One of the most fascinating of conversations

I'm finding new definition to the word "hectic" this year as soccer season is now in full swing, and with 3 children all playing at different levels and on different teams, I'm definitely a full-blown carpooling soccer mom! Tuesdays are my greatest challenge when all 3 youngsters have practice all at the same time but located across town from one another. I have my routine established and the older ones are learning they have free time before and after practices as I'm off corraling their siblings. What fun! Then the girls' game times on Thursdays overlap in time, so it seems I will only be able to watch 2 games of Marissa's this year beings those are the only ones not at the same time as Karen's games. My husband, Rick, will be home on Sunday so at least I'll have his assistance in running the kids to and fro for the next 3 weeks!

Which leads me to the title of this posting...
As I sat at Karen's practice earlier this week, one of the ladies I know from church was talking to me about the kids and how well they've adapted, etc. So the other ladies were freely entering the conversation and insisted on hearing more information about our adoption process. Taking full advantage of the opportunity to talk about adoption, I proceeded to tell of our story. Several of the ladies either had friends or family who were in the process of adopting, or they themselves showed interest in adopting. Then the nice blond lady spoke up and said she's always been interested in the precious gifts of children adoption brings. As she continued she shared that she had successfully been a surrogate to 2 beautiful children and she felt strongly about adoption. The conversation continued for another minute until each of the women showed reaction to what the blond lady had just said... that she had successfully been a surrogate to 2 beautiful children. The conversation immediately went directed back to the interesting blond lady who had shared such a personal part of her life with us. Of course we were all filled with questions, each of which she answered with so much poise and honesty. What a facsinating process a surrogate goes through! What a labor of love to all mankind really! According to her story, there were other families that she also tried to help out (through the loaning of her womb and her body) but the genetics were improper for conceiving even through a surrogate. Apparently even after two failed attempts at trying for this one Japanese family, even with a surrogate it was not possible to bring a child to full term. There's an absolute science that goes into finding and preparing and conditioning a surrogate. She spoke of the length involved for the body to heal after months (or years) of hormone injections to help prepare the surrogate's body and to help separate the fluids of the surrogates from those fluids of the "parents". She spoke of how sick she'd become for one full year after the second attempt failed for the Japanese couple, and how it took that one full year for her body to heal enough for her and her husband to be ready to conceive their second daughter.

Needless to say, that was undoubtedly one of the most intriguing of conversations! What strikes me as so notable, is the fact that this nice lady so outwardly gave such praises to me in regards to our adoption, when she herself (in my opinion) was worthy of many more accolades. After all, she chose to help others through being a surrogate, had freely given of herself, her time, even sacrificing her own health, in order to help many others to have children. I have a fresh new insight to the women who are willing to help out by serving as a surrogate -- a sacrifice of love and giving crucial to the formation of some of God's precious children. I'm humbled at meeting such a gracious individual with such an intriguing story all packed into 30 minutes. It definitely was one of the most fascinating of conversations ever!