I wish I was interrupting regularly scheduled content – as if I ever post regularly – to tell you that I was busy with a new baby.  

But I’m not.  

As many of you saw on Instagram over the weekend, the mother we were working with decided to parent her baby.  

We found out late Wednesday evening that the mother we’d been working with for the past five months decided to parent her baby. He was born early last week. We are so, so sad, but God is so, so good. Thank you for your faithful prayers throughout our journey. We know He’s not finished with us yet. To Him be all the glory and praise. His love never fails <3

That post was accompanied by this picture, taken from my journal…

I have been very public about our adoption journey, sharing pictures and sentiments along the way.  That was the way I wanted to live out our wait.  Not everyone who adopts feels so obliged, but I did.   We set up a nursery, washed Becks’ old baby clothes and bought many new ones.  Started a stockpile of donated formula.  Picked up little, teensy tiny diapers.  I had just installed the carseat in the car last Wednesday afternoon.  He had a name.  

 So, I felt like y’all needed to know.  I can literally feel your prayers and those of the many friends and family who are praying for us, as evidenced by the fact that I feel more at peace today than I have the past several days.  I was able to cook dinner and tidy up the house a bit, things I haven’t done in the past week.  

Having never grieved, I’m not sure if what I’m feeling is comparable to that, but I would imagine it’s similar.  I almost wish I felt more sad or more angry.  But I simply don’t.  In the immediate days after we received the phone call from our agency, I felt a lot of nothing.  I wanted to do nothing.  I wanted to talk to no one.  Nothingness.  The good news is that a lot of my thoughts are interrupted by the constant K-Love soundtrack playing in my brain on and off throughout the day!  Not even kidding you, I’ll start to feel sad and suddenly Passion is singing One Thing Remains or Jeremy Camp pops in with I Will Walk By Faith.  Laura Story’s Blessings has played quite a bit, too. How funny is that?  Seriously thankful for the ongoing worship 🙂

My husband has been nothing short of amazing, blessing me with his strength, determination, and direction.  For feeling so adrift right now, he knows where we need to be going and is taking me there with him.  I love him for that because I couldn’t do it on my own.  He’s reminded me over and over again that this is God’s plan – not mine.  That all of this was His will all along, and it is our job to make His name famous despite our pain.   We will use this time of sorrow to strengthen our relationship with each other and with Him.  

So where do we go from here?

We will re-enter the pool of waiting families at our agency and continue to pray fervently for an answer to our prayer.  Our Home Study expires on December 5th, and we will likely renew it before it lapses.  However, I’m not opposed to, you know, being matched with another expectant mother in the meantime.  (Are you listening, God?!)  Like I said, just praying for His will…not Abby’s 🙂

I will leave you with two things: 

This verse…

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your words of encouragement and prayers.  They mean so very much.

XXOO