Adoption and Loss

A statement Joe and I have been saying to each other some mornings is this:

“This is the day the Lord has made.” 

And the other responding “Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

Sometimes it took a few moments for the one responding to be able to truly say that they would rejoice and be glad in it.  

Our prayer of late has been simple; that God would give us the desires of our hearts and that He would continue to walk with us no matter what the journey holds.  

The months of December and January have not gone quite like we had dreamed or planned.  But we have clearly seen God at work in the midst of heartache and hard questions.  As many of you know during 2018 our family has been pursing adoption of an infant in the United States.  We found out at the beginning of November that we were matched with an expectant mom who was due at the end of December.  We began making plans to travel back to the US in December with the hopes of bringing our adopted son back to South Africa.  We were hopeful that we would have our second child through the miracle of adoption.  

That is not the story God had for us.  We learned our first match would not happen right before Christmas.  A week later we were matched again and found out on January 6^ththat the mother had chosen to parent her sweet baby boy.  We were heartbroken.  These days, there have been tears; tears of heartache, tears of sorrow, tears of anger, tears of frustration.  There have also been moments of normal and of laughter.  There have been wonderful memories made as a family in the midst of the grief.  Above all God has been with us through those tears and comforted us through the heartache and He has reminded us of the hope we have in Him.  

We are thankful we were with family to love on us and love on Peter as he didn’t fully understand everything going on.  We are thankful to the Church of the Nazarene and its leaders for their prayers, support and understanding.  

We have been in Orlando with Joe’s parents and will remain here until mid-February.  We are on a short list with our consultant group for any babies born between now and then.  We are open if it happens but we are also ok with going home and be thankful for Peter and the ministry we get to be a part of.  If God opens the doors and leads that way someday when we return to the states we will pursue fostering or fostering to adopt.  

We are taking time to heal, to create better/healthier habits in our physical, emotional and spiritual lives, to love on each other and on Peter, and to grieve. There are good days and bad days.  There are days when we want to return to South Africa and our lives there and there are days where I am not ready to close the door on infant adoption.  In the good and bad days God is with us and we have each other.  We have hugged and held each other a lot because sometimes there are no words.  We took a day away and Joe’s parents watched Peter. We talked, prayed, cried, slept in and leisurely wondered around (things not usually possible with an active and curious toddler.)  

Our faith is stronger because of the journey we have been on.  I don’t think this all happened so that our faith would be stronger, but as a result of what has happened we have been refined, changed and we are stronger. Someday we will sit across the desk from a doctor and be given a time line or an impossible choice, or we will receive another middle of the night phone call that there was an accident or an unexpected death of someone dear to us.   Knowing God has walked with us through this journey of miscarriages, secondary infertility, and failed adoption will reassure us as we face the next steps of the journey.  

Thank you for your love and support through the journey.  Thank you for the prayers at times even when you didn’t know why you were praying.  Please continue to pray for us and continue to love us.  

Until next time: Laugh when you can, cry when you need to, and look for blessings in the ordinary and extraordinary.