Love and Loss

I am sitting here at my desk, a framed picture of C and L right beside me. These two, for whom we have prayed many weeks, live a world away in Haiti and it is a bit surreal.

This week we were officially matched with them and part of me wants to shout out and introduce our community to our new son and daughter! But today there's a bigger part of me that is sad and fearful and questioning God.

Our family knows from experience, as many families do, that nothing is for sure when it comes to adoption. All of our hearts were broken in May, 2010, when Gabrieal was born but did not come home with us to be our son as we anticipated he would. Working through that pain with our big kids was harder than most things we've had to do as parents.

And the fear is creeping up again. In them and in me. Yes, I'm attached to these two lovelies in Haiti that I hope will be my son and daughter. But I can't fully embrace it just yet. The what ifs are too great. I did not think we would have birthmother angst when we started this international adoption process. Maybe naively, I didn't think we would adopt a child or children who have a living parent.

So there's that. C and L have a mother who is placing them for adoption because she is very ill and very poor and very young and doesn't know what would happen to them if and when she dies. That is the ugly truth.

So even though we are confident she has been counseled thoroughly on what this means, I still fear that she will change her mind. And honestly, if she could, I would want her to parent her two children! But if that is going to happen, I just don't know if I can take the four kids I have here in the US with me through the heartbreak again. I do know the chances are extremely small that she would change her mind.... but it's happened to us before. Sigh.

And even if their mother does not change her mind, what if the country of Haiti shuts down adoptions altogether while we wait? How do we deal with that?

So today, I look at those precious two faces next to me and wonder if it could really be true that they will be mine one day. This song just came on and, well, pretty much broke me down... again. Here's the lyrics that cut right through me:

Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss
and my heart turns violently inside of my chest
I don't have time to maintain these regrets
When I think about the way

He loves us
Oh how he loves us
Oh how he loves us
Oh how he loves


Adoption is "love like a hurricane" as another lyric of this song puts it. Hurricanes are not fun. Not pretty. Not peaceful. And can be very very scary. Adoption is a messy, sloppy, wet kiss. But a kiss, nonetheless. I have to trust that He's loving me, and my kids, not despite the storm---but by sending his love directly to us in the form of the hurricane called adoption.

And when it all comes down, I don't have time to maintain these regrets. So we will try to be all in. Love these two as our own from this day on, even knowing that there is risk. And I'm going to try to remember that He uses all things. All things.