Okay New Year, I’m gonna kick your butt!

Another year, another year older. Time to commit, make vows, oaths, and lamentations. January has got so much to carry. New hopes, dreams, schemes, fears. And all of the carried remainder from last year. New city, new soil. New information about what was, and new hope for what will. Today I am saying, Bring it on January-

This year my aim is to write one blog a month. And to finish 5 songs. (I’ve started at least 50).  The goal that seems the most out of my control and wild, and to use my dad’s coinage: squirreliest, is to make significant steps forward in our family building journey.  Yet I am the most tenacious about doing so this year.

That’s it, if I put health goals out there I will intimidate myself before I start.

We are actively seeking both medical and adoption information right now and am learning a lot about adoption.

I found this adoption consulting group and they seem wonderful. 

If anyone has adopted domestically in the past few years any help/advice would be amazing!

Happy New Year Everyone!

Joelle-

Her Dream Come True

Every year my crazy big family gets together for a weekend and then we go to a water park or something. This year was Noah’s ark and it was hot and wet and fun. A big group of cousins were standing in line for our first slide and they are all loud and cracking jokes and full of excited energy just to be together even though it was the fourth day! I was at the back of the group and there was this little girl who slowly got closer and closer to the group. She even passed me to see what all the fun loud people were doing. She had a curious unaware pure spirit that if you judge too fast seems intrusive and a little in your space. I could tell she was a character so I asked her what other rides she had been on so far. She paused and looked confused for a moment and then told me she didn’t know. She turned and walked away so I thought our interaction was over. But a few minutes later she came right up to me and said that her dad didn’t know either. 🙂 I started chatting with her and I felt like Anne Shirley finding a kindred spirit. As the line crept up to the slide stair by stair our conversation lapsed.

“I was adopted.” she stated matter-of-factly. “My mom couldn’t have a baby in her tummy so I was her dream come true.”

I smiled and said that I’m sure she was her mom’s dream come true. I couldn’t believe that she had found me. Such a sweet, bold, innocent child.

“Are you a mom?”

“No, not yet.” I said.

“Well, do you know how to take care of kids?” she asked.

“Yeah, I was a nanny, and I’ve spent a lot of time learning how to take care of kids.” I smilingly assured her.

“Because not everyone knows how to take care of kids.” she replied soberly.

How did she find me?! To just announce the simple things she did, I felt like God had given me this moment with this little girl. She had completely made my day. My heart had been coming alive to adoption in the last few weeks and here is this little girl telling me how she was her mom’s dream come true. It was so sweet and unexpected. The whole rest of the day I was silently hoping and praying that I would run into them again and get to tell the parents that their daughter made my day. At the end of the day I got to do just that. We were heading back to our family’s pavilion and who is coming around the corner, but the little girl and her whole family. She walked right up to me and put her little hand in mine like old friends and asked me if the path we were on lead to the wave pool. God had answered my prayer. As I explained how their daughter had made my day, I told them all she had said and that we are thinking of adopting ourselves. They told me that they adopted all three of their children through the foster system.

It was so sweet the way she trusted me and put her hand right into mine. And it was a small miracle that they walked by us in a park of hundreds of people. I felt like I was given a small yet overwhelming gift. A true moment with someone who said the thing I needed to hear. I don’t have an exact plan in place for what we will do next on our journey to become parents but I have always wanted to adopt. Before I knew I would face infertility. So at this point I’m just listening and learning and reading as much as I can about it. It can take a long time, so I want to get started with a real plan soon. I just know that sweet hand in mine opened something in my heart that I had closed off for a while.

I want you to know…

I know I have been writing a lot about not being able to have kids lately. And I want to let you know there is more inside of me but this is in the forefront of my mind most days. I want to tell you that until the doctor said in January that he doesn’t know what’s wrong or how to fix it, I was holding out. Call it denial or misguided hope but this has just now become real for me. I want you to know that I’m grieving. I’m numb and depressed and in pain. I’m alone in my grief as we all are when it comes. It’s hard to not obsess when you feel you have the right. I want you to know that I’m angry. This was the one thing that I hoped I would never have to face. I remember the moment I was introduced to the idea that this could happen. I was four or five and I overheard my parents talking about how sad it was that some couple couldn’t have children. I was shocked. “That’s a thing?” I thought. “That can happen?!” I stopped and pleaded to God- “I can handle anything God but PLEASE don’t make me face that! Please!” You see, as long as I can remember, I just wanted to sing and be a mom. My mom says I used to sing to my baby dolls and pretend to nurse them like I’m sure I saw her drape a blanket many times. I’m the oldest of five kids. And babies run in my family. I have 27 first cousins- just on my dad’s side. And that’s before you start counting their spouses and their kids. And of all of them my grandma says I was the one who was always holding and loving on the babies. This is my greatest fear come true. So I’m afraid. Afraid that this is robbing me of the joy and hope I had for this stage in my life. Afraid that by needing space from being a childcare giver or baby shower attendee, I’m losing the carefree loving nature that is in me. This is changing me. And I’m afraid of what I’m losing. I just hope this season doesn’t last too long.

A Poem, A Prayer

I have a list of what I think I need

And another of what I want

You invite me into your house and cover me with Grace

You ask me to give it all and put it in your hands

And while I wait you break down walls I thought would never fall

Between who I am and your Love

Between what I see and your Truth

Between what I know and your Grace

Between my disappointment and your Hope

I’m tired of this homeless wandering and

I’m ready to come homeland take my place in your Family

And when the road leads through a dark forest of anger and pain

You never shy away

You walk with me all the way

And when I start to see the sun again

I realize that it was your Love

That lifted me out of the depths.

And now I know your love is deeper than my lowest despair

And I had to understand such sorrow to be baffled by this Peace.

I’m so grateful for your tangible Grace

Trust takes experience and a leap of Faith

You can only Trust as much as you know you are Loved

So I put all my hope and dreams firmly in your hands.

You are a Good Father who understands.

And as I look a little closer

I know this now more than ever

Your love carries my pain

And I came from your hands.

So let gratitude pave the way

I’ll sing a song of thanks

Because even now I know you will take care of me

Like you always have.

Thank you God for showing me how deeply you love me

For settling the questions of my worth

For never giving up on me

For the Peace I feel

For the Grace on me

For the Future you’ve planned

And hold in your hand

Help me to Live in the five minutes I have

And keep speaking my name

Make my home in you and yours in me

Recent Progress

A few months ago i was having a major meltdown because i had gotten my hopes up that i might be pregnant. i was only two days late but it was enough time for me to really thinks this could be the exception to the rule. this wasn’t the first time i had gotten my hopes up or the longest either, but it just felt like the round ache in my chest that i can usually cover up or keep on simmer turned into a ring of fire someone just shot a rocket through. Sobbing i called a girlfriend who understands, she said we needed to make a real plan and then i wouldn’t feel so out of control and stuck.  I didn’t know where to begin.

After some encouragement from my sister i got on the phone with the financial person at a clinic. it would cost $400 something  for the first appointment because we don’t have insurance. 400 some dollars, ok we can save and go next spring sometime, i thought.  i called my mom and told her about the money needed and that  their website says it is 90% treatable if it is what i think it is. She was so excited and prayed for me that we would get the money by my anniversary.  i told her she was crazy but i opened myself up to the possibility. my mom can be prophetic that way.  my anniversary was three weeks away… that gave me some time to come up with something…

after sharing the news with my sister-in-law Tanya the day before, she called Tom and said that we would have the money by the end of the weekend!!!!!!

Because of their amazing generosity the money came through in three days not three weeks, not three months! thank you thank you-

Our appointment is set for november 1st, hopefully this “not knowing” will be done and we can start really making a plan.

I have real reason to hope for my biological children for the first time in 5 years. Thank you God. Thank you to my family and friends for supporting both tom and i through this. i’m making lists of baby names again..