People say that a picture is worth a thousand words. Man, this picture is pretty crazy, right? What emotions or thoughts does it evoke out of you?

Aww, I feel so bad for them.

Why can’t they just have a baby?

Maybe when they adopt they’ll get pregnant.

Yay! This is so cool! 

I can’t wait to sleep in Eli and Chelsea’s guest bedroom and relive my glory days in bunk beds! 

You know the saying, “You know what A-S-S-U-M-E-ing does?” Well there’s a reason for that statement. It gets easy, even for me, in adoption to assume how hopeful adoptive parents, first parents, and adoptees feel about adoption. The interesting thing is it’s like anything in life. It’s different for different people, so best idea–ask!

What I can tell you is this…when I look at these pictures it makes me so happy and a little sad all at the same time, but not probably for the reasons you think. It makes me happy because I know that’s exactly how that room should look now. I love it. It makes me happy because I had so many people love Eli and I enough to allow us the opportunity to oogle and ahh over cutesy baby stuff. It makes me a little bit sad because I know that some of my happiness will be due to my future children’s loss, as well as their first family’s loss.

I think it gets easy to assume, as supportive family and friends, that Eli and I are in a super tough spot. I think it gets easy to assume that we really want or hope for a biological child. I think it gets easy to assume that this way of building our family is just too hard or too long. I think it gets easy to assume that Eli and I haven’t thought about, educated ourselves, prayed about as many aspects of our decisions as possible. Let me reassure you on a few things:

• We are not, will not, are not planning or wanting, to be quite frank, to have biological children. This is by choice. OUR choice. Not because we can’t. We made this choice a while ago, and are not only happy with our choice, but know that we are people who are choosing to adopt to build our family.
• Yes, the road is a little tough, but please don’t feel sorry for us. Isn’t labor tough? Isn’t adding to a family tough? Isn’t life at times a little tough? But it’s beautiful, right? The bumps are what make the trip memorable.
• Time is amazing. We as humans always want things right now. But guess what? That’s not always what is best. This time, reflection, etc. has offered us an opportunity to really listen and feel where we are supposed to be. So although some may feel bad for us, we are feeling quite content at what we are pursuing and where we are right now.

We love and appreciate you all. But rest assured, we knew this road would be long. We will take all of the prayers, well wishes, questions, and love that we can get. So, whether it be a crib and cutesy baby clothes or a good ole’ fashioned set of bunk beds, we are going to be fine, just trust us when we say it.

~Chelsea

 

In Wisconsin we can count on the seasons changing, right? I mean yes, we had some pretty amazing weather all the way up to October (and some more even may be on the way), but let’s face it, we know fall and winter are coming. In the last four days the leaves have started that shift from the vibrant green to those amazing golds, fire reds, and burnt oranges. It’s stunning. As the rain continues to fall the leaves will fall with them, and we will be left with bare branches once again. I miss the leaves and green during the winter. But I take some solace that after a few sloppy, soggy spring days the tree’s branches will be peppered with beautiful buds once again.

We get it. It’s been a long time. It’s like we took a complete hiatus from our blog. Let’s face it; some of you are probably wondering if we took a complete break from planning our adoption. No new agency. No new home study. Seems as if we are at a stand still, doesn’t it?

Life has been crazy busy. And although on the outside it may look like we haven’t made any concrete moves towards building our family, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. There is so much that the outside perspective doesn’t see on our movement towards building our family. We’ve been up to a lot the last six months. We’ve truly dug in and explored how we feel about domestic infant adoption. We’ve looked at various agencies and have taken a good hard look at whether or not we are willing to possibly never raise an infant. As we’ve learned, we’ve started to look more closely into adopting sibling groups who are legally freed children from public agencies. We’ve looked at the work it may take to cross state lines. We’ve drafted emails and discussed the positives of having children who are biologically related to one another, while still practically and objectively looking at the difficulties of taking on multiple children at once. We’ve taken a good hard look at early childhood trauma, and the role that that will play in our children’s lives and in ours. We’ve taken webinars, read countless articles, and listened to all parts of the adoption triad to gain new insight and knowledge. We’ve prayed, leaned on each other (like we always do), and have absorbed as much knowledge as possible.

See, it’s kind of like those trees. They look pretty bare in the winter, but you know something is working inside them enough to produce buds after the thaw of the winter and the warmth of the spring. Trust us. We’re moving. We aren’t at a standstill. The further and further we get into this process the more and more we realize that it isn’t our time. And thank God for that…because although this path has been hard and the wait can be tough, we’ve needed the time to be the very best family we can be for our future child/children. So it’s as simple as knowing that the leaves will come and complex as wondering how they change to all those beautiful colors right before falling.

~Chelsea