Carry Your Cross

A little over a month ago, I had a pretty awesome experience while praying. I try to say a Divine Mercy Chaplet every day. I have found a lot of comfort in praying this prayer throughout our wait. Most days, I take some time alone to sit on our glider in the nursery, rock, and pray. It seems like the most appropriate place to pray. I find that room peaceful and full of hope. Not to mention, that glider is incredibly comfortable. Anyways, while I was praying I was getting overwhelmed with emotion and started telling God how much I've been hurting throughout all of this. I just let myself go and started pouring out all of my emotions in prayer. So here I was feeling sorry for myself, and then I looked down. The first thing I saw was the crucifix on my rosary. Immediately, I could hear Jesus saying, "So did I" in a comforting tone. Yes, He did hurt. He suffered and died for each one of us.  At that moment, I remembered that I'm not alone in this. He knows what it feels like to be in pain, whether it is physical or emotional. And he is always with us during these difficult moments.

Then today during the Gospel, I was reminded of the importance of carrying this cross. "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me." -Mark 8:34  I tend to forget that infertility and the road to adoption is my cross to carry in this life, that I need to offer up this suffering for the Lord. I need to remind myself of this more and try to offer up the pain and frustration. God is using this period of suffering to mold my heart and bring me strength I never knew that I had. He is increasing my faith and trust in His will. Don't get me wrong, this is no doubt easier said than done.

God pours down many blessings on this journey. I will say that I am certain that He has made me a better person through this suffering. I have an even greater appreciation for the gift of life. It's insane how much society is a culture of death, with clinics providing abortions and doctors' offices plastering posters for contraceptives everywhere. I could really go on and on about this topic, but I'll save that for another day. Right now, I'll just say that it's infuriating how many people don't value life from the moment of conception. I want to scream from the rooftops how incredible natural family planning is for your health, your marriage, and your faith. But again, that's a post for another day.

This journey has brought Dan and me closer together. The nice thing about carrying this particular cross is that I have someone to lighten the load. When I am really down and losing hope, I have my husband lifting the weight off my shoulders. When I fall down, he picks me back up, dusts me off, and reminds me what all of this suffering is for. At the end of this journey, we will be rejoicing together, and the gift of our child will be that much sweeter. I know that no one really knows how this journey will end, but I do whole-heartedly believe that our prayers will be answered and we will one day be holding him or her in our arms.  

Control

One thing that I don't do well with is a loss of control. I like to know when things are going to happen and how. Otherwise, I start to get anxious and try to grab onto whatever control I can get my hands on. Let's just say that in adoption you have just about as much control over what is going to happen as you would while riding a bucking bronco at the rodeo. You hop on thinking, I'm going to hold on tight, and I'm going to come out of this a fighter. You start out a little rocky, getting tossed around a bit, but you still manage to hold on. Then you are thrown through the air and to the ground.

And so about 14 months ago, our rodeo began. Of course, going into everything I felt like I had a lot of control. I could make sure we completed all out paperwork quickly, set up all our classes and meetings right away, and make our own decisions on what type of situations we were open to being presented with. I felt like, "Wow, this is way easier than trying to get pregnant! I can actually have a little more control here!" WRONG! Let's just say, that's where the control ends. You sit and wait for ages, hoping someone will like your profile and ask to learn more about you. Then once you have been put into that group of families, you wait for about two weeks (that's right- 2 WEEKS) to see if they picked you. Then once you think you are picked, there's still no guarantee, as we unfortunately know all too well. And I think that's the worst part- going from holding who I thought was my little girl one day and finding out the next day that that would be the only time I'd get to snuggle up with her. Any control I thought I had was ripped from my hands in one phone call. I think what still kills me is how helpless I felt the night before, when we knew they weren't sure of the adoption plan anymore. We weren't allowed to contact them at all. All we could do was sit and wait (and we both knew what we were going to hear). Smack! That bronco threw us to the ground, and hard.

One thing I didn't say earlier in the rodeo comparison, is that those crazy rodeo guys always seem to want to come back for more. They come back next time to ride, as if the bronco never knocked the wind out of them. And my guess is, they probably don't even question it. They probably laugh when someone asks if they are going to quit. Why do I know this? If they are anything like a couple waiting to adopt, I know they will do anything to reach that victory and overcome that fall. When people have asked me if we are going to move forward in the adoption process, part of me wants to laugh. Of course! One thing the world should know, the love of a parent starts from day one. Not the moment the child is born, but rather the moment that parent hopes and dreams for their family to grow. At least, that has been the case for us. The reason I know that is just by knowing how much I loved baby girl from the second I knew about her. At that point, I hadn't seen her yet, never felt her kick inside of me, and I hadn't even met the birth parents yet. But boy did I love her!

So now, here we are again, waiting. We received another call a few weeks ago, but the couple chose to move forward with another family. So once again I feel that loss of control over our family's future. So what did I do? I had us take new pictures and spent hours obsessing over making our short profile perfect. I'm pretty sure Dan thinks I'm crazy for how much time I have sat at my computer obsessing over that thing. I've finally realized why. It's that last little bit of control I still have over everything. The one thing I can control is how our profile looks. I'm not going to lie, I'm glad I went crazy over it. It looks 10 times better than before. Now, all I can do is sit back, wait, and pray because it's out of my hands.

The one (very big) thing that helps me to let go of that control is knowing that even though it is out of our hands, it is in God's. Some days, it is extremely frustrating and all I can do is ask "Why?". On most days, though, it is a comfort. I know in my heart that God will provide. I can be patient with Him, especially since I know that he is being even more patient with me :)