Transition

I have been putting off writing this post because it is not an easy thing for me to talk about, but our daughter H turned 18 and chose to move back in with her biological family.  In the end, the life she had created with us, parts of which she truly loved, was not enough to keep her anchored here.  The life she has returned to is vastly different than the one she had with us.  It is chaotic and operates on a kind of predictable yet continually traumatic dysfunction.  Knowing that that is the life she has chosen for herself makes me feel a host of jumbled emotions, none of them good.

Daughter H has been a big part of our lives for six years, and living in our home as our daughter for five, so it feels strange not to have to factor her into our daily plans, not take care of her mental health needs, not know her schedule or give her rides to and from work.  In some ways it has created a void of time and mental/emotional space for me that I am having to mourn and then choose carefully what to fill in its place.

Our relationship is not non-existent, but it is broken.  It is not what I had thought it would be.  I am not altogether sad that she is no longer living here, as our relationship had been deteriorating for a long time and daughter H was often angry and angsty.  But if she was not going to live with us, we had hoped she would make a lateral move to another place that would be a healthy environment for her.

Are you familiar with the five stages of grief or loss?  They are:

denial
bargaining
anger
depression
acceptance

These stages are not meant to be linear or even sequential, but can be cycled through in any order any number of times.  I am finding myself feeling all of them at various times.  I wonder if she is, too?  I don't know.

If the Lord brings us or daughter H to mind, please pray for each of us as we work through this transition, and especially pray for daughter H to stay close to Jesus and to know His great love for her.

Long Overdue Update

Well, I have terribly and sadly neglected my blog.  So much to say.  So little time.  So few good words.  This school year is actually going quite well for us at home.  But in some ways it is just plain hard.  I am a glass half full kind of girl, so I try to focus on the positives, which makes it difficult for me to adequately articulate the negatives without feeling like I'm being whiny.

We have two seniors this year.  One is graduating from our home school, one from a public charter school.  One is graduating with honors.  One is not.  One is headed to college right away.  One is probably not.  These two children get along very well, which is so great and I am thankful for that.  But there is often a lot of tension surrounding all the senior year stuff with the one who is perhaps not yet college ready.  I feel it beneath the surface all the time, waiting to gush unexpectedly like a geyser at Yellowstone.   Every morning I wonder what kind of a day it will be....a geyser gushing day?  Or a geyser quiet day?

You may have already guessed that one of our seniors is daughter H.  Her senior year stuff is layered on top of the already emotionally charged relationship that she and I have.  I live in constant comparison to her bio mom, my motives, words, tone and facial expressions weighed and judged.  No conversation is easy.  Her perceptions continue to skew all that I say so that what she hears and what I mean are almost never the same thing.  It is exhausting.  For both of us!

But we keep trying.  We keep going.  We wake up every morning and start again.  And every day God gives grace and strength and wisdom.

Here are a few highlights of the past two months:

Little Man turned TWELVE!  I asked him if he wanted a different nickname than "Little Man," and he said no!  He told me that when he is a grown man he will still want me to call him Little Man.  Ha!

For his party he and four friends went to see Rogue One.  We have it made for his December birthday, as I believe a new movie in the Star Wars franchise is scheduled for release every December for the next few years!

New Year's Eve at our house with the relatives.

And even though these pictures are always blurry every year, I can't help posting them.  Our annual "Just Dance" party is such a hoot!

Last month my wonderful husband and I got to celebrate 25 years of married bliss together!  I feel so blessed to have reached this milestone, and to have reached it with HIM.  He is such a perfect match for me, and makes my life so much richer, deeper, and more fun.  He surprised me with a night out at the Symphony Orchestra (which I LOVE).  Here is a little story that shows how sweet and tender hearted he is.  The week before our anniversary I found him one evening wiping tears from his eyes. When I asked him why, he said he felt so bad he couldn't take me on a fabulous trip for this milestone anniversary, that it wouldn't be a "big" celebration.  I told him that reaching 25 was it's own reward. :) How I love that man!

In other news:

The indoor soccer schedule is kicking my behind.  Mostly 7:00 a.m. games on Saturday morning!  But son C gets up at 6:15 with no problem, eager to go play.

Hubby's job is going well.  He loves the work, the location, the people (though he is slow to know very many well).

I got one of these for Christmas and I love it!  Made the most delicious pork loin for dinner tonight.

Son G is still working at a fast food restaurant, slowly but steadily saving up for a car.  We opened a checking account for him so he is learning the joys and responsibilities of using a debit card.

It is rather fun and sometimes awe inspiring to be the mother of several young men.  I have tall, handsome boys!  They attract girls.  They are handling this well.  Sometimes when I drop them off places and watch them walk away from the car, I marvel that these tall good looking young men came out of my body.

I started another sugar fast today.  Day one and no cheating!

I am considering registering for another 5k, just so it will force me to train, but have not yet done it.  Probably too chicken, but I blame my hesitation on my knees.

Daughter G is having a great sophomore year at college.  She got to go to Florida for a class during J term and had a great class during the day and fun sticking her toes in the sand at night.

The end.

Giving Thanks

"I give thanks to my God for every remembrance of you."  ~ Philippians 1:3

Thanksgiving Breakfast

"We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you..."  ~ Colossians 1:3

"We always thank God for all of you, remembering you constantly in our prayers."  ~ I Thessalonians 1:2

"We must always thank God for you.."  ~ 2 Thessalonians 1:3

Little Man stroking his uncle's head! 

My mother in law had ALL of her children around her this Thanksgiving! 

The balancing game - totally made up and spontaneous!

God is so good - this year Thanksgiving came at the perfect time for me, personally.  While I have always been extremely thankful for my family, this year I have been struggling to be thankful for our current family dynamic.  Our adoption story is not, on the surface, wonderful or beautiful.  I know that in God's economy it is absolutely miraculous, but here in my economy, in my home, on a day to day basis, it is hard and messy and ugly and painful.  Daughter H is a very angry person, and while she has valid reasons for feeling angry, she doesn't yet know how to handle her anger and it often erupts onto me and various members of the family.  Each of the boys responds to her anger differently (daughter G being away at college means she deals with this the least now), and therefore our family dynamic is much different than it used to be, and different than I thought it would be at this stage.  

Most of the time all of my physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental energy is required for the here and now of daily life, and there is a large part of me that has been reluctant to spend time "looking back" for fear it would make me discontent with "now."  So I have just not allowed myself the time to grieve what used to be.  I did that this week, before Thanksgiving.  Just let myself feel all the sadness that has been hidden in my heart for a long time.  The regret.  The longing for things to be different.  

When Thanksgiving morning came, I woke up at 8 to get the turkey in the oven, and I felt refreshed. Cleansed.  Ready.

Holidays are complicated for us since daughter H joined our family. So many emotions are churned to the surface for her, and those emotions often bleed out to the rest of us.  I won't say it was "easy" to navigate this Thanksgiving, but it was easiER.  

Daughter H's emotional baggage will always be part of the backdrop of our lives, and helping our other children navigate it will be a full time job for the foreseeable future, but she and her baggage are part of God's plan for our family.  Our dynamic is meant to include her.  It is hard and messy and painful and amazing and mysterious and beautiful.

I am thankful. 

15 Minutes

I am about to be gut wrenchingly honest.

And I want to be clear about a few things.  First, that I am not unhappy or sad.  Most of the time.   And second, that our daily life is characterized by a fairly understood and accepted routine, surface calm, and pleasantness toward one another.  I do not want to give the impression that our life is unbearable because of the emotional roller coaster we are on with our new daughter.  Also, please remember that I am writing from my perspective as the mom.  Our children, particularly our boys, have a very different perspective, and are quite a bit more insulated from the effects of this emotional roller coaster than I am.

Please also keep in mind we have a very unique situation with daughter H.  She is not technically adopted, and she still has a relationship with her bio mom.  She is not our foster daughter, though that is the label closest to reality that many people choose to give her, including most mental health professionals and our friendly local police officers.  I am her legal guardian, but we think of her as (and call her) our daughter.  We treat her, as much as possible given the unique circumstances, like we treat our other children.  She is firmly planted in our hearts, and our family would not be complete without her.

She did come to us after experiencing years of trauma and chaos.  She had lived with a certain level of neglect and feelings of abandonment for a long time.  Our initial goal was to stabilize her emotionally by keeping her world very, very small, and heaping on lots of love and attention.  At first she took to that like a duck to water.  She was starving for positive attention and seemed to blossom as she received it.

But when the novelty of living with us wore off, the reality began to set in.  She is one member of a large family.  She had to share me and my husband with five other children.  Many times she had the most acute needs so she came first, but she began to see that our love and care for her were not necessarily "more" than for the other children, and that we loved each one an equal amount.  She wondered if perhaps that made her less special.  She began to see how wide the divide was between the kind of family she had come from and ours.  The kind of family life she had grown up believing to be "normal", was in fact not.  The differences were nothing short of staggering, and brought up a lot of new feelings for her that she did not know how to navigate.

She had (and still has) a hard time believing our love could be genuine....how could someone not related by blood demonstrate more love than her own biological parents?  What made our family so special, that our children did not have to deal with the neglect and abandonment that she had to when she was younger?  She must not really be worthy of this kind of life and this kind of love.  If she was, she would have had it from the start.  To prove her unworthiness she has often lashed out at us (me in particular) in anger, attempting to push us away and "prove" how unlovable she is.  Even in her best moments, she is often silently comparing herself to our other children and in her own mind she always comes up lacking.  She is not as "good" or as "obedient."   She is not as carefree or as easily satisfied.

All of these feelings and mental/emotional gymnastics have made our inclusion of her in our family life somewhat treacherous.   There is a constant tension between including her in activities and helping her to know she is wanted and desired as a part of our family, and giving her the space she needs to process the constant barrage of emotions that she feels about her past and her present.  She often resists us, sometimes by her literal lack of physical presence, and sometimes by being emotionally distant even when she is physically present.

In some ways it is like picking through a minefield.  It is a minefield I have become pretty familiar with, so I know where most of the mines are and where to step to avoid them.  But it still takes time and concentration.  It isn't easy, even though it is familiar.  There is always the danger of one of the mines going off unexpectedly.

Into this minefield daughter G came home from college for Christmas.  We were so happy to see her! (daughter H: they are more happy to see her than they are to see me).  She had survived her first college finals week, but came home very sick and was flat in bed the whole first week.  (daughter H: they pay more attention to her when she is sick than they do to me).  Once she was feeling better she had her own agenda of friends to see and activities to do.  She was good about being with the family too, but I had to let go of my expectations for how Christmas break would go and let her be the independent young woman she has become.  (daughter H: she has a lot more freedom than I do, that must mean they trust her more than they trust me).

The tension created by daughter H's comparing behavior was something I could sense constantly.  My mama's heart was heavy for her, and for us.  I so wanted at least one family time that was happy and enjoyed by EACH member of our family.  That filled everyone's emotional tanks.  Where daughter H was able to receive our love freely, without doubt or insecurity.   Where we were able to enjoy daughter G's presence with us freely, with no fear of how daughter H would interpret that enjoyment.  Was a time like this even possible?

It happened on daughter G's last night at home before returning to college.  During dinner.  There was a small window of about 15 minutes where the laughter and conversation flowed easily.  There was a lack of tension, a lack of second guessing, a lack of sifting all the words to try and determine intent. It was just easy.   The jokes were not taken as personal attacks.  The laughter was not at anyone's expense.  The love and enjoyment of everyone was palpable.  Free.  So free.

Some of you may think it is really sad that that type of family time only occurred for 15 minutes.  I am ecstatic!!  Fifteen minutes of free flowing love is such a gift.  It is something to hold on to, something to remember, and something to build on.   I am so very grateful for those 15 minutes!

When you think of us, please thank God with us for those 15 minutes, and pray with us for another 15!

To say or not to say, that is the question...

About a year ago I read a blog article written by an adoptive mom where she told about the challenges of knowing how much explanation to give to teachers, coaches, and other authority figures about her adoptive son's behavior and how she wanted them to interact with him.  If she spoke up she might allow others to define her son according to the information she shared with them, and treat him differently because of it.  If she said nothing she would have no understanding or support for how she wished to mitigate his manipulative behaviors.  I wish I could find that particular post again, but so far I have not been able to.  I could link it here and be done blogging! 

Adoption is a wonderful, beautiful thing.  It also represents a life-altering loss, comes after some length of time living in trauma, and is itself a traumatic process.  The level of emotional manipulation adoptive children are capable of would hardly be believed by the rational, well-adjusted adult.  Nearly two years after our not-adoption of daughter H, it is still something we deal with regularly.  This fall it has centered around soccer.

We needed one season of soccer to fulfill her high school physical education requirement.  Just one season.  Daughter H is prone to anxiety and is easily overwhelmed if the schedule is full or if there is a lot of emotional stuff to process.  The anxiety she felt over all the unknowns related to soccer season ~ will I get a good coach?  Will the other girls like me?  Will I be any good?  What if I let my family down?  What if I'm not as good as my brothers?  What if, what if, what if??? ~ threatened to overwhelm her.  We made it as smooth as possible: let her pick out her own cleats, arranged for a good friend to be on the same team so she would already know one other person, showed excitement and eagerness at getting to watch her games, prayed with her over the unknowns, talked at length about what to expect, etc.  The one thing we did not do was prepare the coach.

Shortly into the first practice she had to sit down because her ankles hurt.  I have no doubt her ankles really did hurt.  She was not in the best of shape prior to starting practice, and soccer practice is hard physical work!  But she was sure she had plantar fasciitis.  She probably needed orthotics.  Maybe she even needed a cortisone shot.  I was 100% sure she did not have plantar fasciitis, nor did she need any special medical attention paid to her feet.  The sore ankles, while truly sore, gave her a reason to not play and have to deal with the possibility of not being "good enough" or "letting us down."  The anxiety was so high she had to find an out.  And in finding an out, she was manipulating the sympathies of others.

What to do?  If I showed too much sympathy I would be enabling her manipulation.  If I didn't, I would appear callous and un-caring.

I aimed for the middle - validated the pain she was feeling, while down playing the seriousness of it. 

During the second practice she very dramatically collapsed after a warm-up run and said she couldn't breath.  She stayed down for several minutes to catch her breath and eventually rejoined her team.  Later that evening I got an email from her coach asking if she'd had a physical recently and did I know of any physical conditions that would limit her ability to play?  I pondered how to respond, and ultimately decided that since our relationship with this coach was going to be so short-lived I would simply answer that yes, she has seen a Dr recently, and no, she did not have any physical conditions.  She was just new to soccer and not in the best of shape.

Since then she has not been able to make it through a single game this season without leaving the field for a while due to some physical symptom.  Invariably a teammate or another parent has rushed to her side to make sure she was okay.  I so appreciate their sincerity and desire to help.  I do not appreciate their unwitting participation in the emotional manipulation.  When she is stressed or anxious, there will *always* be a symptom of some kind.  A reason not to continue.  She needs so much reassurance, so much validation, and so much "push back" from the manipulation.  She needs us to see the manipulation for what it is, and speak to her underlying anxiety.  She needs us to love her unconditionally and give her umpteen million messages that she doesn't need to "be great" in soccer in order to please us.  She just needs to try!  Honestly and genuinely.  She needs to know that it's okay to ask for what she really needs, and that if she doesn't know how to NOT manipulate, we will love her anyway.

I am not sure I made the right call in not talking to her coach.  But I think I did.  And after this weekend, her one soccer season will be over.

And you know what?   She did GREAT. :)

Mother's Day, 2014

I am so very grateful that God made me a mom!  It is the BEST (and hardest) job in the world, and I absolutely love being mom to these silly, wonderful, creative people. 

Since our not-adoption of daughter H, Mother's Day has become the mother of all stressful holidays.  It is an emotional mine field for all three of us, daughter H, her bio mom, and myself.  I had a really difficult time with it this year, and I think that I need to let go of any and all expectations except the expectation that it is going to be a hard day for daughter H.  She feels loyalty to TWO moms: one of them accepts this and the other one doesn't.  Bless her heart.....it is just plain hard. 

As nice as it would be sometimes to truly have a day "off", that is really not what Mother's Day is about, and if I had the expectation that it would be, I think I would be constantly disappointed!  Mother's Day is for celebrating being a mom.  It is about recognizing and honoring motherhood, and being thankful for the hundred and one things our moms do for us every day.  Of all days, why should "Mother's Day" be a day off from mothering?  It should be a day in which we moms mother well.

I am so grateful for each of our six beautiful children.  I mean seriously, how blessed am I???

We've Got to Go Through It

We have a children's board book titled, "We're Going on a Bear Hunt."  It was a favorite of our children when they were little, and I really liked it too because it was filled with really great adjectives (no those aren't very good adjectives, make that "rich, descriptive adjectives"!) and had a repetitive chorus to it that was easy to remember and fun to say.  It starts like this:

We're going on a bear hunt.
We're going to catch a big one.
What a beautiful day!
We're not scared.

Oh-oh, grass!
Long, wavy grass.
We can't go over it.
We can't go under it.
Oh no, we've got to go through it.

Then followed some really fun word to represent the sound they made as they went through the grass, "swishy swashy." On the next page would be another obstacle, followed by the repetitive "we've got to go through it" chorus, followed by some other really fun word to represent the sound they made as they went through that obstacle.  In the end they actually found a bear, realized it was big and scary, and ran home, going through all the obstacles very quickly in reverse order, and ended up huddled in bed together under the covers.  Then they all loudly declared, "We're not going on a bear hunt AGAIN!"

It was a very fun book to read.

Much harder to live.

I haven't blogged in a long time mostly because I don't know what to say.  How much to say.  What words to use.  How honest to be.  It is much easier to just post pictures of a birthday party than to talk about life.

In reality, I am slogging through right now.  It's not all bad, and there are happy moments, but it's mostly slogging.  God made it very clear that adding daughter H to our family was His idea.  I do not wish it different.  I love her and becoming her mom makes me very happy.  But it's also really, really hard.  And there's no going over it, or going under it.  She and I have got to go through it.

Some days she accepts me as her mom.  Other days she doesn't.  Some days she is obedient and respectful.  Other days not so much.  Some days she is loving toward me.  Other days she is hurtful.  Some days she can get her school work done, completely and well.  Other days she cannot do a single thing.  I know this inconsistency is pretty normal for all kids.  But for her it is extreme, and complicated by all the pain, rejection, loss, and shame she feels from her past.  She has patterns of thinking and patterns of behavior that are destructive to herself and those around her.  Thirteen years of pattern making is not easily changed.

What gives me great hope is that we are not alone as we go through it.  God says, "Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.  So we say with confidence, the Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid.  What can man do to me?"  ~ Hebrews 13:5-6

And elsewhere the apostle Paul says, "Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.  Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." ~ Hebrews 12:1-3

Please pray for me, that I will not grow weary and lose heart.  That I will say with confidence, the LORD is my helper!  That I will persevere as we "get through it."

I don't want to go over it.
I don't want to go under it.

I want to go through it, and end up safely at home.

Re-united

Sons G and L got back from their week long mission trip on Saturday.  They had a fabulous week, serving alongside staff members from an organization that works in the inner city year round.  They came home with so many stories to tell, and so much fresh perspective!

To celebrate their return, we had a home-made milk shake/family game night.

We played the old youth group standard, "Honey, if you love me, smile."  It was pretty hilarious!

But these pictures are special not only because our boys were home and we were all physically back together.  They represent emotional unity, too.

Leaving and cleaving can be hard work.  It can be hard in the early stages of marriage, and it can be hard in the early stages of adopting an older child.  We had done some hard, hard work in the hours leading up to G and L's return.

God gives us so many incredible gifts.  Of course, salvation!  And daily grace and wisdom.  But there are just so many more.... forgiveness, mercy, love for one another, the gift of listening, the gift of humility, the gift of understanding, the gift of perspective....the gift of being at peace with a situation not of your choosing and not in your power to change.

Only God can give all that, out of His abundance, and only God can make good come from hard, yucky things.

This

mama

is

so

thankful

that

her

family

is

re-united!

Grateful

Some of my regular readers will know that I have long had a heart for adoption.  I have read online and experienced through friends and relatives many adoption stories.  I have cried tears of joy and tears of anguish, and been exposed to the possible challenges and milestones unique to the adoption process.  So I felt that I wasn't a complete adoption novice.

Until our own adoption story began. 

Every adoption story is unique.  It centers around a unique, specific individual, with a name, a history, a past.  A person, made in God's image, with their own thoughts and emotions and dreams.  Each person comes to the moment of adoption through different, though often similar, circumstances.  And every family who enfolds the new member into their hearts is also a unique family with their own story and history and dynamic.  So it is no wonder that every story is different.  No-one's adoption story is exactly like another.

But the process of grieving the losses involved with adoption and accepting or cleaving to the new life has similarities for many adoptive children.

Learning it by living it is entirely different than learning it by hearing about it.

Not gonna lie.  It's hard.  It's also wonderful, exhilarating, heart-wrenching, and painful.

Part of the uniqueness of our adoption story is that there wasn't and isn't a clear break from the first family and the life the first family represents.  Our new daughter is not completely "ours."  Her heart and loyalties are divided.  Her process of grieving and cleaving is continually interrupted by contact with her first family.  How confusing and painful this is for her!  And how painful it is for us, to watch her suffer, and to help her navigate through the turmoil and despair her suffering brings.  Yet, it is still in her best interest to see her first family.  This is the path God has marked for her and for us. 

How can this be? 

That this is God's plan is an awesome, terrible, mysterious, tragic, beautiful thing.  It is not the way I thought adoption would be.  The details are not what I would have chosen.  But our girl...... is amazing and beautiful to me beyond description.  That she has endured all she has and is who she is, is nothing short of miraculous.  She is worth every long night and every difficult conversation and every moment of hardship.

And she is even more amazing and beautiful to God her heavenly Father, than she is to me.  I can trust Him with her. With this.  I do trust Him.

Daughter H has started a 7 week girls group with our counselor.  It is for adoptive teen girls, and the first session was this past week.  Each week they will be discussing one of the 7 core issues of adoption.  H was very apprehensive, but she loved the first day.  Loved, loved, loved it!  And I, who had intended to drop her off and go grocery shopping during the 90 minute session, loved it too.  I sat in the waiting room with the other moms and we had our own impromptu "adoptive moms" group.  I didn't realize how much I needed that support until I got it.

Oh the blessing of being with moms who get it!  Who get how different the issues are for adoptive teens, and how our parenting must address those issues. After the children were tucked into bed that night, I poured out my heart to my husband and had a really good cry.  They were tears of anguish, and relief, and gratitude, and wonder.  I was processing a lot of stuff ~ stuff that happened on our camping trip, stuff that the moms had discussed that morning, stuff between H and I.  It was good to share it, name it, take it out and look at it a bit before putting it back in its little compartment in my heart.  God is so good.  Just so good.

Our adoption story is still young.  It will continue to be a process, probably a very long one.  But I know that it is God's doing and that He is in it with us.  There is much I do not understand.  But both daughter H and I are cherished by the One who does.

My heart is full of gratitude.

Can not even tell you how much I love this!

Please watch to the very end.  I knew I loved this song!

Our Not-Adoption

The making of a family can be a mysterious thing.

17 years ago I thought God would be building our family through adoption.  Though I agreed to six months of fertility treatments to satisfy my husband's need to know we had "done everything we could", I had already set my face and heart toward adoption.  I was 100% convinced this was God's plan for us.  We initiated the process of adopting a little girl from China.

No-one was more stunned than I when I became pregnant.  The shock was so deep it took several days to sink in.  Don't get me wrong, I was thrilled and ecstatic that this experience of pregnancy and child birth was going to be mine after all, but I had been so sure it was not for us that it took a while for my brain and heart to catch up with one another.  I was considered of "advanced maternal age" and while it was not a high risk pregnancy in any truly medical sense, we felt it wise to put the adoption on hold.

My next plan was one by birth and one by adoption.  Birthing one didn't mean we couldn't still adopt, right?  We desperately wanted at least two children.  Both my husband and I grew up with siblings, and that was a gift we wanted to give our new little daughter.  We viewed the child God had given us as a miracle (of course, each life is!), but I still felt very much like an infertile woman.  Surely I would not have more children by birth, would I?

cough, cough..... yes, God has a sense of humor!  He then gave us 4 healthy boys in fairly rapid succession with, sadly, several miscarriages in between.  We were immersed in babies, diapers, and joy so great that at times I ached with the sweetness of it.  We savored every single moment and every single experience of parenting little ones.  We learned.  We made mistakes.  We grew.

We came to trust God with the size and timing of our family, and with the method of building it.  We learned that His ways are higher than our ways, and His plans far better than our own.

Fast forward several years.  Job loss and financial hardship were also part of God's plan for our family, and I slowly began to release my dream of ever adopting a child.  It just didn't seem feasible.  Plus we were becoming decidedly "medium" (our pet word for middle aged!).  Maybe it had never been God's plan for us.  Maybe it was our own "solution" to our initial infertility.  Maybe God gave us adoption-loving hearts so we would have more compassion for the children of the world; and so we would act on that compassion through prayer and giving.  Through the years many of our friends and relatives adopted children, and I rejoiced in each of their amazing God stories.

My yearning to parent another child gradually gave way to deep contentment with the family God had built for us.  I was settled in my home as the "happy mother of children" and life was full.  Surely we were done?

Never, ever, ever in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that God would complete our family through the brokenness of another one.  Never would I have dreamed that He would, literally overnight, plop a half grown child into our family and make her ours.  Never would I have guessed how deep and real and strong and fierce my love would be for a child not of my womb.

God has woven her so completely into my mother-heart.  In truthfulness, there are many hard moments... times where the reality of her past bleeds very heavily into her present.  She has learned a worldview very different from mine, and though hers is changing, sometimes the change comes with a heavy price.  Fighting for her future makes me battle weary at times.  In the course of weaving her into our family there are "dropped stitches" ~ and we have to face the pain of pulling out a few stitches and going back to weave them in correctly.  Sometimes she and I are very sure of each other.  Other times we are not.

But God is making it very clear ~ this is His plan for us.  This is His doing.  The family He is making of us includes her.  Technically it is not an adoption.  But it is family.

God's ways are mysterious beyond description and I am in awe.