Last year we attended a Family Building Conference through Resolve, it was a turning point with our journey, you can read about it here. We divided up the breakout sessions and soaked up as much information as we could. We left feeling less alone and hopeless. It was a powerful day.
This year I spent a little time helping with the conference, with our outreach and follow up, I've had less time to volunteer that I had hoped. But, I'm hoping that next year I'll be able to devote more time (hopefully between changing diapers!!).
We had a good friend's wedding in the afternoon, so we volunteered in the morning. Jamie was in charge of greeting attendees and I was helping in the kitchen and running errands. I got into the kitchen and soon after meeting one another, we started swapping family building stories. Stories of IVF, IUIs, donor sperm, foster care, adoption filled the room. Two of the other volunteers came from farther away than we did, they stayed in hotel rooms. What a group of dedicated people!
I headed out to go pick up more coffee and Jamie commented that he felt so bad for people that were walking in with the same look on their faces that we had last year...despair, hopelessness, grief. He pointed out that we walked in with much different feeling this year--positive, happy to be helping, hopeful. But, that our circumstances hadn't changed. We still don't have a baby. But, we are OK. We have hope and faith that the right baby will join our family some day, some how. And, we know that if it doesn't happen, we will still be OK. (BUT I really want to just focus on that sentence about the hope and faith that it WILL happen, thanks!)
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