Each child of mine has a journal that was started when I found out I was expecting. In June of 2015, we were seriously considering adopting a pre-teen girl from foster care. I started a journal for her then and continued to write in it periodically for the next 10 months. I was pregnant with my 4th babe when we were considering this and decided that we should wait until she was a year old to reevaluate our adoption plan. A couple months after that was when we shifted our plan to adopt an infant domestically. And now here we are again, back in the foster adoption world, only this time instead of a pre-teen girl, we are looking at a sibling set.
Tonight, I sat down to journal to the kiddos we hope to add to our family and instinctively grabbed the journal I had started in December of 2016, when we began the domestic infant adoption process. After reading through my first entry, I thought to pull out the other journal I had started almost 2 years ago when we were considering adopting from foster care.
Here is my first entry, from June 13, 2015:
"For the past two weeks I haven't stopped thinking about you. I've been dreaming about whether you will be a boy or a girl, if there will be one of you or more, what you look like, and what kind of personality you will have. I've planned and replanned the layout and design of your room, I've imagined going on our first family vacation or picking our first family pet...
I didn't find out about you in the traditional way. I did not buy a pregnancy test and wait in anticipation for the two pink lines to appear… I did not go to the doctor for labs or an ultrasound… no, with you, it was completely different.
I've longed for you just as I've longed for my other children, but I already know I will miss your first cry as you are transitioning from the warmth and safety of the womb to the bright and unfamiliar world. I will miss giving you your first bath and will not have the pure joy and satisfaction that would result from working toward your first smile. I will not be there to document you rolling over for the first time or photograph you rocking on your hands and knees as you attempt to crawl. There are so many things I will not get to be a part of - first steps, first words, first birthday... and second, and third… Knowing everything I will miss is almost too much to bear.
I wonder, as I am writing this now, where you are, who you are with… I wonder what you were thinking, how you are feeling… If you can feel the love I already feel for you…"
Almost two years have passed, and yet every word still rings true. This desire has been burning within me for a long time and I can't wait to bring my kiddos home!
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