Hope, Faith and Love

These three words: Hope, Faith and Love have gotten me through the toughest time probably in my life.

Everyone writes about the joy of adoption. How wonderful it is. I'm here to tell you it is hard. Adoption is not for the faint of heart. It is truely the wildest roller coaster ride I have been on. Waiting for a child from China is a long process that is just getting longer for the people that are waiting. You get your hopes for a speed up of referrals but it is looking like people who were logged in when we were originally logged in (9/11/06) are going to be waiting over 3 plus years. Could be 4 years. Reasons behind the slowdown vary to : slowdown due to Olympics, China doesn't want to be seen as the number one exporter of babies, less babies available etc.... I can tell you what we saw at Fuling SWI - hardly any babies. Maybe they are in foster care like Ricky but there were certainly not alot of babies. Families before us have visited the orhanage and got pictures of many babies. We saw 3-5 babies. I truly feel for those waiting. My heart aches for you. Bill and I were trying for over 5 years to have baby before Ricky came into our lives. Before that we tried over 3 years for Emily.

I know alot of people go to China for a non-special need baby girl. In fact they request it. We didn't request a gender on our petition. We just wanted a baby.

For those waiting and able to, maybe consider a special need child. Maybe consider a boy. I know not all are able to switch to SN but if the option is available to you maybe consider a boy. At our agency someone waiting 3 weeks for match for a boy with Ricky's special need - cl/cp. Yes 3 weeks for boy. We are seen matches as young as 7-10 months old with cl/cp. That is very young. CL/CP is not an easy special need by any means but it isn't life threatening. Ricky will have an addition 3-5 surgeries in his childhood, speech therapy and orthodontic work. Please consider a boy if you can.

Back to Hope, Faith and Love....

Hope - Hope is what I described the whole process. I hoped for a baby. I hoped for healthy child. I hoped that the child would fit into our lives. It has been hard to adjust to having a baby in our lives again. But I can tell you Ricky fits into our lives. He is a very a special boy with the most amazing smile that lights up a room and changes your bad mood to a good one.

Faith - Adoption is a leap of faith. It doesn't matter what religion you are or not. You have to have some sort of faith to know that this is the right step. You have to faith that things will work out.

Love - Without the Love of my husband and family, I would have never been able to do this.

I speak of hard times. When we came home with Ricky, I experienced a level of Post Adoption Depression. It was really hard to think that I didn't love this little boy. He didn't ask for a family, we asked for him. Well through Hope, Faith and Love I can say that things have now turned around for me. I love this little boy that I call my son. Sure I get frustrated at things but I am in a much better place today than I was 3 months ago. So if you are just home, please know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Your light might be a month, two months, three months away but it is there. It is a lot of work to get out of that tunnel and stay out of the tunnel.