Still on this journey

We were derailed for a time after Lucy died.  In those days and weeks after hearing that the little girl we had come to love so much had unexplainably died, I never could have imagined the ability to love another child.  I was consumed with sadness and simply overwhelmed with emotion.  Abigail and I cried for days straight.  About two weeks after hearing the news, I reached out to some women who I had ‘met’ through Facebook who had also lost their daughters before bringing them home.  Each shared their story and the emotion was still raw for them as each woman had a few moments of tears remembering that loss.  Each of these women shared how they continued their journey to adopt and how the journey had changed a bit for them.  No longer the exciting and joyous journey, but a journey of excitement and joy but it was partnered with grief.  Grieving over the child that they loved and lost and trying to muster up the love for another child. 

That is the place that I find myself in now.  Just a week after we received word that our Lucy had died, our agency called us with another referral of another little girl.  I was shocked to get another call so fast and really was not expecting it.  The agency gave us two weeks to decide.  Those two weeks were filled with a lot of prayer and I really agonized over this decision.  As we neared our deadline to decide, I finally had to put the final decision in Russ’s hands.  I was still too emotional over losing Lucy and really could not make this decision.  At the last hour, as Russ was outside stacking wood, he was overcome with emotion and confirmation that this little girl was his daughter.  We sent in our Letter of Intent that night. 

This past month has been a challenge.  Lucy’s first birthday was on January 10th which just brought back up a lot of raw sadness.  Abigail’s fundraiser for Lucy’s orphanage was this month also which was exciting and just so sad all at the same time.  As much as I’m excited we raised enough money to sponsor Lucy’s friend for an entire year, my heart ached that I had to do it at all.  There have also been moments of joy.  When we received four videos from the orphanage of our newest girl and she looked so healthy, we were thrilled.   We were excited when we finally picked out her name and sent her a photo album filled with stickers and notes. 

 I get it now.  It’s okay to have joy in the midst of grief.  It’s okay to feel both at the same time.  While we are all a bit more guarded this time around, we are getting excited to bring our daughter home.  We received our Letter of Acceptance in record time from China.  This process typically takes 2-4 months and we received ours in 3 weeks.  We are thanking God for this small blessing.  I had prayed for our acceptance before China takes two weeks off for Chinese New Year and we got it just in time.  

Introducing our daughter Rachel Jane Ru Xuan Highton.  She is turning two in February.