Roller coaster ride God's way

So I've had this whole blog post in my head for the last few days and haven't gotten around to actually sitting down and writing it. Time flies and next month Eden is turning one on the 11th and Aniah is turning 3 on the 19th. They are both growing and getting huge. I am destined for the rolly polly babies, and we love the chub! Eden is just getting over RSV. She is doing much better, and I am very sick of being at home so much lately! She also got her first two teeth, with two more on the way, lets just say, she wasn't the cheeriest last week! We are on the mend though! Aniah continues to make us laugh many times a day. Strong willed is also a very good description of her. There is another post- how to control a strong willed child- in which- I will ask for any suggestions imaginable!! :) Love, love, love being a mommy and my two girls!

Because it is April I am filled with memories of this time last year. Last April we were matched with a birth mother. We were busy doing garage sales for fund raising and one day I got "the call." Now everyone says the second time around you are not as anxious or consumed with adoption because you already have a child, well I must not be "normal." Because the second time around was just as consuming and scary and exciting for me as the first time around. It was better knowing what to expect- but then who can expect or anticipate anything in adoption. I learned that I am not a patient person and having our home study done in March- I wanted to be matched and have a baby within the same amount of time it took for Aniah's- which we were matched only days after our home study was done. So being consumed with this- I was extremely annoying to our social worker-bless her heart for dealing with us. Love you Gretchen! What a tough job you have :) :) So waiting was killing me and I think at least once an hour from January when we started our home study until May was consumed with adoption. Now- a lot of my life is consumed with adoption- but I am talking about our adoption- the child God had picked for us- how it was going to work out, etc. I also learned that I really like to plan things and know what to expect and be in control of situations, and in adoption, we are not in control- making the process hard for me. After talking to our social worker, she warned us against getting too excited because she wasn't sure the birth mother had what is took to place her child. So - another thing I learned- I can not head warnings as well as I should. I tried my best to not get too excited, too attached to the baby, but try as I might the next few weeks were filled with me praying for this child and letting myself get attached and fall in love. Those of you who have not adopted probably think that sounds crazy, but the moment I heard about a child, the moment I became connected to the situation- I fell a little in love. Love for a child is something that isn't hard for me. In all ways possible I feel like these children we were considered for were our children, even though they were not. So after a week of worrying that she had the baby and didn't tell anyone, we got a call on May 9th that the birth mother would like to talk to us on the phone. Being so far away from her isn't easy either, it would be so much nicer if we could have sat in the room with her and shown her who we are, but a phone call had to do.

On May 9 in the evening we got a call from this mother, and she excitedly told us that she had the baby, a baby boy. We were excited and anxious and nervous- but mostly excited, because more of us fell in love at that moment, with the baby boy she described for us over the phone. She was confident in her decision to place him with us, and put the name we chose for him on his birth certificate. After a great phone call with her, we excitedly told all of our family the news that night and the next day. On May 10 she was to leave the hospital and the baby would be put in foster care until we could come to pick him up. The next day, I was so excited I could have leaped out of my skin. That afternoon came a phone call I can vividly remember. I remember the exact location of where I was at, the smells, the sights, the sounds, when we were told that this was not going to work out and he would not be our son. The devastation I felt was overwhelming. I cried for many hours straight and could not fathom how God was putting us through this. The next day was May 11, Mother's Day, this day was not filled with joy or any celebration, but much sadness over the loss of our baby boy. I don't know if anyone can understand how that felt and how it still feels. Sometimes Ryan thinks I am crazy for still thinking of him and crying about him, but I loved him and I lost him. This is a boy I will never know, but who I get to pray for for the rest of his life. The child I will never get to have. I know I should not have let myself get attached, but I did and nothing can change that. And through this experience and the rest of our adoption journey/roller coaster ride, God taught me things I could not have learned in any other way. I don't know why our adoption journey, though short, was full of high highs and low lows, but I know God used it to teach me amazing things. I also know that when I work with families through this experience I get to truly say "I know how you feel, I have been there." I also think it give me insight when working with birth parents, because I also have experienced losses.

On May 12 I got another call from Ryan that we were selected by a mother for her baby girl born the day before, on Mother's Day. At that time, I can say I was not excited. I was so overwhelmed with the emotion of the other experience, that I even called our social worker to say "I'm not sure this is right. I feel so devastated over the loss of this little boy, I think I need time to grieve before being thrown into another situation that may not work out." But she told us the story of how we were chosen by this mother, that the mother had already signed and left the hospital and she felt this was the little girl God had for us. I trusted her and trusted God, we anxiously waited those days before going to pick her up. The day before we left it finally hit me- we were getting a baby girl- Eden Elizabeth Hope. I am still in awe of how God puts families together and the blessings we have been given. How could anyone but God do such amazing work and teach us so much in the process. The adoption process is in my opinion best compared to a roller coaster ride, with much unknown; scary, exciting, overwhelming, and amazing all at once. Each day in the process you feel a different emotion and each day is filled with thoughts of adoption. As I walk this journey with families I feel like I am in the back seat of their cart on their roller coaster ride. I try as best I can to be there with them and help them on this crazy journey, and on many days I am taken back to our journey to Aniah and our journey to Eden. I am so thankful for every minute of our ride for what I have been taught and even the sad times were worth it because God gave us the most amazing little girls imaginable. I pray daily for those on the adoption roller coaster because I know how hard it is, and I urge those on the "ride" to kneel down with arms open wide and pray to God "TEACH ME WHAT I NEED TO LEARN and show me the MIRACLES you can do when I TRUST you."

Just because the journey may be bumpy do not let that keep you from getting excited and feeling love. I am glad I love that little boy and I get to pray for him. I am glad that God chose me to be a parent through adoption and chose to build our family in such a miraculous way. I am so glad I get to walk with other families on this road. And I am so glad I can experience just a small piece of the loss that the girls' birth mothers felt, because I can then appreciate the sacrifice they made for them that much more fully, and explain to the girls how much they loved them and how much they hurt because of their great love for them.

We know we want to adopt more children. But some days when I think about going through this again I feel overwhelmed. Knowing what to expect and going through it are two very different things. I guess when we are really ready we will know, and I will need to head my own advice and be ready to learn more of what God has to teach me. I am very bad with the names of songs and who sings songs, but some of the words to a great song so fittingly say:
"This may not have been the way I would have chosen.
When you lead me through a world that's not my home.
But you never said it would be easy, you only said I'd never go alone."
I am glad that God isn't "finished with me yet." More to come in the chapters of the De Kruyf family- knit together by God's own hands.