Babies

Today as I was going through the attic space we keep our Christmas tree in, I came across Taevy and Samren's adoption videos. I eagerly ran down the stairs to pop the videos in the VCR. We knew we had them but didn't know exactly WHERE for the last three years or so!

Oh. My. Goodness. Seeing my kids on video as tiny infants brought back so many memories. It was fun to laugh at myself as a first-time first-week mother to Taevy. It was so obvious what her needs where (looking at it now) but at the time I had NO CLUE! She was sick (horrible ear infections). It ONLY took us 3 days to figure out she might not be feeling well! I didn't know how to comfort her. You can tell on the video that I am a fish out of water just going through the motions. But wow. What a gorgeous baby she was. How my heart GREW the moment I met her!

Then a year later we brought home tiny little Samren. His 3/6 months pants were rolled two times to fit him. He had the biggest eyes and such chubby cheeks! It amazes me that I ever thought he looked like an alien. How could I have ever seen anything but cuteness?! Just a year after bringing Taevy home, it was obvious on Samren's video that mothering was "old hat." I comforted him confidently, knowing exactly what to do.

I have to admit that seeing my babies as babies again does give me "the itch" a bit. I'm not there yet. I'm not ready to start the process. And we couldn't anyway. But I'm getting there in an "after things are settled down" sort of way. After Eric has a new kidney. After some debt is paid of. After, after, after.... Unless the Lord calls us before "after" comes.

I think at this point the path to our next child might be here in the U.S.--probably foster care. Not sure if we will be called to JUST do foster care, or to also adopt. But I feel pretty confident that we will at least check out that path very closely. We're to the point now that we feel prepared to handle a host of special needs. I also feel like I could parent a child while at the same time sincerely advocating for them to be reunited with their birth family if at all possible. Of course, I've never had to "lose" a child I love, so only experience in that will really tell if I'm cut out for it (I know Eric could do that--he's just strong that way).

I think it was just a few months ago that I posted that I feel really good with where our family is at--the three kiddos. And that's still totally true. I think that the Lord is just confirming in my heart that at some point...some day...there will be four Gillispie kids. Maybe that will come about in a way that I can't fathom now.

Anita