The adoptive journey is complex and wonderful and full of a wide range of emotions. This of course applies to all marriages, but our journey was through adoption. Keeping your marriage intact is difficult, but absolutely essential. I’m all about my marriage to Heather and that stays primary throughout the emotional struggle of adoption and raising the kiddos. Nothing is more important than the marriage relationship in providing the stability you have promised to provide in adoption. I tell the kids all the time that I’m going to be with their mom long after they are gone from home and she is the most important.

Heather and I consider ourselves teammates in this endeavor. We have faced a lot of trials together. Wait. . . it seems we are always facing trials. Often times an argument puts you “face to face,” but we have decided to try to keep the problems out in front of us. Facing the problem “arm in arm” keeps us from pointing fingers at each other and imagining that the teammate is the problem.

We are forever grateful for our group of Christian friends and family who hang with us. They encourage us and provide practical support. They are just as important to us today, now that we are raising these kids, as they were in our process of expanding our family. They prayed for us, paid for a date night AND babysat the kids. They cry with us and surround us. Thanks to all of you Bauer supporters.

How do you keep close when the emotions threaten to tear you apart?