OUR STORY: Adopting through Foster Care

Blogging is new to me but adoption is not! My husband and I began our family 23 years ago though adoption and will be adopting our last child when he is born---any minute!

I have watched and listened as our birth mother experiences heartburn, Braxton Hicks, other times of discomfort and anxiety. As I anticipate the time of delivery, I know she will experience those particular pains and that anxiety for the last time. The pains caused by the baby stretching and growing will be replaced with grief and a new set of challenges as she finds a new normal and continues on with her life. 

I have watched women work through this process before. The pain they have daily for the rest of their lives is often forgotten as adoptive parents experience the fun and excitement of their new arrival. This excitement has always left me with waves of guilt, knowing that the birth mother is grieving. 

Adoptive parents have a labor and delivery process of their own. This process often lasts for years as they wait, hope, and beg to become parents. The labor and delivery for adoptive parents is very different but comparable, none the less. The lack of certainty, the inability to control anything, and the lack of understanding from those who profess to love you, are all parts of the labor and delivery that most people would never even think about.

As I struggle with the disappointment of never having given birth, I thank God for our children, their birth mothers, and the opportunity to enjoy labor and delivery in some capacity. 

Lord, please help me to remember the sacrifice those precious birth mothers made and the pain of labor and delivery. Please fill the void in their lives with Your very presence.                                                             ............................................................................................

My name is Karla Hurrell. My husband and I have adopted 10 children and our precious #11 is on his way.