One Year Ago....

It's about to be October and the early days of autumn.  The weather is what I consider ideal - breezy, sunny, with highs in the high 70s and low 80s and very low humidity.  Fall is a time to remember.  I often ponder the "Seasons of Life" when the seasons change.

Right now, I'm remembering this time last year.  It was excruciatingly, painfully emotional.  Within a week, a friend of ours died, I got terrible news about my extended family that resulted in my uncle going to jail, I got correspondence from the final agency in our state that placed adoptions from South Korea and learned we would not be able to adopt from them.  My heart broke, and I ran to our bedroom to cry and kick and scream.  I thought that was the end of any possibility to adopt.  Did I mention that my husband was gone at a conference and that I got strep throat at the end of the week?  Honestly, it was the worst week of my life.

Then, a friend of mine  posted a portion of Matthew 16:24 as his Facebook status: "If anyone would come after Me, let Him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me."  And, well, that ceased any thoughts of anger or hatred towards God.  I was hurt and struggling and felt so spiritually weak, but I knew we were doing the right thing.

How far we have come in a year - from deciding to give domestic adoption a try a few weeks after that terrible week, to returning to international adoption through a completely different plan, to finally deciding on Hong Kong despite our agency's hesitation, to committing to a special needs child, to now - waiting for matching approval that looks like it will come any day now (we got word last week that it is being written, along with some updates on the child we have committed to).

That being said, my message today is:  Don't give up.  Don't think a pursuit or a dream is ended when all doors seem to be shut.  Never doubt that our God is greater and more powerful than all things of this world, and He can use the most desperate and dark of situations to let His glory shine though our lives.

Psalm 71:20 has long been my favorite Scripture:  "Though You have made me see troubles, many and bitter, You will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth You will again bring me up."


  

Our Milestone Blessing

I continued to be so humbled and amazed by how God is aligning all the steps for us to adopt.  After so many dark, lonely, and painful years, we see the light!

            If you’ve been following on our journey (I doubt many have, as I struggle to update this blog often!)  you know that we’ve been saving for several years to begin this journey.  We started work on a homestudy in November 2012, had an approved homestudy by March 2013, identified ‘our’ waiting child in April, and our dossier was shipped to Hong Kong on May 31^st.  Currently, we are waiting to be officially matched with this child, and then take the steps to secure a travel date (!).

            In early June, we met a savings goal for this adoption - $25,000 total saved, which should more or less cover all adoption expenses (including fees we have already paid).

            I am still astounded as to how that happened…but I’ll do my best to explain how we accomplished that.

            We didn’t fundraise, ask people for money, or apply for grants.  Not that we think there is anything wrong with that, but our area and situation wasn’t conducive to fundraising, we weren’t comfortable asking people for money, and by the time we were able to look at grants it was clear that we didn’t need them.

            We did: Live on one income (my husband’s) while saving mine (minus tithe and taxes) for three years.  The first year, I was working around 20-25 hours per week; the next two years it was a full 40 with the exception of summer and vacations. We saved part or all of any money we were given as gifts.  I signed up to be a consultant for Lilla Rose, started playing organ for church on occasion, and put those earnings into our adoption fund. 

            It doesn’t sound like much, and I amazed by God’s blessing and provision to make everything fall in place.  To Him be the glory, honor, and praise, both now and forevermore!

I am linking up with:

April 23rd

Oh, my.  Oh, Lord – You are too good to us.  Your works are wonderful!  Truly, You know the plans you have for us!

WE HAVE IDENTIFIED OUR CHILD!

I NEVER expected this to happen so quickly and as easily as it did.  Let me tell the wonderful story….

One week ago today (April 16^th),  my car was in the shop for some minor repairs and routine maintenance. My husband was taking that day (a Tuesday) off instead of his usual Monday due to some schedule changes, so he picked me up from work, took me to a doctor appointment for a manipulation on my neck and upper back, then drove us to pick up my car and get some dinner.  On the way to the auto shop, I checked my e-mail on my phone and saw that we had a message in our private online adoption “portal” with the subject title “Waiting Child”.  This intrigued me…What about a waiting child, I wondered?  It was hard to wait to get home and see the actual message. 

When I was able to access it, this is what I read:

“Hi D and K,
We received a new referral through our partner in Hong Kong, and thought of your family. I wondered if you may want to take a look? If so, I am posting [child’s] referral here, [your social worker] is aware of this as well. Let me know your thoughts.”

Then I looked at the child study.  This is a more in-depth summary of a child than you would find in a photolisting, but not a complete medical report.  In this case, I learned this child’s gender, birthdate, medical diagnoses, and birth family background.  We didn’t have a preference on the gender.  I did review the birth family background, but honestly, it doesn’t have any bearing on our decision to consider a particular child or not.  The list of medical diagnoses was tricky – Hong Kong uses lots of British English medical terms that are tricky to ‘translate’, so there were several things we were unsure about, but we weren’t alarmed by any of the medical information.  The birth date was significant – I’ll get to that in a bit.

After taking a couple days to research things to the best of our ability, I called our doctor’s office to make an appointment to discuss this child’s file on Thursday (the 18^th). 

We met with our doctor on Monday the 22^nd and were encouraged.  Lots of the things we couldn’t figure out were not a big deal, just variations of normal.  He did say that this little guy looks “syndromic’, meaning he has the look and several anomalies that point to a possible genetic disorder.  I felt compelled to move forward. 

My husband kept asking me if I was ‘sure’.  I couldn’t say a certain ‘yes’.  I mean, it seems that in my (overly-realistic?  pessimistic?) mind that I can never give a certain answer.  There is always a shred of doubt that holds me back.  It was there when I chose a college, when I declared a major both times, on my wedding day, with job changes, etc.  And that ever-present little shred of doubt was still there, even though I wanted so badly to leap forward shouting, “Yes!”  We decided it would be wise to sleep on it at least one night before contacting our agency with an answer.

The next morning (Tuesday the 23^rd), I awoke at 5 a.m. thanks to our very active sump pump.  I had fallen asleep thinking about this child, and my thought was, “I want to say yes.”

I shared that with my husband when I arrived home from work, and he agreed.  We sent our agency the glorious message, “We would like to proceed!”

Our little one is a boy, just over a year old.  We are awaiting our USCIS approval so we can send in our dossier.  Our estimated time from dossier submission to being formally matched is 2-4 months (he is not "officially" ours until then), and we will travel 7-12 months after that.  Urgh – more waiting!  It is going to be so hard to know he is growing without us.  Ideally, we’d travel in January.  I am going to pray that we travel by early March at the latest, as that would save us the hassle and fee to update our home study.

And his birthdate…I just cannot go without mentioning this vignette that demonstrates how my God does all things well.  I had often heard from adoptive mamas that there was some special ESP about the day their child was born.  I basically considered that to be an exaggeration.  But God! 

The day our child was born, I was despairing.  I had been having a very strange period that week.  It came on time, but was extremely light and remained that way for 4-5 days.  I was going crazy wondering if it was implantation bleeding from a pregnancy.  I both did and didn’t want to be pregnant. I wanted to be a mother in whatever way God saw fit to answer my prayers, but I was also so sure we were going to adopt at that point.  I knew if I was pregnant, I would need to grieve again, this time for the adopted child we wouldn’t have at the time.  I went back and forth all week, debating to test or not to test, wondering what to pray for, struggling between hope and dread for conception and adoption alike.  I got two hours of sleep a night for three days straight and ended up leaving work early on that third day because I felt terrible, but picking up a pregnancy test on my way home.

I tested the next morning.  Negative.  And I wept for both relief and sorrow, pain and peace.  I both thanked God and was angry at him.  My full flow, of course, began later that day (and continued for 8 days afterward)….

…and halfway around the world, our son was born.

Oh Lord.  Who knows what He was trying to do with that lining up of events.  Perhaps it was a final test of my faith in the midst of infertility, or to prepare my heart for the rocky road of international adoption, or simply to strengthen me.  One thing is certain – He worked out for the best and for His glory.

As all great gifts from heaven do.

Weary

Today I am weary.

I think there are a myriad of reason for my weariness.  First off, I'm simply tired.  It's hard to work a 40-hour week outside the home, walk the dog for a hour every day, keep a house in order, keep up with organ practice, run a side business (Lilla Rose),  and do Christmas prep tasks.  Of course, I've also got a dear husband and a sweet puppy dog to care for.

I'm a bit mentally drained from the home study process.  We got all the paperwork and three of the four interviews done in less than three weeks.  I'm thrilled that we were efficient, and I'm relieved that it's almost done, but in the aftermath of all that work, my mind is exhausted.

Finally, there's the emotional weariness.  Oh, I'm feeling emotions.  I'm scared.  I fear things falling through, us never becoming parents, and losing tens of thousands of dollars in the process.  I am afraid of not being a good mom.  I am scared of not being able to attach to my future child, or provide for their medical needs, or properly handle institutional behaviors. There's so many unknowns in international adoption, and the reality of them is finally settling in for me.  I'm finding them frightening, and it's tiring.

I would also like to share two specific prayer requests - well, they're kind of two-in-one.  First, that God would send us some kind of clear vision as to which country we should choose.  We are really struggling with that one. I went so far as to say the other day, "This is too big for us.  I just want someone else to decide for us."

Second - there's a precious child of God on our agency's private photolisting that has my heart.  I've known their picture for a few weeks now and have prayed for this particular little one.  Our agency seems excited about our interest in this particular child.  We've gotten their medical history and felt that, although the diagnoses were many, all of this child's needs were either correctable or manageable.  However, we then brought this medical report to our doctors.  One diagnosis has the potential to be far more involved than we imagined.  It's not a deal-breaker for me (though I fear it may be for my husband), but it makes the decision more difficult.

Please pray that the Lord would give us clear, solid direction.  I pray that I will see children through His eyes, not our human ones.

Blessed Thanksgiving!

Most individuals that struggle with infertility will tell you that holidays are hard.  I’m one of them.  They are an annual marker of more time passed, and I’m still not a mama.

This Thanksgiving was definitely more joyful than previous ones, however, as we spent much of it filling out adoption study paperwork!

I indicated in my last post that we were re-considering domestic adoption, as well as an international adoption, with a new agency. We were pre-approved for Bulgaria, Colombia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Hong Kong, and Uganda. We could also choose to adopt from South Korea or South Africa.  God used a variety of factors to lead us to international adoption (again).

The week before Thanksgiving, we submitted our formal application, received formal approval, and made our first payment to our agency.  The services contract and notice of privacy practices were printed, signed, and mailed out.  Once again, we’re in this for real!

Last Friday, we got a call from our social worker asking if we would be able to get one of our home visits done on Tuesday.  Um, yes!  Our agency’s “local” office is over three hours away, but she was going to be in our area.  That worked out so nicely!  She was here from seven o’clock to about eight-thirty. 

We felt very comfortable with her and were able to get quite a bit of work done on our home study!  We signed their discipline policy, statement of faith, and a host of other papers that I can’t remember.  She went through some of the early phases of interviews, which including asking us what led us to pursue international adoption, what led us to where we live now, our support networks, and what we know about international adoption.  I was very proud and encouraged by her responses.  She said that our perceptions were wonderful and that she is excited for us!  Our social worker also did the walk-through of our home already.  We knew it was a possibility, so we had cleaned and straightened things up and whatnot.  Honestly, it was very laid back and comfortable,  and the state of my home didn’t seem to be a big deal.  She was looked at every room, asked where our future child’s room would be, and wanted to ensure that we had enough smoke detectors.  It was impressive to her that we had a carbon monoxide detector.  And that was it! 

Of course, we have much more work ahead of us.  We have to send our background check authorizations to every state we’ve lived in over the past five years (that would be four of them).  There are physical forms to be completed at the doctor’s office, big questionnaires with invasive questions, a health insurance affidavit, a financial checklist, family history forms, and a few more things I’m forgetting.  We will also need to decide who we will name as legal guardians for our child should we die – that’s going to be a tough one.  I honestly had never thought of that, but it makes sense that they need that information!  Meanwhile, our social worker will be contacting our personal, work, and pastor references and scheduling two or three more interviews with us.  Finally (I think?) we have to complete 30 hours of adoptive parent education throughout this entire process, and at least 10 hours must be done be the home study can be complete.  Education hours can be completed in a variety of ways: Adoption seminars, reading books, webinars, talking with other adoptive families, etc.

Of course, we also need to do this little thing called “making a decision” on what country to adopt from.  It’s going to be tough.  We have been able to eliminate Colombia, Ghana, and South Africa from consideration as we cannot fulfill their travel requirements. Bulgaria and Ethiopia are out as the ages of their adoptable children aren't very compatible with the ages we are seeking. 

That leaves us with Uganda, South Korea, and Hong Kong.  All three contenders have advantages as well as significant challenges for us.  Next week, I will be calling our agency’s program coordinators for these countries to get further information.  Our social worker will also be sending us a medical conditions checklist that may help us determine what special needs we can consider, which may also help us determine which country has those types of children.

Once our home study is complete, I will begin getting some grant applications submitted.  I know I've stopped doing updates on our adoption fund, but it’s around $16,000 right now (we spent $300 on application fees with our first agency, $550 to apply with our agency, $110 on renewing my passport and $140 on a passport for my husband).  We are looking at spending somewhere between $20,000 and $38,000 on this entire process, so we will need to find a way to come up with more funds.

In closing, we are certainly thankful today.  We are thankful for the transition from ‘infertile/unknown’ to ‘prospective adoptive parents.’ We realize that we are VERY fortunate to have saved a good amount towards our adoption at this point.  God is so generous.  For all He has blessed us with, for the ultimate blessing of His Son, Jesus, and simply for who He is – we give thanks to Him.

Changes

First off, I want to share about a big, fun giveaway that a sweet acquaintance of mine is doing!  Caroline is a fellow Lilla Rose consultant and blogs at www.themodestmomblog.com  She also runs an online store with skirts, shells, and other great clothing items.  I have two skirts and three layering shells from her and love them all!  She is changing the name of her business to Deborah & Co. to reflect her service to all women, not just moms.  To celebrate this, she's having a great giveaway!  Go check it out at http://www.themodestmomblog.com/2012/10/huge-giveaway-even-bigger-announcement/

Next, an update on us.  In my last post, I shared that we were back to the drawing board with domestic adoption, as well as my fears and misgivings about it.  Well, God.  I just love how full of surprises He can be!  We are on two waiting lists to begin a domestic adoption, but also working on a formal application for international adoption as well.

You see, one of the agencies that we're working with for domestic also does international adoptions.  When we had our initial telephone conference with them earlier this week, she really encouraged us to fill out a pre-application for international as well since we were so drawn to it.  We explained that we weren't sure if any of their country programs would accept us (due to age/length of marriage/history of mental health diagnoses), or if we could meet the travel requirements or needs of children available in the countries we did qualify for.  She very gently persuaded us to fill out the free pre-application to see what we would qualify for and to go from there.

I'm so glad we did!  We are pre-approved for seven of their country programs.  Now, none of them are "ideal" in terms of having children with needs we feel we can meet, or travel requirements that would be 'easy' for us to fulfill, but we have decided to proceed.  We've decided to let God get to work and are praying hard that He will lead us to the child He's chosen for us.

And yes, we have already asked to see their discipline policy.  I cried when I read it..for relief.  I was so relieved it was something we could sign, and relieved that there are still Christian agencies that adhere to Scripture.  The whole policy was so beautifully written, we couldn't have come up with a more perfectly stated, Christ-centered, discipline philosophy.  We are so impressed with this new agency thus far!

Hopefully, we will have some more direction in the form of our agency's opinion next week.  As always, we would graciously appreciate your prayers!

The Lord is in the Details

Well, it’s been a week – in a good way!  We are in this for real, as in – we have officially pre-applied for international adoption!

This has not been done without hesitance or fear or concerns.  I’ll save those for another post.  We’re taking a leap of faith here, and we’re cool with that.  I believe that God wants us to be parents, and that He desperately wants orphans to become part of Christian families.

Last weekend I joyfully began filling out the pre-application.  I hunted down 4x6 photos of us and of our home.  I dug out our last three years of tax returns and made copies of page one of each of them.  We read the lengthy “adoption services agreement” and went to the bank to get it signed and notarized.  Four non-relatives – each of whom knew we’d been unable to have biological children and were supportive of adoption – were contacted and asked if they were willing to be ‘non-relative personal references’ for us.  Lastly, we wrote a $300 check for the pre-application fee and mailed it off.

God is already giving us little things that assure us we have His blessing.  Number one – we completed this paperwork on Sept. 12.  It was 11 years to the day that my sweet cousins were scheduled to come home from Russia.  Wow, that was an emotional realization – but in the most wonderful way!  The second assurance we got was when I received an e-mail reply from our (well, soon-to-be ‘our’) social worker saying that she had no other homestudies in progress at this time, so we could get that done pretty quickly if we wanted to!  Oh Jesus! You are too good to us!

Finally, we’d been told to plan on getting three certified copies of our marriage certificate (and birth certificates) for the homestudy, and I need a fourth marriage certificate to renew my passport (it expires in February, and I’ve gotten married since, so proof of change in surname is required).  I didn’t want to wait 4-6 weeks for the copies to come before sending in passport renewal paperwork, but I also wasn’t thrilled about sending our only copy to the U.S. government and trusting them to not lose it.  This morning I was filling out the request for copies and went to dig out our existing copy to make sure everything matched.  Um, we have two copies!  I just squealed,  “We have two!”  I have no recollection of two, just one.  But this is wonderful, because now I feel perfectly fine sending one of those off with my passport renewal paperwork. 

Thank you, Lord!

Thy Will Be Done

These are the words that I wished I could say and mean during our earlier days of our infertility.  They are, after all, words from the Lord’s Prayer, which Jesus modeled for us after saying, “This is how you should pray.”  It’s what my pastors taught me to close our prayers with.  I was often told, “God’s will is best.”  And believed it.  But once tougher times in life came upon me, it was hard to get those words out, and it was even harder to mean them when I spoke them.

As mentioned in my earliest post, I have a psychology degree.  It was not my original major.  In fact, I often feel like I didn’t earn this degree because I only spent the last of my four college years as a psych major,  I was a nursing major for the first three years.  To make a long, sad, and painful story short, I burned out when a major depression arose in me, stemming from family problems and severe stress.  I was on meds, in therapy, etc. and simply did not have the presence of mind needed to ‘perform’ up to par in clinicals during that third year.  After two marginal passes, my options were to appeal or accept defeat.  I am still amazed at how peacefully and clearly I was able to understand all the signs from God that this season in my life was done, and walk away.

I did not make this decision without pain, and certainly spent several months grieving this loss.  I remember often wondering why God would lead me down that path in the first place, if only to fail.  My answer (or at least, what I think is the answer) came a few months after I withdrew from the nursing program. 

I still had a certified nursing assistant’s license and held a job at a hospital in the area.  One July night, I helped take care of a young man, just a few years older than I, who was being treated for a severe broken leg and broken arm.  He had gotten those injuries in a car crash, where he was driving drunk and the person he hit was killed.  When I stepped in to say I was done for the night, he was frantically flipping through Bible with tears in his eyes.  “I have to know that I can be forgiven,” he told me.  He noticed the gold cross necklace that I was wearing and asked, “Where should I read?” 

My heart broke for him.  “I would start with the Psalms,” I said, squeezing his hand.  “I will be back in the morning, and I will pray for you.”

The next morning, I was assigned to that same bank of rooms.  When I entered his, he handed me a piece of paper.   He had a soft smile and tears in his eyes, the look of someone too choked up to speak.

The paper read, “I felt God last night.  He forgives me and loves me.  I believe in Him.”  The young man choked out a, “Thank you,” as I reached for his hand again, and my own eyes filled with tears.  Oh, the power of God’s Word!  It is so easy to forget how strong it is, until we see it in action, bringing sinners to faith.

Several days after this, it dawned on me that had I not been a nursing major, I would not have had that CNA job, and I would never have been there for that young man being brought to faith.  There have, or course, been times since then when my sinful nature has asked, “Was it all really worth it for just one man to receive faith?”  

“Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” (Luke 15:7 ESV).   

So, yes.  Worth it ALL.

If God’s will was for me to endure my tough years in nursing school just to be available to witness to that young man, so be it.  It's hard to feel this way – but the Bible verse above clearly illustrates how precious and important it is to God for unbelievers to repent, and come to a knowledge of the truth. 

Thy Will Be Done.

And in the same way, the more I look into our future as (hopefully) parents by adoption, the more I see how God may have allowed us to suffer through infertility, in order to lead us to adopt a child who otherwise would have grown up as an orphan – or worse, a child that would have otherwise not been baptized or heard God’s Word.  And if that is how he works our lives to His glory, so be it. 

If that is how He intends to bring another soul to faith in Him, may it be so. 

If we are to be His instruments in this blessed manner – speak, O Lord, for your servants are listening.

As the familiar hymn goes, "What God ordains is always good."

May God’s will alone be done.

The most exciting thing that happened to me this summer...

At orientation for work several weeks ago, everyone was asked to stand up, introduce themselves, and tell what was the most exciting part of their summer.

I think I said, "The best part of my summer was our trip to visit with family.' Actually, the most exciting event was this incident:

(I decided against posting the 'immediately-after-stitches' photo where there's a fair amount of blood smeared around my hand.  You are welcome. :)

Here's how it happened:
We have a small kitchen with not very much cabinet space.  Because of this, I had to think out-of-the-box when I unpacked all our kitchen stuff into the cabinets.  Our toaster, combination food processor/blender, and parts are in a high upper cabinet above the sink.

About three weeks ago, I got home from a morning walk and decided to make some smoothies.  I reached up and grabbed the blender.  Unbeknownst to me, the blade attachment for the food processor was just sitting up there, and the blender cord caught those blades and pulled them out.  They fell and planted themselves between my fingers. It happened so quickly...just all of a sudden I have big streams of blood running down my arm from this gigantic scary HOLE in between my fingers.

Somehow, I was able to think coherently enough to grab a clean old towel and apply pressure first, and call my husband second.  He answered, and I came right out with, "Um, I need you to take me to the doctor right now.  I need stitches."  Thank God we live right next door to our church, where he works.  We loaded in the car, I called the clinic to let them know I was coming, while my husband drove more quickly than he usually does. ;)

I have LOVED our doctors and their clinic from my first day there last summer, but they impressed me even more that day.  They were able to get me in almost immediately and willing to take care of me right there, rather then sending me to an urgent care facility or the ER.  I had to soak my hand in betadine for awhile, then got the horrible numbing injection up two nerves in my hand (that was horrible -  sort of feeling, sort of not feeling him dig around inside my hand with a big needle for what felt like five minutes.  Ugh.  I shiver just thinking about it!).  After that had taken effect, they sewed me up with five stitches, gave me a tetanus booster, and sent me home.  My doctor said most stitches need to stay in for 7-10 days, but I absolutely needed 10 days because that cut was so deep.  I got it checked on day 11 because day 10 fell on a Sunday, and actually ended up needed to go 14 days because it hadn't closed enough.  It is looking good, just a little bit raw from skin that is still peeling.  The scar is not the noticeable unless you are looking for it.

I quickly realized that we had a lot to be thankful for with this incident.  We are very thankful that our little, local, rural clinic has awesome physicians that are willing and able to take 'urgent care' cases like this.  Because of that, we were able to avoid an ER bill.  I am grateful that this happened in my left hand and I am a righty.  My doctor noted that I was VERY lucky that blade didn't slice any nerves or ligaments.  If it had, I would need full-out hand surgery.  Finally, a bit superficially - I'm thankful that I didn't get any blood on the new skirt and top I was wearing.

And no, I don't need a better kitchen storage solution - I tossed that nasty blade attachment in the trash.  I've only ever used the grater attachment for the food processor anyways.

Update

I apologize for the long gap in between postings.  School started two weeks ago, which means I am working 40 hours/week again.  Wahoo - not.  I am so content to be home full-time, and it's really a challenge for me to get up and dedicate myself to work each weekday.  I have to continually remind myself that this is a means to an end, and that it will be worth it ALL when we reach that beautiful end.

Here is the latest on our adoption journey: We have made the decision to pursue an international adoption from South Korea and are planning to pre-apply in January.  (Yeah, I SO wish we could just start right now, but when we lined up where our adoption fund would be with our agency's projected timeline, there was a good chance we'd owe money we didn't have in a little over a year.  So we're waiting about four more months.)  It took one of us quite awhile to settle on that. In the past month we met with two other pastor's families who have adopted - one internationally from South Korea, the other, domestic infant.  That's what finally confirmed which route was the best fit for us.  I really wish we would have done that sooner.

I guess I should be excited that we're so close, but I'm kind of sad that we're just adding more months onto the years of waited we've already endured. Yeah, I know, I need to suck it up 
I can't sleep right now, so I'm getting research done on how to get the certified copies of our birth/marriage certificates and how to renew my passport. That should make the homestudy go much more quickly once we begin.

This is not public information, but we are hoping/planning to make it so in our Christmas letter at the end of this year. I just don't know how to tell extended family, so a letter will have to do.

Health...of the Weighty Variety

My husband and I decided over Christmas that we would try to eat better and be more diligent about regular exercise this year.

I am really, really proud of our results thus far.

On January 1^st I weighed in at 171.2 lbs.  The ‘healthy’ range for my height (I’m 5’10”) tops off at around 174, so this was alarming to me.  For the first couple months, I simply counted calories and did my best to consume no more than 1500/day.  This helped me lose a few pounds, but nothing to write home about.  I knew I needed to exercise; specifically, I needed to start doing a workout DVD in my living room.  I HATE working out in my living room, but with no money for a gym membership (and no gyms within 15 miles of us) no room or money for a treadmill, and the fact that it was the end of February and we live in the upper Midwest (meaning I couldn’t run or walk outside due to the cold and ice), I gritted my teeth and starting doing the Power90 workouts by Beachbody.  (This is the slightly older and easier version of P90X).

Roughly 12 weeks later, I am amazed.  I feel so firm, toned, and strong, compared to my previous flabby softness.  I can see muscles defined in places I didn’t know muscles existed.  I can do 10 ‘real’ push-ups and another 40 “girl” push-ups in one workout. 

Even with all this new muscle (which weighs more than fat) I weighed in at 160.2 this morning – exactly 11 lbs. lost!  I am hoping to reach 150 by the end of 2012.

Praise the Lord for granting me the disciple and strength to get this far.  In Him I can do ALL THINGS!

Mother's Day for the Infertile

My heart goes out to any other ladies struggling with infertility on this day. 

It stings a little, but I am thanking and praising God for the strength He is giving me.  I am doing so much better on Mother’s Day today than I was just two or three years ago.  In fact, it was three years ago that I told my husband I wasn’t going to church on Mother’s Day until I was a mom, because it just hurt too much to see all the moms get recognized while I bit my lip and struggled not to burst into tears.  By His grace and strength, I went to church today, and it didn’t really bother me when mothers were acknowledged at the end of the service.

I'd like to close with what a good friend of mine had as her Facebook status this day last year.  She and her husband struggled with infertility as well, adopted, and now have two grown-up daughters:

“Happy mother's day to all the moms, grandmothers, and to all those who long to be a mother.”


This post is linked to Modest Mondays

Thankful

There was a mini-movement on Facebook this year to post an item you were thankful for in your status from November 1 to November 24 (Thanksgiving).  I put down 25 since I like my numbers to be multiples of five.  :)

1.  Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

2. Martin Luther

3. Being a member of a church body that believes, teaches, and confesses Scriptural truth.

4. My baptism

5. the Lord’s Supper

6. My husband and my pastor (they’re one and the same)

7. Living in the Midwest

8. Christian parents

9. Christian teachers and mentors throughout all my school years

10. Godly in-laws

11. Music

12. Musical ability

13. Living close to family

14. A lovely house to call ‘home’

15. My job

16. God-fearing co-workers

17.Having the resources to consider an international adoption

18.Being able to access, read, and study God’s word

19. My practical, faithful car

20. Fourteen years of sweet companionship with our (my parents, sisters, and my) family dog who had to be put down in September

21. Facebook – sounds shallow I know, but it really helps us feel like we can stay in touch and be social with our closest friends and family in other states

22. Books

23. The Green Bay Packers

24. Gymnastics

25. Great,understanding doctors