come meet your baby boy

 I have found myself telling our adoption story so many times recently. I am not sure if its because this is around the time that we matched with first expectant mom, two years ago. Maybe its because I got a fun new job as an adoption consultant. I am honestly not sure, but there is a part every single time I tell our story that I cannot help but get goosebumps and teary eyed - and I have told this story at least 15 times. 

As many of you know our first adoption was a disrupted match. It was a goose chase for a few days. I remember being confused and broke, lost and hurt. But I still felt a sense of hope for some reason. I knew that we were not done. We knew our adoption had truly failed on a Thursday and on the following Monday we got a text about a baby boy who was born at 3:01PM - he was Hispanic, a stork drop and birth mom was ready to look at profile books. I can tell this story over and over - then I get to this part. 

On Tuesday morning Lisa, our case worker, called and asked if I was near Alejandro. She had a different voice than I had heard before. I wasn't sure what it meant exactly and I was still pretty numb to the chaos that unfolded a couple days before, but remember - I said I had hope. So with the ounce of hope that I had and a smidge of wanting it to happen. I heard, 

'Come meet your baby boy.'

a small cloud was lifted. We were ready to go, but couldn't leave that day due to flights. The next morning we got to the hospital and I remember being so nervous. Like the most nervous I had ever been in my entire life. I walked through the door in the NICU and immediately it was as if time was frozen and not a single second of heartbreak mattered anymore. We knew in that moment that we walked through every second of the mess to get to Miguel. I knew that I would need to process things, I knew that would come with time. But in this moment meeting our baby boy was so bittersweet and that was something to focus on. 

Over the next couple of days, Lisa was very good about reminding me that I would still mourn the loss of baby girl. I did not know that this would happen or how this would look because honestly I felt fine. But then, one night while doing skin to skin with Miggy I remember silently weeping. Alejandro was resting on the couch and woke up to see me crying over our new baby and then I realized what happened. I was processing. I was mourning, but joyful. I was in shock but excited. I as hurt, but healing. Miguel was not a bandaid - I will forever say this. This was a process I walked through for weeks following. I was never mourning what we did not have. I was mourning the fact that this child was being placed in state custody and there was nothing I could do. I was mourning the hurt caused by an expectant mom who was so lost that she created a trail of lie and deceit. I was just mourning. 

But as I say so often, we would walk through it again because we know the outcome. 

I still think about that baby girl, we named her Marlo. I still pray for her often. 

But I would never change where we are now as a family. I trusted that God had us and I knew that our story was not over. God truly had to break me to build me up. I had to loosen my grip fully before I could be an adoptive mom because that title while a beautiful one, can be a tough one. Guys, I do not wake up every morning thinking about the fact that Miguel is my adopted son. I wake up thinking about how he is my son. However, when I see the picture we have framed in his room - the one of us and his birth mama I am reminded that we, 'share,' Miguel. She gave him life. She birthed him. She chose life for him. She chose adoption for her child and she chose us to parent her child. 

don't sweat the little stuff

 This post has been a long time coming. I quit writing awhile back because I couldn't find the time, honestly. I still wrote things in my head everyday and would sometimes write on social media platforms, but would never allow myself time to write on here. This blog has been with me since 2013, maybe. If you looked back you would find all of my secrets. I mean not really, but you would be able to tell what I was going through in each season. I tried looking back awhile ago and laughed and cried, then laughed some more. Just because the blogs I wrote then were really meaningful then, but they are still punching me in the gut now. 

A couple months ago while listening to a podcast, I heard someone say - 

 you are never as passionate as you are at the age of 22.

And nothing has ever made more sense. I have spent most of my late 20s chasing after that feeling, chasing after the girl who was on fire for things. So passionate that she was a force to be reckoned with. I have spent so much time trying to win her back. I mean she truly was fearless. She went to Africa every summer without hesitation, got baptized in the Nile river without thinking about the parasites. She traveled around the States staying in strangers homes. She truly was fearless. 

Now she is 28, a wife and a mother. She is me if you haven't picked up on that yet. & I find myself more scared now than ever before. I wonder where the fear came from, but the only thing I can trace it back to was moving to Uganda. I cannot wrap my mind around why it happened or why I am the way I am now. Its really not a fun place to be, to be scared of the craziest things. 

I can create a wild scenario in 2 mins flat. I can fall asleep on demand, its a defense mechanism I created to handle the fear.I cannot get in an elevator without my palms sweating. 

This list could go on and on. If you met me you wouldn't know I was scared of so many things - until I started making jokes about how I fall asleep on demand when I am scared or make dumb jokes to laugh off the fear while stepping into an elevator. When I am nervous I talk louder, according or my husband. Or I am scanning the area like Maggie from FBI, waiting to catch someone. 

However, I do not want to be this anymore. I do not want to live in fear. I want to feel like I did at 22, granted I know that won't really come back fully because -who are we kidding - I was single, with no bills and lived by the saying. 'why not.' But I promised myself that this year I would do something every week that scares me a little bit because that is how I get rid of this beast on my back. I do not mean skydiving. I simply mean riding in an elevator alone. Driving down the interstate in a thunderstorm. Normal everyday things that make me a tiny bit nervous. 

I think the wildest thing about all of this and that I know hard things are worth it. I know that I do things and then look back and I am shocked that I did it. I seem to be able to do the big things for some reason. I can adopt a child, I can move states, I can walk through a disrupted match. I can go months into national pandemic without a single anxious thought (I did this and I am still not sure how. Maybe it was Tiger King or TikTok, but y'all. I never panicked about Covid - I mean duh I have since, but the first panic about it was last month.) I can do all of this because I knew that Jesus was with me. Like I knew I was not walking alone. 

But man, the tiny things. I always sweat the tiny things. 

and as my dad always says, 'don't sweat the little stuff.'

So here is to my year of not sweating the little stuff.