A New Fundraiser

Hi all! Things have been pretty quiet here as we are patiently waiting to be chosen. We do have someone looking at our book in the next few days, and if we are chosen we would have to travel to get the baby. So we are desperately trying to find a bank that will give us a loan and then we can pay on it as we fundraise and when we get the Adoption Tax credit next year. Speaking of fundraising...we have a new one in the works that won't cost you a thing to help us out!

We are going to be working with an organization called Angel Bins. They collect new and gently used shoes and send them to developing nations. So we are going to be collecting kids shoes of all types and sizes. When we fill 10 boxes they pay to have them shipped, then they are weighed and we will make $.45 a pound. This is where you come in. If you are local we will be collecting shoes, if you are not local, and are willing, you could collect shoes for us!! When you have 8-10 boxes (18x18x24 sized boxes) you will get a shipping label and you can send them off (free for you) and we will collect from it!! This is a great opportunity to help us out if you aren't in a financial place to do that (we totally GET that, we are right there with you).

Other ways you could help, if you have airline points or whatever they are called, that we could use and save on flights, that would be great. If you have a time share or a vacation home somewhere that we could use if we have to travel far (the possibility exists that we can use a Ronald McDonald house too). If you are looking for somewhere to donate some of your tax return, we can use that too 😏

If you would like to make a collection for us just let me know and we can work out the details. We appreciate your prayers and support thus far. If we are chosen for this one, it will take a miracle to get us there and make it happen, so we appreciate the continued prayers.

waiting

We have been anxiously waiting for days. Thinking about all of the necessities we would have to gather for a baby to come into our home in 2 weeks. We wanted to keep it from the kids, when a birth mother is looking at our book, so that they don't get excited and hurt repeatedly, we failed this time because of the urgency of the situation.

Last night I sent a message to our adoption worker telling her it just made me feel better to check in, even though I know she is going to tell us when she knows something. She messaged back today and said she was hoping to have confirmation before letting us know anything, but last she heard the birth mother was leaning towards a different family. No confirmation of that as of yet.

I fully knew this was a possibility, obviously. But I had really hoped that this was our turn for a miracle, our turn for some good news. It doesn't seem like the case. As I fought back tears I thought to myself, how are you going to handle this time after time? I have to change how I am thinking about it.

I am choosing to remind myself this is not like our miscarriages, this child is not dying, he is getting a home, a loving family. This is a win! This family has been waiting just like ours. We don't have to start over with fertility treatments or anything like that. We are at the same place we were a week ago, waiting. This isn't OUR baby, and that is ok. It has to be ok.

So we will continue to raise funds. We will continue to pray for the birth mother of our child. We will continue to pray for OUR child. We will continue following what God has called us to, even though it is scary, even though it seems impossible, even though people tell us we shouldn't. We will just keep waiting.

Coincidences?

     As I have been thinking about and praying for the birth mom that is looking at our book today, I have realized a few things.
     First, her baby is due the same day that the first baby we lost was due.
     Second, last November, when we started this process, she wouldn't have been pregnant yet. She would have gotten pregnant in February (probably). We had most of our paper work done by then, but that is when Colm started having trouble and we didn't know what was wrong. We slowed down our adoption process.
     Third, our homestudy was finished and we received the message about this birth mom within 24 hours of each other.
     Fourth, she is near some of our family. So if we get chosen, we have a place to stay, no extra money for hotels necessary.
     These could all be coincidences, but they could be God at work. Please pray for us as we wait over the next couple of days to hear, either way. Please pray this mom would make the best decision for her baby. Please pray for our baby and it's birth mom, whomever they may be.

Exciting updates

     Our homestudy is finally officially completed!! We had to wait this last month for one person to turn in a form for it to be official. It is really hard waiting for someone else to complete something for you that is so important! So now whenever a birth mother is looking for a family, if our adoption worker thinks we would be a good fit, our family Shutterfly book gets shown to them and we are in the running to be chosen! This also means we need to be ready at any moment because the birth mother could be at any point in her pregnancy, or even have delivered already.
     Along those lines...our case worker is already showing our book to someone tomorrow!! And she is due this month!!! I am shaking with excitement! Now, this doesn't mean we will be chosen, but we are pretty awesome so who knows.
     There are some things that would have to fall into place. If she chooses us we would need $3000 ASAP. She is in Ohio and they require that money to help with her living expenses. She may or may not use it, but I think we have to pay it either way (still a little unclear on that). So, if you have ever considered donating to our fund now would be a great time! You can do that through paypal (I believe whether you have a paypal account or not) right here on this page. I will now, also, be beginning the process of applying for grants.
     Please pray for us as we begin the hardest part of this journey, waiting to be chosen. Please pray for our hearts if we are not chosen this time or any other times. Thank you friends!!

Dear Birth Parent

     One of the things we have to do is write a letter to the birth parent(s) to be placed on our agencies website. Parents can look through those and read a little about families and then inquire with the agency for more info.
     So, I started to read through some of the other letters to try and get an idea of what in the world I could possibly write. This has been the most challenging thing I have had to do so far. How do you talk to someone you don't know, who is considering giving you their CHILD?
     As I was reading through them for ideas, I mostly figured out what I didn't want to say. Many, many of them talk about God bringing them to this and being thankful and so on. While I believe those things to be true, and also feel them about where WE are at, I am 100% sure the birth mother does NOT. If I write how thankful I am God brought her to us, what does that tell her about God? That he did this to her? That this hard, possibly horrible, time in her life was all planned out by God? Even though I believe God has a plan, even through tough times, it is SO hard to see in the  moment. I have no idea if she is a believer and I don't want to give her the wrong impression of our great God. So I tried my best to be real with her, to empathize with her. Here is what I came up with.

Dear Birth Parent,

            Life doesn’t always go as planned does it? We’ve experienced it and I bet you are feeling that way right now. We have felt that way many times and questioned the decisions we have made. But we have come to realize they weren’t wrong decisions, just decisions that had a difficult outcome that we had to work through. And as we look back, we did the best we could.

            You are doing the best you can right now. You are trying to get the best outcome from a difficult time.  We believe that God helped us through those difficult times and that he provided us with what we needed even though it wasn’t always evident while we were going through it.

            We have been trying to have another baby for seven years. We went through fertility treatments and two miscarriages. Those times were awful. But it lead us to this place.  Now we know that this is where we are supposed to be. Adopting a baby is where all of our decisions have lead us. Hindsight allows us to be grateful for the difficult times and we pray that when this difficult time is in your past, you will be grateful for the decision that you make.

Then I wrote a little about each of us and closed with
  
    

There is a song that says “Down in the valley, dying of thirst; Now down in the valley, it seems that I'm at my worst; My consolation is that You baptize this Earth; I'm down in the valley, valleys fill first”. This song always makes me remember that the valleys bloom before the mountaintops. While we feel like we are at our lowest, God can create beauty in the valley.

             Thank you for reading about us. We pray you can see the beauty during this time.


     I pray that as we all go through the daily struggles of life that, eventually,  we can all see the beauty and the meaning.

My Gift

     Writing is not my gift. I will never be a blogger that has lots of followers the way some who are raising money for their adoption do. We have very few friends that live near us, so our only contact with many is social media. As we have shared our adoption story on social media we have been surprised, humbled, and disappointed. Some people that we thought would jump at the opportunity to help us have our baby have been silent. Some that we hardly talk to have been generous. Some that we have never met have supported us.
     Writing is not my gift. Being a mom is my gift. All I ever wanted to be was a mom. Well, there were a few other things scattered in there through out my young life, but always a mom. My baby dolls were treated as real babies. I have held every baby I could get my hands on. The day I found out I was going to be a mom was amazing, a dream come true. I took something like 3 or 4 home pregnancy tests, and called the number on the box just to make sure. Five months after Colm was born I found out I was pregnant with Moira. When she was born via c-section the doctor told me that I needed to take some time before we had another baby. That was fine with me. I had been pregnant for almost two years straight, I needed a break.
     Colm was an easy baby, happy, hardly cried. Moira was hoarse before we left the hospital from crying. She had reflux and screamed for about 9 months. I was always ready for more babies, but the screaming stayed in the forefront of Jeremy's mind a little longer than mine.
     When Moira was two we decided it was time. We never imagined we would have any trouble conceiving. After a couple of months I knew something was wrong. In December of that year we sought a fertility doctor. He ran all the tests, painful, embarrassing, and emotional tests. They found nothing wrong. I was given some medication and strict directions and all we could do was hope and pray it would work. It did. The answer to our prayers was left on our answering machine. I was pregnant. I was overjoyed, relieved, and so thankful.  The normal follow up blood tests were scheduled for a week later. Then the phone call came that changed my life forever. The number were not increasing as they should. I was going to lose the baby.
     I was devastated. This thought had never crossed my mind with this one. I was angry and more sad than I had ever been, for a long time. I was mad at God, for a LONG time, years.
     Then He healed my heart, as only He can do. I grew closer to Him than I had been in a very long time. I felt like He was leading us to try fertility treatments again. (We had tried several more times after the first loss and did not conceive again).
     I obeyed, and long story short (at least this part of the story), God provided and I conceived again, I was beyond thankful. But I felt hesitant. I knew how quickly this could be taken from me again. And it was.
     I couldn't understand. I had come to accept the first loss. I was able to help several other women who were going through a miscarriage. But a second one, I could find no meaning in that.
We had always wanted to adopt. When I was a senior in high school I read about the horrible treatment of orphans in China and I knew that I needed to adopt. I always wanted to adopt from China.
     This past fall we decided it was time to begin the process. We decided on infant domestic adoption. I still so greatly desire a baby, even though I cannot carry one within me. And domestic is the best option for getting an infant. So we set out on fundraising. I, maybe foolishly, thought that all of our friends and family that know what we have been through, know the hurt, the loss and the great desire of our hearts, would jump at the opportunity to help. Times are tough. We know that. But we CANNOT do this without you.
     You know, when you are pregnant people ask you how you are feeling, if you are excited, all sorts of questions. When you are adopting, no one brings it up. No one asks questions. Being pregnant on paper is hard. We know it is probably going to take longer than 9 months. And the idea that it may not happen at all is crippling. It would feel like another miscarriage. We pray for this baby, we pray for his or her birth mom and extended family. The kids, the kids pray.
     I don't mean for this to sound so very depressing. I just needed you all to know, if you didn't already, why we are doing what we are doing, where we are at.
     God has called all of His children to care for widows and orphans. We are trying to follow His command. 
Thank you for taking the time to read this. If God is calling you to help, you can do that on this page. If not, please pray for us and this process.