Adoption Loss IS Loss!

I'm not really sure how to write what I have been thinking about for the last 24 hours.

I mean, other than the pain in my ....

Ahem.

Anyway, the whole reason I started this blog four years (gasp) ago was because we'd come to the point in our family-building that we'd decided to adopt.  We started down the path of Russia, then looked to Kazakhstan, then our agency convinced us that the new Kyrgyzstan program was for us.

Little babies.
Beautiful little babies.
Fast process.
Great program stability.

Um, yeah.  And an ocean front house in Malibu with every baby adopted.  Sure.

The babies WERE beautiful.  So many different ethnicities creating such beautiful, beautiful children.  Sign us up! We started the process,  I started this blog so I could keep record for my little one to read about one day, met lots of other moms and dads from this country, as well as others and were on our way!

And we all know how it didn't turn out....about a week out from our expected referral, the country closed.  A year and a half...all that money...and again...we spent another Christmas without a little one looking at the twinkling lights.

Obviously, this 'setback' was what made us decide to look into Shady Grove's Shared Risk program, and obviously, I am beyond grateful we did.

But don't love hearing, "See...it worked out the way it was supposed to!"

Two dead babies for me and a country full of orphans stuck without the full-time love and support of families who so desperately want them?

Don't tell me that's how it was supposed to be.

ANYWAY...of course we are grateful for what we ended up doing...and grateful for the lives I've been honored to carry.

But we still miss what could have been with that little girl we named Emma.  I remember the day I woke up (do you remember, Terri?) and KNEW that was the day she'd been born...I just knew it.  I felt it.  I went to school, was giddy, and couldn't contain my excitement knowing that the little girl we were going to adopt was born and somewhere across the world, waiting for me.

Then again, we know how my gut works, so....whatever.  The bottom line is that we were in love with what we thought would be.

And heartbroken when it wasn't.

But I admit...of course loss can't be compared and I don't know why people do except they are just not validated enough in their feelings and they feel like they have to create their own validation. Sad for so many on so many levels.  Regardless, as sad as I was, John and I were SO thankful we had *not* gotten the referral yet.

Had not gotten the glimpse of her...who she was and what she looked like and how she would fit in our family.

Because to have seen that and lost it....well, we know how that feels and it is just life-changing and painful beyond painful.  We were glad that we had not actually been told that our child was just waiting for us to come and get her.

Especially since that wait would go on for at least three years.  Or more.  To be blunt, we were grateful we were not as attached as we could have been just a few weeks later.

Attached like 65 other families I knew were....families who had gone to Kyrgyzstan...met their children...held them.  Loved them.  Imprinted what those babies felt like in their arms.  Families who had no choice but to move Heaven and Earth to bring them home—even if that meant putting out insane amounts of time and money and heart day after day after day.

This last few months has been hard on those families.  Sadly, children have died while waiting.  Heartbreaking.

Other families have had to drop out—for whatever reasons—and I cannot even begin to imagine how hard those decisions were.

Other children have become 'unadoptable' and that in itself has been a travesty and devastating to the adoptive parents.

But some...some have been able to have their families—families who have been waiting for three or more years to come back and get them—go back to Kyrgyzstan and continue the process, as their moratorium recently was revoked.

Some are LITERALLY days away from those children being theirs forever.

And then another blow.  Another moratorium.  Who knows if they will be grandfathered in?  Who knows if they will be able to bring them home?

I want to scream for these families.  I can't imagine.

Yes, I've buried a baby.  I've lost another's heartbeat inside of my body.

But death, though devastating and not final in my beliefs, IS final on this earth.

There is no wondering what Matthew is doing in another part of the world right now.
There is no wondering whether or not he is hungry.
There is no wondering whether or not he is tired or cold or just needs his mama to hold him.
There is no gut-wrenching pain knowing that he COULD be in my arms but the politics of another country are keeping us apart.

I am just sick to my stomach because I know how much it hurts missing your child...feeling the ache of knowing that family members are missing.

But I can't even begin to imagine how it must feel for those families—who are there in that country or about to be and may be told that those beloved and prayed for children will STILL not be able to go with them...that when they leave those children, they may never see them again and it's NOT DEATH that is stopping that.

Death can't be controlled.

But politics can.  And that's heartbreaking.

Please, please, please pray for those families and those children.  I am laying all I have to God and begging Him to have mercy on those parents' hearts.  I know just a little, in a different way, how much they are grieving right now, and the weight of that pain on their hearts is crushing mine.  Please pray that these children will be grandfathered through and these babies will finally, finally be able to come home...that these parents hearts will finally be able to heal.

Please, just pray for that country and orphans everywhere.  The thought of Luke being alive, and yet, me not ever being able to hold him again literally has me crying my eyes out right now.  Pray for all mothers and fathers who may suffer that as their reality.