Hello.  It’s me.  I’m actually still alive.  I would apologize for not blogging for so long, but I’m pretty certain I have lost most of  my readers, so it’s probably a moot point.  🙂  I’ve actually started numerous posts, but just never finished them.  Or just never published them because I couldn’t quite figure out where they fit.  Years ago, I started this blog to write about our children and our family.  Then, as I gained years of mommy experience under my belt, I felt like it was a good outlet for me to share things I learned along the way about parenting, mothering and related topics.  Multiple times I have also shared about my faith in Christ and things I have learned in my relationship with Him.  Then we adopted.  

I feel like our life can be separated into two seasons now.  Before we adopted and after we adopted.  Before we adopted I knew who I was.  I was a happy, fulfilled wife and mother of 3 who LOVED my Savior, husband and children with every ounce of my being.  I was really involved in our fabulous church and a card carrying “Radical”.  Jeff and I were excited to be following the Lord and taking the plunge of adding to our family through adoption.  We had always planned on a big family, and now those plans were turning into reality, and we were pumped!

And then we adopted.  Adding Hope and Henry to our family has absolutely shaken me to my core.  For a long, long time, I lost ALL joy, peace, patience, understanding and compassion.  Instead of delighting in the Lord’s plan for our family, I lamented it.  Seriously, lamented it.  During this time period, I just couldn’t bring myself to blog.  I kept waiting to feel better before I posted anything, but that just wasn’t ever happening.  I couldn’t muster enough emotional energy to put my thoughts and feelings on ‘paper’. 

Well, here I am today – breaking my silence.  I plan to write about our experience, little by little.  I do this because adoption hit us HARD in the face.  We were in no way expecting what came our way, and I think that just made already difficult circumstances even harder.  I write to prepare potential adoptive parents on the issues that they may face and also to educate people who know adoptive families on what some of them may be going through.  While I was in the thick of it, it was extremely difficult to voice what I was thinking and feeling.  I assume that is true for many adoptive mothers and fathers.  So, I will be a voice.  Not everyone’s experience will be like ours, but I expect there are some that will.

 I will give a warning.  I expect I will offend some people.  I expect some people will completely change their opinion of me.  I also expect some people will disagree with my decision to share details about our story out of concern for our adopted children’s privacy.  I have considered this and prayed about it a great deal.  It’s actually one of the reasons I have waited so long to write.  Our adopted children (and biological children) are very young and don’t have any ability to view or understand this information.  As they get older, I will reconsider what I share, but at this time, I believe the benefit of educating families is worth the transparency.  So, I hope I haven’t scared you off and that just might keep reading.  😉

This is the first post in a series called, “The Whole Story”.  The second post can be found here.