On the Road to Adoption

This Thursday Mike and I have our first meeting with the adoption counselor at LDS Family Services.

Adoption was not in my "life plan".  I think that for me, I thought adoption meant giving up on the dream of getting pregnant again and having more children.  And that is painful.  Really painful.  I wrote a little about how we are not sure why I'm not having successful pregnancies here.

LDS Family Services has a section on their website for couples called "Hoping to Adopt" that I have looked at so many times.  I've read the "Real Life Stories", watched the videos of  for birth mothers who explain how they decided what to do.  I even read the story of a birth father.

I feel like I can relate to the birth mothers in some ways.  We are both going through something really difficult.  We both wish there was an easy way out.  We both wish this was not the road we have to travel down.  And yet we do.

I have cried a lot of tears.  And I keep thinking that the crying will end and that starting the adoption process will take the pain away.  But my heart is still broken.

My heart is broken that I haven't been able to have another successful pregnancy.

My heart breaks when Jasper asks me five times a day, "Mom, when are we going to get some more kids?"  Or when he daily reminds me what a good big brother he can be, and then rattles off his list of everything he has come up with that he can do to help a younger sibling.  More tears.

People tell me, "You just need to give up on having another successful pregnancy and let it go."  Great idea.  I've tried that.  A hundred times.  But it doesn't work for me.

For me to say, "I'm okay not giving birth to anymore children" is a lie.  I wish I could let it go.  I really wish I could feel that way.  But I don't.

I want to be pregnant.  I want to deliver another child.  I want to nurse them. I want to love them.

I think I'm okay to have these desires.  I think that God planted these feelings in my heart.  I think it is part of being a woman.

Ezra Taft Benson, a past Prophet of my church said, "“A mother’s role is also God-ordained. Mothers are to conceive, bear, nourish, love, and train. They are to be helpmates, and are to counsel with their husbands.”

I now realize that adopting a child doesn't mean that I have to give up hoping for another successful pregnancy.  It doesn't have to be one or the other.  I don't have to lock that door.

The reality is that I'm probably not going to bear any more children.  And that stings. But thanks to adoption, I can still be a mother again. 

This experience has been a lot more difficult for me than I thought it would be.  I feel like I need extra strength and direction during this time.  I started going to the Temple every Wednesday to help lift me up and give me hope that everything will work out.  I need the peace and light the Temple offers.

Since it takes 45 minutes to get to the Las Vegas Temple from my house, a few of my friends are sweetly watching Jasper for an hour and a half before preschool, feeding him lunch and dropping him off at school so I can have time to attend the Temple and be home when school is out.  I am so grateful for their help.

This feels like a really hard thing right now.  But I am just going to keep going.  Keep moving forward with faith.

Jasper always tell me, "I want to be happy on earth."  Great advice from my 4 year old son.