Love is beautiful

I started watching adoption stories when I wasn’t sure we’d be able to conceive. We’d always wanted to adopt, but I’d also wanted to experience the baby kicking, big belly thing. I was one of those girls who thought there was nothing more beautiful than a pregnant woman with an obvious belly. They looked magical to me and I wanted to tell my husband one day to “feel the baby!”

And so, it was with great disappointment that a year passed with no kicking. No positive test ever. Nothing. And because we were in that East African country I mentioned before, even adopting was far away…All I could do was watch beautiful adoption stories and wait..and feel sorry for myself.😉

It was horrible when we conceived a surprise baby after the hard worked for one. Horrible because the plan had been “one biological and one adopted.” When we got two, my husband said we were done. We would never be able to afford more than two children. I railed at him, telling him that was a lack of faith talking, but he was dead sure. I told him we had lots of time for the future to change, after all, we conceived our second when I was only 25 years old! Didn’t work.

I mourned for years. He’d shut the baby making factory surgically, and there was no adoption on the horizon. I only stopped mourning in 2014. Before then, I’d wanted a third pregnancy. Well, my own plan before the “only two” compromise had been to have four children two or so years apart. I wanted to watch my little one get excited about the baby in mommy’s tummy. That didn’t happen with the surprise. Our firstborn was 3 MONTHS old when we found out we’d miraculously conceived without assistance in 2005.

Fast forward to the end of 2014. We’re sitting in church and discussing a chapter on adoption, and my husband suddenly tells the church that he’d been holding me back, but that we’d always said we would adopt. He told them to “pray that we adopt.”

I could have jumped up and down and done a happy dance right there and then! I can’t describe how wonderful it is to raise innocent children. To watch them grow and learn and change… To cuddle them and hear “Mommy.”

I won’t go into the actual adoption journey today. What I will say is that because of our journey, I’ve witnessed others. Right here in my country. Very few of us Black people adopt, so it’s even more special when it is one of us. I have a young friend in her mid 30’s who wanted to adopt after seeing us so it. Her boyfriend refused but she went ahead and adopted and he took himself out the picture. Two years later, she finds another man. He figures the child she has is her biological child, though a friend of hers said something that made him wonder. They conceive, and that’s when she tells him that her son isn’t hers biologically. What did the new man do? Tell her he wants to adopt the boy after they are married.

This sweet angel who was four years old when she fell in love with him in the children’s home loves the boyfriend. He tells his friends that that’s his father, and the man loves him too. Lots! He sometimes phones the boy, and not HER😭❤️

Today, she sent me a darling photo of a two year old girl with a birthday cake in front of her. It’s a little girl her friend adopted at around 18 months old. (Reminds me of the couple we knew who adopted a child around 18 months old who had been found wondering alone in a bush.😭💔) First birthday this little angel has had that was celebrated. My friend said they were all in tears. She made ME cry too.

Love is beautiful. Adoption is beautiful. It may not be perfect, but the alternative is awful. Love is beautiful.