Some Things to Know

Wow.  We have received so many wonderful messages from friends!  Thank you for your support. 

It is important to point out... that our family is not amazing or inspirational.  The loss orphans experience and hardships they endure are unfathomable.  Yet, many of them still have such deep faith and hope for a better future.  They are the inspiring ones!  As the case with each one of our children, I have a feeling we will be more blessed by Nora than she is by us.

We appreciate your support because right now we need more support than we ever have - this process simply is not easy.  In fact, it is one of the hardest things we have ever done and this is just the beginning.  I am not complaining, we chose to answer what we felt like we were being called to do.  And believe me we are joyful about doing so, but it has been a hard few months! 

I love this blog post that I stumbled upon a few months ago - Dear friends of waiting adoptive moms: some things to know.  I could try to re-write it in my own words, but she said it SO perfectly.  I've included the three points below that she wrote about that I can relate to the most...

Excerpts from post on Wonderment, etc...

#1. Your friend is not crazy. (She is adopting.)
There is, I will admit, a fine line between those two but still it’s good to remember. The international adoption of a child requires enough paperwork to kill a small forest. And more governmental red tape than you can believe. Imagine your longest, most frustrating trip to the DMV. Now quadruple that, add in twelve more governmental agencies in two countries, and remember it’s not a driver’s license you’re waiting for but the final piece of paper that says this family you’re creating can finally, finally be together. Yeah. Not crazy. But close.

#2. She loves a child she’s never met.
It’s possible. So possible. It’s irrational and crazy but it’s reality. Does she love them like she will once she gets to know them? No. But she loves them. She wakes up loving them and goes to sleep loving them. She drives to the grocery story and aches to have them safe and snug in the carseat waiting for them. She pushes her cart around the store and hears a child cry and her heart pounds wondering if her child is crying? Alone? Hungry? She might even have to leave an entire grocery cart full of food in the yogurt aisle to go home and cry because it just is too hard. Way too hard.

#12. She looks brave on the outside, she’s brave on the inside too. But she’s also a mess.
Which, I think is what mothering and loving is all about. Being a mess. Throwing your love out there and not knowing if you’re ever going to get it back. It’s scary. It’s vulnerable. It feels like you can’t breathe and when you can it hurts to do it. And you don’t want to complain about that because you picked it. So you pick up the pieces of your heart and you keep going. You keep going because at the end of the day what you go through as an adoptive mother is nothing compared to what children go through when they live their life without family. And that’s what this journey is all about.

Be sure to checkout her blog for the full post - Dear friends of waiting adoptive moms: some things to know. 

In other news, we have had some really wonderful people step forward & offer to organize some fundraisers.  More information coming next week...