Unanswered Prayers

Father's day is just about here, and it, like Mother's day, makes me want to cry.
I am one of the many people that do not have biological children and if it were not for the brave, selfless decisions of another human being I would not be a parent.
Whenever Mother's Day or Father's Day comes it reminds me of the sacrifice that our birth parents have made for their children. Their sacrifice has allowed me to have 2 beautiful children home, and 2 more beautiful children coming.

I used to cry when I would see a pregnant woman. My hubby and I had been married for a few years and desperately wanted children. We suffered thru 4 miscarriages and constantly asked "why us" to the good Lord. Of course, when you suffer this way you begin to promise God that you will be a better person, a good parent etc...etc... To no avail our pregnancies never worked. You really believe that you are being punished for something you have done earlier in life.

Well, a few years more into our marriage I found out I have a disease called Celiac Disease. This is a gluten intolerance to wheat, rye, oats, barley and malt, an allergy of sorts. This disease causes a myriad of things to happen and can be incompatibale with pregnancy and child birth, causing serious malformations to the unborn child if the pregnancy did work for those seriously affected....I am one of those individuals that has the type that makes Dr.'s go "huh....you lived?" ;-)
At least now I had a reason why I could not have children and I was saddened but could put a reason to the problem and try to deal with it. If I knew then what I truly believe now...that this was only part of the reason I could not have biological children.
I firmly believe that Celiac Disease is God's way of directing me to an avenue that I was meant to have all of my life....adoption!

After researching the countries and adoption programs available we decided to adopt from Haiti. Long story short, Haiti is now where all of my children are from, and where my heart truly lies. I can now not only rejoice at Mother's Day and Father's day for myself, but I have helped other families rejoice in their own holiday's as well as a Coordinator for Haitian Adoption. It truly amazes me sometimes when I sit and ponder what I may have had if I had only had my way....like the Garth Brooks song says "some of Gods greatest gifts are unanswered prayers!"