When Jessica was pregnant with Connor, those of you who knew us then might remember the struggles she had with morning sickness. Heck, she wishes it had just been morning sickness... she was nauseous 24 hours a day it seems. The doctors gave her every form of medication they could think of to try and help and nothing ever even seemed to make a dent in it. At one point they gave her a drug which is generally only given to cancer patients who are undergoing chemo. Even that didn't help.
It wasn't an easy time for her at all (being honest, not my favorite time either... cleaning up projectile vomit was conveniently left out of our marriage vows) but as usual, she handled it with grace and when she could, a smile on her face.
It was a hard pregnancy and I remember on the day that Connor was born how proud of her and how grateful I was. As she lay there in that hospital bed holding our new son we all knew in that moment that we would have gone through it all again, no questions asked. It was worth it.
As it turns out, we only thought that was hard.
As of right now, Jessica is 25 months pregnant with Claire. While there hasn't been any vomiting this time around, the emotional roller coaster has been an incredibly bumpy ride full of dramatic twists, turns, and even loop-the-loops. There have been many tears on days when the wait seemed too much... on days when yet another paperwork problem set us back... on days when we wondered why on earth we ever started down this road. There have also been moments of incredible joy... the moment we huddled around a computer screen as a family and saw our daughter's face for the first time... decorating her nursery and dreaming of the stories that will soon be told there... finally getting the phone call that we had been waiting for... "come get your daughter!"
While this "pregnancy" has been completely different than Connor's (obviously), I think Jessica would agree that it has been harder. We are both people who really struggle with control issues... we like the world to be predictable. We realize it isn't and never will be but when that's how you're wired, the topsy-turvy world of adoption can be a real challenge.
So now as we enter into these final hectic days of packing, preparing, praying, and planning, I really just wanted to take a moment to publicly say how amazing Jessica has been with all of this. There have been hard days and tears shed but she has never wavered from what God put in her heart that she was to do. She is the one who started our family on this journey of adoption and her gentle persistence changed my heart from reluctantly going along with it to being completely sold-out excited about it. She's sneaky like that... I've said many times that she has the biggest heart of anyone I know and if you are around her enough that will start to change you and you'll find yourself becoming more compassionate too.
So, thank you honey for listening to what God put on your heart and for following through on it even when it seemed like it was so far away... even when it would have been easier to just give up. You've set a great example for your family and I'm so proud of you. We're almost there!
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