Couldn't Ask for a Lovelier Day

Lola and Samuel posing in the photo booth

Beautiful, warm, sunny May day, shared with family and friends made for a very lovely day! A day where we came together to celebrate Lola being part of our family.  We called it her adoption day party, even though her adoption was finalized awhile back.  We call it a celebration, her party when in reality maybe it should be our party.  After all we are the ones that have been truly blessed to be called Lola's family!

Adoption is a wonderful thing; there is no doubt about it!  It is almost a miracle in and of itself.   A child and a family with grandparents, uncles, cousins, etc. join together to form a new family that is not biologically connected.   Now adoption is not as simple as that either.  There are hard times, adjustment, and wonderful moments too.  It does take more than love, but it doesn't take more than God!  He does make it possible regardless the struggles.  Lola is our child through and through; we are blessed!  However, with all the wonders that accompany adoption there is a sense of loss that cannot, must not be dismissed.

I will not share the details of Lola's story because this has been our promise to her.  It is her story to share or withhold, not mine, not my husbands, not her siblings, no one's story but her own!  Yet it is safe to assume that a child who has been adopted had a birth family.  This is the case with every child...maybe they were placed in foster care, maybe their birth family couldn't give them the life they wished for them, maybe there was a death of one or more parent, maybe...but with any adoption there was a before, no matter how brief that before may or may not have been.  So, even though Lola's adoption party was a celebration, we also must recognize that our gain came with a loss, a price.  We choose to honor that before, by putting pictures of her birth parents in her video, by talking about and remembering her before, and most of all by thanking God for the before because this is part of who Lola is.  This is her story and now part of our story.  We are truly thankful to be part of it.  We couldn't have asked for a lovelier day!

(note: I wanted to post this because it is long over due, but have hesitated because I want to post Lola's video also.  However, as of right now it is too long; so we have to do some editing first)