A Forever Family...Part 1



How do you put into words a description of the day that you have been dreaming about for 8 years?  I have held off writing this blog post, partly because I am now a mom (limited time...and when you have the time, you are tired!), and partly because I think I am still processing.  July 22, 2013 will forever be in my heart as a day that changed my life in one of the best ways possible...the day we brought home our son.  You can dream forever about wanting something to take place, but when the reality hits that it is actually taking place...it almost feels surreal.  Becoming a forever family has been just that.  I have to pinch myself at night to remind myself, "This is real!  There is a baby in your house.  And he is yours...FOREVER!"  I have to remind myself, this isn't just a story I heard from someone else.  This is our story.  It's the story we have been dreaming about.  It's the ending we have been praying for, for what seems like forever.  And it is only the beginning of so many new chapters that will unfold and most likely leave us breathless like this one has.  God is so good.  That being said, here is the best I can do on a recount of the day we picked up Biruk and became a forever family...

Sunday night I started to panic.  The reality sank in that tomorrow we would be heading 3 hours from the city to not only see our son, but to actually bring him home.  I sat at the kitchen table with people we had just met a few days earlier, who had gone from being just acquaintances to what I believe will be life long friends for the journey, and shared my nervousness.  My friend Amy grabbed my hand, looked me in the eyes, and said, "Andrea...I am empowering you to be the mother that is inside of you.  You are going to be a great mom."  Of course I cried (that's what I do if you haven't figured this out...I have my Dad's genes), and our new friends prayed a powerful prayer over us, as I thanked God for the right people at the right time for the journey.

I got up to my room and now found myself wide awake.  In less than 24 hours I was going to be a mom.  I had only waited 3 years of an adoption process and 5 years of trying for a family for it to happen, and for some reason if felt like time was going at lightening speed all of a sudden.  As Nate fell fast asleep, I found myself sitting up in bed writing a letter to my son.  I struggled with the right words, but one day will share them with him.  And then I did my best to get what little rest I could for what would be one of the biggest days of my life.

About 3:30am, I woke up to Nate putting his jeans and a long sleeve shirt on and jumping back into bed.  I said, "What in the world are you doing?"  He said, I am freezing and hot at the same time.  GREAT.  It turned out that Nate had a fever and that night would become one of the longest nights of our life!  We woke up the next morning and it seemed like the strikes continued.  Nate still had the fever, it was pouring like crazy outside (which makes driving in Ethiopia a little crazy!), and we had no driver.  I now had a whole new level of panic!!!  Thankfully, our friends prayed for us AGAIN, and within a couple of hours, the rain had stopped, Nate's fever subsided, and a driver and social worker met us at the door.  We were on our way to Adama, to pick up our son, and we had absolutely no idea what the day would entail.

TO BE CONTINUED!

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