We are approved to adopt!

What glorious news!!! Our caseworker has been on and off the phone with me all week and we were told yesterday that we were finally approved to adopt! My heart was full as chills ran up and down my body. I quickly called Steve and a few other family members to share the wonderful news. But it didn't really hit me until I came home (an hour ago) and checked my mail. Inside my mailbox I saw a letter addressed to Steve and me from LDS Family Services. My heart began to race. I gripped the letter tightly in my hand and raced for my car. I instantly ripped open the letter and read the words, "We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted as an approved family for adoption of a child through LDS Family Services. Congratulations! We are excited for the possibilities that are now yours." The moment I have waited for and work so hard for had finally come. The dream of being a mother now tasted and felt closer than it has ever felt. As soon as I read those first few lines tears filled my eyes and I began to express in prayer how thankful I was to my Heavenly Father for all that He has blessed me with. I know that my Heavenly Father knows me, and I know that He cares about me. All those prayers were not in vain. Someone was listening, someone does care, and someone knows me and what I need more than I do. Words on paper cannot even begin to express the feelings I feel at this moment. I am overwhelmed! We are so blessed and so loved! God does have a plan for ALL of us, and I am so thankful to be His daughter. I look forward to someday when the time is right to be a mother. I pray almost hourly for birth moms. I admire their courage and the love that they have for their child. I have so many thoughts and feelings running through me but I would like to close this post with a poem I found today about birth moms.

She Who is a Birth-Mother
by Suzy Toronto

She carries within her a precious, precious life...
One that empowers her to give the unparalleled gift of motherhood
To another woman.

The choice is not easy.
Such monumental decisions seldom are.
The conflict raging in her heart tugs back and forth
As she struggles to let go.
Will her child really be better off?

She closes her eyes and lifts her face toward heaven,
And she says a silent prayer.

Then she catches the vision of a family.
A mom, a dad, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins...
All weeping with joy over this treasured infant...
The newest member of their family...
The miracle they thought they'd never see.

She softly begins to cry.
With a breaking heart and perfect clarity of mind,
A still-small voice whispers her thundering decision...
"It will not be easy,
But it is right."

*taken from the FSA Adoptive Applicant Handbook August 13, 2005 page 46