This is going to be a long wait!

I'm just amazed at how much has happened in just a few short weeks. We've told our family and friends and have received such warm congratulations. Nightlight put us in touch with 4 other Snowflake families in Arizona, one of which who has been exceptionally generous with their time and kindness and has really helped as we think about these new and foreign concepts and dynamics. Their input has been so helpful in quelling some of my fears and "unknowns."

I just can't even explain the transformation in my heart and mind that has occurred in such a short time. When we realized IF was going to be a part of our lives several years ago, I suspended really dealing with it on a deep level because I always expected that the end result would be God "fixing" it and giving us a quiver full of biological children. I never really considered that the answer was "no." In my head it was always "not right now." I guess I felt entitled to God fixing it my way, though I didn't really realize it or consciously do it. I made false assumptions that set my heart up for disappointment and pain.

When we got our diagnosis in November, I fell apart. I cried buckets. I raised my fist to God. I asked questions of myself and God that I'd never been brave enough to ask before. Though DH and I have ALWAYS wanted to adopt (and even filed EA away in our "maybe someday" file), I still mourned the loss of biological children spontaneously and naturally conceived.

Since then, my walk with God has changed so much. It took on a new tone of honesty and vulnerability that I'd never before had. And slowly, but surely, he began to answer some of our questions, and reveal to me how much he has already prepared us for this journey. He has been so generous in providing us with so many answers because in reality, we're not really entitled to any.

He's even softened my heart toward the idea of a more open than not relationship with the genetic parents and he's quelled my fears about our children ever wanting their "other parents" more than us.

The end result is that I can't WAIT to meet our children. They have filled my heart so much that it seems hard to imagine that they ever weren't there. And I mean specifically snowflake children not just children in general. These children have taken on an identity and aren't just some metaphysical concept of what's to come.

As God has shown us that this was never His "Plan B" for us, it's almost as if He's retroactively worked in my heart to where I can't even remember what it was like to NOT long for them. It's so hard to explain. It's like this love for them is so natural to me that it doesn't seem imaginable that at one time my heart was full for completely different children (the biological children). I wish I could explain it. I know I'm doing a lousy job.

But I think about them all the time. I wonder where they are. I hope they're being taken well care of by whatever clinic they're in. I wonder how many of them there are. I pray for them all the time. I dream about introducing them to their grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins for the first time and about them immediately welcoming them in to the family. I wonder about the children's Genetic Parents and how their hearts are doing with the prospect of parting with them and I breath such prayers and sighs of gratitude for their selflessness in being willing to give them life.

They children (for some reason I always think about them in the plural, which is odd), anyway, they're just such a part of my internal dialogue all the time now. And I don't have one ounce of worry about whether or not we'll be able to afford it, or whether or not anyone would ever choose us, or whether or not the embryos would successfully implant. I just have a peace I've never had before about anything. My natural tendency is to be a worry-wort so I know it is the work of Christ to still that in me.

The only negative to all of that is that it makes me anxious for them! I lie awake at night thinking about them. Sometimes I can't sleep because I can't stop my thoughts about them. My heart swells so much. They're not thoughts of worry or "to do" lists. They're hopes and dreams and prayers and love.

A part of me feels like I'm stealing something. We've not even *technically* begun this process. We haven't given any agency an application or any money. Hopefully that will all come very soon! But I guess I think others might think I'm jumping the gun. But even about the timing and the money I have peace that though those are barriers for us in the immediate, they're God's stop gaps on the process to make sure things happen in the right time and that we're ready for the right children at the right time. So I guess for one of the first times in my life, I don't even care what other people think about our right to celebrate this. From a people pleaser by nature, that's big!

DH said something so sweet. He said "Can you imagine how loved these children will be? Their genetic parents loved them enough to do the right thing and give them the chance for life, and we will love them as our own." Some kids don't even get one parent who loves them selflessly. God willing, ours will have 4. That's warmed my heart so much!

I'm babbling. I guess I just wanted to share the fullness of our hearts. I hate that they're still so far away from us, but I am excited that we could meet him/her/them as soon as a couple years from now!