Two for one

There's really nothing interesting going on here this week to report, we're all still recovering from our crazy weekend, I think!

So today I'm pretty much just thinking outloud about something random, and I guess you get to come along for the ride.

I don't think I've mentioned this, but we're actually approved to adopt twins. That doesn't mean that we're GETTING twins, in fact, we most likely won't, but it is a possibility. One of the hardest parts of the whole international adoption thing for me has been that I'm worried that Clarissa will feel different because she's obviously going to stand out in our family, not looking like the rest of us. For regular domestic adoptions, kids can go through life with no one really knowing that they're adopted unless they tell them, but with a child from another country it's always going to be obvious. Not that it bothers me in the slightest, but I sometimes wonder if it's going to bother her. I also wonder if it's going to be hard knowing that she didn't just leave a biological family behind, but a whole country and a whole other culture. I think that adoption is hard for kids to some extent anyway, knowing that there is another family out there that they'll never know, but I wonder if knowing that you're also growing up in a completely different culture than you would have been and looking so physically different from the rest of your adoptive family makes it that much harder.

These are the things I think about when I can't sleep at night, lol. Anyway, so when we were filling out the adoption paperwork we came across a question asking us if we were open to twins. My first thought was HECK NO, but my second thought was that wouldn't it be great if we had two adopted children that could go through that experience together? They wouldn't feel alone, like they were the only different ones, and the'd get to bring a piece of their family with them. They'd always be able to share that experience and have someone that understood what they were going through. As much as I'm going to raise her with as much information as she wants about where she came from and as much as I'm going to raise her with a positive attitude about being adopted, I won't ever really be able to understand what it's like for her. But a sibling would. They'd always have someone with them that understood. So we surprised ourselves by checking YES, we are open to twins.

Twins don't come along all that often, so it's not like you're automatically going to get them if you say that you're open to them. Most likely we're just going to get the one child that we're expecting. But every now and then I have this little moment of panic that we might actually be matched with twins! Wow, what an experience that would be, wouldn't it?!

I've always been really fascinated by twins, I always kind of thought that it would be fun to have twins and I believe that God is going to send us whoever is meant for our family, so I think once the shock wore off I would be really happy with it. I just get this panic about it every now and then. It would instantly double our children!

There's no point in thinking about the what if's though, so I try not to let it freak me out too much. I've had to accept a long time ago that when it comes to adoption you're in for a roller coaster of surprises and you just have to be willing to take the ride. I don't know when or where it's going to end and I don't know who is going to be there to meet me when the time comes, but I'm just incredibly excited for all the surprises waiting for us.