The past month was one fraught with emotion. And as I sit here & read an update from a family that started the adoption process with us, one that we were ‘in line’ with around the same time, my heart aches for them & the delays they are encountering. There is no ‘right’ way or wrong way to your children, it’s just ‘the’ way. It’s hard no matter who you are, no matter what your circumstances.  I wasn’t expecting so much ‘adoption news’ over the past 6 weeks. I wasn’t looking for it. It wasn’t on my radar. But here it is, so maybe I am supposed to share it with you. Maybe there is something you are supposed to read … something you are supposed to see.

There has been a lot of joy with two families – one a dear photographer friend and another a welcoming neighbor, always available with baked sweets. They both welcomed home their new babies – a little girl named Lola and a little boy named Ashton. It’s been amazing to see & watch their stories unfold. And while I’m sure from the outside others would say that it looked ‘easy’ but I have no doubt that we can all very quickly say it is not. But it is oh so worth it.

Here we are, two years after the start of our journey and another local friend & family is about to celebrate their little boy’s first year. We met them when we both stepped foot onto the path of adoption. Needless to say, it’s pretty special that we will be celebrating 3 little boys turning one this year. I can’t help but smile.  There is so much joy. So much to be happy for. To be grateful for. I am just flooded with emotion. I wonder if it will be this way every year around this time. I can’t even begin to imagine if we hadn’t said ‘yes’ when we knew the time was right to add to our family. What would our life look like now? I would never even want to explore that option. We knew it was time to expand our family & have another child, so we took that leap the best way we knew how at the time. My best advice, be afraid … but do it anyway. Walk through your fears. Ask yourself the question, will this matter five years from now? Will I wish we ‘would have’ when I’m 80? Only you know the answer.

Chapel’s Adoption Story | the feature from stillmotion on Vimeo.

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