Way, way back in high school I used to run cross-country. Every summer before the cross-country season would start I had good intentions of training to prepare myself for the difficult short distance, speed practices and the grueling long distance runs that I would soon face. And guess what? Every summer I instead found many other things to do that often did not include running. And every year by the end of the first practice I had the worst side cramp you could imagine, a beet red face, and usually the dry heaves. I vowed I would train earlier next year.

We’ve been in our adoption process for quite some time, but I’m not making the novice mistake that I made in high school with cross-country. I have been preparing for the adoption marathon that we are in and that we will continue to be in. Many of you that have heard about our experience probably remember how Eli and I were at the start of our journey. We were super talkative about adoption. I chose bedding and colors for a nursery. We had an adoption party. The interesting thing, and I’m sure some people have wondered, is that we now may not even end up adopting an infant. We thought we would, but plans change. Although it may seem crazy to decorate a nursery and to have an adoption party, not even knowing whether or not we will be adopting an infant or an older child, or hey, maybe a sibling group, it helped us to run this marathon. It was our fuel. As Eli and I were talking one night about the possibility of extending our openness to older children, we talked about if it was a mistake to decorate a nursery or to get all those cute baby things. And with absolute certainty, I told him it wasn’t. If we never have a baby, I needed to be able to decorate an adorable nursery, hold cute baby things, and get that experience. No matter what happens, I know I’m thankful for it.

So far in December and the start of January, Eli and I have been laying pretty low with how to proceed next in our adoption process. This may look like we aren’t doing anything or that we just aren’t moving forward, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. We are refueling. We are preparing for the middle-leg of our adoption marathon. We were feeling a little fatigued, but we’re getting our second wind. What’s our fuel? Education, articles, books galore. What else? Friends and family reaching out in support when we don’t know what to say. It’s hard to tell people what you need, when you’re out of breath, but the cheers from the sidelines rejuvenate us.

We are in for the long haul. Just one foot in front of the other.

~Chelsea