Our journey through adoption.

Amy called us yesterday after she left her doctors appointment to let us know that she is dialated and the doctor does not believe she will last until Feb 22nd, so Landon may be joining us sooner than later. OH MY GOSH!!! Amy is so sweet…she is tired and anxious but she is ready she says for this little boy to be born. We talked about her job, her schooling, her family, we talked a little about the hospital…she asked about the baby shower and she said “it sounds like Landon is going to be very spoiled”…I reassured her “there will be no shortage of spoilage for this little boy.” Every time we talk to her we feel a deeper peace…we truly love her and we wish there were words we could share with her to tell her what she means to us, but there isn’t those words. We have been praying that while at the hospital the Lord guides us in how to be compassionate, sensitive and loving in a way that shows not only her, but her entire family our genuine love for her, so that they will leave with a peace that will get them through the grief they will be facing. I think the only word and we’ve used it many times to sum up what we think it will be like there is, bittersweet. Of course Darrel and I are beyond excited to meet our son…there are no words to describe how we feel about this… but we also are not naive to what we know will be taking place in Amy’s and her families hearts…and how could this not effect us too. Peace is what we pray for, for everyone involved.

It’s humbling to look back and see how Darrel and I thought this entire process would happen, we had it all planned out how we wanted things to take place…and none of what we thought would take place has taken place, we have opened our hearts, our home, our family and friends to this process when originally we felt we wanted to keep our private life, private…but the Lord has had other plans…. the blessings that have come out of this, have been more incrediable than we ever imagined possible. Last night as Darrel prayed, he thanked the Lord for all His blessing but he also prayed that next time we are faced with struggles, we lean on Him and trust Him, seek Him out because He so perfectly allows things to happen for reasons, He so perfectly knits lives together for reasons, His plans are always more perfect than our own…honestly there is nothing we would change, this journey has been the hardest years of our lives, full of heartache, disappointment, loss, grief…BUT also there has been growth, blessings, friendships, understanding that we wouldn’t exchange for anything. If life was just given to us without struggles, I don’t think we would be able to cherish, honor and love the way we do now…when things are easy there isn’t alot of growth, but when things don’t come easily, when you have to fight your way through things, when the ONLY thing you have is faith to cling to, when something brings you down to your knees calling out to Him for mercy, then when you see the end in sight you truly and deeply appreciate what you have had to endure and that life (Landon) will be recognized as a miracle, a miracle that will never be taken for granted of, a miracle that we will daily be thankful for, a miracle that the Lord gets all the glory and honor for….so when Amy hands over her son to us, we now know on such a deep level…possibly the deepest level…how perfect the Lord is in ALL He does…

“Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him, you believe in Him and are filled with inexpressible and glorious joy.” 1 Peter 1:8 

The days are going sooooo slllloowwww now, we are only 11 days away from Landon’s due date but we are going a little crazy waiting. We both keep saying “Please Lord let it be today!” I think because we have every single thing that we can think of done, our house is clean the cars are clean the nursery is finished, everything is done so now we are just sitting around waiting for the phone call…maybe we should have left some to do’s on our list for each day? Oh well, I do need to be studying because I’m going to try to retake part 2 of my test before he is born so I don’t have that hanging over my shoulder…and Darrel is busy getting prepared for this new job and will be studying lots too, we hope that time will fly by alot faster than it has though. This weekend we kept ourselves really busy, we did a date night on Friday, ran around on Saturday, went to church, lunch and grocery shopping yesterday…but its not helping even when we are doing these things ALL we are thinking and talking about is Amy and Landon….SO we’ll see, the Lord knows the perfect time and of course we don’t want Landon to come a second too soon or too late, so we’ll have to be patient for these last 11 days…

I will post pictures of the nursery (I know, I know many of you have been asking for me to post these for a very long time) so I will take them and post them later on today or tomorrow!

This is a message from blah, blah, blah…every time the phone rings at our house my stomach gets the butterflies because Amy is only 2 weeks/ 14 days away from her due date but the phone has been ringing off the hook for the presenditial elections and non-stop telemarketers this week UGH! Don’t they know we are waiting for the most exciting, huge call of our life, that our son is about to born???

I spent this week organizing, cleaning, sterilizing, doing laundry with all the fun gifts we received for our baby shower and this morning I can officially say we are as ready as ready can be!!!! Yah, its been stressing me out but we are DONE! Darrel has a few little things to do this weekend but they are more aesthetic things like hanging the awesome art Mindy did for us, and putting a shelf up for his bottle warmer next to the rocking chair etc. 

Darrel is becoming good friends with a couple neighborhood guys (actually 1 of the guys just had a son about 2 weeks ago, were excited they will be so close in age, Landon and Camden will be neighborhood buddies) tonight they asked him to go to a basketball game so he is having a guys night out. So I plan on doing a solo girl night in and plan on vegging out in front of the T.V. and maybe do my nails and toenails. I know these kinds of things won’t be happening for awhile after Landon is here so we are soaking them up.

This morning I woke up to a really real dream, I was feeding a brand new baby (in my dream it was Landon) he was HUNGRY in this dream, sucking down his bottle so fast ..he was about half way through so I stopped him to burp him and he got really mad at me and started crying on the top of his lungs, but he would not burp so I was nervous to feed him more…anyways, it was real, it was crazy. He was TINY in the dream too. I’ve had about 3 dreams of an older baby since being on the adoption list, and every time the baby looks the same, dark skin, lots of black hair…but this dream he was a brand new baby…..GOSH, I’m SOOOO ready to meet Landon, I don’t want to dream about a baby anymore…I want to hold him and see him and love him…CANNOT WAIT!!!! When we pray at night we pray that in the next two and half minutes we get the call, haha, I think the Lord enjoys our sense of humor!

Still cannot believe this is all actually happening…I pray for Amy that her spirits are up, that her heart still is at peace about her decision, that her family is supporting her and loving her in the last couple weeks she has remaining of being pregnant…please continue to lift her up, especially her. Yesterday I read a blog from another adoptee women who is still waiting for her daughter from China to come home…her blogs title was “The blessings of being infertile”, most women would not consider infertility a blessing…but in it she goes on and on about all the blessings that have come her way because of her infertility that she knows wouldn’t have come had she not been infertile…friendships…her close relationship with the Lord…her daughter in China….at the very end of the blog she wrote this…”Blessed with the knowledge that this child, for whom I have waited all my life, was formed in perfection, to be knitted together with our family“…

Some things in life feel like a curse…infertility at times has felt like a punishment…but if I were to look back on all that has happened because of our losses and infertility, I honestly would not change a thing because like her there have been more blessings than I can count because of it…the Lord is so perfect in His design of our lives, His timing, His will, He HAS been knitting our lives together so that we would become a family and the only baby that would be perfect for Darrel and I IS Landon…and we are BEYOND blessed in seeing our journey come full circle…in seeing the completion and the amazingness of His creation…His story for our lives…thank you Lord for the blessing of infertility because of it we are going to be blessed with the most awesome, perfect, amazing gift we will ever receive…Landon!!!!

On Thursday night Darrel had told me that he would be home late because he had a dinner appointment with a doctor, I wasn’t suspicious of this at all but when he walked into our house at 9:00pm with gym clothes on I got upset and asked him “I thought you said you had a drs. dinner tonight?”…then all of a sudden I saw one of my closest friends Jenn walk around the corner and it took me a couple seconds to figure out what was going on, then I jumped up and started screaming…it was awesome she flew in from California to surprise me and be here for my special day. I know that I always say this but I will say it again because I do feel extremely blessed to have my girl friends in my life, all of them are such a big part of me and without them I wouldn’t be the person I am today. So thank you Jenn, it was so great having a few days to spend here with you, I miss you already!

Saturday was my baby shower, every single detail was beautiful, the flowers, the food, the cake, the decorations, everything was very thought out and very me, which just shows how the girls know my personality and love me so much to put it all together the way they think I would like. Every single person that was present that day has been along our journey to start a family and have been so faithful in prayers, friendship and support,
 it felt so warm to be in a room full of ladies that are invested in Landon, Darrel and I and who are truly just as excited as we are to meet Landon. I missed one person very much (you know who you are) being there with me, but I felt her spirit there with me so though it was extremely sad I am so grateful for her friendship and she has been my rock throughout this journey! Everyone was so generous and Landon officially has a closet full of clothes, gadgets and toys awaiting him. We have a guest bedroom FULL of gifts all sitting there that I need to get organized, sterilized, and put away (its actually making me extremely anxious) so today’s goal is to deep clean the house and OFFICIALLY be ready for Landon to come home.

We have a bassinet now in our room too, last night I just stared at it and started getting butterflies in my stomach thinking about our tiny son being in there in only 17 short days, we are so excited…however the nerves are kicking into high gear too…..we just cannot wait!

AND we were blessed with even more good news that Darrel has been hired by a pharm. company, he has been job hunting off and on over the last couple years, really wanting to get into that area again and wanting a job that would challenge him and move him so we just found out that he was hired! It’s a HUGE blessing!! Thank you Lord, You are so good!

Life is busy right now and in the next few weeks we have many big life changing things happening…we are so grateful to be where we are right now, we are ready for these changes, ready for Landon…ready for a new career…ready to start on a whole new journey!  Down below is a picture of the beautiful cake Mindy made for me! Isn’t it gorgeous?

Today we went and signed all the rest of the paperwork and payed the rest of the money for our adoption agencies services… we signed Landon Jacob our last name on all the paperwork, so seeing his name with our last name on official paperwork was pretty neat! So until Landon is born we won’t be in contact with our adoption agency for awhile. After he is born our caseworker will come back in month 1 and month 4 to do in home, homestudies, just to check in and see that the 3 of us are settling in well as family and then after that there will be the 6 month court date to finalize the adoption officially. Lots of things in the future but all we want to focus on right now is the present and that means celebrating this Saturday at my baby shower, finishing all the random things we have on our “to do” list and waiting for the call to make our way up to him. Then we will go from there…one step..one day at a time.

We got a call back from Amy’s caseworker last night saying that Amy is doing good, working on finishing her schooling so she can graduate and working hard at work and that Landon is doing good. She also said that Landon’s birthfather has not contacted her since the call that he was going to sign off his rights, so no news is good news right! He is in my prayers now daily too, and selfishly I pray that his mind does not change in between now and the time Landon is born, but I pray for his life to be blessed as well. He is just as much a part of Landon as is Amy and without him we wouldn’t be being blessed with our son, so I am thankful for this young guys life and choice.

Please continue to lift up your prayers, especially how for a safe delivery! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

Sidenote: Like I said before I recognize that there are always going to be others who are waiting for what we are about to blessed with and even when this journey to start a family is “over” for us I commit myself to prayer for those of you who are still praying, hoping and waiting…I hope to continue to use this blog to give you hope for your future…this poem in the Stepping Stones magazine is pretty powerful…the ending most of all!

Iridescent Dragon (by Rhonda Freed)

Infertility comes against me
As a huge gray dragon
With iridescent scales.

It turns one and way and flashes green,
A deep pang of jeolousy,
A grasping envy that bites and tears,
Destroying parts of who I am.

It turns again and blue blazes forth,
Melancholy of the deepest sort.
A desperate despising of this sorrow-filled present.
A futile yearning for a past that should have been.
A lack of hope for future change.

Another turn and patches of purple are revealed.
The pain of perpetual wounds,
Down deep inside,
Time and Time again,
A bruising on top of bruising,
Never healing.
Careless words,
Someone else’s pregnant belly,
A negative test,
Isolation.

And always, the light reveals ripples of aqua
Showing through here and there,
Tears and more tears, choking my throat,
Prompted by anything and everything,
Or worse yet,
By the empitiness of nothingness.

All around me red flashes as a latent anger,
A burning fire consuming with devastating finality
My hopes and dreams
Flaring and scorching,
Now smoldering in deceptive embers.
Leaving nothing but ashes.

Who can slay this dragon?
Is there a Prince or Knight in shining armor
To rescue me from this beast who wants to destroy me?
Who will save me?

I have a hero waiting for my call for help.
He’s the Crown Prince of Glory
And He yearns to win my heart
As the patient Lover of my Soul.

A Heavenly Knight in shining armor of the Spirit
Who has already fought the biggest dragon of them all
And defeated it in glorious victory.
He knows the battle tactics of my vicious foe.
And He has promised that this dragon too
Can be overcome and defeated.

This Thursday we have a meeting to sign final paperwork and pay final fees to our adoption agency…pretty neat considering that we wouldn’t be doing this unless we were in the final part of this process…and Amy is due in 24 short days…I put a call in with her caseworker today to see how she is feeling so we should have some updates about Amy and Landon. And this Friday my Mom flies in for my baby shower on Saturday that I am SO excited about. So busy, busy, busy…

Each day as Landon’s arrival date gets closer and closer Darrel and I get more and more excited. It feels unreal that this is really happening in many ways….but also so real in other ways. It’s undescriable what we are feeling…we cannot wait obviously but we also just have this deep love and respect for Amy and her family that we want to be so sensitive to them, so were nervous about how everything is going to happen once we get to the hospital, but we also know that the Lord is completely in control and that He already knows how that time will be and we trust that everything will happen as its suppose to as long as we pray over it.

All I know is that we are so blessed and each day I thank the Lord for where we are today…for the hope that is overflowing in our hearts….I read other people’s adoption blogs that are still waiting to hear any news and my heart goes out to them, but being where we are right now will come to those people too in His perfect timing so I know they are all suppose to be where they are in their journey…I sometimes feel like this is all a dream…all too good to be happening to us……some things are just too big to wrap your mind around…and how the Lord works in wonderful ways is sometimes too big to even comprehend…this is one of those times for us…just knowing how He knew before our time that we would have gone down this journey…and that He would connect us to Amy, Landon and her family at the perfect time…that He knew that we would one day hold Landon in our arms and call him our son…that we would forever be connected to Amy in such a huge way…its amazing…and only He could put it all together so perfectly.

I received the Stepping Stones magazine I’ve talked about numerous times in my blog yesterday and there was this one story in it that really hit hard… this is just bit and pieces of the story the ones that touched me…”He has told us that we need to daily prepare our fields for His rain. We must have faith that He will pour down on us exactly what we need in order to serve and know Him better…in the toil of preparing our fields, we are allowed to dream and hope and pray for our hearts desires, but it’s up to the Lord to decide how His rain will manifest itself in our lives. Will God’s rain be wasted because we haven’t been in our fields preparing, planting or tending? He ask us to trust His judgement, pick up our cross daily, and follow His example…We haven’t been given the specifics of our life, just the command to live each day by faith…God promises His best for those who wait upon Him. We can rest assured that His best always brings us into fuller communion with Jesus Christ than our best intentions ever could.”

His plans, His ways are perfect…even more perfect that we could ever dream possible!

Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

“I am leaving you with a gift-peace of mind and heart! And the peace I give isn’t fragile like the peace the world gives” John 14:27

The one thing that I know that the Lord has been teaching Darrel and I as a couple throughout our journey to start a family is to trust in the peace He gives. After losing our first baby I completely shut out the Lord from my heart (He will still there with me, carrying me through) but I chose to blame Him for my grief and heartache. I can easily say that those months of my life were the loniliness months ever…thankfully the Lord rescued me…when we found out the second time we were pregnant I remember telling Darrel “I have a deep peace that everything is going to be okay…” and not because I thought that the baby would be okay, but because I knew that no matter what, we would be okay…after losing our second baby, the grief was the same but there was a peace in my heart that wasn’t there the first time because I didn’t allow it in the first time…and in our journey to Landon I’ve had that same peace…at times I have doubted in it and have had to get reminders, but from the beginning of hearing about Amy He has placed a peace in both our hearts. I was sharing with one of my closest friends just recently that I hope that I will remember all the moments throughout our journey, the joyous ones and the sad ones…I want to be able to share with others who are still in this journey. Our small group was talking last night about how we can mentor others…and it was said that all of us have a story to share…the stories we have to share are not mistakes, the Lord has put us on each of our journeys for specific reasons, and for specific people who will enter into our lives…

On a different note the countdown has officially began, only 30 more days til Landon’s due date. Oh my gosh, we have a “to do list” we are finishing up on and next weekend is my baby shower that I am beyond excited about. Yeppeee. So I know that he will be here before we know it! We CANNOT wait, we do need another week or so to finish everything but after that he can come anytime…and if he really wants to come into this world now we are ready for him!!!!!

Dear Landon,

We cannot wait to meet you…our son…I already feel this immense amount of love for you, I can only imagine what it will be like when we actually see you and hold you for the first time! We talk about you all the time…what we dream for your life. I keep telling your Daddy that I want to raise a kind, loving man who shows respect to everyone you encounter. We wonder what you will enjoy doing, what your passion will be? You have so many people around you that will love you, protect you and teach you about the Lord…you are going to have a blessed life my baby boy. We pray for your Mom too, for her heart and for her future…she is a part of you and a part of us forever, we admire her unselfish love so much. Only 30 more days little one…we are ready whenever you are.

Love,
Mommy

I sit here in complete awe of the Lord’s mercy and of answered prayers. Tonight Darrel, Wendi and I were sitting in the nursery talking about Landon among other things when our home phone rang, (we were actually talking about his arrival date at the time the phone rang) so when Darrel answered the phone and we heard Amy’s caseworker on the other line I think for just a brief second we all thought she may be calling to say “he’s coming…” but instead she gave us the most amazing news that Amy received a call from Landon’s birthfather that he has decided that the best interest for the baby is for him to sign the consent forms for us to proceed with the adoption as planned. Immediately upon hearing this Wendi and I began to cry and I just kept saying “thank you Lord, thank you Lord…” and then Wendi and I went in another bedroom and started making calls to parents, friends, our small group, anyone and everyone we could think of! Each time I would call too it was so neat because everyone would respond by first saying “thank you Jesus, God is so good!” What an amazing answer to prayers this call was!! YOUR prayers that you’ve lifted up for us over the last week have been answered! He listens to our prayers and He answers prayers, Praise You Lord!!! After calling everyone Darrel and I got down on our knees and lifted our prayers of thankfulness to the Lord, prayed for Landon, for Amy and for the birthfather and the huge decision he made out of love for his child.

We now have joy and hope fully restored in our hearts, now when we go to make the drive to meet our son, the son we have been praying for before we knew him by name, we can have peace when looking down into his eyes that the Lord’s will is for him to be ours. We donot take this gift of life that the Lord is blessing us with lightly by any means, we made a promise to the Lord that Landon will be raised being taught about Him, and we pray that he will do big things for the Lord.  We cannot even begin to imagine what its going to be like holding him for the first time…we know though that this is the Lord’s will for Landon and for us…after 6 very long diffucult years we see why the Lord has had us travel this journey and though its been hard its so worth it…His path for us, is perfect.

 I wish now I could look back and say that I never doubted in Him, but I have, I wish I could say that I’ve always trusted His plans and timing, but I haven’t but the one thing that I do know is that He has never left my side even in my doubt, He has carried me through, when I have stumbled, He has picked me up, He has been my rock..and like that video down below in my other blog, even when I have waivered He has pulled me back in and fought for me…He loves me and shows me mercy and forgiveness even when I have not shown the same to Him…thank you Lord. I can confidently say that without Him guiding us, leading us, picking us up, carrying us through we wouldn’t be here right now. Never, ever give up…always, always turn to Him and I can promise you with all my heart that He will guide you.

This scripture is the scripture that will be above Landon’s crib, and oh how perfect it is. James 12:17 “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above”

Thank you ALL so much, what’s been so humbling is knowing that people we don’t even know personally have been lifting us up in prayers, and we have so many amazing family and friends who have been so awesome and supportive to us in the last week, we thank the Lord each night for you all…even those of you who we don’t know…know that you are being prayed for…

Victory, Praise and Glory be given to the Lord!

And let us run with endurance. . . . keeping our eyes on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from start to finish.” Hebrews 12

My emotions have varied over the last week, sometimes I am okay, then other times I am worn out. Yesterday we were thrown another twist early in the morning and I felt like “what’s next?” and then I allowed myself to become overwhelmed, with a few emails coming in to remind us to keep going and a good pep talk from Mindy, I felt better. When Darrel got home we talked alot about what the next few months will be like for everyone involved, lots of unknowns but what Darrel keeps saying is, “we have to keep focused Jul…this is where the Lord wants us to be, I believe it is and until He shows me otherwise we cannot stop…” This morning I woke up with a new burst of energy and hope and was blessed to receive the scripture above in a daily devotional. I know that I must keep running in this journey…keeping my eyes on Jesus from start to finish. I cannot allow circumstances that may come up to detour me from the finish line, I cannot allow my feelings to get the best of me, I need to stay focused on what the Lord requires of me, and not only do I need to run this race with endurance, I need to be joyful while running it because I know that there is a reason that we are running this race and that the Lord is using it for His glory! So in believing this, in knowing He is using us, I feel honored and joyful. Does it hurt, yes, is it hard, yes, but is it worth it, YES! So from now I am going to try to remain focused…will I stumble or fall…yes, but I know I He will pick me up along with the people He has put in our lives to help us….the one thing that I won’t do is take my eyes off of Him because my faith depends on Him and so does Landon’s future. I donot know what will be but like Mindy said “then again if I did then I wouldn’t need Him or faith”… so I willingly give this race up to Him.

The one word that comes up each day is….VICTORY…I believe that the Lord will be victorious in this run and for Landon. There is a “fight” being fought right now and the Lord is going to claim victory when it is through.

So from start to finish we will run this race because on that day when the Lord claims victory and we are holding our son Landon in our arms HE will recieve all the honor, praise and glory and yet He being the loving giver of life will bless us with the most amazing gift of Landon…

Update: I had to get on and add this scripture that Mindy sent to me this morning after praying for us!  2 Chronicles 15:14-15 “They shouted out their oath of loyality to the Lord with trumpets blaring and horns sounding. All were happy to hear of this commitment, for they had entered into it with all their hearts. Eagerly they sought after God, and they found him. And the Lord gave them rest from their enemies.” I want to write everything down so that I can come back to this in the times of need!

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. Joshua 1:9