This New Year

Christmas was blur! I remember being young and wishing time would fly. Now I see how fast time goes by and I realize how precious it is. Well I got my Wii for Christmas. It is as fun as I thought it would be. Although, I'm afraid that my high scores on The Beatles Rockband have deluded me to think I have a great singing voice! We had a great time with our family and our friends and I will always love the memories of Ryan and I opening our gifts together on Christmas morning. We don't go crazy with gifts for each other but it always amazes me the way he is so serious about what he gets for me. He searched to find books about the Tudor Dynasty for me (yes he is married to a nerd) and was so worried he may have got the wrong ones (he didn't). It makes the socks I got him look really bad!

I look forward to the new year for many reasons not just the possibility of our baby coming. I try to think of it as a chance to do better at everything. What ways can I be a better wife? How can I be a better friend? How can I continue to grow in my relationship with God? How can I be better to myself? We don't write resolutions we sit down and we make goals. Individual goals and our goals as a family. We love to get them out and see how far we have come and see how God has moved and really blessed us in so many ways.

Our profile will be shown to 2 birth mothers this week. I had the hardest time at first when this began happening. I would immediately begin envisioning that specific child in my arms and then be devastated when we weren't chosen. I still get excited when we get possible opportunities I don't know how you couldn't. I try to think of it as one step closer to the day when we do get the call. I didn't believe that this would get easier, But oddly enough it has. I love being able to pray for these babies and their mothers. I still get excited but I am excited to know they will be getting homes at all. I really find myself praying that the baby goes to someone in our local office. If one of these babies are ours then it will happen but I am so happy to know that another couple who has gone through the pain and tears that we have will get a call they pray for daily. I will be honest I find myself surprised that I'm not jealous. I am confident in God's goodness and I know that he is with us throughout the highs and the lows. To all of my friends who are waiting: I pray that this new year we get our calls and while we wait we cast all of our cares on God who will sustain us and uplift us! This will be a year of growth and joy!

To our precious baby:

To our precious, beautiful baby,

Today is Christmas and I cannot stop thinking about you. I can’t wait to see your eyes light up when you see the lights on all of the Christmas trees in the house. Mommy loves Christmas and I try to have a tree in every room even if they are small. We hung a stocking for you on the mantel. We will write your name on it in red glitter on your 1^st Christmas. In our family Christmas Eve is a big deal and last night all of mommy’s family came to our house to eat and open gifts and spend time together. Daddy and I showed everyone your room and they all love it! Everyone says that you will love it too. You will love your family they all can’t wait to meet you and kiss your cute little cheeks. When mommy was a little girl I always loved Christmas Eve and having all of my family together. I want you to have the same great memories of Christmas Eve too. Today on Christmas morning daddy and I slept in until after 8:00 and waited to open our gifts from each other. We hope this is the last year we can sleep in. We can’t wait for you to wake us up at the crack of dawn to open your Christmas gifts. Tomorrow we will go see your daddy’s family in Ohio and have another Christmas with them. So if you are counting that is 3 times for sure that you will be opening gifts and spending time with your family for Christmas. Daddy and I can’t wait to start our own Christmas traditions with you. I better tell you now that I plan on taking millions of pictures of you and plastering our walls and the walls of anyone else that will let me! So prepare for that! You will also be the star of our Christmas cards. Who will want a picture of me and daddy when they can have a picture of you with your doggies Violet and Ellie! I’m going to buy you an ornament every year and when you’re older I will decorate the tree with all of them and cry remembering all of the wonderful times we had together at Christmas. We will make cookies with all of your cousins and take you to see Santa if you want to. No matter what we do we will have fun. We love you so much and we can’t wait to hold you in our arms and love you. I haven’t laid my eyes on you yet and sometimes my heart feels like it could burst from the love I have for you now and to think that love will only intensify once we have you here with us. Daddy and I are trying very hard to be patient while we wait for you to arrive. We are so excited to meet you we think about you all the time. You are so loved by so many people already you will be such a blessed child. Now you know a little bit about what your Christmases will be like. Mommy and Daddy love you so very much and we can’t wait to hold you in our arms forever!!

Love,

Mommy and Daddy

A peak into the nursery!

So I'm very proud of how cute I think the baby's room is I wanted to share it! I will take more pics after Christmas because right now I have all of my unwrapped Christmas gifts in there don't want to give away any surprises people may be getting! I decided to do a Dr. Seuss theme because that is very gender neutral and I Love Dr. Seuss! I am a big reader and I plan on trying to instill that in my children as well. My Aunt helped me draw the images on the wall and then I have painted them. Dr. Seuss stuff is much harder to find than you would think but I did find a great Dr. Seuss Crib set from Trend Lab, I love Trend Lab and my mother otherwise known as "Grandma" bought it for us along with the mobile and diaper stacker. I like to go in there and look at the things people have given me and I thank God for those people who are supporting us and praying with us and then I pray and speak over our baby that will be coming to live in this room!

I'm a bad blogger!

So it has been a while. Not a whole lot going on really. My best friend who is more like my sister got married and I was the maid of honor. It was seriously the best wedding I have ever been to. Her husband is from Africa and so are many of their friends that were at the wedding and they are so friendly and welcoming we danced the night away. Even my Ryan danced who could not be more "white"! My adorable nephew Malik was carried down the aisle wearing his lil white tux he could not have been sweeter he is truly such an amazing little boy I love him so much!

We had our nieces and nephews with us for Thanksgiving I think that really kept me from getting down during the holiday. We had a great time with them they are always full of fun and excitement. Our profile was shown I think once or twice since the last time I blogged. It is getting easier when our profile is shown and we are not picked. Don't get me wrong I still start getting the feelings and thoughts like "what is wrong with us? or "did I look bad in that photo I put in the book?" and I still get a little disappointed when our social worker emails that it wasn't us. However, now I don't cry as long and and I don't get that defeated feeling. I'm happy for the ones that get the phone call they have been waiting for and then I thank God for our baby that he is preparing for us even now as I type!

I hung our stockings on the mantle  mine, Ryan's, Violet's and Ellie's (our Boston Terriers) and I also hung up a blank stocking for our baby! On Thanksgiving my nephew Lucas said "Hey, whose stocking is that? (pointing to the blank one) and I said "That's for our baby that will be coming" and he said "That's cool you better fill it soon!" Kids have such pure sweet faith I love it! I thought that I would be harder now around Christmas but I am excited for Christmas instead of thinking "This better be the last Christmas I have without a child."   I am thinking "This could be our last Christmas just the 2 of us so let's make it the best one!" If that means that Ryan gets me the Wii I have been asking him for then all the better!! Side note: I must be the only person alive without a Wii! Ryan laughs at me and says I could just go buy one anytime I want but it's not the same I say!!

You never know.

So we were in a car accident yesterday. Praise God we are just fine! Someone hit the back of our car while going pretty fast may I say! Nobody was hurt in either car and Allstate is already on the ball!

As we go through this process to adopt we have heard such heartbreaking stories. Often we get information about a birth mother and her personal situation about why she is placing her child for adoption. We've had our profile shown several times and those mothers chose other families to adopt their children. We've also decided several times to not have our profile shown to birth mothers because we knew that the situation was not right for us. If you wonder it hurts just as bad when you decide not to have your profile shown as it does when your not chosen.

We often get some very personal information about the mothers and sometimes the fathers. Heartbreaking does not come close to some of the stories we've been told. Intense drug and alcohol use, rape, homelessness and babies born addicted. It's easy to get angry with the birth mothers and say "How could you do this to your precious baby?" These thoughts have crossed my mind and have come out of my mouth. Yes there needs to be accountability but you don't turn into a drug addict or alcoholic over night. These mothers have gone through intense hurt and pain in their lives.

This has opened my eyes in so many ways. These mothers and babies that we hear about could be the woman next door, the young girl in high-school, the woman in the cubicle next to you. You never know the hurt and pain that someone is enduring. I think about these babies and their mothers everyday. I pray for them and ask God to put people in their paths that will help them and show them the support they need.

Now What?

Everyone always says while you wait for your placement do the things you can't do once you have children. Sounds great but I want to do the things you can do with children. I can't wait to go to Disney, sorry Ryan we will be going there! I keep trying to convince Ry that we need to go to Italy now! But that's not responsible spending that kind of money when we need it for the adoption. So what am I doing? What will I do? Well, there's school have to finish that still proud that I got through college again in my thirties! I also love working on my nursery. I"ll post some pics soon. I'm doing a Dr. Seuss theme and my Aunt has helped me paint a mural on one of the walls. It's adorable and very gender neutral. I read books about parenting, read up on the latest trends in baby stuff and ask mothers about what has worked for them. Sometimes I just enjoy time alone having nothing to do at all. My time in prayer has been great, I've found such comfort and peace in my alone time with God this process is growing our faith so much and I'm grateful for that. I'm also getting excited about the upcoming holidays. I love this season. I love spending time with my family and friends. My best friend is getting married in December and I am thrilled I can't wait! I've been listening to Christmas music for weeks now. As I sing along to the music and organize my plan of attack for decorating, I say a prayer that this is the last Christmas we will spend without a baby. So these are some of the things that I will be doing while I wait. It may not be a trip to Italy or Disney but I can start planning for those trips now and I"ll be planning for at least 3 travelers !! :)

Bad Day

I promised myself when I started this I would be honest about everything. I would write about how things really are and I how I really feel. I would not make things look better than they really are. So with that said, I am not having a great day! I don't care how much faith you have in God, having faith does not equal no feelings. Things will still hurt. Our profile was being shown to two mothers who are placing their precious babies for adoption. This has happened several times now and everytime I know we are being shown I get excited. I feel that I must get excited why couldn't we be the ones who get "the call"? In the back of my mind I do prepare myself that we may not be chosen. I tell myself that God knows who my babies will be, he knows every hair on their head and has a divine destiny planned for them. And I truly believe that.

However, that doesn't make it easier when you find out that you were not chosen. It's like that not being chosen for something during gym class feeling but magnified 10,000 times. I have to constantly tell myself that there is nothing wrong with me or Ryan.  I'm sure I drive our social worker crazy with my questions like "What didn't she like about us?", I promise her that  I will try to stop asking that, (I will try!). The first time this happened I tried to rethink everything we did. Was the profile book ok?, did I put the right pictures in it?, what if they don't like dogs? etc etc etc. Then when I calm down and find peace I realize that I'm being crazy!

The old me would be very bitter and jealous towards the family that does get picked. But now I am truly so happy for them because I know how they feel. I know how it feels to wait for that call or hit the refresh button on your email so many times you think it may break off! We are all in this journey together and you can't feel anything but overjoyed for them.

I hope it gets easier each time, I look at it this way: Each time we get information about a mother and her baby we are sometimes told intimate details about their lives. Sometimes the stories are heartbreaking. Whether we are chosen or not I have the honor to pray for the mothers and their babies in specific ways that I couldn't otherwise.

I have decided that each time our profile is shown and we are not chosen I will buy something for the baby! Lookout Target here I come!!

I never knew.

Anytime I have ever thought about adoption or met someone who adopted or was placed for adoption I thought "Wow how hard that must be for everyone involved." Boy was I wrong! Hard does not come close to describing how it feels. Now I am only speaking as someone who is going to adopt a child. I can't even fathom how it is for someone who is faced with the decision of placing a child for adoption. We knew that this would not be an easy journey. We prayed and knew that this was what we were meant to do. We got armed with our faith in God and support from our family and best friends. Paper work-check, Home Study-check, birth parent letter-check, profile books-check, web profile-check, approved-check, waiting....................

Ryan is armed with the patience of Job, which comes in handy married to an excitable Italian like myself.  My patience however is somewhat lacking lets say.  I decided to start writing about this journey for several reasons. 1. Maybe my journey can help others. 2. It has already changed me in many ways and I can't wait to see how I have grown spiritually and personally when the journey comes to an end.

I will end my 1st post (because I am ignoring math homework I have) by saying this. I do not know how anyone could go through the adoption process without knowing God. You will face emotions and challenges that you never knew existed. If I didn't have faith in God I never would have got this far. I wouldn't have made it through the paperwork let alone waiting to see if we are chosen to adopt precious babies. Having faith in God doesn't mean that I don't have bad days or don't have feelings. There are days when I hurt so bad I want to lock myself in my bedroom and cry. Don't get me started on how I feel when I go to Wal-Mart! I know Ryan is afraid he will come home one day and see several small children and I"ll tell him I got them out of aisle 5 in Wal-Mart (I kid, I kid). However, having faith in God keeps me from laying in my bed crying, it keeps me alive with hope and promises because I serve a God that does not lie!