“Clinging to Hope on this Rollercoaster Ride”
We realize we’re on a rollercoaster, for sure. There were definitely some good days and bad days while we were looking to adopt. There were absolutely times we wanted to give up. After all, we were happy when it was just the two of us. But we knew we couldn’t give up hope completely. We knew we wanted to adopt a baby more than anything.
May 9, 2007, (one of the “up” days) journal entry on being grateful for infertility: “I’m grateful that we’ve had time together as a couple to learn and grow, to mature and wise-up a bit before having children. I’m grateful we are financially ready to welcome a baby to our home and be able to take care of his or her physical needs. I’m grateful for more emotional maturity that comes only with age and with understanding of my role as a mother. I know it will be sweeter to have children now because we are physically unable without adoption. I’m most grateful for greater spirituality and closeness to our Heavenly Father thru prayer and faith that He will help us be parents on this earth. I have love and gratitude I didn’t know was possible for a birthmother who we’ve not yet met. Yes, waiting is difficult, but it is rewarding and thru continued fasting and prayer, I know our family will be blessed with special spirits from heaven promised in my Patriarchal Blessing.”
And we had our downs. August 8, 2007, I wrote in my journal about an emotional breakdown at church, of course, during fast and testimony meeting. We begin feeling more alienated because we don’t have children. It seems that everyone else has as many children as they want. I toss around the idea of an “infertility” ward. There are single’s wards and family wards, why not infertility wards, too?! I read my Patriarchal Blessing again and again and again. I wonder if I’ll ever get to be a mother.
October 2007, we decide we need to do everything we can possibly do to make our adoption happen. One thing we decided to do was pay for an additional adoption profile on adoption.com and we set up a toll-free phone number for birthmothers to call us directly. This created even more ups and downs for us as we had birthmothers calling us from across the U.S. One call even came from an adoption agency asking us if we wanted to adopt a sibling group (a two year old and a four month old) in Oklahoma. It was such an overwhelming time for us. It wasn’t easy. Every decision we made would affect the rest of our lives. I prayed constantly to know what to do. The sibling group in Oklahoma just didn’t feel right. Other situations came along as we were continually being helped by friends and family handing out our pass-along cards. At times we felt hope. Other times despair.
Most of the time we felt like we were going thru life in the trunk of a car…
We realize we’re on a rollercoaster, for sure. There were definitely some good days and bad days while we were looking to adopt. There were absolutely times we wanted to give up. After all, we were happy when it was just the two of us. But we knew we couldn’t give up hope completely. We knew we wanted to adopt a baby more than anything.
May 9, 2007, (one of the “up” days) journal entry on being grateful for infertility: “I’m grateful that we’ve had time together as a couple to learn and grow, to mature and wise-up a bit before having children. I’m grateful we are financially ready to welcome a baby to our home and be able to take care of his or her physical needs. I’m grateful for more emotional maturity that comes only with age and with understanding of my role as a mother. I know it will be sweeter to have children now because we are physically unable without adoption. I’m most grateful for greater spirituality and closeness to our Heavenly Father thru prayer and faith that He will help us be parents on this earth. I have love and gratitude I didn’t know was possible for a birthmother who we’ve not yet met. Yes, waiting is difficult, but it is rewarding and thru continued fasting and prayer, I know our family will be blessed with special spirits from heaven promised in my Patriarchal Blessing.”
And we had our downs. August 8, 2007, I wrote in my journal about an emotional breakdown at church, of course, during fast and testimony meeting. We begin feeling more alienated because we don’t have children. It seems that everyone else has as many children as they want. I toss around the idea of an “infertility” ward. There are single’s wards and family wards, why not infertility wards, too?! I read my Patriarchal Blessing again and again and again. I wonder if I’ll ever get to be a mother.
October 2007, we decide we need to do everything we can possibly do to make our adoption happen. One thing we decided to do was pay for an additional adoption profile on adoption.com and we set up a toll-free phone number for birthmothers to call us directly. This created even more ups and downs for us as we had birthmothers calling us from across the U.S. One call even came from an adoption agency asking us if we wanted to adopt a sibling group (a two year old and a four month old) in Oklahoma. It was such an overwhelming time for us. It wasn’t easy. Every decision we made would affect the rest of our lives. I prayed constantly to know what to do. The sibling group in Oklahoma just didn’t feel right. Other situations came along as we were continually being helped by friends and family handing out our pass-along cards. At times we felt hope. Other times despair.
Most of the time we felt like we were going thru life in the trunk of a car…
I hope you don't mind me looking at your blog, I am a friend of Chantelle and Pete Ray's and I saw the link on their blog. We adopted a beautiful baby girl two years ago and were set to adopt another baby from the same mother in August, but that recently fell through, much to our dismay. Reading your posts were so interesting and I applaud you for being so candid.
ReplyDeleteAdoption is the hardest thing we've ever done but so worth it. Congratulations!
I remember when Ron bore his testimony about having to wait for his gift. I bawled right along with him. I know that we don't know each other all that well.. but I feel a pull towards you 2. I feel a love for your little family. I'm grateful that I do know you, a little. I'm grateful also for your incredible kindness to my Jayden too.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you're posting about this!
ReplyDeleteI wanted to join the Infertility 1st Ward too. I was just afraid that Que and I would be it's only constant members! :p
I like your trunk analogy. Even though that question IS perfectly natural, it made me bristle every time someone asked me how the adoption was going. I didn't know how it was going. I didn't know how much longer we had to wait.
It's hard losing control of your life!