part of the journey

since our journey to being parents began, i have been writing here, on my blog, and have also been journaling. the journal i keep is really a collection of letters to my child, who until recently, i thought would come through adoption. i have been struggling with what to do with it since finding out we were pregnant.

our call to adoption was unmistakeable. and i don't believe it's over. the day that i finally asked God for what my heart had been longing for, the prayer included two children, one through conception and one through adoption. and although pieces of His plan seem to be unfolding, i am not yet sure what it will look like or how it will turn out.

we are ecstatic, and that's putting it mildly, to be pregnant. these almost-fourteen weeks have been a blessing from God, and we can't wait to meet our baby. i feel a special need to communicate to this child how much he/she is wanted, how loved, how prayed for...and the best way for me to do that is through my words. the journal i have been writing in is really to our adopted child. i started it during that process, have prayed specifically for that child and it's birth family, and i don't feel right binding the two processes together. they are both very sacred to me. both decisions, the decision to pursue adoption and the decision to continue pursuing conception, came at a great spiritual and emotional cost, and i feel like both children, the one in my belly and the one i have yet to know, deserve their own stories. certainly, they are forever connected, but special in their own individual ways, much like the children themselves will be.

i believe there will be a second child (heck, there could be more than that, given my ability to predict the future...). i don't believe we were called to adoption, only to lay it down the moment we conceived. and it's not that i am focused on the future...who knows what that holds. but in my heart, i am already the mother to both of these children. i can't explain it, but it's something i feel very deeply. so i am closing the journal of letters to my adopted child...until the day God calls us to pick it back up again. and i am starting a new one to the baby inside of me...i hope that one day these two will share their stories with one another and that both will know of the unconditional love of their Father in heaven, and of the magnitude of love we have for them.