pickles and ice cream vs. chopsticks and pleasant goat

this weird thing is pleasant goat:
(he/she is all the rage in china)

there are obscure times i'll catch a glimpse of this weird goat on t.v. in the background of a world gymnastics competition, or in documentaries about girls in china, and it's the closest i can come to feeling my baby kick in the womb. 

while you excitedly talk about your weird cravings and post pictures of your pregnancy concoctions, i crave an email telling us we are at the next step in the process, and pictures of the fedex envelope holding our latest government approval. 

while you reach down and rub the belly that holds safe your child within, reminding yourself your dear one is so near, i eat dinner at a local authentic asian restaurant and listen with a longing in my heart to the background conversations in mandarin, wondering what her voice would sound like. i clumsily hold the chopsticks in my hand, and envision my children laughing at me when we are spending our first week as a family together, in china, while i try to eat all our meals with these two sticks. 

we all come into motherhood different ways: some conceive right away, seemingly on their honeymoon! others struggle for years, and finally see the sweet little pink plus sign they've prayed for, while some find themselves at a last resort of ivf, still others find themselves adopting in addition to their biologicals, or adopting because they cannot have biologicals, and then some, like me, have always known their children will look nothing like them, and choose to adopt to begin their family growth. no matter how we become mommies, the journey is filled with this incredible softening of the heart, tears that flow like a faucet during commercials, movies where a child is kidnapped, and reading stories in the news of ebola orphans, aids orphans, social orphans and orphans of poverty.  each of our journey is filled with thousands of thoughts a day, where we imagine what it will be like when we hold our child for the first time, and we already dread the first time they will be sick, we fear the possibility of bullying for our child, and we all fear for them, at the environment of the world we will be raising them in. we want no harm to befall them, no judgement to be pointed to them, we desperately want to protect them from the mistakes we've made, and build them up in the areas we were torn down.

we all want better for our children. people who think the best of us say with smiling eyes and sincerity they believe our child will be just like us. i want to shout "NO! NO!" i want so much more for her, for my lucy-girl than what i am. i want more strength for my little luke than i have. i don't want them to be just like me i want them to rise above me. i want their lives to be filled with beauty and wonder, i want their spirit to soar, i want strength be so mighty within them it seeps out of their veins. i want their eyes to always see as His do, and not to be as easily tarnished by the tragedies of the world and circumstance. 

we are all mommies, and though we all become mommies in different ways, our desperate love for our children is the same. i just don't have the weird cravings. and you don't have to worry about prefecting your chop-stick usage. :) 

paper pregnancy...also i can't wait for slamming doors

honesty about paper pregnancy hormones and the issues: 

"paper pregnancy" refers to the period of time from when you have PA (pre-approval) to when you actually are with your child...some people think adoption is awesome because you don't have to deal with all those pregnancy "issues"...wrong. except for the excessive gas, i don't have excessive gas (my husband is happy about this). but, you do become weepy. you do become stressed. you do want to eat crazy amounts of ben & jerry's salted caramel core ice-cream and taco bell (maybe these last two are just me, and the stress).  you do get all weepy watching commercials (freakin' commercials!) on t.v., you get all weepy reading news stories and seeing videos of students with down syndrome (or other disabilities) accepted into college or realize other dreams and goals. you do cry in the shower missing them (and then try to convince your husband that "nooooo...of course you're not crying" but they know you well and know that you actually are doing one of those silent tear drop cries).

several of my friends are pregnant. sweet girls, they're going to be wonderful mommies. i am so filled with joy in our adoption, we are choosing to adopt first to build our family, but, honestly, there is a twinge of sadness combined with jealousy seeing them in their pregnancy. they can touch their belly anytime they want and feel their child, all i have is two pictures.  i wear them around my neck in a locket, and her sweet face is close to my heart, but that's all i can do, i can't not reach out and hug her. they can nourish their body, protect their child, for 9 months. for the next 9 months i can only pray my daughter is healthy, protected, and nourished. if you are pregnant, treasure it, treasure knowing that your child is already with you and that you can protect them. 

in this waiting period we are in, with many other adoptive families, my heart races to all the "what-ifs"....what if something happens and china halts all the adoptions (like what occurred in russia), what if we aren't trying hard enough to find a way to move to china and raise her in her birth culture. what if....

i think of her birth mother every day. i wonder if her birth mother had been blessed to have been born in the freedom of america, if she would have still felt she had no other option than to give her sweet daughter up. i wonder if she still cries for her, the child she felt the best thing she could do for was to abandon them and give them a chance to be adopted. i think of her foster parents, and how they provided for and cared for her for the past 7 years.  she has stated she wants to be adopted and move to america with her forever family, but i wonder of the emotional toll us taking her will have on her foster parents, if any.

heidi baker is an awesome woman.  she was speaking once and said that she could tell when her adoptive children really felt they were part of the family, they would go from asking to get something out of the refrigerator, to just opening it and getting what they wanted--"refrigerator rights".  i understand this now, even though my daughter isn't home yet. i want her to feel her "slamming doors" rights. not that we will support that (slamming doors) her whole life, what i mean is, i want her to know that she can become upset and display this, and see that our love for her does not fade even in those times. she can slam a door, and know that we will be on the outside ready to talk it over when she is ready, and eager to follow up with a hug and "i love you". she can understand and know that she can be a kid (after years of adult responsibilities like caring for younger foster siblings), and still be treasured and valued beyond description. i'll take the tantrums, i'll take the power struggles, i'll take the testing limits and slamming doors, i just want her home, with us, safe and loved. 

“Sing, O barren one, who did not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married,” says the LORD.--isaiah 54:1 

so as to not be a total debbie-downer, here's a picture of one of my favorite animal photo bombs, ever:

and one of a monkey who found a photo-journalist's lost camera and succeeded in taking the best selfie ever: