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Hi Villagers and other supportive people (i.e. you Michiganians). Ryan and I have been discussing what God is trying to do in our lives. He brought us back to this place again where medical issues are interfering with how my body works and for however long (or forever) with becoming pregnant and bearing a biological child. We are really unclear what the purpose is of this part of the journey. Originally, we were going to start looking for our next family member through adoption in January. The current medical situation make pregnancy seem like a long shot. I say this because the cyst I have is very large and developed after only 4 months post surgery.
So, we have some decisions to make...
1) We need to transfer our foster care license to a new agency next month due to a new decision by the agency in the last few months (I work there by contract so can't be licensed there for fc). We have decided that we are going to do this.
2) Is it time to move forward for a child who is need of a fost/adopt situation? This is a child who is more than likely going to need adoption, but is still in need of foster care for a # of more months until they are legally free to adopt.
OR
3) Do we still sit and wait and grieve the biological child? Is there something else God is trying to teach us about Himself?
Ryan and I talked through this one last night. We saw the benefit of sitting in this 3 years ago as we went through infertility the first time. But is there a purpose in it the 2nd time? Not to say that we aren't grieving this. Every time I sit on a medical table and hear the bad news that I either have a cyst or an ectopic pregnancy, or an ultrasound tech say 'oh, darn, this (adhesion and general appearance of the organs in my abdomen) is worse looking than last time', or the ultrasound dr look at me with sympathy that I am back there again so soon, we have to grieve. Grieving last time and this time around taught me a few things...
a)I won't die if I grieve it (i.e. fall into a deep pit that I can never crawl out of).
b)Grief is intertwined with the joy as part of our parenting story with Ellie and our future children. There are times when I am experiencing such joy of being her mom, the twinge of pain comes up grieving that I didn't get to experience her as part of my body (and she will have grieving to do from this too). I experience grief when well-intentioned friends and family ask 'where is her mom', I have to smile and gently say 'her bio-mom is...' because I know her 'mom' is standing in my shoes but the difference in words doesn't seem to mean anything to the person that hasn't experienced adoption. And when that grief becomes apparent, I can give it the space it needs without falling apart and not loving my little girl or becoming absent as her mom b/c it is overwhelming.
c) That grief is a reminder that we live in a fallen world. God has turned our sins into wonderful things such as adoption, but this isn't how things were meant to be in the beginning. There wasn't meant to be infertility, there wasn't meant to be a man and woman who bear a child they will not raise, it is not meant for moms and dads to be so fearful or wounded that they try to kill their children or otherwise abuse their children. But Romans 8:28.
d)And God taught me the really big picture. He does use everything whether we know how, why, when, etc. His ways are good. That became really evident through this last surgery and I don't question that even though the outcome of the surgery wasn't what I thought it was (at least not yet).
We are really looking at whether to stand still and wait more OR move forward now in the hopes in the hopes to adopt. Will you join us in prayer in these decisions? | 
