Adoption stories

Sorry that we haven't posted much here lately...it is one of those especially busy times of life, especially with Christmas upon us. Besides my other work and volunteer responsibilities, I'm also trying to learn rudimentary Russian (and am extra motivated by the experience and comments of April Jacobson) and otherwise prepare for the adoption. As we move closer to the adoption date (we just got our $800 USCIS fingerprints done in St. Paul -- see our adoption blog for details), I find myself increasingly immersed in others' adoption stories, probably as a way to prepare myself, both emotionally and practically. I've been particularly interested in Asking with Faith, which is a blog kept by the amazing Canadian teen who did so much to advocate for Alex. Their family just brought a nine-year-old girl home from Bulgaria -- and while it has been joyful, lately it has also been pretty rough. As she points out, it's pretty typical for adopted kids (especially ones who are more cognitively typical) to go through a grieving period that includes lots of rage and anger and defiance. Thank goodness their family knows how to ride it out. They are in our prayers. I read their story knowing that we could be going through the same process in a few months.

It has also been fun to follow the Jacobson's adoption blog, since they are adopting from the same country as Alex, and April Jacobson keeps a fairly detailed account of their process.

And then there's the story of Katie, the nine-year-old girl who weighed just eleven pounds when she was adopted by the Musser family about a month ago. It's amazing to see how she has gone, in just a few weeks, from this...

...to this:

Wow. This family got a lot of flack and resistance from people concerned about them adopting a severely handicapped kid, but they did it anyway -- eyes wide open to the difficulties and necessary sacrifices, but also seeing beyond that to the ultimate reality of Love with a capital "L."

This is the sort of thing I was talking about when I named this blog "Gracewatch." There it is.

More at their blog, The Blessing of Verity.