Building a Family...

When I was growing up I knew just how I'd build my family - I had it all planned out at an early age.

     First I'd marry Ken (oh yes, I was totally going to snag Barbie's main squeeze...) and then we'd have 3 or 4 darling kiddos that I would stay home and raise  perfectly.   No back up plan, just that easy formula that was somehow supposed to magically happen.  Planning my future life was so simple at age six.

      But the reality has been somewhat different.  I grew up to realize Ken was never going to leave his Barbie,  being a perfect Mom is impossible and that building a family can be a bit more complicated than I had thought.

     For me it started with the dream of what would come, a foundation poured from hope and love.  But all too quickly that foundation crumbled with heartbreak and loss.  In the midst of rebuilding some desperation was tossed in and I had moments where I thought that having a family could go either way.  There were those days I wasn't sure I could bear the possible let down if it couldn't be done.  It seemed we were building on very rocky ground.

     But not to worry, we added faith to the mix and along with our hope and love it was strong enough to rebuild upon.  And so we continued with a renewed strength and slowly the foundation grew.  With each passing step we became closer in the building up of our first addition.

    It was not an easy task though.  No, not at all.  We had to pass many inspections done by so many different people and deal with invasive walk through's into every corner of our lives.  We had to devise, revise and notarize (not to mention Apostillize...)our plans and papers.  Each document completed, every appointment finished and all checklists checked added a layer to our building and brought us closer to our dream of a family.  Some days it seemed the building of it was happening all so fast, and some days dragged without an inch of progress.  The dream of our finished product often feeling like just that, a dream.  But as we grew closer and closer to completing our building the stumbles, tumbles and hard work were all but forgotten.

     Over the last 8 years we've built our family through adoption, two little additions that I treasure more than anything.  I started on this journey of construction never thinking it would lead down this amazing path.  The building of my family has also been a reconstructing of my heart and soul.

     November is National Adoption Awareness Month, obviously a topic near and dear to my heart.  We don't all build our families the same way but we all become true families still, it just takes some of us a bit longer to get there.  There is a lot of hard work, sometimes heartache and so much waiting involved in building an adoptive family.  We don't get to grow our little ones in our tummies, but we sure do find a way for them to grow in our hearts and minds.

  Building a family has been the most amazing thing I have done in my life.  The end result is truly the most beautiful structure, better than I ever could have imagined producing with Ken!  My little additions are products not built by me, but the love and adoration I have for them sure was.
J