Our Adoption Journey

I thought I would fill you all in on what is happening with our adoption process. Right now, we are in a waiting pattern and have been for a couple of months now. We were approved last May and will be called when we are selected by a birthmom. The waiting is hard. The not knowing is even harder. I am a planner and someone who likes to know what and when and that is just not possible when you are adopting. I do have a list of things that we will need right away once the baby is here and we do have a new car seat. The other items are either loaned out to others or will need to be purchased.

There are two possibilities when you are adopting. One, you may get a call that you have been selected by a birthmom and get to go meet her and, hopefully, get to establish a relationship with her and possibly the birthfather before the baby is born. Second, you may get a call that the baby is born and you have been selected. So get your you-know-what in the car and come NOW. As you can see, this is where some planning needs to be done. I can just see us having to stop by Babies R'Us or Target on the way and purchasing some much needed items and deciding on a baby name on the way there. BTW, we do have some names that we like and Jacob loves to put in his two cents but we will save it for a surprise when the time has come.

There is also the possibility of a disrupted adoption, where the birthmom decides to keep the baby. If this happens, it will be heartbreaking for us. But, our prayer is that the birthmom makes the decision that is best for her and her baby. If this is what happens, then it was a part of God's plan and as hard as it may be to accept, that is what we will have to do.

As for Jacob, he is very excited. He asks about once a week if we have been picked and if and when we will get to meet the birthmom and the baby. He will sometimes say "Mom, we don't have a stroller. We need to go to the store NOW." He is definately learning about patience with this process, and so are we.

As for us, we are also very very excited. We can't predict what the outcome will be. It is all in His hands; but we pray faithfully that the Lord will keep our birthmom and baby safe, happy and healthy. The thought of being a new mom and dad again is so overwhelming, but in a good way. This time, we know we won't get any sleep for a few weeks but to get to experience all of those firsts again...we just can't wait. And giving Jacob the sibling he has always wanted is a true answer to prayer.

And for those of you who are wondering what took us so long to finally adopt...well, let's just say it was all God's timing and not ours. The time was just not right until the last year or so and then we had to decide international vs. domestic and what agency to use. All in all, the process was not long and we just love our agency and know that God had us pick them for a reason.

In addition to praying for our birthmom, please pray that we will find the patience needed during the waiting process.

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On another note, today on MTV ( I never never watch this channel but would never miss this) on Made at 5pm, our friend Kendra will be on the show. She will be racing the girl who wrote into MTV and asked to be Made into a motocross rider. Kendra is riding our neighors bike and racing her, so they are excited too.

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Tomorrow we leave for a family vacation to Galveston. Our relatives are driving from Oklahoma to Galveston as we speak. Pray for their safety on the road. It should be a great and fun time for us and the kids.

Steps of Hope and Infertility

Today I thought that I would go deeper and let you all in on my life. One of the reasons that I started this blog was to be honest about my life and to possibly give others hope if they are suffering from any of the same ailments or issues that I have. So, here goes: I am infertile. I have suffered with infertility for over ten years. It is a cruel and depressing disease. There is nothing harder than having life given to you and then to have it taken away. Or, to let yourself be hopeful and happy and then to have to grieve when a cycle doesn't take. I am lucky that I am not on that roller coaster right now. I spent over six years on it, enduring ten IUI's (intra uterine insemination) and five IVF's (in vitro fertilization). In the midst of that, I had one miscarriage, one ectopic pregnancy and one vanishing twin. Obviously, something beautiful and wonderful came out of it, Jacob; but, the pain that I suffered to bring him into the world and the pain that I still have waiting for me to be healthy enough to transfer our last two frozen embryos was and is hard. Our embryos have been frozen and waiting for four years. They are not the best quality of embryos, so I don't hold much hope. But, God can work miracles.

One lesson that I have learned over the years is that God's timing is not at all what I would like it to be, but, He has His reasons. In Ecclesiastes 3:11, Solomon wrote, "He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end." This is one of my favorites (we just happen to be studying Ecclesiastes in church right now). We tend to live in the micro-moment of our lives and to not see the big picture, which inlcudes our lives on earth and our eternal lives in Heaven. This is something that I struggle with, of course, as I am somewhat of a control freak, and I want to know just when things are going to happen. When will I be able to transfer the embryos? When will I bring home my beautiful adopted child? Only God knows. In the meantime, I am to "put eternity" in my heart and live a faithful life to God, trusting him fully in times of pain and despair. This is something that I really struggle with, so, please pray that God would give me a patient and trusting heart.

Some of you might be wondering where the picture above came from. Shane and I were lucky enough to take a romantic long weekend May 2007 in Monterey Bay, California. It was so beautiful. We stayed in a bed and breakfast in Carmel-by-the-sea. The very last day we were there we spent a quiet morning eating breakfast and then exploring a beach called the Carmel River beach. It is listed as one of the top most beautiful beaches in the nation. I sat on the sand and played with the granite rocks while Shane wandered off to take pictures and he found this cross on top of a hill with steps leading up to it. How beautiful! A few short months later, we were asked to mentor a couple going through infertility in our church. That led me to confess to Shane that I had been thinking for a while about starting a Christian based infertility support group. The group was started and is growing. Maybe the best part about starting the group, for us, was getting in contact with a leader of a group in Irving, TX. She is the one who told me about the adoption agency that we are now using. God works in the most amazing way. If we had not started this group, we might have never found this agency. And, we might not be on the exciting and amazing journey that we are now on...to add to our family through adoption.

We named the group Steps of Hope and our goal is to mentor to couples experiencing infertility and/or pregnancy loss. Here is a link to our website: www.cypressbible.org/infertility.

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:11-13