Letting go and looking forward to our future...

These last two weeks were obviously not what we had expected them to be, but with the support and encouragement of our family, friends, and even strangers, we are learning to let go and look forward to our future.

The weekend following our failed adoption was actually the start to our annual camping trip that our families take. Jordan and I weren't going to go: It's hard to face the world when everyone now looks at us as "the couple that had a failed adoption." We pushed ourselves to go, knowing that getting back into our regular routine would help us. We got there before everyone else and went to get ice cream, play mini golf, and just sit at the dam. It is our main "get away." We spent some time up there but ended up leaving a little early because Jordan had to get back to work. We planned on going back up Thursday to celebrate the 4th with our families.

Grieving a failed adoption is difficult. It is a loss that not many people experience. It is a confusing loss because it is not a loss of a life, it is a loss of a prayed-for and imagined future. One day it's there and the next day it's just over.  There isn't a wake, funeral, or ceremony where you can say your goodbyes. There isn't much closure. I think that was especially hard for us.

Luckily our families are amazing! 

The next weekend we went back up to the lake to celebrate Independence Day. Little did we know that our families had something extremely special planned. I still don't think they understand how much it meant to us. They wanted to help us let go and hope for the future. On July 4th, we were sitting in our campsite when my sister came and asked Jordan and I to go in the camper. We went into the camper and she told us we needed to write a letter, an honest letter of how we felt. I have to say it was nice to write out my feelings on paper. She then made us put our letters in a bottle. As we finished writing our letters in the camper, my sister and cousin came over to our campsite holding over 30 blue balloons, one for every one of our family members present. Attached to the end of the string of each balloon was our adoption card. We all walked from our campsite over to the dam to let the balloons go, helping spread our story in a new way. 

We all counted to three and let the balloons go and off they sailed. It was actually very therapeutic for us. Letting go of those balloons helped us let go of the past. Having our adoption card on the balloon helped us hope for the future.

After we let the balloons go we all went to the top of the dam to let go of our message in a bottle. We threw it off the dam and let go of all of our prior feelings. 

The next day our families gave us these walking sticks. They were to symbolize their support for us through our journey to parenthood, however that opportunity comes to us. Both were signed by all of our family members who were at the lake :)

On July 4th we regained hope that our little one is out there somewhere<3

What's next?
We are back in the LSS waiting family book anxiously awaiting to be found by the right birth family<3
We are hopeful that everything that has happened to us will be explained in our future!