cling to hope.

It All Fell Apart

The adoption is off.  After 19 weeks of falling in love with a baby boy and his family, the mom has decided that she can't follow through on her adoption plan.

We are all the things you would expect from people who are going through a loss of any kind.  Devastated, sickened, overwhelmed.  Our children mourn the loss of the brother they thought they would have.  We mourn for the place in our hearts that was ready to be filled with another beautiful son.

There is a nursery all set up that will sit empty.  A car seat all ready to install.  Tiny baby clothes have been washed and folded.  Suitcases sit packed and ready to go at a moment's notice.

We are unsure how we will move forward right now.  We aren't ready to just jump back on the "waiting to be matched adoption wagon" right now emotionally, mentally, or financially.  This adoption has cost us in many, many ways.

Thank you all for the support we have been shown over the last 4 months and especially this last week.