Nine Months

Many people compare adoption to pregnancy. That wait for your child. The wait while things develop. The wait for new life to enter your family. The pains along the way.

Tomorrow will be nine months that we have been in IBESR. Nine months. The average time a woman cradles her child in her womb before she cradles that child in her arms instead.. But tomorrow I will still have no child in my arms. Tomorrow our wait will continue.

You see, in pregnancy there is a time frame. And though it has some variation to it, a family knows that within a matter of weeks it will happen. In some adoptions there is no time frame. There is no date to count down to along the way.

In pregnancy there are regular updates. Midwives and doctors measure and listen. They test and compare and tell you how things are going so far. In some adoptions there are no updates. No words of progress. No one to say "good news: things are looking good!"

In pregnancy there is predictable planning and preparing. The family knows they are having a infant. They know the needs. They can plan and prepare with happy hearts as they pick a nursery theme or buy outfits from tiny 0-3 months and up knowing where to start and looking forward to what they know will come

In some adoptions there is no planning. There is no getting ready because sometimes it just breaks your heart. Sometimes you think your child will be home and need a warm sweater, size 3. They will be home and start 1st grade with their sibling. But then, you give that sweater away, having never been worn, because now it's to small. And you plan lessons for one and not two.

In pregnancy you start with a mostly clean slate. A family is blessed with a tiny new person who they love and work with and mold from the start. In adoption the slate is muddied with pain, abandonment, self preservation, and more. And each week, each month that goes by, more walls are built to survive the day-to-day. And we are left praying that the walls aren't too thick and that God guides us in how to tear them down gently.

In pregnancy you are a major part of the process. What you put in your body feeds and nourishes your child. You can talk to your child. Your body keeps that son or daughter safe. As you feel your child flip and kick you know they are there hearing your voice and heart beat... surrounded by the warmth of your body. In adoption you are not really part of the process. Nothing I say or do today will effect how my daughter is doing today.  I cannot protect her. I cannot feed her. I cannot feel her.

No... adoption is not like pregnancy. And seeing nine months of waiting go by is just another painful reminder of that.

Please keep praying for and with us.