This is something I wrote on July 28th.

Ok - one more thing heavy on my heart & then I think it will be time for me to begin taking action in moving forward by moving through the motions of each day until the grief passes & life again feels normal. I have no idea how long that will take but I do have 3 children who need me & I need to be there for them.

What hurts me the most is just another loss of a dream.

I’ve shared before how since childhood I have desired to mother 4 children. To me, this baby was my dream come true and I was in awe of the way God had chosen to build my family. I still am in awe, obviously, because each of my children have come to me in ways that only God could have orchestrated.

Just like my children didn’t think of this baby as THEIR baby, I didn’t think of this child as MY baby. With every adoption I have kept myself guarded until TPR is signed at least 48 hours after birth. (Except for Sarge.) So because of this, I feel more of a loss of a dream than the loss of a particular child. I am not sure if that makes any sense whatsoever, but that is my thought process and guarding my heart certainly was wise in this particular situation.

On the flip side, as soon as I would have heard that she had signed her rights to us, the flood gates would have been let down and that baby would have been wholly and completely MINE. I could not wait to look at those 4 children and just stand in awe of all GOD had done! It was going to be beautiful - but it was not God’s ultimate plan.

So, in many ways, all this takes me emotionally right back to where I was in March 2009 when I was told my dream of pregnancy & childbirth was not likely at all, which is a huge blow & a lot to process! Except then, it was obvious where God was leading: to adoption. Right now, we just don’t know where God is leading our family after this.

All the options are scary, but we are left with both feeling like our family isn’t quite complete yet. (Perfect stage for for God to perform another miracle!)

Which again brings me to the S-word. Surrender.

That’s where I ultimately need to get to with this situation & it’s just going to take some time to get there.

I KNOW in my head, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God WILL lead us through these deep waters. It doesn’t necessarily mean that we WILL have a 4th child at some point, but it also doesn’t necessarily mean that He is saying “no” to a 4th either. It’s just going to take time to seek the Lord and walk in the direction He leads.

We want immediate answers! But that isn’t how God works most of the time. As Dave keeps saying, “We will walk through whatever opportunities God presents to us, just like we walked into this opportunity by faith back in March.”

We have no regrets in saying yes to this baby, when God eventually said no. (Isn’t that ironic? This time we said yes and God said no. With Sarge, we said no and God said yes!) His ways are higher than our own and in simple child-like faith, we just simply need to trust Him with this.

We will get there, eventually. Each new day puts us a little further away from all the pain and heartache of this and a little bit closer to discovering God’s plan for us next.

We will persevere & push forward. We refuse to have a “victim mentality” here because that only hurts us and our family. In the meantime, we will feel deeply what we feel, work through it together, and…just keep walking by faith because that’s all any of us can do when we find ourselves in deep waters.

I do wish I could snap my fingers and be “over it” all today. Haha, wouldn’t that be nice, but that isn’t reality. God made emotions and we are pretty much feeling them all right now.

- Elaine