{ And so I'm back . . . and with a bit of life-changing news! }

It’s been a while, a long while -- 3-ish years -- actually, since I have blogged.  However, today I think is the beginning of a new blogging era for me. 

The kids have taken up so much of my time as they’ve gotten older and I have grown to be busier in my daily life because, well, that’s just what happens, but I decided I just have to make time for it again.  Time, in general, passes so quickly, but I feel like time has never felt so fleeting in my life until this past year when my baby turned 10.  Double-digits hit me like ages have never hit me before.  Before I know it he will be 18.  Sigh. As one of my favorite musicals says, “there’s no day but today”. 

It’s time to start back blogging.  And I’m not starting back lightly but with some huge enormous gigantic news.  I’ll let this kids tell you…

Yep.  We are adopting!

Um. . . “How did this happen?”, you are probably wondering? 

Well, as most of you know, my (only sibling) brother was adopted. Mom and dad adopted Chris when he was just a year old, and little me was 3-1/2.  It’s not a secret he’s adopted, but also isn’t a secret that I have never thought of him as anything but my brother.  Yes, annoying at times (aren't all brothers?) and when he became taller than me I was a little put off that my little brother was suddenly kind of like my big brother.  But Chris fit in very well from the start.  I still remember the day he was brought home.  His curly black locks of hair and adorable little overalls won me over.  Having a baby brother was the best thing in the world.  We have had ups and downs as any family does, but overall it’s been the best experience in my life because it’s been one the biggest lessons in my life.  A lesson of what family really is, overcoming uncertainty, dealing with and overcoming discrimination, but most of all, a great lesson in love. 

Adoption has been a part of me my entire life.  And I believe whole-heartedly that my entire life God has been preparing me for today. 

Back in the early 2000’s Neil and I started trying to have a family.  I thought this would be an easy task but it wasn’t.  We never dreamed we would be “those people” who couldn’t conceive.  We tried for a year and finally got pregnant.  I had morning sickness and even started looking a little pregnant, but at 12 weeks we found out that our baby wasn’t viable.  We lost that pregnancy shortly after.  In my 20-some years of life, nothing was more devastating or physically and emotionally painful than losing that baby.  I would never wish that experience on anyone.  But even thought it was an incredibly painful and discouraging experience, it, too, was preparing me.  Preparing me to love.

We went on to lose two more pregnancies over a period of two years and even thought I wasn’t as far along as the first time, it still took its toll.  After so many losses you lose more and more hope and you end up becoming pretty numb.  I had my faith but I’m not sure how much I actually really did “have” it.  It’s one thing to read the Bible and memorize scriptures but it’s another thing to have FAITH in those words and to truly believe it with all your being. 

I begged to God to give me a baby but I also yelled at God for not letting me carry one.  It was hard to see at that time why we went through all that, but now I know why.  Those three years were to prepare us. To mold us.  Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

We finally accepted we weren’t going to have biological children and decided adoption was the right thing for us.  We so direly craved our family!  And hallelujah, we were accepted into an agency!  That was so exciting!   But weeks after we were accepted into the agency, I found out I was pregnant.  Again.  And numbness took over.  Again.  I really believed I wasn’t going to carry this pregnancy either.

But. . . God had other plans!  We went to our appointment at our Reproductive Endocrinologist and saw, for this time in any pregnancy, a little beating heart.  “What?!  How could this be?” I thought.  But with my own eyes there it was.  “Pa-rump, pa-rump”.  Oh it was beautiful! And that beautiful little beating heart belonged to our first-born, Noah. 

Fast forward. In the next seven years we went on to have 3 babies: Noah, Maia, and Finley.  All of them were without dramatic situations, of course.  I mean no way could Neil and I have anything happen and it NOT be a whirlwind!  But, finally I have learned it has all been a part of the grand plan for us.  And I honestly couldn’t be happier, more humbled or feel more blessed because of the difficult pregnancies we have had.  God is truly so amazing and so, so good. 

Here we are (I mean, “I” am – at this point it’s just “I”) another four years later and feeling the itch to have more children.  I asked God, “why?!” over and over.  You see, two years ago I had a hysterectomy.  So I don’t have a uterus and obviously cannot bear any more children, because as my doctor advised, it would not be the wisest decision (I experienced a blood clot in my brain after Finley was born).  And as my days went on after feeling those “baby pangs” I ran into several people who had adopted either via Facebook or via preschool where a classmate of Finn’s has an adopted sister. 

Adoption was suddenly all around me (or maybe it was there all along but it just wasn’t time for me to “see” it yet?).  And the faith-driven dreamer side of me poured out all the little puzzle pieces of my life picking them apart, sorting them, and putting them all back together.  I thought, “ok this is starting to make sense”. There are suddenly all these people around me who could guide me.  God set this all up.  God is so much greater than me.  He guides my steps and I listen!

I brought it up to Neil.  He was not on board at first.  So I prayed, and prayed, and prayed.  Amazingly, in all this, when I wasn’t expecting, nor did I believe I needed it, He changed ME.  He made me truly dive into His word.  He made me see how love was and is the most important thing we all have freely in this world.  He made me understand that while there might be all sorts of worldly things that we want or even feel like we “need” (i.e., a new car, a finished basement, trees in our back yard, a 15- year anniversary trip, a nicer ring, a new camera lens, etc.), He always knows what we ultimately “need” the most.  And right now he is calling us.  His time is perfect.  All those other things can wait.  One day we can do things for us, and even if we can’t, I know in my heart I would never be disappointed.  Nothing in this world can create happiness or joy.  Only love can.  And love is never created from things.  Never, ever.  God changed ME while I wanted Him to help me change Neil. 

Eventually God did change Neil.  I was standing in the kitchen one day just getting things out of the pantry and he said, “let’s do it”.  I was like, “do what?”.  He said, “adopt”.  I said, “really?” and he said, “yup”. (If you know Neil, you know most of his conversations go like this.) After the shock wore off, I went upstairs so that the biggest smile ever could appear.  I mean, I couldn’t do that initially or I would not look nearly as calm and collected about it all. (hehe) 

Since that day, our conversations have gone from “which country?” to “which agency?” to “how soon?”.  Now that we have decided on a girl from Ethiopia, we absolutely cannot wait for her to get here. 

We know there will be a LOT of ups and downs (as all of life is and if you expect anything but, well, you’re living in a fantasy land), but we also know that with ups and downs you grow.  I never knew what growth really truly was until I started experiencing real pain and real trials. The kind of growth that comes only from God. I know with this adoption we will grow as people, parents and family. 

And we absolutely cannot wait to grow. . . again.

“Anyone who meets a testing challenge head-on and manages to stick it out is a mighty fortunate. For such persons loyally in love with God, the reward is life and more life.” – James 1:12

“(Adoption) is a long, hard road, but what road is easy?  If you’re on an easy road, you might want to ask yourself why.” – Carlos Whittaker

If I have a monument in this world, it is my son.

- Maya Angelou

Well, if you haven’t checked out Facebook, you don’t know that we found out what baby # 3 is yesterday, .... and....we are having a BOY!! :):)
Clear as day, a boy, and my favorite shot of all. I laid down on the table and the tech said "you want to know the sex, right?". I said "yep!" and she put the doppler on my tummy and bam, there it was loud and clear right away, HIS little pee-pee. Definitely a BOY! :) The kids were very excited about this photo (what is it with anatomy?!). They both keep talking about seeing his "ding-dong" ;)

We are really shocked that we are even talking about boy parts again because both Neil and I thought it was a girl! Most of our family thought it was a girl (Chel's thinking was right-on, though!) and most of our friends also thought it was a girl (Alexis pinned it, too, and she's proud nonetheless!). I don't know if it's because of the high heart beat, my bad morning sickness and the fact that my uterus is still measuring 2 weeks ahead as it did with Maia that we all thought girl? Obviously none of that means anything! Maybe that's why the first thing we saw was his privates? He wanted to make sure we knew that he was not a girl but a bouncing baby boy :) (Oh, and the kids pinned it, too -- even Maia -- from day 1! Kids have remarkable instincts!)

He was measuring perfectly...heart with 4 chambers, all that good stuff. In 3 weeks, though, I go for an Echo of baby’s heart with a Pediatric Cardiologist. Everything should be fine, but it’s for precautionary measures with my recently diagnosed auto-immune disorders which can cause heart defects in the babies. I feel pretty good about it, though, my faith intact. I also have a low-lying placenta, something I’ve never had before. Just means MORE ultrasounds later on (not always a bad thing!). In people preparing for a vaginal birth, this means a c-section, but since I’m already having a c-section, it’s not really that big of a deal. I just have to be careful of bleeding in the meantime. Scheduled c-section will be September 17th! As for all the autoimmune stuff, everything has gone into “remission” and I am feeling the best I have felt in probably 2 years. My energy is so high and I just feel so good every day. It's a miracle. All my constant aches, pains and spasms, exhaustion, high blood pressure, everything, GONE. This pregnancy has been a Godsend. I’ve been really enjoying this pregnancy trying to milk this time for all it’s worth until it all comes back. But I'm praying for a miracle that it won't.

We are quite excited, and so are the grandparents. This is the last grandchild for Neil's parents and for my own, with my mom and dad having 3 granddaughters and 1 grandson, this will give my dad another boy to wrestle with, and with Neil's mom, she has 3 granddaughters, too, so this will also make the 2nd boy for her. For Neil's dad and Martha, they have 4 granddaughters and 1 grandson, so this will give them another boy as well filling in the gaps a tiny bit :) I think it's neat how Neil's mom and dad had two boys (no girls), and now they get two grandsons. What I find really really funny is that I remember at one point Chel saying she wanted all boys and here they have all girls. And I always imagined myself with more girls than boys, and here we're having all the boys in the family. I just love how it all works out. God really is amazing in His plans :)

Enjoy the rest of the ultrasound pics. We were VERY lucky in that the u/s tech (who I love) switched over from 3-D to 4-D imaging for a split-second and gave us a photo of Baby Strawberry so we could see him more as how he truly looks right now. It's pretty amazing. And the rest, pretty explanatory. He has long feet and legs just as Noah did. And I think he already looks uncannily like both Noah and daddy.

Can't wait to meet you, Baby!!!

And Baby Makes Three . . . Plus Pooch!

I know it's been a while. So busy. So busy. Who isn't, though? Lots of excitement, one of them being . . . . .

Drumroll . . . .



My dear friend, Johanna, IS PREGNANT!!!!

Okay, okay, so I've known about it for a while . . . she actually told me in secrecy in May and I didn't tell a soul. Not a soul. Her husband's family and my husband's family are inter-related and you know how things travel though the air :c) She just wanted to be definitely sure that things were okay with the baby. She knows what I went through and what her friend, Mika, has went through and how you just can't take a + sign on a pregnancy test for granted. And she hasn't. She's amazingly held in her excitment for a while now.

Jo and Jason . . .two people who are so deserving of a little precious miracle. I, for one, and ELATED for them. And you will be, too, when you read her new blog. She's been blogging since she found out and it's just the cutest little blog EVER. Once you read one entry, you will be hooked. She's so cute in her blog and this cuteness is so her. That is how she is, cute, sweet, funny . . . I'm so honored that she is one of my closest friends. She's a pretty amazing woman and will be one heck of a mother. :c)

Now wish her some congrats here or at her blog. She'll be tickled pink if you did (I think it's a girl!).