Monday, December 10, 2018

it did [not] happen: the end of our adoption adventure


“Can you be faithful in your community even when the only thing changing is you?”
- Pastor Jonathan Brooks [@PastahJ]

As many of you know, our family has been in a season of preparing for another adoption.  Shortly after my last post, processing the end of our foster care adventure, we were contacted by a dear friend in a difficult place.  Since that time, we have been preparing for life with a baby girl, due this February.

We have been blessed by a community that has been immensely supportive, through prayer, encouragement, and supplies.  You all are blessings we never want to take for granted.

Throughout this process, we have let our friend know that our primary goal is not to grow our family, but to provide care where needed, and that we support her if she changes her mind.  This past week, she let us know that she felt ready to give mothering a chance.  At this point, our new adoption adventure has finished its course.

Again, this whole process comes with a range of emotions: Joy for a mother's act of courage to reach out for help and another to boldly walk the beautiful challenge of parenting.  Happiness for a baby girl who will know the love of her mother.  Awkwardness for taking so many of you on this roller coaster adventure with us.  Gratitude for the support and encouragement of friends. Sadness for missed snuggles and Miki’s lost* dream of becoming a big sister. Relief for not facing those sleepless nights.  Guilt for feeling that relief.

A good friend said to me, “I’m really sorry it didn’t happen for you.”

I really appreciate the empathy.

But as I process, I realize that while first instinct might feel like this is a story about what did not happen, I believe it is a story about what did happen.

Our adventure started in an effort to be faithful with the generosity God has shown our family, to provide relief to a friend, and a loving environment for a sweet yet-to-be-born baby girl.  In the end, each of those were accomplished.

Our friend found peace to process her pregnancy without the fear of the parenting challenges ahead.  She found the space to get to a personally healthy place, which allowed the restoration of her own family support systems.  As a result, she now is ready to be the healthy momma this sweet baby girl will adore. 

The lesson our family will process is that the impact of our actions is not always what we expect, but it does not have to be.  The goal is to simply be faithful and let the chips fall where they may; live like Jesus, and let God worry about the results.

Maybe it changes our communities.  Maybe it just changes us.

May we continue to make ourselves available for either.

Blessings to the sweet baby girl and her incredibly brave and loving momma.  You will always be in our hearts.

*I’m clearly the last to know what our life will look like, and I’ve made the claim we are done having more children 4 previous times so far, so take any of my claims knowing the future (or present) with a grain of salt.  I'm obviously bad at it.

**if you have any curiosity about foster care or adoption, visit embracesouthbend.com to see what your next steps may be.