Our journey through adoption.

Darrel and I have decided to take some different avenues to try to get more exposure to birthmoms and have come up with a few…

It’s been good because the news is spreading at our church that we are on an adoption lists…people we don’t even know, know we are waiting for a child so that is neat.

Also we are going to drop off our profiles to a couple different lawyers…there is a small fee to show our profiles, their hope is that we will use them for our finalizing process. This process takes place about 6 months after we have our baby, through the courts when the state will recognize us as legal gaurdians, and name change will take place for our baby to have our same last name.

We hope by doing this of course that maybe one day sooner than later we will get a call that we’ve been matched!

Other than that, nothing new on the adoption front. I started back at school on Friday, but today was my first day as being “teacher”, it went okay. There are going to be some challenging students, but my principal was very happy to have me back and complimented on how well the class did today. I’m EXHAUSTED, I didn’t sleep much last night in anticipation of today, and I definately had to stay on top of my game so these kids knew I meant business to bring order back to the class. So we’ll see how this week goes…as a teacher the most “dreaded” days are holidays (and fieldtrips) and with halloween this wednesday, all I can say is iyiyiyi….I really donot like halloween at all anyways, for the little ones its innocent, its just a “dark” holiday…unfortunately as a teacher though, kids like halloween, they come in their costumes…they expect candy and a party…sooooo…I already just want Wednesday done with. But overall is was a good day.

 
In loving memory of our two precious angel babies. We will never forget the amazing memories we experienced because of your precious lives…you are always a part of our hearts and we know one day we will be reunited in Heaven with you both. We are so grateful that we got to experience our lives with you in it, even though for only a very short time…we will never forget the sound of your heartbeats or seeing you for the first time! Nor will we forget the happy excitement that filled our families hearts with joy. (These pictures are of the night we shared the happy news with our parents and our sisters that we were pregnant in February 2004) We remember them both on this day because our first baby’s birthdate was today but our second baby we never knew exactly but found out we were pregnant again exactly the same time the following year.

It  feels so good to be back in the classroom. Yesterday I went and met the class I will be long term subbing for starting on Friday, and it was such a neat reminder for me of how much I truly love to teach. It felt good waking up early, and doing something productive and still getting home early in the day to do things here at home. I miss teaching, I miss “working”, this class is going to be challenging to say the least, but I’m so ready for the challenge. I am excited. It takes alot of energy to teach a class full of 5 year olds, not once did my mind have even a single second to think about anything else but these kids. Obviously if given the choice between being a mom or a teacher I would say hands-down I want to be a mommy, but in the meantime, I will be happy and thankful to be a teacher. It’s such a rewarding career…

So tonight I have all my teacher supplies layed out in our living room, looking through all the stuff that I wasn’t sure I would use again when I didn’t pass my test the first time. It’s funny how I will be teaching the class I would have been teaching had I passed. I wasn’t suppose to start teaching until November but there has been a turn of events and I received a call tonight asking me to start Friday, so Friday it is!

Tomorrow I need to run around and do some things to prepare, as well just get back in the mode of being a teacher….oh my goodness, get ready for the kaos that teaching brings to my life, but also the huge amount of joy I receive from a smile when a student realizes they can do something, or the sound of laughter on the playground, the rewards I receive in helping a child learn, the funny insights children have…so yeah, we’ll see what the next couple months bring…

This weekend was so relaxing, too bad they go so quickly. Yesterday was especially nice because the weather was absolutely beautiful. It’s funny how weather can affect a person’s mood. In California the weather is pretty much the same throughout the year, sunny, warm with a few cooler, rainy days. Here though we experience seasons and this past week it was raining alot so yesterday when we woke up to a perfect clear blue sky it was great! We went to church, out to lunch afterwards, then Darrel and I went and picked out pumpkins, took the dogs on a long walk and finished the night earlier than usual because we were both tired. And today we woke up to a pretty day too! Yepeee!

Adoption updates. We have decided it would be neat to add one more page to our profile…a page of the nursery so the birthmom can get an idea of  our style and her baby’s “home”, so Shannan and Greg are having our bedding put together right now so that should be completed soon and then we will add that page to our profiles. Also we just passed our 6 month point, I’m starting to allow myself to think that our hopes of having a baby for the holidays might not become our reality. It makes me sad to think that we might once again celebrate Christmas without a child. We were given an average timeline of 9-10 months when we started this process, however they made it perfectly clear that, that is only an average and some couples could be under that timeframe or couples can exceed that timeline, there is absolutely no guarantees in this process, its all about the birthmom choosing us. So if the average is our average then we are more than half way through…but again we can’t look to numbers or statictics for our hope, we must remain hopeful in the One who is going to make our hopes and dreams come true!

It’s been nice waking up the last couple days and not having to worry about studying. I’ve had the chance to hang out with some friends and enjoy the beautiful Fall weather.  Today is the first day I have absolutely no plans at all so I’m going to do some things around the house, laundry etc., and also I’m going to plan a night all catered to Darrel. He has been working hard on things around the house for me so I figure I will make him an extra special dinner, give him a long backrub, let him watch whatever he wants to watch on T.V.,give him a night to relax and be spoiled.

The last time I blogged I was feeling really down, I still am just feeling okay. The last couple days I’ve been trying something different. I am trying not to think about the adoption process so much and when I do begin to think about it I either pray at that moment for whatever I’m thinking about or I push it out of my thoughts, not even let myself go there. Every morning I would wake up and begin my day with praying for that too, now instead I’m praying for others prayer request and leaving out the prayers for me and adoption. I know so many people are lifting us up in prayers that I feel like we are “taken care of” in that area, so at night with Darrel we together pray for the birthmom, our baby and the adoption process. It’s helping…it also helps to read other families blogs that are adopting, because I see that I’m not a crazy lady, it seems this is the common bond we share going through the adoption process, that there are better days than others and at times it seems like you cannot handle another day of waiting, and that its very thought consuming, but I notice too that many adoptive families are Christians and notice on those days the Lord always comes through to give hope and strength to get through one more day. And our small group from church is full of couples who have faced infertility, who have been adopted themselves, or who have adopted themselves, not random at all, we were put together for a purpose and one of those’s purposes is so we can be an encouragement to one another. On Tuesday I asked for prayer to stay positive through this process…after small group was over Darrel and I were talking to an older couple who adopted their daughter almost 20 years ago, they told us their adoption story and the women just looked at me and said ” your day will come and when that day comes we will rejoice with you” and she continued to say “the pain of infertility will go away when you have your child but you will never forget what it feels like, it is a part of you now, but you can use it to help so many others who cry the same tears we’ve cried and you are still crying, and sadly there are so many others…” goosebumps covered me…

I have vowed this to myself because of my own personal experiences throughout this journey: I will try to always be sensitive to those around me who I may or may not know may be going through this same experience, once I have a child. When I’m in an obgyn office with our child I will always make sure to look around to see if there is that women who is “me” that I can smile to, or even talk to, I will know to acknowledge women and say ”Happy Mother’s Day” to those women who have the heart to be mom’s, at kid’s birthday parties I will be aware of the couples who are there without children who ache to celebrate their own child’s birthday, the women at baby showers who feel like they can’t give personal advice too just because they have not experienced pregnancy, and even in church the sermons given geared towards parents…and often forget to mention those who are not, I will try to seek out those people to say “I understand”.  I’ve experienced that awful feeling of feeling like an “outsider” simply because I am not a mom to a living person…yet I have my two precious one’s that did live in me, that I did experience life with, even if it was only for a very short time, I did hear heartbeats, I did see move around on a screen…and I have a heart of a mom…so my promise to myself, and to the Lord is always to be aware to never allow people to feel like an outsider or feel unworthy to participate in conversations or activities, and try to share the hope that faith has given me!

I don’t like admitting to “hard” times, but I want this blog to be truly representative of our journey to start a family. With this being said I realize my blogs might not always be uplifting…its been a hard couple weeks of trying to keep myself positive, my heart, my feelings my body are fighting against me. On Friday I woke up and felt really heavy, really tired, and really down…I haven’t felt that yucky for a long time it seems. All I wanted to do was sleep but we were having a poker party with a bunch of family, friends, neighbors, work friends etc. at our house on Saturday so I needed to prepare for that. So all day I cleaned and when I was finally done around 4pm I took a shower…after getting out of the shower I didn’t have the energy to even want to get ready (usually Darrel and I go out on Friday’s for dinner) so instead I crawled into bed…Darrel got home soon after and knew immediately something was wrong, and as soon as he was upstairs I broke down in tears, he crawled into bed and  rubbed my back and asked “what is wrong Babe?”…I was crying too hard to even try to respond and after I calmed down I  unloaded on him with all my feelings, emotions…. everything. We layed in bed for a couple hours, alot more tears from me, and then finally he convinced me get out of bed so we could go grab dinner. Saturday was too busy for me to even think about anything, and Sunday we spent some time running around…and today I am doing okay, but I’m just not my normal self.

I am overwhelmed with emotions…..its an ongoing battle and some days are harder than others. I want this journey to be finished, but the Lord isn’t done yet, so I have to go on, even on days where I want to give up, lye down and admit to defeat..yet I have no choice but to continue down this hard path because I know at the end is our baby. It might be hard for some of you to understand the feelings that go along with the struggles of infertility, some of you may relate, all I can say is its the toughest thing I’ve ever had to deal with…one I hope you do not have to face because at times it feels like it can break you…it has broken me, it has brought me to my knees many times asking the Lord to help me through the pain, it all revolves around grief. Grief for what I’ve lost (my two angels), and grief for what I donot have, and there is no way of avoiding these feelings when all around the world there are women who are pregnant, babies, commercials, its everywhere, its a fact of life…so the only way to avoid this reality would be to lock yourself away…which is not healthy. And in the meantime of waiting to be matched with a birthmom, I don’t want to waste away, or not be productive until that day so I’m faced with this feeling that I need to work, but all my heart desires is to be a mom. I told my parents that we are so blessed, we really are, yet there is a huge void in our lives and in our hearts…more than anything we want to be blessed with the ultimate responsibility, blessing of being parents. We are ready to sacrifice our whole selves to another human being, to teach this person what it means to be caring, loving, responsible…to teach this person about the love of the Lord…we would give anything for this person, yet we still wait, and wait and wait and wait. When is this waiting going to be over? That is a whole other emotion, trying to wait patiently, for most women you get pregnant and you know in 9 months you will have your baby, well for us who are adopting there is no definate time, it could be today it could be another couple years, its all unknown by us…which is hard because most people want to feel some sort of “control” in their lives, yet like Darrel says so often, this is absolutely out of our control, all we can do is wait, hope and pray. So that is what we do, we wait, we hope and we pray, and my heart is torn…yet all of it even though it is broken it seems, knows that ONE DAY…that ONE DAY is coming and the Lord is leading us to that one day…so we will continue to praise Him, trust Him…and do our best to be okay, knowing His strength alone will get us to our baby!

Casting Crowns: Praise you in this Storm
I was sure by now, God You would have reached down and wiped our tears away stepped in and saved the day but once again I say “Amen”, and its still raining. As the thunder rolls I can barely here You whisper through the rain “I’m with you.” And as Your mercy falls I raise my hands and praise the God who gives and takes away. I’ll praise You in this storm and I will lift my hands for You are who You are, no matter where I am. Every tear I’ve cried You hold in Your hand You never left my side and though my heart is torn I will praise You in this storm. I remember when I stumbled in the wind You heard my cry raised me up again. My strengh is almost gone, how can I carry if I can’t find You.  As the thunder rolls I can barely hear you whisper through the rain, “I’m with you”. And as your mercy falls I raise my hands and praise the God who gives and takes away. I lift my eyes to the hills. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of Heaven and Earth.

I can’t sleep, my mind is racing with all kinds of thoughts…I took part 2 of my test today, did awesome on the multiple choice session, but I do not feel I did well enough on the essay portion, and unfortunately I have to pass both parts as a whole to pass the test, and the multiple choice score has no bearing on the essay part and vice versa so even though I did super good on the multiple choice it won’t help my essay score Darrel thinks I’m being too hard on myself and that I will pass, but my heart and my gut tell me to prepare that I did not. We will find out in time I guess…

So now I’m going to ramble about some other things going on in my thoughts…this may not all make sense because I am writing past midnight…I’ve been having a rough time with staying positive in the last couple weeks about adoption…if you are a women reading this you may relate…this overwhelming yearning to be a mother, this feeling can be so overpowering that it almost controls your every thoughts…this feeling is a feeling that I’m battling with right now. I’m trying to push it away so I don’t go crazy but it keeps creeping back in…so lately I have been driving our adoption agency crazy because every day I ask some sort of question, but the answers I’m getting are not what I want to hear…its so hard to wait. I know that the Lord knows best, that He is in control…but it still is so hard. I feel like a hamster in one of those running things, where they just keep running and running and running in circles.. I feel like I’m just running in circles. The entire summer I have been studying for these test, and I think I may have to study once more to retake this exam, and then I think about adoption all the time…I guess I feel trapped? I have wanted so much to pass these test so I can move on, move on from this part of my life that has been hanging over me for years now, and I want so much to have our baby so we can move on to that part of our lives too…both these things relate to one another because I didn’t go back to school in California to finish my credential program because we got pregnant, and then we got pregnant again…and were still hoping and praying for a baby..so both of these things have been my “life” for many years now, always a part of my thoughts…so I just hope for closure…I know too, October is a rough month for me because both our babies birthdates are this month, our first baby would be 3 years old and our 2nd baby 2 years old, so I think about them…think about how our lives would be right now…it hurts deeply. Deep breaths so I don’t start crying….I’m so thankful for the relationship I share with the Lord…it keeps me going….I just want this to be done though…I don’t want to have to try again to pass a test, I want this yearning I feel to be a mom to lessen….I wish I didn’t have to perservere through these challenges anymore, I wish my goals could be achieved…I wish I could be holding my baby in my arms right now instead of blogging at 12:30am in the morning…I just want to be done with these two areas of my life…yet I know that there are reasons for this all and my heart says “Jul, the Lord promises to not give you more than you can bear…” but my feelings call out to Him and say “Lord, I feel like I can’t bear this too much longer…please let there be some closure…” I will continue to push forward, I will not give up until I pass my test, I will not stop praying for a baby…I will try my best to remain positive…and I will try my best to live the best I can for the Lord, and trust that everything is working out the way its needing to work out…

So tomorrow is part 2 of my test. It’s freaking me out a little bit because I don’t feel a sense of panic this time…for this test they did not give specific guidelines as to what I needed to study, they gave a list of books, 26 books long, obviously I have not had time in the last 3 weeks to read 26 very long books, so I narrowed the books down by subject and studied 1 book for each subject. We will see if that is enough? I feel confident that I know the information I have been studying, so I guess that may be why I’m not freaking out at this point? Like I told Darrel today, I know all this stuff pretty good so if the questions are based off of this information I will pass, if they aren’t then I know I need to get those other books and read through them. So I pray with all my heart that I will pass this test! Today I received a call from my friend Rachel, she is a friend I have kept in contact with from the days of preschool teaching, she also helped me get the teaching job last year…well there is a teaching job for 1st grade at her school, the principal wants to interview me but obviously I need to pass this test to be able to be hired on as a certified teacher, so the pressure is on for me to pass, if I don’t pass I will be long term subbing pretty soon here, so either way I will have a job, but I’d really love the oppurtunity to be able to teach as a certified teacher and run my own class. So prayer for me. My test is in the afternoon…I will not know my results for a couple weeks which will actually be nice so I can enjoy the next couple weeks, in case I don’t pass and have to study, at least it will be a break. Prayers please, thank you. I’m heading to bed now, hope I can sleep!

This weekend was another busy weekend with studying, part 2 of my test is scheduled for Thursday. I’m nervous because this one is so different than part 1 in many ways, one of which is they don’t give you much guidance on what will be on the test. So I’m just hoping and praying that I will do well. I won’t find out the results of this test for a couple weeks because there is an essay portion on it, so they obviously need to grade that part. So we’ll have to wait and see what comes of this test?

I’ve told you before that my Mom has become friends with a women who is working with the same adoption agency we are working with, they actually were put on the list the same day as Darrel and I. They are fortunate to be able to network out of state…well they received the amazing news on Friday that they have been matched with a birthmom who is giving birth to twins in a couple weeks. Wow. Can you imagine getting that call? I’m very happy for her family, its a bittersweet feeling, happiness for other people’s joy but also some sadness mixed in for ourselves, that is the call we are so desperately hoping for as well. We know though that one day we will get that same call (probably not twins) but that same call that we’ve been matched with a birthmom. This past week I cried with Darrel a couple different times, begged him to go in debt for us to be able to network out of a state, and just asked him to remind me to keep having hope, he was so sensitive in letting me cry, sensitively told me “no” to going in debt so we could network out of state, haha..and he said ” I think our baby is coming…”. Men are so different in how they cope with their emotions, me, I cry, I am emotional, I like to talk about it, I think about it all the time…him, he is quiet, he doesn’t show much emotion, I think he is trying to be strong for me (us) and he says he thinks about it every day, but not all the time, because it will make him go crazy which has truth to it, I’ve had to tell myself “Julie, stop thinking about it and do something else so you don’t go crazy”. Glad the Lord created men and women differently…glad Darrel is the way he is because he keeps me sane through this waiting process.

So that is the new news for the last few days. Not much to report on, but thought I would tell you about that family that was matched, and ask you to pray for a blessed ending of them flying home with their 2 little ones in tow. One more thing thank you Aunt Sandra for the cute, soft, cuddly outfit you sent to us, its adorable and we love it.

Hope everyone has a good week. I probably won’t be blogging for the next few days, its crack down time until Thursday!

  

 

 

 

 

 

Everything you see in these pictures are gifts. So many fun things, bibs, blankets, socks, clothes, our carseat/stroller, diaper bag, bottles, emergency items, nest bed, mattress, crib, changing table, rocking chair..you name it we have it and we give all the thanks to you! I tried to lay everything out so you could see the gifts you bought us but the pictures are probably too small (if you want to see them bigger, double click the pictures). Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!  P.S. I’m going to do another blog soon so you can see the nursery painted…also if you want to get in on the bet…most people think we will have a boy (me included) if Darrel could have it his way we would have twins: 1 boy, 1 girl…he actually prays for it and I just ask the Lord to “ignore that prayer request, please…”  we are listed as wanting twins so we never know?