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| Photo credit // Petal & Vine Photography |
It all started with this post about downsizing our home and meeting several kids at a playground who were adopted from the country of Uganda.
And then the big day came when we announced our decision to officially adopt.
We stared fundraising through a yard sale, t-shirts, coffee, another yard sale, and selling Tukula bags. Anyway we could to raise the money, we tried.
To document our journey through the adoption process, we made mini documentaries, or as we called them adoptumentaries. The first one was about how it all started. The cutest one was what Asher and Alethea thought about having new siblings. The third adoptumentary was about our fundraisers, specifically our yard sales.
In adoption there is lots and lots of paperwork. The growing piles of paper reminded me of my growing belly with my homegrown kids. And what an amazing relief when our paperwork was 100% complete!
We tried to get ready for two new little people in the house by setting up rooms, practicing baby wearing two kids an once, and struggled while I watched other people in our agency bring home their children.
I promise you I had paper-pregnant cravings!
Even though they were in Uganda, we celebrated their birthdays and had a virtual baby shower.
We did this fun "maternity" shoot for our adoption as a way to open our hearts just a bit wider and document the anticipation we felt to have Andrew and Simon join our family.
And finally, we packed our bags to head to Uganda for a month.
Gotcha Day was a whirlwind of emotions!
While we waited for paperwork, we became tourists and visited the Nile River.
And we adjusted to a new normal in Uganda and then back in the United States.
Now adoption is just the way Andrew and Simon joined our family, just like Asher and Alethea joined our family through c-sections. I still talk a lot about adoption here on blog.
Read about why I'm against adoption or what other people's common objections to adoption are.
Five months after we brought the boys home, we had a really scary incident that included a 3 day hospital stay and no answers at the end of it.
I wrote about the 1 year anniversary of "Gotcha Day" using YouTube videos.
Attachment is still something the boys struggle with even after being home for a year and a half.
And I Googled my sons and found images of them, half naked, with a person I had never seen.
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| Photo credit // Petal & Vine Photography |
Adoption and foster care guest post series is a weekly feature here on the blog, voicing other's experiences and views on this delicate topic. I love that my blog is now a place for others to share their adoption/foster stories now that mine has completed.
Thanks for stopping by and if you would like to share your adoption/foster story please submit your unique story here.
