One of my most favorite adoption blogs is Pink Shoes written by Maggie.

As we are in the process of packing up everything we own and moving across town, I am reminded of one of my all-time favorite posts from Pink Shoes called “This Wall”. You can read it HERE.

As our walls are becoming bare I’ve been thinking about the past 6 years of my life which have been lived in this house.

The events of the past six years have shaped who I will be for the rest of my life.

It is kind of sad to be leaving this place.

I think the room I will miss the most is Little Bug’s room.

When we first moved in, it was the guest room. We had a twin bed, dresser and a little end table in there.

When we started trying to have a baby, I dreamed of the days when our guest room would be transformed into a nursery.

That room held so many dreams and hopes….

And then there were the infertility days when I would pass by that room daily and wonder what it would ever become. One day my neighbor was having a yard sale before she moved. I noticed a white rocking chair for sale and walked over to check it out. It was in perfect condition and I decided to purchase it to put in the guest room as my “Faith Rocking Chair”. It was my statement that I believed God was going to bless us with a child, someway, somehow.

And then the day finally came!

Spring of 2009 we had been matched with a birth mom due in June and it was finally time to turn that guest room into a nursery. We painted the walls green and pink to match the bedding I had picked out for our baby girl. I hung some frames on the walls that would eventually hold pictures of our precious baby. Little girl clothes started filling up the closet.

When we brought Little Bug home from the hospital, I walked straight to her bedroom with her in my arms. I sat in the “Faith Rocking Chair” and wrapped her up in the “Faith Blanket” my mother had sewn together as we waited for God to do His work. That was such a precious day.

As I am writing this, we have not started to take down and pack anything in Little Bug’s room yet. I know that room is going to be the hardest room to see come un-done.

As I get in there and put all my baby girl’s things into boxes and take down those picture frames that were hung nearly four years ago, I want to think about the words Maggie wrote when she was doing the same: packing up her daughter’s room in preparation to move.

Maggie took a picture of herself and her daughter, Georgia, in front of one particular wall in Georgia’s room. Like us, Georgia’s room had been a guest room before Georgia’s birth and Maggie was actually in that very room when she received the phone call about Georgia. She had quickly grabbed a piece of paper within reach to jot down notes. She still has that crumpled piece of paper to this day.

But on the day she was leaving that house – and that special room – she was thinking about the walls of her life.

And one particular wall in her life: the wall of infertility.

A wall forces you to either find a way around it or turn in a new direction.

For me, the wall of infertility made me turn in a new direction. (Same for Maggie.)

Dave and I tried to have a baby, even going as far as doing multiple infertility treatments, but ultimately, that wall turned us to a new direction: adoption.

When you think of a wall being erected I think it automatically brings negative thoughts.

But some walls are good and not all walls are bad.

I was met with the wall of infertility and it has totally changed the course of my life, for which I am eternally grateful.

As we leave this house this week, I carry the events that occurred within these walls with me for the rest of my life. Never to be forgotten.

They have truly shaped me into the person I am today.

- Elaine