All I want for Christmas...

Time is flying by, and the Christmas season is well underway in our home. Josiah is enjoying preparing for Christmas, though he still can't understand why the presents have to sit wrapped under the tree for so long. He actually participated in the tree decorating and put the ornaments on the bottom third of the tree. We've only had a few fatalities so far. He is very protective of his baby Jesus from the Little People nativity. I'm not 100% confident he has connected the stories of baby Jesus to grown-up Jesus, but we are working on it.

All of the busyness of the last month has kept me quite occupied and my mind off of this seemingly endless wait on our baby. Last night, though, my patient was making an adoption plan for her baby and it reminded me how much I long for my own baby to come home. I thought of the family that got a phone call in the middle of the night, whom I am confident did not go back to sleep as they anticipated the trip to meet their newest child. I thought about how I understand their joys and fears, how I wanted to tell them what a jewel of a woman was giving them this gift. Every time I care for a mother making an adoption plan it is my own little way of "paying it forward" to the mother of my child-to-be. I have such a heart for these incredibly selfless, incredibly honorable women. I desperately hope that when the mother of our child is in labor she has a compassionate, caring person by her side. Everything I have learned along this adoption journey has given me the opportunity to educate my coworkers on the beauty of adoption and the heart of the woman making that choice. There are so many misconceptions like, "how can she not love her baby?" or the idea that adoption isn't an acceptable action toward a child but abortion is. It's so sad for me to hear all of them, and I want to jump to the defense of the woman carrying my child. I want to tell them that even though I don't know her yet, I already know that the love she has for our child, the courage to choose life, and the strength to make such a selfless decision should win her metals. I do tell them, as best as I know how. I guess this is the other side of all the other questions I have had to answer regarding why we are choosing adoption as a means of growing our family.

The longer we wait, the less threatened I feel by the woman on the other side of the demographics sheet. The longer we wait, the more I am beginning to believe it's important she know that we are both mothers to this child. We will have very different roles in the child's life, but we will both always hold the title of mother. I don't have a desire to strip that title from her, nor do I feel that it is a competition for our child's affections. She will carry my child, bring her forth, and give her life. I will pour affections over her, provide for her, and teach her how to become the beautiful woman God designed her to be. It's not mutually exclusive. It's a team effort.

As I sit here I think of all of the paradoxes of adoption. Great love leads to great sacrifice. We can both have the title of mother and yet there will only be one set of parents. I can feel so ready for my baby to come home yet incredibly content to wait on the Lord indefinitely.

I keep thinking that my lessons are over. I keep thinking that my "surrender" button has been maxed out. What I'm beginning to see is that this waiting time has been very refining. I hate to admit it, as I keep hoping to finally be there, wherever that place is that I'm equipped enough to not have to wait anymore. I don't think the lessons are over yet, but I certainly hope that lessons with baby home can start soon.