Meeting Adrienne

Yesterday was the big day: we got to see Adrienne for the first time! We were all excited, but by the time we got there, Marianna could hardly contain herself. We had to briefly fill out paper work before we could see her, and Marianna didn't appreciate the delay. She kept saying "Where's my sister? I want to see my baby!!" Adrienne was brought out shortly after, and she took our breath away. It was an amazing moment. The time we spent with Adrienne was beautiful, and even though she slept through the visit, I would say the first meeting was absolutely perfect.

I can't share details or pictures right now, but I can tell you that we want to bring her home at the first moment possible. If that comes next week we will be thrilled. Please continue to pray for all of the many details. I hardly know what to pray specifically except that God work the details out according to His absolute best plan. I don't pretend to know what that is, but I want whatever that is with all my heart.

a bump in the road

Today didn't bring about the news we had expected-but then with everything we know about adoption, maybe we should have planned on something out of the ordinary. I won't go into the details, but while we will get to meet Adrienne tomorrow, we won't be able to bring her home. It is our hope that sometime next week placement will happen. The particular circumstances are out of our control, yet we still feel a peace and confidence that Adrienne Christine will be our daughter. The more we hear, the more we see God's hand on this. I don't believe that God has to give signs in order for something to take place, but I feel like He's let certain things happen that allowed us to know that this is the child for us.

Thank you for your continued prayers as we watch everything unfold. We are dying to have her with us, yet understanding that God has everything in control. It's a good place to be, but certainly not the easiest! I'll update tomorrow after we meet her. I can't wait.

Adrienne Christine

Today we got the call we've been waiting on. The birth mother chose us!! Barring anything unexpected, Adrienne Christine will come home soon! Please continue praying for the details. The birth mom will sign away her rights on Wednesday, so please be lifting her up right now!! But for now, I want to say with all my heart, "Thank you, Jesus!!"

a big maybe

Right now we're in the waiting stage. We've known all along that there isn't anything concrete about this adoption process-nothing is predictable, nothing can be pre-planned. But today, waiting took on a new meaning when I received a call from our adoption agency letting us know about a baby.

Here's the short version: A perfect, healthy baby girl weighing in at 6 1/2 pounds with blondish hair and blue eyes was born on May 10th. The birth mom called Life Choices while she was in labor to let them know she wanted them to help her find a family for her baby.

This baby girl went home to a "cradle care" family on Monday, and she will remain there until her adopted parents bring her home. The birth mom will sign away her rights next Wednesday, and at that point she will be presented with the profiles (potentially 4). She will look through these and make her choice, and the little girl will go home with her family on May 31st.

I have thoughts running around everywhere when I think about this. I never anticipated knowing ahead of time that our profile was going to be given out, but special circumstances demanded we be told before the fact. Because of that, we are left with 8 or 9 days ahead of us knowing that it's possible that we will get a baby in the next three weeks. At first I was tempted to think we have a 25% chance of being chosen. But really, I don't think that's right at all. I think we either have a zero or 100% chance of getting the baby. She's either the one God has chosen for our family, or she is the baby that God has chosen for one of the three other families. We are no more deserving than anyone else. Rather than asking God to give us this baby, I'm asking that He give her to the family He has chosen. She is the answer to somebody's prayer-we just have to wait and see whose! I would love for you to join us in praying this week. Praying for the birth mother, for this little baby girl, and for the family who has been chosen for her already by Jesus.

Being a mom

Mother’s Day started early for me this year; Marianna woke up at 2:45 and I haven’t been back to sleep yet. For the second time in her life, absolutely nothing I could do helped her to settle down. Nathan even put a movie on in hopes that she would drift off once it started, but an hour later she was in our room, more upset than ever.

I admit that by the time 5:00 am rolled around and I was still awake with her, I wasn’t happy. I had anticipated that today might be hard, but I hadn't considered that the hard part would come in the form of Marianna in full blown hysterics. I asked her if she realized today was Mother’s Day and she was supposed to be nice to me. She responded with more tears. I would say that in my 2 ½ years of being a mom, I have not been as frustrated as I was between 4:58 to 5:03 this morning. I’m serious. I knew she was being irrational, and I thought it ironic that today of all days, when we can’t sleep in and she can’t take an early nap, and when I'm facing the first mother's day since Poppy, she chose to have a melt down.

I had already thrown down the gauntlet and told her she couldn’t sleep in bed with us, and when she refused to sleep on the floor, I was at the end of my frazzled rope. Thankfully, at that moment Nathan intervened and went to sleep in her tiny twin bed with her. They are still asleep as I type.

As soon as I walked out of Marianna’s room, listening to her deep breaths as she snuggled next to Nathan, trying to recover from the hysteria, my frustration evaporated. I was instantly humbled as I thought about the gift she is. The gift that being a mom is. I love her so much I don’t know how to put it into words.

I knew there was no chance of sleep after all of that, so I stayed up thinking. Mother’s Day is a day that means a lot of things to a lot of people. To some, it’s a day of appreciation and fun as they get to relax and enjoy time with family. To some, it’s a reminder of what has been lost. And still to others, it’s a painful symbol of what has never been, despite the longing in their hearts.

This morning I took being a mom for granted. I lost sight of the fact that it is the greatest privilege God has ever, and will ever give me. That wake up call is probably what I needed more than anything else today. I will never understand why God allows moms to hurt so much when their children are sick, when their children die, or when they long to have children and can’t, but I understand that the source of great pain is also the source of indescribable joy. Yes, opening your heart as a mom can be something that hurts more than anything else, yet God has chosen to give us children as His ultimate blessing. I am so grateful for that!

On this Mother’s Day, I want to praise God for the blessing He has poured out in my life through Marianna and Poppy, and I thank Him in advance the other child He will bring into our lives in a way that has not yet been revealed. I also want to ask you to join with me today in praying for those in your life who want to be a mom, and have not yet had the chance. Pray that God will pour out His blessing of children through conception, adoption, or any other way He chooses.

Happy Mother's Day to everyone I have met on this journey. I pray God blesses you richly today!

Spring

Grief is as tricky as love. I’m baffled by it, because it seems there is no predicting what it will look like on a case-to-case basis. The funny thing is, now that I’ve experienced it, I feel no more qualified to help someone with hers unless it followed a path similar to my own—and that has rarely been the case!

This is something that caught me off guard because I expected to be able to relate to anyone who has been through the process of grieving, especially if it was grief for a child, but I’ve found that’s not really how it works. I’m not saying there’s not a special bond of understanding, because there is, but what I've noticed is that each experience is so different!! Similar situations by no means dictate similar responses. Now that I take the time to think about it, it makes sense. It’s the same with love. We all have a different experience with it, but that doesn’t mean we can’t relate to each other if our experience with it aren’t identical. It just means that we need to approach it from the perspective that it is different for everyone.

That’s the main thing I’ve been learning. Different is simply different. That was frustrating at first because I have something in me that wants to be able to tell someone “That’s exactly what I went through. I understand!" But that’s not going to be the case most of the time. So I’ve realized I don’t have to try and find common ground; I just have to love and ask God for the right ways to pray.

Is there a right and a wrong? I don’t think so. I think there are many rights and many wrongs. There are a lot of ways to do grieving in a way that is healthy and moves through everything necessary to heal. There are also a lot of ways to grieve in a way that will leave you damaged and broken. My job, no matter the case, is not to judge but to pray.

While I’ve been mulling this over, spring has been sitting on the doorstep. It is so beautiful this year, and Marianna, Nathan and I jumped in full force. We’ve planted flowers, we go to the park or on a walk daily, we’ve been to the zoo on the weekends, we’ve drawn chalk on the sidewalk and blown bubbles in the yard, we’ve played soccer and helped Marianna ride her bike. It’s been perfect. Spring in my life just happened to coincide with spring in Memphis.

I don’t understand grief, but I know from experience that whatever the path it takes, God can bring you out of the winter and into the spring. I read something in Luke 1 that I thought was really beautiful. Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, is speaking of his son, who will be the one to go before the Lord and prepare the way. He says he will "give to His people the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, with which the Sunrise from on high will visit us, to shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace."

Children of Promise

I recently started running again, and I was quickly reminded that it is a form of exercise I like in theory more than reality. It's a love/hate relationship because I truly do like it when I'm good at it, but right now, being a year out of practice, I stink. I'm trying to push through, and I've set a goal to work my way back up to a 5K hopefully by next month.

I think one of the reasons I'm struggling right now is the boredom factor. I run outside with no iPod or music entertainment of any sort, making it incredibly easy to focus on the shortness of breath and pain in my side rather than anything positive. But the other day something broke through the tedium. It wasn't a vision, but it was something I envisioned as clearly as if I was seeing a photograph in front of me. It was like all of the sudden I had this image of babies and children outside on a blanket, bunched together for a photo shoot. They didn't look at all alike, but every one of them was smiling. As the picture floated in my head, I felt God telling me, "These are the children of promise."

I remember years ago on the first anniversary of September 11th seeing a magazine with a front cover spread of the babies who had been born after that date. I remember thinking they were a dual symbol of grief and hope. They were reminders of so much that was lost, yet they were also beautiful pictures of life after the tragedy. "I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." Psalm 27:13

This is the closest thing I can think of to compare what I saw. The picture had so many kids, and one of them was mine-the baby we haven't yet adopted, but who we know God has already chosen for us. The others were the children of my friends who walked this road with me. The kids didn't know it, but what they all shared in common was the fact that they all had a brother or sister in heaven who they would never know. They had no idea how special they were; they had no idea that they were the children of God's promise.

I doubt that photograph will ever be taken physically, but I feel the truth of the image is certain. I don't know when or how, but I believe that God will provide for each of us, in His perfect way, and in His flawless timing. That does not mean the road will be all sunshine from this moment on. God hasn't promised that. But He has promised in Psalm 30:5 that "Weeping may last for the night, but a shout of joy comes in the morning." I've already experienced this shout of joy in many ways, but I don't think it is complete. God has put on my heart the desire for another child, and I believe He wants to fulfill this in my life. I'm looking forward to seeing His promise play out, one beautiful child at a time.