Christmas last year

I stole this title from a friend and fellow blogger. She wrote about how last Christmas for her family was so different from this Christmas. I thought it was such a great idea that I would do the same.

For us, on the surface, you couldn't tell this Christmas from last Christmas if you tried. My mom is visiting from SLC. My sister is here from L.A. The world is snow-covered. We lit "Silent Night" candles at Christmas Eve service. The family room is littered with new video games, Legos, and guns. Wesley is playing the XBox360. Everett is on the GameCube.

Last Christmas we were resigned to be a family of four. We'd suffered a miscarriage in the summer of 2008. We'd decided that forty-one was just too old for me to be pregnant. We dabbled with the idea of adoption. But we'd decided to adopt cats instead.

Then, in the spring of 2009, surprise! we were pregnant again. We were frightened by the risks of birth defects. But when we saw our baby's heartbeat on the ultrasound we were overjoyed. We wanted this baby. So badly.

Two weeks later the heartbeat disappeared. I miscarried again.

It seemed cruel that we would get pregnant again, only to lose another baby. Especially after we'd spent months making peace with the idea that we wouldn't have another child.

God seemed to be rubbing this baby thing in our face. We didn't understand why. Then my obgyn told me his story--how he and his wife hadn't been able to have children and had adopted through the foster care system.

I am not very religious. I have never believed that God literally tells us how to live our lives. But at that moment I swear God was up in the heavens with a megaphone shouting down, "Okay, now do you get what I've been trying to tell you?! Quit ignoring me!"

Our adoption journey began.

And this Christmas we are almost parents again. You can't tell it from my belly. But you will see it if you look closer, at the picture of the little girl pasted on our fridge, at the "29" on the December calendar circled in red, at the soft little dolly nestled under the tree amidst the Legos and guns.

Our little e had her first Christmas last year. We didn't even know she existed. Now, very soon she will be our daughter.

Our very own Christmas miracle.