Today marks the three month anniversary of the finalization of our adoption. Here are some impressions of the last three months:

The beginning is tough! Man, those first few days and nights were hard. I absolutely cannot fathom how a single parent does this! My husband and I “spelled” each other during those first crucial and excruciating first days.

You love your children immediately, but sometimes liking them sometimes takes awhile. Don’t get me wrong – I adore all three of my children, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a mother bear who loves her cubs more – but during the really behaviorally challenging times, I had to switch to “agape-mode.” Agape is the selfless love enjoined by our Lord, in which you have the other person’s best interests at heart.

I was insane to think that our schedule was “laid-back.” We had six outside classes for our first quarter of homeschooling. Though the first two weeks after we got home with the kids was really quiet, I thought “just” two outside classes each would be doable (note to self, homeschool teacher, 2 classes, times 3 kids equals 6 classes!).

Structure was a sanity-saver! Though school started in week 3 after arriving home, the structure it provided was wonderful! The kids went to bed at the same time each night, woke up at the same time each day … and there as a predictable “sameness” to our days that helped the children to know what came next.

We really had a lot of family time together. My husband is an independent contractor, so he has the flexibility to work from home, in addition to very flexible hours. This allowed for a lot of family time together, and helped the bonding process.

We have a wonderful network of support! We’re blessed with physical relatives who love us and love the kids; as well as church family who have embraced them whole-heartedly. The children love these supportive people and have just glommed right onto them!

It has been easy to incorporate birth family into the mix. I honestly don’t feel like there is any sort of “competition” and I think that, generally, we’re all on the same page. I have absolutely no doubt in my heart of the sincerity and depth of the love that the kids’ birth family has for them. It has truly been a wonderful experience.

The newness has worn off, and life just seems normal now – as though we’ve always had three children. In those early days, I doubted I would ever feel like that, but then again, during that wait, it seemed as though adoption day would never come!

All in all, it’s been good – really good – and if I had it all to do over again, including the wait, I would!