Adoption Awareness Month {A Personal Tale}

November is National Adoption Awareness Month and I am so very honored to introduce you all to my guest writer today, Carly. She also happens to be my sister and my best friend. Carly and her husband David have been on a long and harrowing journey through infertility and, now, adoption. I am touched she agreed to share her story here. My dearest sister, you are brave and strong and so very loved. I cannot wait to see the mother that you will soon become.

I specifically sat down to write a blog post about National Adoption Month, but I found myself struggling to find the words. You see, we have not brought our child home yet. In fact, we don’t know who our child is, nor do we know when he or she will be born. Who wants to read a story about a couple who isn’t even on the other side yet?

But alas, one of the many, many things I cannot control.

Adoption.

It’s not for the impatient.

Or the restless.

Or the weak.

Or the faithless.

And while waiting on something you have no control over is nothing new for infertility survivors, like me, adoption welcomes a whole new set of challenges and emotions. Sometimes that means babies who were exposed to unhealthy things. Sometimes that means a birthmother changes her mind at the final hour. Sometimes that means making really hard decisions because it just doesn’t feel right in your gut. This stuff is HARD, y’all.

It also welcomes a slew of questions streaming through your mind at all hours. When will we get the call? What will my child look like? Will they be healthy? Are they being cared for in the womb? Will I be able to bond with a baby I didn’t carry? Will they have struggles when they get older? Will my parents love them as much as they love their biological grandchildren?

All the questions about “who”, “what”, “when” and “what if” have an answer of, “No one knows.” That’s where patience and faith come in to play.

And from all the blog posts I read and anyone I know who has adopted, the answer to all the questions about love is a resounding “YES!”

I can’t wait for my husband and I to experience a love that knows no boundaries. A love we never anticipated anticipating. (Yes, go ahead and read that again.)

Adoption has already blessed me by bringing new people into my little adoption circle, whether they are new friends we’ve made, friends we’ve met through our adoption agency, or people I follow on social media. I am finding myself more and more in awe of it all. I’m slowly falling crazy in love with birth mothers who have chosen LIFE for their babies. Who have done the most difficult act of giving up a child out of pure love. Who have trusted us to care for their own flesh and blood.

I can’t even.

I’m finding even more of God’s hidden little blessings where they are least expected on this journey. For starters, our adoption fundraiser. We continue to be amazed by people’s generosity. Two months ago we posted our story to our fundraiser page and shared it on Facebook. We haven’t re-posted since, and we still have families giving! We have over 600 shares and over 60 generous donators. I’ve had old friends come out of nowhere and share their private struggles with me and tell me I was brave for sharing mine. What’s even more is that people we only knew in passing have donated and told us how much we meant to them. My husband and I have each had a situation where, someone we knew way back when, told us how we had always been kind and that we made an impression on them.

Wow. Wow. And wow.

Makes me a little misty-eyed just thinking about how, if the world stopped turning now and nothing more happened, we will always have the gift of hearing first-hand that being good matters. That maybe, just maybe, what they’ve seen in us is a tiny, tiny sliver of God’s love shining through. Isn’t that the whole point of this life after all, as believers?

So, even though I am not yet on the “other side” of adoption and I don’t have a baby in my arms, adoption has already touched me and forever changed me in ways that infertility could not. Don’t get me wrong, infertility changes you big time. There’s nothing quite like it. But adoption? I’m only beginning to scratch the surface here.

I cannot wait to see what lies ahead on this path.

To read more about Carly and David’s journey through infertility/adoption or to donate to their adoption fundraiser, go here.