Heart Wisdom From?Mamas

I have the loveliest post for you today! So many of my very favorite mamas via adoption? have volunteered to open their hearts to help support those of you who are stillin the wait. Here is some encouragement to help you get through the days when waiting is the hardest:

 

Try to keep an open heart and open mind. Looking back, I can’t imagine not having an open adoption. The bond I was able to form with our daughter’s birth mom is indescribable. The hurt, love, and compassion I felt for her was just as strong as the love I had for my new little girl. Not only did we get a daughter in this process, we got a whole new birth family that we still are in touch with 4.5 years later. So, if it any point throughout this process you don’t feel like you are strong enough, I promise you, you are? you got this mama! -Brittany

?To those considering adoption: God didn’t tell us to adopt by writing it on the wall- it was gentle whispers and softened hearts. One thing I came to realize is that it’s hard to go wrong in choosing adoption. James 1:27 says,Religion that God our father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress. God’s heart beats for adoption.
To those waiting: we had many fears along the way but we didn’t have to face them all at once. As we trusted God, that he was leading us down this path, he helped us to overcome each fear as it came up. The first time we got ano? after presenting, a social worker encouraged us saying, No one can get the baby that God intends for your family?. To witness a woman placing her baby, not because she wants to, but because she is making a sacrifice to give her child a better life is very humbling. -Courtney

?After two adoptions in the past four years I can honestly say that I’m still learning. I’m not quite on theother side? yet but I have been taught one lesson through adoption over and over?.And that is that hard does not equal bad. Hard does not equal lack of faith. Hard does not mean that God is not working. There is so much beauty and grace in the hard but you have to hold on because you can’t see it until there’s room to look back. There is so much beauty. It’s there in the wait and in the disappointments and it will take your breath away when you hold it in your arms. -Tabitha

?Take a deep breath and surrender ALL expectations to God. We agonized over the process, how it would look, what it would be like, the no’s we got, the no’s we gave. Expanding our preferences when we realized God would never give us the wrong? baby. The expectations of what the hospital would be like?.it is human nature to set expectations and fill in all of unknowns with the ideal. It will never be perfect BUT the process is imperfectly beautiful. It doesn’t matter how much notice you have in your match, or whether you have a third party at the hospital?nothing can prepare your heart. Be open minded and keep an open heart. -Carli

?I think I over analyzed too much which is really just a waste of time, and for me it just distracted me from God’s plan. I worried that birth mothers wouldn’t like us, or like our profile but wouldn’t like us after meeting us. God’s plan is real, it’s the best thing ever, and all we have to do is wait for His timing.? -Heather

?Know that God’s got this, even when it’s so hard not to give up. There were times in the seven and a half years of waiting, infertility treatment, and miscarriages when we doubted God’s love and timing. But thenboom? it all happened in one incredible week! God meticulously planned out every detail surrounding our daughter’s whirlwind adoption. It made everything we went through make sense. I would also say be prepared for the mix of emotions at placement and as you grow your relationship with your child’s birth family. Adoption is both joy and loss wrapped up together for everyone involved. It has taught me so much about love, compassion, flexibility, and overcoming the fear of the unknown.? -Bethany

?I’ll just throw in my old saying: adoption is so, so, so hard until one day it’s not. We’ve adopted twice and had extraordinarily different experiences with each one, but they both ended the same way: a precious, perfect baby at great expense to another woman. It is a crazy mix of conflicting and confusing emotions until one day you are home and your son or daughter is just your son or daughter. Adoption heals broken things, broken places, and broken people. God is good and because adoption heals and because every time, in every case, it is so, so hard until it is not. -Katherine

?I think the biggest lessons through both of our adoptions were (1) checking my control freak nature at the door (God is in charge) (2) recognizing that no two situations or paths are the same (3) taking other people’s advice and commentary as their attempt to help not hurt (even though their words often hurt) (4) admitting to yourself how far you can push yourself emotionally (we all have limits) and (5) accepting that it’s not a matter of IF you will be a parent, but a matter of WHEN! -Jennifer

?Not until I surrendered my desires to God and saidnot my will but yours? did things begin to fall into action. He opened my eyes and heart throughout the years preparing me for the children he had planned for my family all along When we did hear our yes, it was worth every moment of waiting. I can look back through my life and praise God for his perfect timing. -Ashley

I love every word these amazing mamas shared from their beautiful hearts. Adoption is so hard, until it’s not. And it’s worth every single second. It’s about giving up our own timelines and our own control and trusting God’s timing. It’s the ultimate in redemption beauty from ashes. Our kids? birth moms are absolute heroes, and the relationships we get to build with them are truly one of life’s great gifts. Thank you, all who shared. I pray if you?re reading and currently waiting that you know you?re held in your fellow adoptive mamas? hearts and prayers.