Adoption: The Long Wait

There is a special kind of pregnancy.  The interminable time of being in the waiting womb of adoption. 

Instead of the baby being in the dark, you are. With no due date to look forward to, nursery nesting is held off, decorative impulses paralyzed by fear.  The finish line is moved each time you  approach it. No certain milestone to celebrate.  (For an international adoption, just throw in an extra ten or twenty thousand bucks, an ocean, and even more red tape and you get the picture.)

Long days become months and even years and your life seems at a standstill. Empty arms becoming full are contingent on the choices of other people. 

Red tape,  government workers, unknown identities are unwelcome obstacles. Girls not ready to be mommys, yet not able to let go is often a reality.  You know that your future child could be hungry and languishing in an orphanage somewhere, and here you sit, swallowed up in luxurious misery, unable to feed him or her.

Our Long Wait consisted of a preterm birth, miscarriage after miscarriage, and finally the joy of our sweet Hannah Jean. Can I just say that The Wait made us better parents?  The ache to be mom and dad helped the inconveniences to be joys instead. We are so grateful. That was 24 years ago and Hannah Jean is about to have a second  baby of her own.  That makes me twice a grandma.  Really?

If you are waiting, know that the season will come to an end.  Though you may now be drowning in the seemingly endless world of everyone else's diaper bags, looking from the outside in, just know that your arms will be holding the very one God has for you.

May He grant you courage as you hope, patience as you wait, and grace one day to be the best parent you can be.  In the meantime, part of your Narrow Road will be forgiving those whose eyes hold pity, whose brains don't comprehend, and whose lips utter words that amplify their lack of understanding.

He sees and He knows.  He has not forgotten you.