When did you know?

"So, when did you know you were ready to stop infertility treatments and pursue adoption?"
"What does it feel like to be sure you want to do the adoption thing?"
"How will I know I'm ready?"
"I just don't feel quite ready to jump into adoption even though I'm so frustrated that we haven't had a baby yet."
"My husband is really ready to start adoption stuff, but I'm not really there yet."

When did you know? 

Yep.  I've heard all that. I've probably said all that.

And I'm going to be extremely honest when I say, I don't think you need to be one hundred percent ready to embrace the reality of adoption in your life to get started on the adoption process. I don't think it needs to be your final answer just because you fill out paperwork.  I don't think you should be all that worried if when you sit through adoption education classes at the agency you've chosen you're still having doubts about what you're doing. I don't think it should scare you more than anything else that you do that might be a bit scary if when you turn in your adoption scrapbook you have a hard time actually letting your social worker take it out of your hands.

Because the thing is........are we really ever one hundred percent ready to do BIG things?  Are all of the stars and details always aligned and perfectly in place? Are there always some lingering doubts?  Of course.  It doesn't mean we don't do those things.  And we do them because we've spent time weighing out the pros and cons of the situation.  We do them because we know what we want the end result to be even if the path to that result is a little scary......or a lot scary.  We do them because so often at the end of great risk is the greatest reward.

So when people ask me, "when did you know?"

"Was it when you wrote that first check?"

"No," I say.

"Was it when you got your finger-prints done?"

"Not then," I'll reply.

"For sure then when you filled out all the paper-work."

"Not even then."

"How about when you mailed everything in?"

"I was getting closer.  But I still wasn't one hundred percent there," I'll admit.

Even in this picture that Chris and I took of ourselves after we'd turned in our very last thing that our agency needed to put us on the official "waiting" list I had a nagging feeling like, "I don't think I can do this."

Because apparently, I had a deep, deep love for Sparrow and I couldn't imagine loving something more than him besides Chris.  I literally must have been psychotic four years ago and Georgia is what I needed to jolt me back to reality.

So when did I know?  I knew when I met Georgia's birth-parents.  When my social worker opened the door and they were sitting at the table; the same table we'd sat at for all of our adoption education classes, the very classes that made me question whether adoption was for me more than anything else I encountered through the process,......I knew.  I knew I was ready to pursue adoption.  I didn't have one doubt left in my body.  Not even the slightest hint of one.

So, it's okay.  To not know.  When you need to know, absolutely need to know.  You will.

It's just another one of the ways that God works incredible miracles through adoption.  One.  Of trillions.

Don't let the logical need of "having to be sure" stop you from pursuing something that could be the greatest decision of your life.  If you know where you want to be and there is a road that will take you there......even if it's a dark and twisting and turning road.........get on it.  You'll have enough light to get you to the next part.  And one day.........you'll turn a corner and you'll be in a parking lot full of flood lights and street lamps and huge blinking signs that say, "You made it."

And then.......you'll know.

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