So, we had been approved to adopt and things were going great. We were saving money and looking at the children available to adopt through the state. When you are adopting through the state, finding a child is oddly similar to searching for a car. You look at tons of pictures, read the details and decide if this one or that one would work best for you and your family. It is very surreal. Still, we were looking and had a few kids that we fell in love with and hoped that they would still be available when the money was saved up.
Then the furloughs and pay cuts hit. This was a small but noticeable speed bump. We were still able to save just not at the rate we had been saving. It would take us a few months longer to reach our goal. All in all, not that bad. Of course that couldn't be the only speed bump, not with our luck.
Late October of 2009 Josh got a DUI, which has since been dismissed. This turned out to be a bigger speed bump than I feel it should have been. I was not mad about the DUI, after all it was a mistake and we all make mistakes. I was more disappointed than anything and was shocked when it put such a huge wrench in our adoption process.
The State would not let us proceed and made us put the whole adoption process on hold for 1 year while Josh completed the diversion program and we could not do anything at all, aside from save money, for that whole year. Our adoption worker then told us that it was possible that even after that year was up we may not be allowed to adopt through the State for another 5 years. Wait. What?! 5 years?!
I was heartbroken. How could they, the State, work so hard to keep children with their abusive, neglectful, alcoholic, druggie parents while at the same time keep my husband and I from adopting a child? Why would they make us wait 5 years before allowing us to adopt a child? Josh and I would, and will, provide a loving and safe home for a child. So why on earth would they keep a good, decent family from adopting simply because of one DUI? It made no sense to me at all.
I struggled with depression and sadness for months after that. I was hurt and felt that somehow it was my fault. I felt, and sometimes still feel, that I was somehow being punished for mistake in my past or for one I had yet to make. IN order to cope with this pain, I threw myself into work and that December signed up for and worked over 60 hours of overtime. I needed that time away from the house to refocus on all the good things God has given me and focus on making my marriage even stronger.
I was very determined not to let this situation ruin my marriage. I had seen too many marriages ruined by one simple mistake. I would not let that happen to us. No matter what, I still loved my husband and wanted to start a family with him. I ended up doing "The Love Dare" and it gave me the clarity I needed to move past the anger and hurt I felt and show my husband how much I still loved him. Josh is a good man with a great heart and I know he will be an excellent father.
Josh probably felt worse about the situation than I did and promised me that if the State did decide to make us wait another 5 years after the diversion program was completed and the DUI dismissed, that he would work enough overtime to pay for adoption through a private agency. His willingness to do that for me, to sacrifice his time and energy to make me happy, is one of the many, many things I love about him.
This year of waiting has been one of the hardest years of my life. I want a child so badly and struggled with accepting the fact that there was nothing I could do to make that happen. It is hard describe the pain and anguish I felt knowing that the one thing I wanted the most was farther from my grasp than it had been when I first found out I could not have kids of my own.
Watching those around me, friends, co-workers, family, get pregnant and have babies only intensified my pain. I was happy for them don't get me wrong, but I was jealous and could not understand why I wasn't able to have that. My knees hit the floor on many occasions and I had to learn to lean on the Lord and on His strength to get me through. I knew had to learn to wait on Him.
But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount on wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:31
I have found that God holds us tight to Him in times of trial and I am closest to Him when I am on my knees. I know that He will never leave me there, but will lift me up and carry me through. I may not understand why things happen the way they do, but I trust in Him and know He is in full control even when everything around me seems to be spinning madly away from my grasp.
When God finally blesses us with a child I know that the wait will have been more than worth it!
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