Katie R. Hurst

When I wrote my post on Loving a Child Who Cannot Speak  I had just exited a really, truly traumatizing week of placing our daughter in a local Kindergarten class and when I need to vent and process I write. So, I wrote.  And maybe it was because the new tv show Speechless  landed on the same week. I don't know. But the post blew up. Ya'll I'm just a regular, every day person, introverted and content in my little life. So when I checked my post stats, which I rarely even do,  I ran down to my husband and said "I'm bad at math. Is this really saying over 400,000 views? Maybe Blogger messed up its stats." And then I went... "Wait. People read my story? People outside of my little adoption community? Crap. Now everyone knows my struggles. Did someone comment 'Blimey'? They're not from the U.S! What have I done???" It's all good. I ended up laughing and answering over one hundred comments and emails and feeling a w

I have a daughter and she is nonverbal. It is one of the most difficult portions of my life. When the tears fall it becomes a guessing game. When we miss the mark of the needs the tears become screams. The frustration that mounts for everyone is intense. That screaming can last for what feels like an eternity. What ends it? Her resignation. She has no choice but to quit. Nobody is answering her need. Because we don't even know what it is. Imagine all of your needs every single day and now imagine that you can never, not even once, tell one single person what you need. What a horrifying thing. Those dreams where you are being chased and you are scared and you try to scream for help but nothing comes out of your throat? That is her world. And we, as her parents, watch on in sheer pain and frustration. Just sign it!!! Just try to say something. Anything. And she does. Every single day this brave soul yells out, makes sounds, tries. Not a single day goes by when she doesn't try

She needs you. There is no light in her world. She sits and waits and poses for the camera as someone takes one more picture to add to her file. They are all hoping someone will notice her and be moved to bring her into their family. She needs to be a daughter, and not an orphan. Her face needs to be kissed by a mother. A daddy needs to protect her from all harm. A momma needs to fall in love with a picture and a daddy needs to stand for her and be courageous enough to say yes. She weighs on my heart all day long, every day. As it turns out, I am human. I am just like you every day. I am tired. I am worn out. I am scared that I get this parenting thing more wrong than the times I get it right. Today my heart cannot rise to do this again. And I feel that weight. I carry it all day long. And yet she is the girl who sits on my shoulder. Day in and day out I pray for her. I ask God to whisper her name into the heart of a mother and a father somewhere. And she finds me in m

We are coming up on our one year post placement meeting with our social worker. When she emailed me to make the appointment I was shocked. How has it already been nearly a year? It feels like last week. Truly. Looking back on this year I don't even know how to put it to words. This is the year that God brought me to the very end of myself and asked me to keep walking. This is the year when everything I thought I had figured out about my life, my heart, my soul, fell to pieces. It was, quite frankly, my undoing. I was not strong enough to do this. Last February I was handed one tiny, fragile eleven pound four year old. She called me "Mama," on the very first day, and then nearly collapsed for days to come. She couldn't walk, couldn't drink, couldn't crawl. And I thought God was asking too much.  And then God handed me another four year old. I had loved her for years, watched her video a million times. I knew her, but then I didn't. She