heavy heart.

I have a long commute to and from my office. This can easily be a blessing to help clear my mind, to help think through things or just for some moments of silence, but there are other days when the opportunity to think extensively also gets me into trouble. 

It's at those times that the weight of the world seems to fall heavy on me and I don't do well when I can't solve for everything. Lately, more often than not all of this seems to go back to our adopted baby. How I know she (or he) is still a few years away from bringing home, but my heart still hurts for her every single day. 

I know she probably hasn't even been born yet, but today my mind and heart keeping going to her - to the man and woman who will conceive of her, who will give birth to her and then for some unspeakable reason will abandon her in some part of the world, to be taken care of by people who mean well but don't have the resources to care for her in the way she deserves and then she will wait. She will wait for me to find her, to fight for her and to finally bring her home. 

I'm mostly writing this to myself, to help ease my mind a little so that I can get some work done, but I also write it so that one day Emma (I call her Emma when I pray for her) can read back and understand how much I loved her and prayed for her every single day long before she even existed on this Earth. 

blessed.

We kicked off Thanksgiving early this weekend with one family celebration Saturday night and another this afternoon. It's hard to believe that this time of the year is already here, but I love it, I love all the memory-making that it brings and I love the extra time that it gives me to be with my babies and Dan (3-day work week here we come!). 

I'm not going to lie, running from one holiday party to the next can be completely exhausting and there are definitely times when it seems to suck a lot of the fun right out from under us, so we're working on that. We're trying to be choice full about how much we try to fit in while trying not to hurt feelings. But what a problem to have, right? A spoiled-people problem, that's what that is. 

And speaking of being spoiled. We are almost embarrassingly blessed. It's been coming to our attention more and more lately and Dan and I have both been feeling pulled more strongly than ever to really up our game when it comes to fulfilling some of the many purposes God has for us. We took a big step today in making one of those a reality. We have decided that instead of celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary with a trip to Alaska this summer, we would instead focus that time and money on going on our very first mission trip. As long as everything falls into place, we will be headed to Ecuador at the end of June and couldn't be more thankful for the opportunity!

There is another really big purpose that we've been researching intensely over the past several months. It's most definitely a part of our biggest purpose in life- that of being parents.  I feel compelled to share this now because it's been in our hearts for so long, but also because the desire for this has become almost unbearably strong for me personally and I want to document as much as I can so that someday our family can look back and understand how important this was to us. How important it was for us to complete our family through adoption. 

I have known for longer than I can remember that not all of my babies would share my genes. I have known for longer than I can remember that a big part of my heart lives somewhere else in the world and it was only a matter of time before I would find out where exactly that is and when I could finally go and put it back together. The details are still foggy, but we feel God leading us to where our baby is in a very real way that often keeps me up at night. 

We haven't shared a lot of details about this with all of our family, so I  apologize if any of you are reading about this on here, but honestly I have no idea if anyone other than my mom reads and she's fully in the loop and more than supportive. We'll definitely make a more "official" announcement when things are more solidified, but we're really early in the process so it will probably be a few years before we actually bring baby home, but right now I just need this outlet of writing. I need it for my sanity and I need it for baby #3's benefit some day. 

I never understood that there could be such an element of grief involved in adoption, but the reality is that when you realize that your child will be carried in another woman's body and will then live for an unknown amount of time in another part of the world without our love and affection when they need it most in their life. Well that, that is really hard to swallow. 

But the bright side? Well the bright side is immeasurable it's so big. It's completing our family. It's having my heart all in one piece. It's loving another son or daughter. It's our world. 

We're really early in this process of adoption and we have a LOT to figure out, but we also are more sure about this purpose than any other we've been given in life and that confidence comes with even more faith. And faith and love are just about all you ever need.