Something to Say

I started this blog, because I had something to say, not that I cared who would read it. Now I know who is reading it and I love some of you like sisters, I know some of you in "real life", and some I'd love to know in real life! But I still write because I have things to say. Things that sometimes don't come out the way I want them to, word choices suck, or sound different to your ear than mine, they float around most times with out context. And almost all of you "get it" with out needing further explanation. And I can't tell you how that bolsters me. That a great majority of you know that what I say, I mean in the most sincere, honest and good way possible.

What a gift that is, to have strangers like me and what I say without qualification and to have your regard even if you don't always agree with the things I say or do. To have made friends with you and for you to share your lives with me is something I am incredibly thankful for. I started out not caring about who was reading, and now a year (give or take)later I care about all of you, especially those of you who support me with comments and emails of support and friendship. Thank you for making this a fun thing to do while I've waited and still wait. I am so grateful for you.

(and while I sit here typing and watching Phenomenon "on demand" can I just say Kyra Sedgwick is amazingly pretty when she cries? And John Travolta, he just seems like a guy you'd like to grab coffee with!)

Overnight Baby Sitting

We were driving home from Portland and I got a phone call from our friends; they wanted to go out on a date, and wondered if we would watch their little girl. Lily is 3 months old and a real sweetie, we've enjoyed her visits in the past and then her mom asked, "So, would you mind keeping her until the morning we'll come get her at church?" I hesitated a second, I love children and have been watching them overnight for years, but in all of my experience I've never had a baby that young stay over at my house, and it was a little scary. But, we had a great time.

Lily made us look good, you know, like we knew what we were doing!

I sneaked in the side door at church to avoid the "OMG you have a baby!" stares and explaining that it wasn't my baby. It bothers me when people do that. I'm not sure why...perhaps it's just the assumption, It used to bug me with my friends Carley and Gavin too. It doesn't bother me enough to stop taking care of them though! Perhaps it's because I don't like to disappoint people, they are so ready to be happy for me that it stings to let them down.

It did give me an idea of how little sleep I will soon be living on...and all I can say is that I'd better have the coffee pot set to start brewing for Jer in the morning! :D

The Trend Continues

Over the last year or so, I've discovered that people are more than willing to discuss their adoption stories with me. Some want to give advice regarding openness, all who were't open adoptees seem to agree that open adoptions would have benefited their lives in some way, this weekend I learned that a couple my brother hangs out with were both adopted and they are very excited about our pending adoption. It was nice to talk with them about it and I hope to have them for a resource in the future.

11 days plus to go and I'm continually amazed by the fact that in such a short time, our family of two will be a family of three! Chief and Abbey are pretty sure something is up, everything is getting "Super Cleaned" and they want to know where all their floor fur went! :D

Thanksgiving Fun!

She loves her uncle Jer!


We had Dinner with Jer's family this year, it was great! Jer's cousin Aaron had a little girl last March and it was so much fun to have a kiddo around the table.

We're doing better

Jer and I are doing just fine, it seemed for a while that things had gotten thrown up in the air and were suddenly less certain than they had been in previous weeks. I sincerely believe that it was just a time when we had to look at our own faith and see where we need to work on strengthening our relationship with the Lord. Even though I was wigging out, I still felt in my heart that things were going to be fine, and I woke up with a song in my heart and then a similar one on the radio in the car on the way to work. The Gist? Peace Be Still and know that I am God, and I've got this.
Only after I heard that in my heart and believed it, did the information come. I don't do well without information. Beth Moore wrote in her "Esther" study that we feel most out of control when we are high on emotion and low on information. I think she was in my head when she wrote that.

I had a big old ugly cry last night. And Jer and I talked about our frustration. Jer mentioned as I left for work this morning that he felt like things would be better today. Becky called me while I was with a patient, and I called her back on my break, and I was reassured by everything she said. Praise God for a wonderful caseworker.

I am so thankful that this year I have someone to look forward to.

Of course this was all happening while I was dealing with what to do with my privacy settings. I am not going private, but I have decided that I'm not allowing comments by people who don't have a Blogger account. (This sucks because my pal Jen C doesn't have a blog here. But we're pals on Facebook. If anyone else would like to be facebook buddies, please leave a comment with your name, or email address and I'll friend you. I won't post your comment :D.)


I also worked up the gumption to post a response to that webzine owner who posted my blog on their site. I let them know that I am a kind person who would never dismiss their feelings toward their personal adoption experience, and that I hoped that they would find blessings from God and happiness. I also extended my prayers to "him" and to the people he has posted on "his" site.

While I will not accept or apply his opinion on my blog, I do believe he's entitled to it.



Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm wiped out!

How tired can a girl get?

Please pray for our encouragement. We're having a tough week.

The Blind Side

Who knew I loved football?

This week has been tough. Personally and blogally. And this film was the medicine I needed.

Let me tell you something about loss.

It is everywhere. No matter where we go or what we do we will lose people we love. And the hardest thing I ever had to reconcile was the fact that my family would begin with someone else's loss. That the very first experience in the life of my child would be the loss of the mother he knew in the womb.

We all experience loss and we all enter this world with missing pieces. At some point in our lives we come to a place where we see the world in its imperfection, we see how broken we are. And there is no hope for us. Desperation is the cause of madness, the cause of hate and the cause of bitterness. If we are very fortunate, there is someone we love; or at that point when we are so broken that it's impossible that we can love others, let alone ourselves; that someone loves us enough to show us the picture and person of Jesus Christ through their actions. They feed us, they clean us up, they trust us with a place in their home and they make us their child. By law or not they have adopted us. If we are fortunate. If we are not, we become a person so different from who we were born to be that, when we look at ourselves in the mirror, it is impossible to meet our own gaze. Loss is inevitable, but from loss miracles can happen.

Wealthy interior designers from Tennessee can take in an impoverished and broken boy who'd been crushed by his mother's addiction and love him so much; that he calls her momma and would fight to the death anyone who dared threaten her.

A woman who's body doesn't function the way it should, can have a son. A boy who would never know the love of a father, can have a good man to look up to and to help him become a good man, so that he can raise his children to be good people. And the woman who was balancing several other children on a budget the width of a thread, can continue to hang in there and have a chance at getting to a better place in life instead of further in debt, more dependent on the government or the charity of others. She can help herself to better standing with the knowledge that her baby is being loved and cared for, and she isn't hidden from him.

The thing about adoption is this: you take two lives ripped up by loss and you put them together. Then you pour out your soul of love into that brokenness and you grieve your losses together. Then you move forward; undoubtedly there will be things to grieve again when every milestone makes that loss poignant. But you move forward and you make something good out of the ashes of what is devistating.

A girl in my office today said, "Sixteen years without my mother, I would be sad, but my life wouldn't be about me if I lived with her. My life would be about her addiction. And God knows what I would have lost if I hadn't been adopted." She didn't quite understand why I cried, she had no idea what had happened this week.

So why am I doing this? Why am I taking a little boy from his biological/first parents? Because God knows what he will lose if I don't. And for me, that is enough.

Go see that movie. It is Great.

Here's the thing

For every opinion or thesis there is a antithesis or conflicting opinion.

I am sorry that for every wonderful adoption story there are equal or greater numbers of totally messed up lives. I really feel for you, I do.

I am not interested in entering into a debate about it. I blog to talk with like minded people and I have found them here. I am not going to ask you to agree with me. I am not going to try to win you over. This is a chronicle of my life. Some of it might hurt you to read, so be careful with your heart. I am going to be an adoptive mother at some point and I will do my very best to help my child understand what happened. I will never abuse them, I will never speak badly of their first family. You may choose to ask questions, I am not going to answer them all. I may not publish them all. To be honest, I am tired. This has been a long road for me and I don't wish to spend the last few weeks or months or even another year justifying it to people who don't like how I choose to live my life, and who I choose to include in it. There are two who I have responded to and you are welcome to continue to read and to comment, I do appreciate your politeness.

I'm just not going to be able to explain and debate in the way I think you'd like. That is not why I blog. Self-serving as it is, I blog as a way of journaling. I've "met" some wonderfully supportive people and that is how I am choosing to spend my blogging time.

Thanks for your understanding.

So much time...so little to do...er...wait, that isn't right...

The days are ticking away! So far H's little bun is still in the oven! I'm very excited to meet him! My heart beats faster everytime I l look at the ticker! 25 days! O MY!

Jer and I have been blessed with wonderful showings of support from family members these days. While our financial situation is under control, I think our family wants to help and they know that money is always useful!

Our friends have really rallied around us, and have made us feel like a "normal" expectant couple.

My mom and I have ironed things out, we are good at being stubborn, and disagreeing. But we seem to be on the same page now.

We are eagerly awaiting that special phone call and the baby's bag, our bag and the car seat are in the car (in the cargo area) on a full time basis for our short trek to the hospital.

Don't laugh! All I have to do is dump my bathroom counter into the bathroom stuff bag and we are out the door! :D

Many blessings to all,

Booom BOOOOM BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Jer's at a meeting, we're going out in a bit, but....Chief and I are currently hiding under a blankie from the Lightning and Thunder. It's been coming and going alllll night.

Jer and I are doing great!

My mom and I are butting heads, all is right with the world. :D

Sorry for the downer!!

Bible Study last night totally refocused my energy....I'm sorry I was whining!

I hate Hospital Admin.

It seems the H1N1 Virus may kick me out of the delivery room.

They're only allowing 2 people in, and H has a couple of friends she wants in there with her. Disappointing. But I'm just going to work on faith that if I'm meant to be in the room, then I'm meant to be there.

And, they don't give adoptive families a room in the hospital. So, Jer and I will be taking turns staying out of the way in the nursery. I didn't know Hospitals even had them still. Apparently it is a teeny little nursery for instances like ours, with a great view of the NICU. Whether or not visiting hours apply is uncertain, but maybe if I keep a pair of scrubs in my bag, I can trick them. Whaddya think? I'm not too excited to spend our first hours together so uncomfortably, but I'll tell you what, I'm not leaving that baby's side (Easily) unless H decides she wants time with him.

And poo on the swine flu and the Media's insistance that it is the plague of the century. I would swear here but it wouldn't be congruent with my faith.