Easter Blessings after so many years of waiting

When I was a child growing up in St. Louis, I had a very large family of aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents (even other in-law grandparents joined in) we kept in close contact with. We had a gathering at our house each year on Easter Sunday after church. We (each family) would dye at least 1-2 dozen eggs and once everyone arrived at our house, the men would take those dozens of dyed eggs over to Tower Grove Park in South St. Louis City and hide them by Klemm ave. They would leave one adult over there and then come back to get us all. We kids, in our Easter Sunday best dresses and suits, brought our empty baskets with us to the park. On the count of 3 we were released by our parents to bask in the glory of recovering the REAL hard boiled dyed eggs. I LOVED THIS event each year. What a blast. No Top Prize, but bragging rights of who collected the most eggs each year. We did this until I was at least 14 years old or so. Then family members started doing their own thing and we usually ended up at my Aunts house after church and enjoyed her (money filled) plastic egg hunt. See, they changed to plastic eggs because in the earlier years we always managed to miss finding at least 1 dozen eggs. Ewwwww, I can't imagine how stinky those lost eggs got in those bushes and trees and grass hiding places. Yick.

Since then, we have not had any immediate family gatherings on my side of the family, although there are young kiddos, but they do through own thing with the in-laws grandparents. Now DH's side does have small kids (7 yrs old down to Julia's 6 months old) so maybe next year when we get together like we did as kids at his brothers house, we can then do an egg hunt. Plastic eggs will rule the roost again. I just know it. Money is the new thing to give. I'll look forward to it next year because.......

Many years have passed in our married lives from 1999 when we had our first ectopic pregnancy. We spent many Easter Sunday's in fears of the waning of our dreams of becoming parents. I had recovered several different Easter's from miscarriages or surgeries so it was hard to keep hope that one day we would enjoy the blessing of a child on an Easter Sunday. We watched our sisters, brothers (most) & cousins have kids and enjoy the Easter Festivities of church, Easter baskets and dinners in despair that we would be the childless couple watching all this transpire. Only with the help of counseling and support groups (and a rock of a husband) did I keep the hope alive and by the blessing of domestic adoption we have finally reached our dreams. We waited and waited with fears of Parenthood never becoming a reality, but what a blessing it is after all these years and heartaches we lived with.

Please, if you are going through infertility and or adoption, please know that you will become the desired parents you and your partner wish to be by keeping the hope alive (even if it is the smallest string of hope).

This little beauty is what kept our hope alive.......