Monday, October 31, 2011

Getting the Baby Hopes


Dear Junebug,

Happy 1st Halloween today! I couldn't help but make you a cute little lamb costume. You are so adorable in it!

I wish I could post pictures of you, but because we need to follow the laws that help keep you safe, we aren't allowed to do that until you're are adopted.
If that day comes, I think we might shut down facebook with all our photos of you!

Okay, back to our story...

Daddy and I had been married for around two years, I think, before we started to get those baby hopes.

I had a few friends who were having trouble. They couldn't grow babies in their tummies. I felt really bad for them. But, even though I felt bad, I knew that I didn't completely understand their sadness. Sometimes with a sadness that is so big like that, it's hard to understand unless you've gone through something similar. So, I asked God to give me compassion for my friends. I told God that it was fine by me if I needed to go through the same thing to help me understand. (Which was really silly, because God can do pretty much whatever He wants with me telling Him so.)

To be honest Junebug, I thought there was probably a "right" way to go through something like that and I arrogantly thought I would be the one to figure that out. But, after I prayed that prayer...I pretty much forgot about it.

And then, month after month no baby came...

At first daddy and I weren't too worried. (especially Daddy, he never worries about anything!) It takes lots of people several months to make babies in their tummies...Pretty soon though, there were a piles of months behind us.
And then it got to the point where the baby doctors would tell us there must be something wrong. I thought about going to see one of them, but I always got a nervous, jittery feeling when I would even think about it.

Then two years passed...and three years...

My sadness started to get bigger, and deeper. Sometimes I would do something simple like walk through the grocery store and a card with a tiny footprint (like the ones your feet could make!) would made my eyes well with tears.
I missed the baby I didn't know yet. Everywhere around me people were doing all sorts of things that baby doctors suggested to make babies grow in their tummies: having surgeries, taking pills, getting needles poked into them. And though it was no fun for them at all, I understood why they did it. Even today, I feel like I'm watching a miracle every time I see a woman with a baby in her belly! I still see every birth, every baby as a miracle (that includes you!). So, I couldn't understand why I wasn't willing to do anything to make that happen in my tummy? I worried that maybe there was something wrong with me since I wasn't trying as hard as others.

Then four years passed...then five years...

And then some things started to happen that would change everything. Those were the things that made me start to think about you.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Let's start at the beginning.

Dear Junebug,

I hope that someday, when you can read these letters, they will help you understand how having you for a daughter is more wonderful than anything daddy and I had ever imagined for ourselves. And, I don't just mean how delightful and enchanting you are...but even the way we came to find you; and how we became foster parents. I have really grown to love our story.

When your dad and I were going through all the things that finally led us to you, I so longed to hear stories of other women who felt anything even close to what I did. I hope sharing these letters might help others out there who are on a similar path and need to hear they are not alone. I am forever grateful for the people who shared their stories with me and daddy when we needed to hear them.

There is so much that I have to tell you, and I can't wait to get to the part where you came to us, but I think our story actually begins when daddy and I were hoping for a baby a very, very long time ago; back when I assumed I would do what almost everyone around me was doing, and grow a baby in my tummy...