Learning to Pray Through Infertility

Our homestudy is done! We are officially waiting! I have seen/heard some people refer to this as being "paper pregnant" in the adoption world. I do not like that term. It rubs me the wrong way for some reason. If this is a term you are used to using, well, it's a free country. However, please don't refer to it that way around me. Although we have been slowly telling people that we are adopting as it comes up in conversation we plan to make that official as well in the next week or so. We will be letting all of our co-workers, friends and extended family who may not have heard yet know about our plans! The agency can now start showing our profile to birthparents. We have no idea when we will get our baby, if it will be a boy or a girl, or even where she/he might be from but we are excited for the plans that are in store for us!

Anyways, the homestudy was definately not what I thought it was going to be. First of all, our social worker was incredibly nice. She was very down to earth and even knew the area because of an uncle who actually lives down the road from us. She spent an hour with us making sure we had all of our paperwork and that it was complete. Then she walked around our house with us checking off all of the necessary items on the safety audit. We passed. She loved our home and loved Bella and Orzo! The whole experience was not as invasive as I thought it was going to be and makes me excited for what the rest of the process will be like.

After our social worker left I had some mixed emotions. I was excited and happy that we passed with flying colors but yet had a very empty feeling. It's strange because going into this I knew we had to get through the homestudy before our profile could even be shown but it was like I wanted someone to say "ok you passed, here is your baby". It doesn't work that way! Feelings of sadness and anxiety started to wash over me as I realized we could be waiting a really long time for our miracle. When you go through miscarriage and infertility certain things (i.e. seeing pregnant women, baby announcements, ultrasound posts on facebook, baby aisles in department stores, etc.) can trigger a flood of emotions you may have thought were gone. They will never be gone. They will always be a part of me for the rest of my life. After somewhat of a pity party for myself I realized that even if we do have a longer wait than what we would want we still have plenty to do to get ready for our baby. We can start thinking about preparing a nursery now which is something that I have been wanting to do for 2 years! Aaron actually brought this up and at first I wanted nothing to do with it. I didn't want a baby room to be ready but sit empty forever. However, I read in our adoption magazine that if you have animals it is actually a good idea to at least move furniture into the room so that they can get used to the new setting. Having a baby is going to be a new experience for them as well, so taking small steps like this will help them transition too.

We had to leave our house after the social worker left last night because we felt we needed to do something although we had absolutely nothing to do. It's kind of like how you feel after finals in college. You prepare and study for hours, take all of your tests and then don't know what to do with yourself because for weeks you have had the same routine. When we got home we watched a movie and then I searched the internet for other adoption/infertility blogs. I came across one in particular "The Plans I Have For You" that I enjoyed reading. One of her recent posts was this article:

http://blogs.nd.edu/oblation/2012/05/24/waiting-for-gabriel-learning-to-pray-through-infertility/

This article is long but definately a must read! Here is my favorite paragraph and so fitting for what I was feeling last night. I know God wanted to me find this article. He put the idea into my head to search blogs last night and to click on this blog in particular. He really is amazing and knows just how to take care of his children.

"For, it turns out we weren’t married that we could experience the joy of having children. We were married that our lives become an offering of love for the world. To our nieces. To our nephews. To our friends. To a child, yet to be born, but who we hope to one day welcome. To a child, who has suffered more from neglect, whether accidental or purposeful, than we do from the absence of a child. Our infertility isn’t about us. It’s about what how God can transform even our sorrow into joy; how even in the shadow of this very real cross, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness will not overcome it."