There isn’t anything better than finding that exact color of nail polish that you really like. There isn’t anything better than spending the first beautiful spring day outside. There isn’t anything better than singing to a song that you love as loud as you can in your car with the windows down.

Isn’t it amazing how much the little things can make all the difference in the world? Perspective is everything. Two miscarriages…and some heartache. Choosing adoption…and the unexplainable joy and affirmation that this is what we are meant to do. Choosing an agency…and just thinking of our future child/children. Leaving our agency…and feeling like we are going through a breakup. And now…continuing to head down our road (even if we’re not quite sure where it is going) to build our family through adoption. It’s been quite the road.

During the wait and decision making time of an adoption experience it can get easy for us and everyone to focus on the difficulties our journey has and will have. But I want to be really clear on our perspective. We choose to be joyful. We choose to be happy. We choose to soak in every experience and to learn as much as we can. We have already experienced so much joy in our pursuit to build our family. Yes, leaving our agency was hard but what we learned from our experience with them was invaluable. Waiting can be super frustrating at times but developing the patience that we have has been incredible, and I’m sure super useful in raising children. The wait has allowed me to research, reflect, and prepare.

In general, as humans, it’s hard for us to accept agitation, pain, feeling uncomfortable. There’s no getting around something like that; you just have to walk right through it, and that’s not such a bad thing. It’s our perspective that dictates how we feel about that agitation or pain. Our wait, this journey has hardly been painful, but at times it has agitated me. That agitation is good to an extent. It has forced me to think outside myself. It’s given me perspective. There is so much to be happy for. The beautiful day we had today. My right to share my voice and opinions with others. The sound of the spring peepers coming to life right outside our window.

As we wait to build our family, I know that someday (just not quite sure when) my child or children will come to me, and there may be some pain surrounding that (a child leaving his/her birth family is always painful, no matter the circumstance). I hope that the perspective that I have gained in my waiting will help me to be the best possible parent that I can be to my child/children.

There’s nothing better than having the windows open and listening to our earth come to life. There is nothing better than navigating the joy and simplexity of adoption.

~Chelsea