Our Reality

With all the words of encouragement, support and blessing we have received during our adoption journey, I still have more days then I would like to admit where I waking up wishing this world I am now living in without my 3 little African angels was not my reality. The truth is I miss them. Every single day I miss them. I don't know if I will ever stop missing them. I am so excited that I will soon be a mother to 2 very beautiful deserving girls but inside I know I will never stop being a mother to Isaac, Emmanuel and Rhoda. How do you move on when you know there are 3 amazing children still wishing you would come for them and take them home. My heart aches not just for the hole that is left in my heart after the dream of bringing my children home ended but it aches even more for the hole I left in 3 already broken hearts after their dreams ended of being rescued by what they believed to be "an angel that came into their lives to bring them to their home and family in America"(Isaac's words). 

After sharing our adoption story so publicly and having the unbelievable support and help it became clear there were so many people who couldn't wait for the day we would bring Isaac, Emmanuel, and Rhoda home almost as badly as we did. It was incredibly painful to let everyone down when we had to share the news that that day would never come. When we decided to move forward with trying to adopt again we were terrified to invite people to open their hearts and follow our story again when we know with adoption there is always the possibility of another unhappy ending. I told myself we would keep this adoption as private as we could in order to save others from the heartache of another adoption loss. But now I realize this was only partially true. Inside I think I was also so disappointed in my "now" adoption story. It is no longer the inspirational story of how I was lead to Africa to cross paths with these children I knew were meant to be ours from the first moment I met them. It is not even your typical happy "hey we want to share the exciting new that we have decided to adopt" adoption story. I was no longer excited to share our story because it wasn't a story that only had happy endings of a family finally becoming whole.

It hit me today that as much as I wish this wasn't my reality and the story of how we will finally become parents, it is OUR story and although it is full of heartache and disappointment it is also a beautiful story full of incredible love and hope. It is a story about a couple who experienced many road blocks on the path to starting their family but never lost their desire to follow what they have always known was God's plan for them, to adopt. So although I can't make promises about how this story will end, I realized it is still a story worth sharing.

There is a lot to share and I plan on going into all the details of how we came to the decision to continue to adopt from Ghana and how we found these 2 adorable little girls but for now my goal was to let everyone know I changed our adoption blog back to public (we decided to continue to add to our first adoption blog instead of starting a new one because no matter how it ends our adoption story began with Isaac, Emanuel, and Rhoda) and plan to share a very real and open account of our adoption story. I will leave you with the pictures we received on May 5, the day we will always remember as the day we first saw our daughter's faces.