I can not lie and say I always wanted to be an adoptive parent. I will always have a small part of me that will wonder what my biological child would have been like. Had I been able to have a biological child I would never truly understand real unconditional love. I would have also lost out on knowing so many amazing people through the adoption community. Each child has been grafted into our individual families and then our families have all been grafted together to create a wonderfully complex and beautiful tree. Like the tree above, we are woven together. Individually we were just weak branches, but grafted together we have become a strong and beautiful creation. At times I am overwhelmed by the beauty that is coming from so many broken branches. I am constantly amazed at the depths of love I have for our Sweetie. I have never in my life imagined being so completely vulnerable or feeling such pain as I have over the last year and a half. But I never imagine how beautiful our family would become or how many amazing real friendships would develop. I am truly blessed with my friendships. They are much family to me as my parents or brother. I love their children as I love my nieces and nephews. For me I see adoption as the closest thing to how God loves us. It does not matter where our kids have come from, what tragedy they have lived through, or how bad their behavior is, we simply love them. We often ask for nothing in return. I guess we are all so used to just loving that it makes it easier for us to love each other, expecting nothing of one another. The friendships I have are genuine and honest. We can look at one another and say "I don't know what I am doing" or "I am messing up". We support each other in good and bad times.
Right now are some pretty good times for some of my beautiful friends. My dear friend is half way around the world, in the Czech Republic with her 3 1/2 year old daughter. Her and her husband are the first US family ever allowed to adopt from that country! What an amazing journey. Today they are legally clear to travel with her. However the US is holding up things. There are always detours in the adoption journey and they are on one, but they have their daughter! Another of my dear friends brought their soon to be adoptive 16 year old daughter to tour her new school today. Things have been challenging, but starting to move along. And the biggest event of the day today was Sweetie's beautiful nephew was officially adopted by his foster parents. I am so happy for him to have parents who adore him as much as we would have. I had a small moment of regret that we let him go, but that was very short lived. I know in my heart that he is exactly where he belongs. His parents are wonderful people and they are so gracious to have open communication with us and are so thoughtful to think of Sweetie's feelings. My heart is happy knowing that we did not lose him . We just gained a family with him! So our family is growing in leaps and bounds. And then our own home will become fuller soon.
We submitted all of our paperwork to NC Mentor to start the recertification process. We have our Therapeutic Foster Care Class next week and then CPR and medication management the week after.
I have been so pleased with the social worker I am working with. She is quick to get back to us. The process seems to be a lot less complicated now and the agency we are working with definitely has their stuff together. I am not sure where our journey will take us or what challenges we will face as we take on being a family for hurt children. But, I am confident that with all of the skills we have learned and continue to learn from working with our Sweetie, we can handle anything.
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