Our journey through adoption.

In February of both 2004 and 2005 we found out we were pregnant, and in March of 2005 we found out we lost our 2nd baby and in April 2004, we found out we lost our 1st baby. These months are just reminders of that time in our lives and I will always remember and honor our babies memories. I was watching Oprah about a week ago and she was interviewing women in their 30’s and what their lives are like. And this women came on, who was 31 years old, a teacher and she and her husband sounded like Darrel and I. They got married, good jobs came, a home with a room they dreamed of being a nursery and then it was time to start trying to have children. And they started trying, and couldn’t, and all her best friends, her sister -in-laws, all of the people closest to her were getting pregnant and starting their families. And she just said “as often as those moms think of their children each day is as often as I think about the children I want to have.” Her and her husband went on to try medication cycles and in-vitro and got pregnant, they heard their babies heartbeat 4 different times, and then on their 11th week appt. the technician was using the wand…turned the screen away and told them “I can’t find a heartbeat” and she said in that instant “her life was turned up side down and her dreams ripped away from her”…so Oprah says “well have you thought about adoption? You always hear the stories where people adopt and then get pregnant” and she just smirked the same smirk I think most women who have faced losses or inferfitlity smirk and she just said “honestly Oprah those are the comments that hurt the most, oh just go on vacation, oh just stop thinking about it and it will happen, oh just adopt and you will get pregnant” it all means nothing. And she continued to say she feels ashamed, ashamed that she is a women and the basic difference between a man and a women is that women bear children, and her body can’t bear children, so she feels shamed. It was very powerful for me to watch that show. I have it tape recorded so I can show it to people if they want to understand very clearly what it feels like to be in “our’ shoes. Its the most painful, raw, tender feeling, and it will never go away. I will never not think about my two babies, they are a part of us forever. And me mourning them will be a part of me forever, its something that I will never get past. But I also know and trust in the Lord with all my heart which is different from the lady on Oprah, she said “its impossible for me to hold a baby without an army of drs in the room with me, putting our egg and sperm together through a tube” and I just thought poor girl if she only knew that the she ONLY needs an army of 1, God, and He can create miracles and she can conceive a child if that is His will for her. I do know that our decision to adopt is being guided by the Lord completely. Every once in a while I will just feel the Lords peace come over me when I’m praying for the Mom and the baby as I drive to work, or at night when I look across into that now empty room and dream about the day that room will have a crying baby in it, He has a baby picked out for us and I know with all my heart we will meet this baby in His perfect timing. I just pray that though there is hope in our hearts about being parents, there is still a large hole in both of our hearts for our babies we’ve lost and the babies we haven’t conceived or may never be able to conceive. But I just pray that in these times where I’m feeling “down” I always remember to look for understanding through God  the only one who can completely understand my feelings and get me through these months, these memories, again and again until I am reunited with Him and my babies. I also just thank the Lord that He has put a heart in both Darrel and I for a baby that will not be made from us, but will be loved like our own. I thank Him for putting in our hearts the excitement of adoption, because unlike the women on Oprah, she said “I am not a peace with giving this part of me up and I’m not at peace with adopting”…though I have not given up hope of one day being pregnant, we do have a peace that we on the right road… I thank you Lord for giving us peace in moving forward with adopting our baby, and giving us hope that only you can provide!

On Saturday morning, we both woke up feeling yucky, but we decided its our weekend and we don’t want to waste it being sick, so we went out, about an hour into being out, we both knew we needed to go home back to bed, and since Saturday I’ve been in bed and have not moved unless I absolutely have to. Darrel unfortunately had a busy week so he had no choice but to go to work, I went in for about 20 minutes on Monday and about fell over because I was so dizzy, so I’ve been down and out and still don’t feel very good. The flu is going around here and its hitting hard, I guess the one good thing is I have only had 3 popsicles and two pancakes in the last 4 days, so I may lose a couple pounds.

 I thought since I was home sick I could make the time useful and work on the homestudy packet but even that has been too much work for me, I’ve just been way too dizzy, sick and my head is pounding. Tonight though we did go through a couple of the sheets together and we have set a goal date of February 12 to have all the homestudy packet completed and ready to turn in. We’ll see how it goes. Not much to report on, we’ve had a boring past week both being sick and homebound.

I’m dying though to see all our neices and newphews. Allie is here and I’m dying to see her. Shannan called and left a message last night saying that she told Emma guess who’s coming to visit you tomorrow? And Emma said “Jul” and Shannan said “who?” and Emma said “Jul and Darrel” and Shannan said “no, not Jul and Darrel” and Shannan said she was devasted and then she said “Allie” and then Emma was okay, but Shannan said Emma was asking for us. Andrew and Jordan, I wanted to make a couple dinners for them,  I’m hoping I will feel better so we can do that too. These little people are such a HUGE part of Darrel and I, they truly light up our hearts when we see them or talk about them, and we rarely go past a day where they don’t get brought up in our conversation. And we are planning a trip to California so we can see Jaxon, we miss him like crazy. Jenn was so sweet and brought video tape of him to Vegas for us, he loves dancing and he is so big! So I just miss all of them and can’t wait to feel better so I can see the little ones here, and can’t wait to make the trip to California to see our little dude down there!

Well last night we went through our first official parenting class. Fortunately for Darrel he wasn’t the only guy, in fact there were 12 couples there. The class was a lot of fun. The class was geared for first time parents bringing home their babies. She taught us how to swaddle, change diapers, what to look for, how to give the babies baths, etc. Very general information but a lot of information I didn’t know. So we walked in and there were about 10 plastic babies with diapers on them and blankets next to them on a long table, at the end of class everyone had to practice doing a diaper and swaddling the baby. Well our instructor had very detailed steps about both which she showed us how to do, for ex: make sure that you put the velcro or sticky part to the diaper after taking it off so it doesn’t stick to the baby’s skin, gently wipe the baby’s bottom and private areas, etc. So all 12 couples got up, went to the back of the class and we get this GIGANTIC one year old looking sized doll, I wish I had my camera. The thing was HUGE, and next to this baby is a little blanket and a little diaper. The couple next to us was teasing us about having a huge baby. So anways, Darrel proceeds to do a swaddle, he didn’t want any assistance from me, but the blanket was way too little and our poor baby’s, chest was hanging out the top, the arms off to the side and the legs out of the bottom, I was almost in tears because I was laughing so hard. THEN Darrel proceeds to change the diaper, (which again he doesn’t want help with) so he takes off the diaper, and what happens? The tape sticks to our babies arms b/c he didn’t connect the tape to the diaper after taking it off, then he throws the diaper off to the side (thank goodness it wasn’t a real poppy diaper) or it would have been splattered everywhere, then he puts on the diaper and presses down on the tummy of the baby as hard as he can to make it stick, again I was in tears laughing. He was only having fun, and I think he was doing everything opposite of what we had learned just to make it funny, plus when he see’s me laughing hard, he will always do something to make me laugh even harder. Needless to say, I know Darrel will make a wonderful father and I know he will get the hang of things qwickly. We had fun and I look forward to doing more classes with Darrel, I will gladly pay the $15 to see Darrel at work again, haha!

Tonight Darrel and I are going through our first parenting class, we are required to take 10 hours of classes. The class tonight is called Baby-Care-Basics and is 2 1/2 hours long. I’m excited to be going through these classes because although I’m not pregnant, this class will be just as relevant to us as it will be to the expecting couples. I just hope that there are other guys there so Darrel isn’t surrounded by a bunch of pregnant ladies, haha. And today when I got home, I got on a roll and completed most of my autobiography, so I sent my rough draft to my Mom (since she is a great writer) and will see if she has any suggestions and I plan on doing the fine tuning this weekend. Plus last night I checked on our fingerprint clearance and they were cleared on January 18th, so that step is out of the way too. Yesterday was the first time I really got to sit down and concentrate on our homestudy packet, its a lot but I think we will have it completed in a couple weeks, if we just work on one or two things a night, it doesn’t feel as overwhelming now for me because I’m not in school anymore, so I feel more positive about it.

 The school thing was a God thing, its a long story so if you are interested in hearing it give me a call but it was an amazing confirmation for me to know that I know the Lord’s voice, He protected us from a huge finicial mistake as well as heartache.

So I’m sure I will have some fun baby care basics to share with you tomorrow. Darrel asked me “how often do you blog?” I said almost every day and he just laughed and said ” I thought you would do it like once a week” and I said “well things are moving along faster than we thought so I have a lot to report on, and if people get bored of hearing about us, they don’t need to read everyday…” So if you get bored, don’t worry, I understand, I just want to have this journey recorded for memories and for our baby. So the baby knows his/her mommy thought and prayed for him/her every day.

Stepping Stones is an infertility Christian ministry that I became connected with after losing our first baby. Its an online ministry that offers support for couples facing infertility or pregnancy loss. They send out 6 magazine issues a year. I look forward to the issues coming in the mail. Today I received the Jan/Feb issue and SURPRISE the whole issue is about adoption. It was so neat to read through all the different stories and how the Lord has performed great miracles in all these couples lives through adoption. It just reinforced in my heart that we are going to hold a child in our arms one day and until that day comes to allow the Lord to be in  control of our lives. There is an online journaltome website that CASI gave to us, so we can journal our adoption process and it connects you to others who are adopting and I happened to come across a couple’s journal that is adopting through CASI out of Idaho, so I wrote her an email just introducing myself and telling her where we are in the process. They are a little ahead of us, they just had their in home, homestudy completed but she wrote me a neat email just giving me advice about a few things and just encouraged us to remain hopeful and that she prays we both one day will be holding our babies. It was neat, I would love to meet some new people who are going through the adoption process, so I hope to continue to be able to interact with her through email. On Sunday, Andrew Ryan Heiner was born, so yesterday we went and visited with him, he is NICU because he is having a hard time breathing, but the drs. are hoping to able to send them home today. When I was looking down on him, and just looking at all his tiny fingers, and rubbing his tiny little cheeks and head, I was reminded of how much of a miracle life is. God is so detailed in all He creates! We love this little guy already and we can’t wait to see him grow!

I just got back from Vegas earlier today and Darrel is on the road still with Kristel, we had such a fun weekend! We are very blessed to have such an amazing group of family and friends who show their love through their actions it meant so much to Darrel for everyone to come and I know he will always remember the time he shared with everyone this weekend! I would tell you all about the weekend but I think it would be too long, so we’ll just say it was a blast!

So, we didn’t get an oppurtunity to look through the homestudy packet quite yet, but after talking, getting advice from family, friends and praying a ton, we’ve decided right now is not the right time for me to go back to school. Its too much, I’ve not had time to do anything in the last couple weeks but study and do homework, my life has been completely school and we both agree that we want to focus our time and energy on adoption! We didn’t realize how much time its going to take to complete all the requirements and go through all the paper process of adoption until we received the homestudy packet. Our hearts desire is to start a family and we felt that by me being back in school it would prolong the already could be long process. So our game plan is that by summertime we will see where we are at in the adoption process, if we feel that its going to be another year, I will start school back up in summer and continue to work next year. By making this choice it just allows for time, time to pray, and its time to focus on what we need to complete to be put on a list for adoption. By summer the homestudy process will be finished, I will have my first year of teaching under my belt and we will know much better what we want to do. I think we both just felt “rushed” and it was overwhelming for both of us and finicially its a huge year for us already with just adoption and to add a huge school loan on top of that when we’re not even sure about what this next year is going to bring us, it just doesn’t feel right. So just pray that tomorrow as I go to the school district that I’m working for, that they will accept my plan to start school back up in the summer and allow me to continue to teach next year if that is what we feel, and that NNU will be understanding of our choice as well.

The Homestudy packet arrived today. I just went through each paper one by one and its ALOT to take in. I wish I didn’t have school tonight so I could look through it all with Darrel…! It’s intimidating, they ask very detailed, personal questions. The autobiography we need to complete alone is huge and that is only 1 out of 26 things we need to check off our list. They ask question in our autobiographys about our births and family. Childhood and life experiences. Religious influences, what we plan to raise our child in religiously. Schools, teachers and studies. Work history (all the way back to our first jobs) Personal information (even our height and weight) have to be included. Favorite recreation and hobbies. Marital relationship. Friends and Community. And in each of these 8 catergories is at least 5 questions, very specific, personal questions. Like Describe your life goals? Whom do you rely on for your own support system? Who handled family finances growing up? How do your family and friends feel about your adoption? Who intiated the idea of adoption in your marriage? Describe each of your immediate family members? Questions like these…this is different from our profile which is also included in the Homestudy packet. They even have an evacuation plan we have to complete in case of an emergency in the home. Also included is the caseworkers check off list, they check fire emergencies, fire alarms, furniture, beds everything and anything that is in our home will be checked to make sure it is safe. Its alot is all I can say, alot, lot, lot! But we will get through it, one step at a time! We are off to Vegas tomorrow and we are so excited, so I think this will be good airplane material, instead of an US magazine we’ll go through our homestudy packet. Well I won’t be able to write until probably Sunday…so check back in, in a few days! I’m sure I will have a TON to talk about

It’s pretty amazing how quickly time/life flies by and it hits weird when big days like Darrel’s 30th birthday is coming this Thursday. Darrel and I met when I was 14 years old and he was 16 years old, we started dating on October 16th, 1993 after a youth group cabin trip. He had said he had a crush on my best friend, so he had been calling every night for a couple months asking questions about her and my Mom kept saying “that is his excuse to call and hear your voice”…well we went on a cabin trip and we were outside on the balcony with a couple other friends and he slowly moved his chair closer and closer to me, then took my hand into his hand and ever since that night we have been inseperatable. Now 13 years later here I am remembering back on all this time and just feel so extremely grateful that he and I are still going as strong as ever, he is my one and only love. We’ve of course gone through our sets of ups and downs like any normal couple, but 13 years later we still make each other laugh, have fun together, respect each other and we still hold hands, I couldn’t have asked the Lord for a better man to have alongside me. He acts like a tough guy but behind that “act” is a softy who would do anything for anyone. I can’t wait to see him be a Daddy too, because he is so gentle and loving with all our little neices and nephews, Emma, Allie, Jordan, Jaxon and two more little guys are coming, Andrew and Carter. He adores them all! I look forward to seeing what I will write about in another 13 years from now, because it feels like just yesterday we were on that balcony, holding hands for the first time.

Yesterday we received the call that we have been accepted to move on in the adoption process with CASI. I was able to speak to a women named Melody who walked me through our next big steps. Here is the timeline: We will receive our homestudy packet in the mail within a week, included in that homestudy packet is a ton of forms we need to fill out, we need to schedule a drs. appt to have a physical, 3 letters of rec. will be sent out to 1 family member and 2 friends that they will need to fill out on our behalf, we need to complete 10 hours of parenting classes, each an autobiography and last but not least we will need to work on a profile. In the next week or two we will be meeting the infant coordinator we have been assigned to, her name is Tammy. Once we complete the homestudy packet they will schedule a caseworker to come to our home and we will undergo a “interview process” and they will examine our living situation. Once the caseworker approves us we can be put on a the “list” and Tammy will begin networking. Melody said a realistic time frame for all this to be completed in 6 weeks, YES only 6 weeks and we can be put on a list. After I had talked to Melody I called Darrel and ran him through the whole process and then ended with “6 weeks” and it was just silent for a few seconds and he said “6 weeks are you sure?”. Melody said the pace will be up to us, we can take our time with the homestudy packet or we can go qwickly, that will determine how soon we can be put on the list. She said once we are put on the list that is when “the fun and or anxiety will begin”…I’m already feeling excited but also anxious, only because we literally have a ton of things going on right now. School is going to be a HUGE part of my life for the next 8 months, to be honest it may be most of my life, as the school I’m attending has very high expectations of their students and because I’m doing the accerlerated program I’m going through 1 class per month and these classes usually take a semester to complete, soooo lots of homework, lots of tests, lots of group work and lots more homework, ahhhh! We are so excited though, today we went and got our fingerprints done and when the man asked us why we were being fingerprinted we responded with”adoption”  it hit us, we are adopting. So we’ll keep you updated. Thank you all for the prayers and support. We’ve received so many encouraging, loving emails from you all since we sent that email, and it means so much to us!

We’ve been living here in Idaho for a little over a year now, and to be very honest, our lives here in Idaho have not been exactly how we had hoped. Don’t get me wrong though we are very blessed and we know this is where we are meant to be because we know that God has led us down this path for reasons, some of which have become evident, and some which I know will present themselves in time, and some that we may get answers to when we meet the Lord. I personally at times have wondered “was this the right move or should we have stayed in California?” and that question pops up only when I’m having a difficult time, or when I’m not actively seeking out the Lord’s will, over mine. For example, I’ve been pretty sad about the fact that I have to go back to school to finish up some classes to be able to continue to teach, not just because I have to go back to school but also because it in ways “represent” what we are lacking, our two babies, a baby in our life. I cried on Darrel last night saying “all I want is to be a mommy” and Darrel gently reminded me “our baby is coming” and then he continued to remind me “that all that has happened is leading us to the Lord and He knows His perfect plans..”I also realized after attending church yesterday, that I have not been witnessing about the Lord to people who don’t have a relationship with the Lord and that is something that has always been challenging for me, especially because my fear is that I will cause that person/s to run the other way, or the people closest to me, who know my faults will think that I’m a hypricrote because I’m far from perfect, but I realized that the most important thing to me is living my life the best way I can for the Lord and sharing, and knowing that I cannot stay in the same place, this comfortable place, and also be going with the Lord. The Lord doesn’t allow us to “stay” where we want to stay for too long, He moved us here to Idaho, we followed His will in our move, He puts specific people in our lives, through family, friends, work, even in the grocery stores for reasons, which that reason is to share Him to them. I realize that when I’m seeking Him completely, that is when He “moves” me, He moves me to these places for reasons, and I have to be open to seeing why I am where I am in my life, and be willing to put myself out there in these places (even if thats not what I desire) for the sole purpose to share the Lord to others. So tonight as I begin my first night of school, I know the Lord desires me to be there for reasons, and I know that the Lord will continue to “move” me as long as I’m seeking His will, over mine. Below is the song that was given to me by friends from the Lord.

The pathway is broken and the signs are unclear, and I don’t know the reasons why You brought me here, but just because You love me the way that you do, I’m gonna walk through the valley if You want me to cause I’m not who I was when I took my first step and I’m clinging to the promise You’re not through with my yet. So if all these trials bring me closer to You, then I will go through the fire if You want me to. It may not be the way I would have chosen when You lead me through a world that’s not my home but you never said it would be easy, You only said I’d never go alone. So when the whole world turns against me and I’m all by myself and I can’t hear You answer my cries for help. I’ll remember the suffering Your love put You through and I will go through the valley if You want me to. So when I cross over Jordan, gonna sing, gonna shout, I’m gonna look into Your eyes and see You’ve never let me down. So take me to the pathway that leads me home to You and I’ll go through the valley if You want me to.