Attitude Adjustment Needed

Justin and I have come to the realization that if we are going to survive this wait we are going to have to have an attitude adjustment. We have found ourselves over the past week becoming bitter toward the adoption process. We remind ourselves constantly that our journey has been so much shorter than many of the other waiting families, and we thank God for that daily. But now there is a face to this process. There is a little guy who has stolen our hearts. Before meeting him, we looked at the paperwork as a test of our endurance. We felt we were being challenged to see if we were up to the trials and tribulations that we would soon face. Now we don’t want to play the game. We don’t want our endurance tested. We want our family to be together. When dealing with state, federal, and international governments families deal with a tremendous amount of red tape. At this point, it is red tape that has no bearing on your ability to parent a child. All of those issues should have been hammered out in the homestudy and prior to getting a referral. Now the paperwork seems pointless and meaningless other than the fact that that is what it takes to get Blake home.

So when Justin and I began our conversation about what we needed to do to change our attitude, we realized we can not be negative and cynical for the next couple, few, several, whatever months while we are waiting. It is not fair to Brady and Madison or to those around us. So where are these strong feelings coming from? Well, we both agreed that something has happened that neither one of us fully expected. We read in several books and heard from many people that you will not necessarily fall in love with your child right away. It can often times take awhile for love to enter your heart. Justin and I fully expected that to be the case. We expected to care for the lil guy. We expected to feel protective of him. We even expected to feel an attachment to some degree. But we are both in total awe of the love that has filled our hearts. We love Blake so much. It is truly like he is the missing member of our family. As if God was just waiting for Justin and I to realize that we had work to do and He helped Blake wait for us to prepare our hearts. We are so grateful to feel such a connection. We know that we are very fortunate and that not everyone can understand. To be honest, we don’t fully understand. But we do know that the pain and heartache we feel now will be short-lived in comparison to the years of joy we are going to have with Blake as part of our family.

So we will get through the next several months and we will pass the numerous tests that are put before us. It is our prayer that we do so by letting God’s love for us shine brightly even through the dark times. We hope that this entry finds everyone staying warm. It is about -3 degrees here with a wind chill factor of about -30. Time for some hot cocoa.