Friends and change

First the news: Official notification came today- our file has been submitted to the embassy for the final visa appointment- PINK in adoption language. My coordiantor let me know that I will likely not hear this week on the appointment, but it could be early next week. Of course, I will be in meetings on Monday and Tuesday and will not be able to take the call. Yes, there are times when I can not be reached. She promised to leave message everywhere for me so that when I am out of the meetings I can check to see if the call has come.

While I am at the meetings- they are out of town, I will be able to have lunch with some of the other families from FTIA that have been with me on this journey. I am looking forward to meeting Angie face to face after emailing for over a year and I am looking forward to seeing Ann, MaryAnn, and Stacy again, along with their beautiful children. This Thursday night, I am having dinner with a couple other single moms from my agency. So in the space of 5 days I will see lots of friends from FTIA who have supported, cried with me, rejoiced with me and encouraged me through this last year. It is a wonderful thing.

I have been reflecting on how this adoption journey has changed me and the one thing that stands out is how many friends I now have. Before I started this journey, I had moved back to my home town and had been struggling to make a circle of firends like I had in Michigan. There, I had friends from work, friends from church and friends in my neighborhood. There was always someone to do something with at the drop of hat and always someone to have dinner with or see a movie. But when I moved home, I struggled, I felt like I never had that circle. Even at church I struggled trying to find the friends that I knew were out there. So as I started this adoption, I figured I would be going it alone, but suddenly a circle of friends was formed and it has grown and the friends I wanted are suddenly here in my life. I have friends who call just to meet up for dinner - although now we discuss the babies schedules, there are friends who send emails and notes when they know I am down, or when they are feeling that I might be down. It is not just families adopting that have become my circle of friends, but the ladies at quilting, the folks in chior, the ladies in the Tuesday night bible study. When I was not looking, that was when the friends came into my life and the friends from Michigan are still in my life too, just in a different way.

Now, the next chapter is starting and I see more friends coming into my life, friends in the LRH, Little Bug's foster family, Bua and her US family in NC and I am sure that there are more coming just because one little boy is coming into my life and he is opening up a whole new world to me.
If you every think that one person can not make a difference, look at the difference one person in your life has made for you. It might be your mother, your sister, you spouse, your child, your best friend, your doctor, whomever- that one person changed you and made a difference to you.

Little Bug- you have changed me, no matter where this life leads us, I am changed for the better becuase of you and I am changed for good because of you, becuase I can not go back to who I was before.

My prayer and wish for you, my son, is that you know that you are special to me because of who you are, not because of anything you do or who you will become, but because you are. I pray that you see that you are special to God Almighty and that you are his creation, his gift and that you honor him all your days. You are a blessing, a wonder, a little boy who is my son. I love you and I am long for the day that I can hold you forever and tell you of my love for you.

Love to you,
Momma Bug