I posted this on our personal blog yesterday… I thought I would share it here as well since I have been vocal about our adoption plans. You can read more here and here..
Today we said goodbye to the girl we thought would be our daughter… It’s hard to explain this type of loss. It’s not like a child has died, but it kind of feels that way. She will still be alive, living in Europe with her forever family. But, the family of five that we had been planning to have in a few months will not be.
When we first found out in November that something, somewhere had gone terribly wrong with our adoption we were just devastated. {and angry!} It was like I had been dreaming of life with this little girl for more than 6 months and BAM, just like that the dream was over. We knew that China was unpredictable, we knew that things weren’t 100% for sure, but everything had been going so well, we had given our hearts fully to this girl. It’s very hard to feel so helpless in the situation as well. There is just nothing you can DO. I’ve experienced loss through miscarriage before… and for me, this has been SO.MUCH.WORSE. Not to minimize the loss of any child, but I already knew what her face looked like… I already knew her spunky personality, we already have smiles, and kisses and memories of her… and now she’s gone. We had already carried her in our hearts for 6 months.
It was good for me to see her one last time. She was here {in Hong Kong} for a medical check up and we know the family taking care of her. It was also super sad to see her again, but I hope for all of us this will help us to move on. It still hurts… We have been praying with the boys that YiLi will have a wonderful life with her new family and I really do pray that for her.
She was sleeping today when we saw her. All tired out from a long morning at church. It was still good to see her sweet face and for the boys to get a chance to say good-bye.
We appreciate your prayers as we grieve this loss and also continue to move forward with our adoption dream. I’ll write more on this later, but we have switched agencies since this all happened and continue to cling to our passion to add to our family through adoption. We are continuing to pray that God will bless us with a daughter from China.
Good-bye little one.. we love you!
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Heather Painchaud says
My heart and prayers go out to you and your boys Emily. As a foster parent I can relate to (but not totally understand) this kind of loss. Hugs and Merry Christmas wishes!! xo
Emily says
thank you Heather… Fostering takes a special kind of heart… I’m proud to be a foster mama…. with this one we wanted more, but hopefully we will be able to adopt in the future…
Magda E. says
Oh Emily, I’m so sorry for you. I don’t know how it feels, but I do know the miscarriage pain, and that’s a huge one, so I can’t imagine how you’re feeling. I hope and pray that the process will go just right next time, and wish you the best of luck with the adoption. That’s something I would like to do when my kids get a little older.