letting my imagination wander...

I was thinking today that I often plan ahead to what life will be like when we have kids.  Charlie and I talk about what we will do in certain parenting situations, how we will make decisions and what we want life to be like once we are a family.  We talk about dinnertime and how we want to raise our kids to be included in things, and how we want them to behave.  We talk about baby names, and whether we want to use the names we've already chosen for the adoptions that did not go through.  When we went to name the twins, we didn't use the name we chose for the original baby girl we were going to adopt.  Now, we've used up three names that we had for girls and don't know if we need to choose more or try to think about using them.  I mean, it wouldn't mean anything to the baby, but we've attached some emotions to those names in those situations. 

But I wonder how soon it will happen, when we'll be parents, and to how many children.  Will we be able to manage to go through this process more than once?  We've had two false starts now, and can we abide going through another round of this even after we have one child?  Don't know. 

We imagine so much, but I can't think too far ahead.  Sometimes it is hard to walk past the room that is all decorated, ready to go, full of clothes and diapers.  We even inherited another carseat this week, once for a toddler and now we have one for every possible age.  I like to plan, and we have the room to store things, so I don't mind hand-me-downs.  And it will help us save money later, which is always a benefit. 

So, I keep imagining things and not knowing if they will ever come true.  The latest situation that was a long shot turned out to be just that: a long shot.  It was over as quickly as it started and even though the situation was up in the air, we could not intervene.   I wish we could have, but we were too far away and it was none of our business.  I believe that the Lord will answer our prayers, but my heart is heavy while we continue to wait.  This has been a long three years and while it has served us in a way to deepen our relationship as husband and wife.  And while it was nice to enjoy Valentine's Day without needing to secure a babysitter, I would have loved to have that honor. 

May the Lord be answering our prayer soon.