Adopting For Dummies

One of my friends and I were kind of joking around about how I should make my blog into a book. I honestly already plan on making it into one of those nifty books that you can order here. I want to be able to have a copy of our adoption journey forever. I want to be able to go back and read it myself .... remembering all the times that God provided ... remembering all the faith, trust, tears and hoops that we had to go through. I also want to have a copy of our story to one day give to our future child.

As my friend and I were talking about making our story into a book ... It made me think about the resources that there are for adopting. I know that there are lots of books about how to go about adopting ... the steps etc. etc. But I think that there needs to be a book that talks about the reality of adopting.

You know when you go on college tours where they tell you all this really amazing things about the school and campus? But they never tell you ALL that there is to know about it? Like how much the food sucks? Or how you better ignore the yellow lines painted on the pavement and park as close to another car as you can or risk being keyed? You know the important things that you only get the privilege of knowing after you have done your time and learned from experience??? Well that's how I feel about adopting. I mean it's sounds all wonderful. It's all rainbows and unicorns ... bringing in a little orphan baby/child into a loving home. Providing a home and family for an innocent little child that might not have received that gift if their birth parents had decided to keep them. It's all so easy right??? But now that I've done my "time" I understand how this experience really is. Yes, it's still an amazing experience. It's made me a MUCH MUCH stronger woman. It's given me the privilege of seeing the impossible become reality. It's given me an amazing community of women to walk through this journey with. But .... at the beginning when we decided to jump into this adoption world I had NO IDEA how hard it would be. I had NO IDEA how heartbreaking it could be. I had NO IDEA the amount of tears that would be shed. I had NO IDEA how much loss would be involved. If you asked me after knowing all the things that I do now would I have decided against adopting ... my answer would be NO. I would still go through the things that we have had to go through in order to be parents a 100 times over again. But it would have been nice to have an idea that it's not all rainbows and unicorns. That it's the HARDEST thing I have ever had to experience.

Each adoption story is so very unique in it's own way .... but we all share the same feelings. We've all had to jump off the highest cliff and trust that God is going to catch us. We've all had to walk through this journey blindly sometimes having faith that God's guiding the way. We've all had pieces of our hearts broken away ... but somehow God repairs the broken hearted. every time. In His time. every time. I would much rather read a book about someone else's journey. I would much rather be able to relate to a real person rather than a how-to book some 'expert' on adoption has written. I wish that there could be a resource available that has all of that and more to a "newbie" on the adoption journey. And that book should also list resources for every single on of your adoption journeys. We are all authors ... we are all experts ... we've all been there, done that. We've all experienced the impossible. We are all very unique and I'm blessed to be among this amazing little community.

Please keep us in your prayers. There could be a potential situation coming up. Who knows??? We were also thinking ... should we open up to the idea of adopting a boy? We have really wanted to adopt a little girl from the very beginning. The nursery is decorated for a GIRL. But I've just been wondering if we shouldn't limit ourselves and truly be open in every aspect? What do you think?