Surprising Ourselves

It still feels a little crazy when I tell people that we are adopting a little boy from Ethiopia, even though we started this process 8 months ago. I think it probably won’t seem real until we bring him home, as I am still a little surprised myself. The people we’ve shared this good news with have been wonderfully excited and supportive of us. We feel very blessed to have such great family and friends. Most people say something like, “Wow! I didn’t know you guys were thinking about adopting.” And my response is usually, “Neither did we!”

We were very content with our family of four – one girl, one boy. Samantha, our oldest, is 11 years old now. She will be going to middle school this fall. Toby, age 8, will be in 3rd grade. I felt so smart and in control with my 1:1 parent to child ratio. Throw in a family dog. We were complete.

Then…while catching up on Facebook one day last fall (yes, I do feel like a teenage girl saying this), I came across a link to a friend’s blog titled “Family from Afar”. Without much thought, I clicked on the link and was surprised to learn that friends from our hometown of Clear Lake, Iowa had adopted two little boys from Ethiopia. After reading a few entries, I was so intrigued with their story, I had to start at the beginning. I sat still and read their entire blog. This was more than a little bizarre for me, since I rarely sit still for that long and I had never read a personal blog in my life.

By the time I had read half way through – maybe less than that – I knew that one day we would be traveling across the ocean to bring home a little brother. It was suddenly and completely obvious to me. I was overwhelmed to realize that there was a little boy in another part of the world that would one day be a part of our family – a son, a brother. I had woken up that day entirely satisfied with our family of four and was now unexpectedly aware that we would someday soon be a “party of five”.

I couldn’t wait to tell Dave :)

(There’s a link to Karen and Jay Wistom’s blog at the left. Karen has a beautiful way with photography and words. Their family is doing great things. Check it out…and keep your heart open.)