ramblings…

{of a crazy woman.}

well, we made it this far. 5 days to go til birth day.
anxiety is at an all time high. excitement is also, at an all time high.

***
Just dealing with the roller-coaster of emotions I’ve been on in the last weeks leaves me feeling exhausted at the end of the day. I have decide that what you go through physically when you are pregnant, you go through emotionally when you adopt.

***
I have also decided that most people have no idea just how hard this adoption process is. How it moves you, molds you, and manipulates you. Some of that process is painful, and I get angry and say to God, “I did not want to learn THIS way.” And then about 2 seconds later I am reminded why He led us here in the first place, and how this is just so right.  

***
My nesting (like a crazed woman) has turned to it honestly isn’t going to matter anyway if that cupboard with the half eaten boxes of cereal and other expired boxed-bakable- goods in is cleaned out before this baby comes. On another note… her room is ready. And if I can say so myself, it. is. perfect. It’s not girly, but it’s all girl. That makes sense right? I’m not about bubblegum pink and frills.

***
I have tried again and again to decide how this blog will look, and what I will write about after she is here.  I can’t make any promises. I will try, but I might be tired and smell like baby spit up. ( I hope so anyway, there has always been something about that smell that I love. {grin} ). And then there is always the “legal” part of what you can put online for the world to see, and also the part about what we think will be best for her and safe for all of us. And mostly, I plain and simply would rather be enjoying her in our first days and weeks together than entertaining all of you. so sorry people. Be patient with me okay? I’ll come around…

***
There are so so many details to be worked out in an open adoption. We’re getting there… but it’s exhausting. There are no words to explain the way we love this baby girl, and her birth mom. I could never tell you how it feels to dream about her little nose, and her tiny toes and how she will look and smell, and how much she will weigh. I could also never explain to you the fear that is sometimes overwhelming when I think about this all falling through at the last minute. And I will be honest, that could happen. We hope, and pray that we were taken to this place in our lives for the purpose of being her parents, but that we will see in the next few weeks.

***
We love Jesus, and He loves us.

***
We are going away for the weekend to one of my favorite places. Hallelujah.

***
For the next days and weeks  I am asking that you would in prayer for us, for the baby, and for her birth mom. I can not fully understand what this process has been like for her, but this is the hardest thing she will ever do. If there is one thing weighing me down right now it is that I do understand leaving the hospital with out your baby.  My heart is broken for her. I grieve for her potential loss, and I celebrate our potential gain, and that is a fine line to walk.  

***
I will be back next week… I can’t wait to tell you that she has arrived.

p.s. I have something I have been so excited to do on the day that she joins this world. (June 1, in case I have not been obnoxious enough with my counting down.) I know there are many of you {naughty secret readers} who do not leave comments, and that has been okay. til now.  But on her birthday, can you do me a favor? leave a little comment on here for her. A birthday wish welcoming her into this world, and into our family.I have big plans to print them for her baby book… and I would love to have a whole bunch of lovely things to read to her someday!  I will post something June 1, and then leave the comment on that post. Oh I’m so excited. okay, happy weekend all.

a sprinkle.

My sisters wanted to plan a baby shower. I said no, not til it gets closer to the big day. So a shower was planned, for 2 weeks before she would be born.

She’s almost 38 weeks cooked already, and ready for her grand entrance into this bright and beautiful world.
in 10 days.  that’s right, 10 days people. Can you believe it?

don’t you love that they are only 5 years old and they get googley eyed over every tiny article of clothing. They would pick them up once piece at a time and say, “oh it’s soo cute.” … yes girls. It is sooo cute, and so are you.

And then I packed all the gifts, and some leftover angel food cake into my car and drove home; completely overwhelmed with how loved we are. With how loved baby girl is already.

In the last couple of weeks I have heard 2 things over and over and over.
1. Get your sleep now
2. Are you ready?

Well, in response to statement #1… I’m screwed. I like to sleep, and I’ve very good at it. Wade thought I should try setting my alarm and getting up to early to prepare myself. wrong. I’ve actually been staying in bed even longer every morning just because, well… I still can. And I’m going to enjoy eating cereal in bed watching TV dozing back to sleep a couple of times with the Today Show playing softly on the TV and finally dragging my butt out of bed at 9am.

In response to question #2…
We’re ready. Everyone has been so generous, and we have just literally been showered with everything she could ever need, and want.

Plus our hearts are about to burst with love for her, and sometimes I don’t think I can take waiting one more minute to kiss her cheeks. I am fully aware that there are going to be hard moments, and times when I’m just so tired and frustrated. When those days come I want to remember these days. When I fold, and re-fold all of her clothes, run my hand over her crib where her tiny body will soon sleep,  and my arms physically ache because I can not hold her yet. But soon the words wait, patience, long, and yet, will be gone from my vocabulary.  I have waited my entire life for her, and in 10 more days that wait will be over.

6 months.

{seasons of change}

6 months ago today I held my baby. That day in the hospital when JUDE was born feels like it was a lifetime ago, and yet there are a few special moments that feel like they were just today. I love that time has passed, and as promised, God has taken the ashes in our life and turned them into beauty. We have been able to move on past the hard moments, and there are things that have escaped our minds and our memories, and we are thankful for that. I was afraid many months ago that I would forget him, and how he felt in my arms, and I have not. The good things, those memories remain, intact, vivid as the day it happened.  The God of this universe loves me enough to take my broken heart, and to repair it. And maybe even gave me a strength I did not possess before that hard season of my life.

I miss him. I miss him horribly. I wish more then ever that he was here, and that we could see him become a big brother. We wish that little miss would be able to know her big brother. But the longing I feel to have him in my life has become bearable. It feels almost normal, and that no longer feels like a dreaded life sentence, but it’s a welcomed part of who we are now. At some point or another after a loss in your life ( a loss of any kind..) you have to take the loss, and embrace it as who you’ve become. Jude is a part of us, and a part of this story.

Wade is so good at talking about him. I tend to keep my thoughts of him to myself when we are with groups of people, and I love that Wade speaks loudly and clearly of him regularly. His pictures have slowly but surely filled frames around our house, mixed with wedding pictures, and vacation pictures. All frames that hold memories. Memories that at one point hurt physically to look at day after day now make me smile as I pass by them in the hallway.
He’s here.
He’s present in our home, and in our hearts.

wordless wednesday.

oh wait, I brought something for you.

A few weeks ago we traveled to the far away city for a visit with our baby girl’s birth mom. We had a wonderful lunch, and chatted for an hour. Then it was time for her to go. I was so sad that it would be weeks before I would see her again. She got up, and put on her jean jacket, grabbed her purse. It was then that she turned around and she said it. “ Oh wait, I brought something for you.”
She dug around in her purse until she found it. 

a white envelope that said “your baby’s first picture” on the front.  

My hands started to shake as I took it from her; and then in a moment that I felt like I had waited my entire life for, I quickly opened it and skimmed over the pictures she had given me, trying to hide my emotions.
My first glimpse of my future was in my hands.
We hugged, and said our goodbyes, and we left the restaurant.

When we got into the car I allowed myself to really look at the ultrasound pictures.

And then the tears came as I said to Wade, 

“She has fingers.”

The first picture I took out was a picture of her arm and hand. Those things are not something we take for granted anymore. I spent time looking over every detail of every picture, completely in awe of this perfect little being.  We spent countless hours having ultrasounds with Jude praying that God would allow us to see if he would have fingers at all, or if he would have two eyes, or how the hemispheres of his brain were divided. And that day, in Perkins, I was handed the pictures of our next baby.
Our healthy sweet baby girl. a perfect gift from God.

5 fingers on each hand.

I carry your heart with me. (I carry it in my heart)

–e.e. cummings

oh pampers.

yep you win. 
guess baby girl will have to wear Pampers because her mama is in loooove with your new commercial.
I dare you not to cry.
(you will need to scroll down to the very bottom and stop the music)

 

Please check out what I wrote about last Mother’s Day.
It seems even more fitting this year.

Open adoption 101

There are three “kinds” of adoption:
Closed- You know little to nothing about the birth parents, except for maybe (hopefully) some medical information. Most likely, you will not even know their names. The birth family wants no contact from you.
Semi-open- You have some on going contact, but know no “identifying” information about the birth family. You probably know their first name/names, and medical information but do not know their last name, or where they live. You can have some contact through your agency, and can have visits with the birth family after the baby is born.
Open- There is nothing kept secret from either of you. You know where they live, and what their last name is. They know everything (and I mean everything) about you.

Let me start by telling you, that when we started the adoption process we were afraid of having an open adoption.  We had made the decision to do only closed, or semi-open. We felt like we were being “safe and protecting ourselves”.
wrong.
We were being selfish.
This isn’t to say that open adoption is for everyone. It’s just that our reasoning for not doing it, were the wrong reasons. I do believe that there are circumstances, and reasons for certain families that it is not right for them. But for us, we needed to reconsidered our decision, and at the end of the day ( and a much needed conversation with Heidi our social worker) we did a 180.
We decided to be as “open” as possible. (and prayed and prayed that God would protect us, and our family with this decision…we were still scared you know)

Let me just throw in here, that there was a reason that God put this issue so on our hearts, and allowed for the conversation that caused the total change of “plans to play it safe”.

Fast forward a couple of months to the day that we meet our girls’ birth mom for the first time. The conversation came up as to why she chose us. “because she knew she could trust us if we were so OPEN to all of the possibilities of an open adoption.”

I can still hear her say the words;  to which I immediately thought…
Yes God. We hear you. Loud and clear.

See it really comes down to a trust issue. Why would she trust us to care for her own flesh and blood if we don’t even trust her to know our last name?

We have been experiencing the absolutely beauty of an open adoption. I talk to baby girls’ birth mom on the phone regularly, and we email occasionally. It’s not scary. She is one of the most beautiful people (inside and out), I’ve ever had the opportunity to know. and to tell you how this very open adoption has blessed my life would be impossible. We have an open relationship. We laugh, and cry, and talk about our weekend plans, and about our jobs, and God’s plan. It’s a rare, and almost strange connection that we share… bound by the love for a sweet little girl. A love that will take us down different paths, but with the same goal in mind. 

We don’t know where this path will lead us tomorrow, but as of today, we’ve never felt more blessed. There is no one who could orchestrated this plan other than God himself.
The One who knew in the past still knows about our future.


What do I know of Holy (aka: my favorite song. ever)
Addison Road

I’ve made you promises a thousand times.
I try to hear from Heaven, but I talk the whole time.
I think I made you too small. I never feared you at all, no.
If you touched my face would I know you?
Looked into my eyes, could I behold you?

What do I know of You who spoke me into motion?
Where have I even stood, but the shore along your ocean?
Are you fire, are you fiery? Are you sacred, are you beautiful? 
So what do I know…
what do I know of holy?

I guess I thought that I had figured you out.
I knew all the stories, and I learned to talk about...
How you were mighty to save.
But those were only empty words on a page.
Then I caught a glimpse of who you might be.
The slightest hint of you brought me down to my knees.

What do I know of you who spoke me into motion?
Where have I even stood, but the shore along your ocean?
Are you fire, are you fiery? Are you sacred, are you beautiful? 
So what do I know…
what do I know of holy?

What do I know of Holy?
What do I know of wounds that will heal my shame?
And a God who gave life its name?
What do I know of Holy? Of the One who the angels praise?
All creation knows Your name… on earth and heaven above
What do I know of this love?