Sunday, February 1, 2009

A Dampened Celebration

We were thrilled to go up to Fredericksburg yesterday to meet our beautiful new nephew, Anderson...born on 1/30 to my (Jennifer) younger sister, Kristen and her hubby, Nathan. He is a beautiful little guy....and so very little! Both Jonah and Reagan were well over 8 pounds, so Anderson with his little 6lb 11oz self seemed tiny to us! It will be exciting to have another little cousin for the kids.

Anyway, I guess there's nothing like a little baby to make you reflect on some things. While we were in the hospital and Rush was holding Anderson, he happened to mention that Rylie won't have it quite so good when she is born. It really got me thinking...and we talked a lot about it on the way home. There's so much excitement and celebration here when most people have babies.....tons of presents, visitors, prayers of thanks, feelings of being blessed beyond measure. What a great, overwhelming experience. But somewhere in China, sometime in the next few years, our daughter will be born...and we won't be there. There probably won't be a lot of celebration, or prayers of thanksgiving, or feelings of being blessed. Perhaps they will be replaced by feelings of fear, overwhelming responsibility that cannot be met, sadness and grief over the decision that must be made. Unfortunately, that happens every day. It really breaks our hearts in a bittersweet way. We know that without that situation, she cannot be ours...because it is only through another family's tragic situation that we benefit by gaining our little girl. We know this...we knew it from the get-go. But thinking of it so tangibly really gives us new perspective of what perseverance our daughter will have to start her life out with. There might not be much fanfare upon her arrival in China, but you can bet your life that when she is finally "born" into our family, we will have one heck of a celebration.

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