letting go - ending an adoption...

October 19th, 2017...a day that will forever be etched in my mind. That was the day the 4 children, our 4 children, were given back to their country and that was the day that changed my life forever. As the jet took a hard landing into a foreign land, smiles etched into our souls, we had finally arrived and the day that we had been preparing for was here. We had worked for one long year, spent countless hours doing paperwork, countless dollars financing the adoption of 4 international children, countless prayers and meticulous planning for their arrival...why was I so uneasy? I couldn't answer but little did I know, the answer would soon stare me down to the very core of my existence... We drove the barren, dirt streets, looking for the orphanage. Out of the dust stood a 4 story building that looked more like a scene out of a zombie apocalypse then a place where children live. After quite a bit of searching and searching, roaming endless white, long hallways with windows busted out and toys and mattresses piled in the corners of rooms that looked like they had gone through war, the children were finally found, walking the streets. We were overjoyed, yet, when I stopped to really take it all in, the smile left, and I felt all alone. Where was my heart? Where was my joy? What was this chaos enveloping my very being? It is hard to put it in words, and words really just don't do it justice, but what we experienced for the next 11 days was horrific and would give me the answer for the feeling of chaos. In those 11 days, we would wake up crying, we would go to sleep crying...we would put suitcases by our door at night out of fear the children would hurt us, and the pain in our hearts was excruciating. We would spend hours at night on the phone with a counselor from New York and we would lay staring at the ceiling, with tears flowing down. Where were the kids we dreamed of? What sort of tale had we fallen into? We hated adoption one moment, then we loved it the next. Words can never, ever describe and I am not sure when or if we will ever openly share in writing what took place in the short time that we were a mom and dad. It is much to personal of a story and much, much to painful to share in words on a page. Needless to say, we spent countless hours when we came home in trauma counseling...sleepless nights, just to fall asleep and wake up screaming from the intense pain and trauma endured - PTSD. We had to stop going to church and had to stop all activities with friends...not because we wanted to, but because we had to. Our health started to slowly decline, we were having trouble concentrating and speaking...loss and grief mixed with trauma is, in short, hell. Add to that the social and TV media in that country ran a smear campaign against us as soon as we left, causing us to have to shut down all social media and block our numbers. It was a circus and we were the main attraction. Due to all of the legal proceedings, we chose not to speak openly about the adoption until this very day, almost one year later...the day that our dissolution is finally, legally, complete. We had 4, yes four, lawyers working on this very complicated issue and it comes with relief and much sadness to be able to close this door...but never will we be able to forget what was on the other side of that door...the other side that changed our lives forever. So here we are, trying to rebuild from the ground up....trying to remember that all is not lost. Trying to reconnect from a world we had to say goodbye to for a time. But for us, stepping away was the answer we needed for a time...this was our place of healing...this was our story and a personal journey that only God could walk with us. Thank you to all of you who fervently prayed for us..to our church Life Group who prayed us through those 2 weeks in their country, to the good people at another church who would walk for hours praying for us in the midst of our journey there, fighting a spiritual battle that only prayers could win. Thank you to all who supported us financially and tangibly meeting all of our needs to take care of our children when we returned. We have donated every last cent and every last toy/clothing to other children in the community who were in great need and we have seen their smiles and their joy and their lives change because of you. It was only because of the body of Christ and the community that we are alive and that the enemy didn't win this war.