The Parent Trap: How a stranger becomes your child

Where to even start....... I can't even begin to tell you how challenging/frustrating/amazing/fulfilling these last couple of months have been.

I want to start by telling you all that there are so many people who would be better at being an adoptive mom than I am. I am sure I have made so many mistakes in these first few months, it is only by the grace of God that things are going as well as they are!

So confession, I am a google junkie, and I can't tell you how many adoptive mom blogs that I have read. Some are inspiring, some are overwhelming, and some just make me feel like a Pinterest fail (those that are like me will completely understand that last statement). But I want to say thank you to all that take the time to record and share their journey, it helps to know that just like no two children are the same, no two adoption journeys are the same. I write this hoping it might encourage someone who needs it. So here is some truth folks:

When we accepted Emery's referral I was scared. I had doubts, big doubts. You see, in my adoption imagination I had pictured a precious 3 year old. Anyone who knows me, knows how much I love that preschool age. But this is where trusting your spouse in the process comes into play: my husband had no such doubts when we received Emery's file. Our agency told us that they had a file they wanted us to look at, they knew she was older that what we had originally be thinking, but we decided to look at it anyway. When we reviewed her file, we decided that we had no reason to say no to her, other than she was older. I wrestled with this, is it right to turn down a file for a child who needs a home just because she was older than what I thought I wanted? (she was still younger than our youngest, in fact she had been that precious 3 year old age when we started the process, bumps in the road just took us two years to get to the point where we were reviewing files) So when I was wavering he was there to steady me. God also used a woman I had never met to speak to my heart at just the right moment to encourage me to go ahead. Even when we landed in China I was still scared. The day we got her, scared. The first couple of weeks home, scared.

What was I so scared about? How was I going to love this stranger, this little girl with a fully-formed personality as my own? It was easy to picture falling in love with a toddler, someone who was dependent on you and was just discovering their personality. But I had no idea how I was going to accomplish that with a little girl who we had been told had definite ideas about herself and the world already.

And let me tell you, those first few weeks were rough. She was adjusting as well as could be expected given the jet lag, the language issue and the fact that her whole world had just been yanked away. I felt more like a babysitter than I did a mom. Of course I did all the mom things, but honestly, they felt more like a duty and responsibility than something I did out of love.

I watched as she bonded with her sister and brothers, how she had captured my husband's heart right away and thought, this is all good, she is loved and even if she never really feels like mine, this is a good thing. Now don't get me wrong, it wasn't that I didn't care about her. She is an awesome kid, she is funny and adorable and smart. But she didn't feel like mine. She was a stranger, albeit a very cute one.

Fast forward, it has been 12 weeks since we met our new daughter and I can't tell you when it happened, or how it happened, but she is mine. So how does a stranger become your child? All I can tell is you one day at a time. I don't know when something shifted in me, when my heart changed, but all I can tell you is one day I knew for sure that she was meant to be in our family all along. That I loved her like I do her siblings. That God had a plan for her, and He worked in spite of me to make sure she got here.

This is not the end of our story, merely the beginning. I can only imagine the twists and turns, the ups and downs and challenges we have yet to face. There is so much yet to heal in her heart and progress to made in her being part of our family and feeling the love and security that comes with that, but today is a good day, because I am her mother. I know that there are no guarantees in life, but that we are going to walk through whatever is next together.

So why do I share this? My hope is that if there is one person who is on the fence about whether or not they could adopt, whether or not they could love a child that wasn't "theirs", whether or not they are a good enough mom,dad etc. That they will realize that it is not about being perfect, that you will be probably screw things up, that you may not feel love immediately for your new child, there may even be times that they truly annoy you and you wonder what you done to your family. That you will truly seek God and not depend completely on your own logic and reasoning. God has strategically put people in my life to help me overcome my desire to depend only on myself and is showing me everyday how He loves us, his adopted children.

(That's enough of the heavy stuff for now :)--here are some fun pics from the last couple of months)