9 months later and still pregnant

I have had 3 biological births. I cherish each one of my pregnancies. It was truly a gift from God to be able to feel my sons grow inside me. To talk to them each day. To be attached before the first sonogram.
It is also fun to share the excitement of pregnancy with your friends. They watch you grow (and in my case...grow and grow and grow...) and they shop and they feel your belly. They share pregnancy stories and bond with you.

Adoption is a whole different experience. To be honest, most of my friends and even to a small degree my family wonder why I am not just getting pregnant again. Why I don't just take the bull by the horns, be in control and get pregnant. Ian and I are fortunate enough to look at each other and conceive. I think it is much harder to relate and for friends to bond with this experience. No growing belly. No sonogram pictures. No pregnancy stories to share each morning.

How odd. It is nine months since the conception of this adoption dream and I am still quite pregnant with no end in sight.

It is such a different experience. I hadn't really thought about it until I read Ondrea's blog a few minutes ago. When you are pregnant you are powerless over your body. I really felt like a puppet on strings. I couldn't control myself falling asleep. I couldn't keep from throwing up. And, here too I have a level of powerlessness. You have to submit your fate to the angels God puts in your life. The agencies, the facilitators, the MOE. They hold the power while I hold the phone.

I will say that during my pregnancies I had the opportunity to feel very close to God. To feel like I was being used by him, that I was serving him.

This too has brought that same sense of service. Not how I expected. One day I will serve a little girl. I hope to give her a sense that she is a treasure. That she is special and valuable in spite of being abandoned. I hope to teach her to love.

But, while I was waited on during my pregnancies. This pregnancy has brought the opportunity to do Jesus's work.

Jesus was the ultimate servant.

And, those walking in his path know that we are here to serve each other.

International Adoption brings the opportunity to be an angel here on earth and serve others. I hope all PAPs take the opportunity to embrace this special aspect of adoption. Whether it is a quiet prayer known only to you and God for another PAP in distress or reaching out to help answer an other's questions. There are so many opportunities to serve others in the adoption arena. It makes it quite a spiritual experience. If you sit still and quiet you can feel the energy. When you start to serve and think of others instead of yourself you get a sense of God at work here on Earth. More than anything else God wants us to love each other. Real peace and joy comes from selfless love. Like a parent's love.

If you are reading this, you are now part of the adoptive community. You must have some sort of connection. You know me, and through me you are connected, you are adopting or you know others adopting. Whatever your story is, we all make up a community with the gift of loving each other through service.

And though the pregnancy is longer. And the wait goes on, and on, and on. There is a gift to unwrap during my wait. When I find myself staring at the phone, I call a PAP and laugh and distract them for a few minutes. When I find myself stalking my emails, I answer questions on boards. And the result has been a gift right back. New friends.

In the same regards, Ondrea and I were chatting about the fact that we have seen so many people travel while we wait. We now both have watched many people who signed contracts after our dossiers were translated get travel dates. Maybe there are adoption communities where people would be upset. Maybe I am naive and there are people in our own community that would be upset, but I have noticed that I have an endorphin rush when people have good news. I am actually living through them. Reading their blogs, seeing the date posts is like watching the end of a great movie or having your sports team score. As I serve them, by cheering them on, congratulating them and wishing them well because only we can begin to understand how much each step means to each one of us, I myself reap the rewards. They let me share in the joy and celebration. It is interesting though how you can be truly happy for another- not fake or forced- but deep in your heart happy for another and still be jealous.

We each have our own gifts. So, I think God will call us to serve in different ways. But, I do hope that others take time to notice that God has created this amazing situation where we can love each other, where we can connect with total strangers, and where we can be of service.

So, the wait will go on. And and one day, we will get a call and then wait to travel. then come home and wait for a court date... then wait for court... then wait for the 10 days...

Thank YOU dear Lord for the opportunity to wait. Thank YOU for the wisdom to recognize the gifts made available to me during my wait. Thank you for the opportunity to serve. Thank you for the amazing gift of friendship I believe I will nurture for my lifetime. Thank you for sharing the celebrations of others with me and for allowing me the opportunity to lift others up in YOUR name.

If this is all that my journey ends up being about. I have been blessed. I have been touched by some very special women. I am glad to call them friends. And, I thank God for them. It has been an honor to serve as Jesus did in a small way.