As I was laying in bed a couple nights ago I was thinking about my post-doc and then teaching. Those years after I graduated from grad school and worked because I hadn't yet been blessed to become a mom I got to do the jobs that I had gone to graduate school to be able to do. I got to do memory research, using functional MRI, without having to move. That's amazing. Amazing that I was able to find a post-doc opening at the time I was ready where I was already living (I wasn't willing to move) doing the research I most wanted to do. SO LUCKY. And then I got to teach, at the closest university to me, teaching my very favorite subject (memory and cognition.) I never wanted a career. If I had I would have gone to vet and dental school to be an exotic animal dentist. But I knew I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. I also knew I wanted as much education as possible. I wanted a PhD, not to get a career from it, but to be the best mom I could be. BUT, I also love researching memory and I love teaching it. And I got to do both. People may think it was a waste to get all that education and "not use it". But this life of mine has worked out perfectly. Not the way I planned or thought I wanted. I wanted to have kids before I graduated. It didn't happen. And while I was working there were lots of things I wanted that didn't pan out. Jobs I thought I wanted (and even got) that ended up falling through. Grants I didn't get. Etc. But as I look back on everything I know that things had to happen exactly as they did so that we could have Abby in our lives. If those prayers had been answered the way I thought I wanted them to be, I would not have Abby as she is. (I also love now that I did work for several years because even though I enjoyed it and I do miss it - I KNOW that I love being a stay-at-home mom even more, I don't have to wonder what it would be like to work.)
And then I think that Heavenly Father could have sent Abby to us sooner. He could have sent us her spirit through parents that were ready sooner. Or He could have given us the go ahead to do in vitro. Or he could have just made our bodies function so that we conceived. She wouldn't have her exact genetics, but her spirit could have come. But if that were the case we wouldn't have her awesome birth mom Cheyenne, or her awesome parents in our lives. We love Abby's birth family (- and we love her genetics.) Heavenly Father didn't just bless us with the best daughter in the whole world, He blessed us with her biological family too, and they are now our family. We were all created for each other. Mine and Ryan's bodies were created so that we could all be family.
And sometimes I think about how other adoptive families get matched with their children so quickly yet we wait SO LONG and I wonder why and sometimes I feel a little impatient. But then I remember Abby, and all the perfection that surrounds her coming to us, and I know God is in the details, and He loves me enough to give me the BEST, not just what I think I want, and so... I don't know where our next child is, or our next birth family, or how we will meet them or when (are you the missing piece?), but I do know that we are meant for each other, and it will happen at the right time.
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