What I didn't realize....

We knew that once we started this adoption process, we would be on a steep learning curve. In just a few short months, we have learned so much about the adoption process. While still waiting to be home study approved I was well versed in the process of adoption. It rolled off my tongue every time I said it. "First," I would say, "we get a situation and get to learn about the expectant mom (and sometimes dad) and her circumstances and then we decide whether we want her to see our profile. Then, she chooses amongst the profiles. If she chooses us, we are a match."

I even knew that we may have to hear many 'no's' from expectant mothers before we would hear a yes. I tried to mentally prepare myself as much as I could. But, as I stated in a previous blog, it is hard not to get your hopes up. We recently received our 4th "no". While it never gets easier to hear that, you do learn to be more realistic about your chances each time.

One thing I didn't realize, however, was how hard it would be to decide not to have our profile shown to expectant parents. We have gotten about 25 situations since we began this process. I didn't expect to have such a hard time with it, even though we knew we were prayerfully discerning. It sort of makes you feel like a horrible person sometimes to say you do not want to be presented to a certain situation. Part of discernment though, has to include the variables of our lives in light of each situation. We have to take into consideration that we have no family close by, we will be older parents etc.

It still is hard, though, to not feel like you are rejecting these babies; these expectant parents. We have realized though, that we are not meant to be the parents of all of these babies. Maybe, we are meant to pray for the expectant moms and their babies through all these situations and pray they find loving parents for their children.

We continue to pray for all of these moms and babies and pray for our own situation, that we may soon find an expectant mom who thinks we are the perfect match for her and her baby.