Happy 1st Birthday

Oh my amazing brown eyed little wonder, you are 1 today!  I still remember plain as day the moment you were born.  I play it over in my head all the time so I never forget.  I was lucky enough to be there to witness it; you took my breath away then and you still do now.  You had a full head of thick black hair, your daddy called you chia baby you had so much.  At your first cry I remember standing there thinking you were the most perfect person and that my life was never going to be the same again, good or bad.  In the first 30 seconds of you life you changed so many people and were loved by so many as well.  I have never experienced such love a first sight.  Yes I loved your cousins the second I saw them but this was different.  This was right, it was meant to be, it was perfect!  So many dreams, hopes and prayers were answered the moment you were born, was it to much to ask of such a small little person!  Were we putting to much on you, would we be the parents you needed?  Noah I am proud to say you have done all that and more and with such joy and happiness.  You have become a very independent little boy, with a major temper who has tried my patients at times over the past year, but I still love you anyway!  I try to tell myself that all this will help you down the road that you will not stop once you set your mind to something. 
You have grown so much from the 8 lb. 6 oz and 19 inches you were at birth.  In the past year you have gained over 11 lbs and grew over 11 inches.  You have gotten two teeth, learned to crawl and many other things.  You have had your first hair cut, you terrorize the dog and eat anything you can!  Your eyes and smile still light up a room and can get you out of almost anything.  They melt your mommy's heart!
I want to remember every moment that I can!  The way you used to hum in your sleep and now how you do it to keep yourself awake.  Or how you fit perfect in the crease of my neck when you fall asleep, like we are two perfect pieces of a puzzle make to be together.  Or find a tag on anything you can to suck on when you are ready to fall asleep. 
I have spent so much time wondering what you will become in life.  My perfect little man never give up, you can do anything you put your mind to and don't ever think anything else.  Will you take over the world like you  have mine?  Will you make small changes in the world, or big changes.  I hope that you grow to be a good many like your daddy and pappy.  I hope you learn to live and love without fear like your mommy.  Be everything and anything you want to be and can my little man! 
Mommy and daddy love you so very much and so do so many other people.

Happy Birthday Noah!

Different

It is so beyond believable that it will be 1 year tomorrow that Joe, my mother and I were boarding a plane headed to Las Vegas and the unknown.  As we visited a few of our family members who knew before we left it was very surreal.  On the Friday before we left we had dinner with my cousin and her husband to be able to say good-bye and calm my nerves.  Our last night at home I sat in the nursery just rocking in the chair and thinking and wondering and praying.  I cried tears of happiness, sadness and just out of fear.  I had always been the type A personality who needed to be in control and have a plan know what was going on.  For one of the first times in my life I had no control and didn't know what was going to happen and how things were going to turn out.  However I did know that no matter what that then person leaving would not be the same person coming back.  I was either going to come back a person who believed in miracles, a person who trusted, a mother.  Or I was going to come back as...well I don't know but I knew it was never going to be the same.  I knew I would be crushed.  But we all know how it turned out!!!  I have the most amazing little person in my life who calls me mama!

Life is much different...in a great amazing way!  When I imagined being a mom it was with bows and frills and dresses.  Pinks and purples and castles and dolls.  Not trucks and dirt, and suits and ties.  But I am proud to say I can make the best dang motor sounds and cause a 10 car pile up with matchbox cars like no body business!  I have found I can dress Noah just as amazing as any little girl!  Don't get me wrong would I LOVE the chance to have a girl and have all that, totally!  But I wouldn't change 1 thing about my life with this little boy! I hold my entire heart in the palm of his tiny little hand.  I never really knew what a parent felt in their heart until a year ago!  

Yes I did come back a much different person in so many great and amazing ways!

Love
Melinda

Music...

I love music, I always have and always will.  It can bring about joy, sadness, bring back a good memory.  Remind you of your first dance at school, your first love and break-up.  If can remind you of your first dance as husband and wife.  It gets you through the sad times and the happy times. Below are a few songs that I wanted to share with my fellow bloggers waiting to adopt, who have adopted, or even anyone who likes music.

This song was one someone sent to me when we first started the process.  I would cry and cry when I would listen to it because it is like someone was in my head and wrote my thoughts down and made a song.  I still love listening to it.

This song was out once Noah was born.  I just remember thinking how true the lyrics were.  It was like I had loved him for eternity before he came and I will after he came.  It came me strength when we were waiting on paperwork to be signed and his adoption to be finalized.  I would sing it to him at bed time and I still do.

I saw this song on a fellow bloggers page last night and thought WOW!  This is am amazing song about faith and adoption.  I really can't find the words right now on how I feel about it but I needed to share it.

 

Enjoy

Love

Melinda

I'm a Christian

Have you every done something and after you do it you think man that was the wrong way to handle that. I can sit here and say I make mistakes.  I can say I sometimes make things that are not about me about me and not realize it.  I can also say I sometimes need a swift kick in the butt from my  mom to see that!  I am also a Christian and sometimes that swift kick is also from God!
I realized not hearing from "D" on a regular basic is not about ME.  As my mother put it I need to put myself in the position of placing Noah for adoption now, having loved him and nurtured him for the past 11 months.  Then having contact with that family and hearing how great he is doing and how happy they are.  Not every really getting to see him, hold him, kiss him; just getting pictures and letters.  Only getting to see him crawl for the first time, walk for the first time even talk for the first time on a video on my computer. You know be a part of his life but yet not really!  Not knowing where you fit into his life and his families life.  No matter how right I feel the decision is/was wouldn't make it any easier.  I need to remember she is a human and we hurt especially when we make really hard decisions right or wrong they hurt sometimes.
We finally talked to "D" on the phone last night after several text message before hand.  We spoke for a hour and a half.  We talked about alot of things.  Where she is at mentally with things with the adoption and many other things.  Until last evening I didn't realize how little she thought of her ability to do things.  I also thought she resented Joe and I and that is why she didn't stay in touch.  Where in fact she said it is hard because she is envious of us.  That we get to hold him each day, and love him.  And she has tried everything, she has tried to just erase us all from her mind by not thinking about us, ignoring our text messages, removing the pictures I send her everything and it didn't work.  So she tries to be in touch and texting and calling and having pictures of us all out and that is hard to.  So right now we all just need to work on finding a happy medium and figuring out what works for us all.  And the biggest thing we need to remember is it is going to be ever changing.  And we can't take it personal when it does, but the biggest thing is we need to talk and tell the other how we are feeling and listen to them.  I know I have said it a million times that people don't get why I care and want to work on things with her, but look at my son!  That alone should be enough to understand but if it's not I made a commitment to her, to myself and my son. 
That leads me to my next point.  The problems not being able to listen and give people your time to listen to where they are coming from with things.  There is always two sides to a story and a situation.  As I said before I make mistakes, I am wrong, I don't think I am this big amazing person for being able to say that I make mistakes but I do think it makes me a good person to be able to do that.  I don't make up lies about things to make me look better.  I always try to listen when someone is telling me how they feel, or their side of the story.  I don't just say I don't want involved even though I already am.  I try not to turn a blind eye when I realize that maybe things are a little worse than I thought and that I many have hurt someone close to me, not continue to ignore it and then play the victim when it does come to a head.  Part of being a Christian is being able to see your own faults too, and not just other people's, and say I will pray for them. Sometimes you need to pray for clarity for yourself too.  I have done that many times in my life and there are times that I realized that I was wrong and fixed things and there were times that I realized that what I had done to that point was what was best for me and not looked back. 
I am a lot of things but most of all I am a daughter, wife, friend, mother and I am a Christian!  I am proud of all those things, and I am every changing in all of those matters.

Love
Melinda

Enough said

Thoughts....

The past few weeks have been so busy and crazy with the holidays and sickness in our household.  There has also been alot of down time at home with a sick baby and I have never been a good sit still person.  My mind runs when I sit still I don't know why that is.  I have been spending alot of time thinking about how so many things have changed in a year.  This time last year we were getting the last stuff we needed for the baby and had our bags packed to leave as soon as we got a call.  We were keeping a big secret from alot of people because I couldn't bear the thought of what it would do to my heart if something happened and we came home without a baby. 
I can't walk past the nail place in the mall without getting a little chocked up remembering the call we got when my mom and I were there.  We had gone to enjoy our last girls evening before we had to leave for Vegas.  It was there I got the call with the date "D" was going to be induced.  And her telling me yes I want you guys here when he is born!  We were so worried we wouldn't be there for the first few days of his life.  I cried and cried and cried, I know those people in there thought I was crazy.  That will be a year ago next week!
I am sure it is on my mind alot more as we plan his 1st Birthday party, 1 already!  I will be thinking this is what I was doing this time last year and this is what I was doing this day.  It all feels like it was just yesterday and the emotions are still so raw and I wonder it that will ever change.  I mean I am sure it does and will fade with time.  I couldn't even throw my planner from last year away because it had the dates of her doctors appointments marked in it, the day our flights left, Noah's doctor's visits everything.  I kept it and put it in the box we have for him.  I don't know if he willl want it for anything but I feel I need to keep it for a bit. 
Sorry for the post being all over the place that is sort of where my thoughts are today and the past few weeks.  Maybe it is the reality that my baby is growing up or the fact we are no where in our relationship with "D" that we thought we would be at this point.  I just don't know.  I just really don't know.

Thanks for listening

Love
Melinda

Happy Holidays...late

I am finally getting to post....I hope.  I am so behind because we had been taken over with sickness in our home and then Internet problems.  I pray we have both under control.
November started out with Noah and I both have extremely bad colds.  The 2nd week of November my parents had Noah at the doctor's with Croup.  I also had a bad chest cold called death I think...lol!  Then the Saturday after Thanksgiving I had him back at the doctor with a double ear infection.  We seemed to get that cleared up and then the week before Christmas he and I both had the stomach flu, and he was at the doctor the Thursday before Christmas we had him back there with another ear infection.  Only to get a call from my mom on New Year's Eve telling me she thought he had chicken pox.  We went to the doctor to find out it was an allergic reaction to the meds for the ear infections.  I would love to say I am not sad to see 2012 go and start 2013 on a better foot but that would be a complete lie.  2012 was the best year of my life and I hate to see it go even with it ending the way it did.
One thing that sticks out in my mind is during the holiday season I was out shopping with Noah one evening and was rushing because I was holding a gentleman up from getting into his car.  I remember saying I am so sorry, simple things aren't so simple anymore, and laughed.  He smiled and said no problem and they never will be again but I bet life wasn't near as grand before.  I smiled and said your right.  That will always stick with me because he will never know how true those words were.  How I wasn't living until last January.
Christmas was amazing.  I would love to say it was picture perfect but it wasn't but that doesn't matter.  In the end our family all finally were under one roof at around 8 on Christmas Eve after Joe and my brother both got home from work. 
I would also love to say we heard from "D" and were able to exchange Christmas greetings but we didn't.  In fact we haven't heard from her in weeks, even after several attempts to be in touch.  I almost feel guilty in a way saying this but it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be not hearing from her.  Maybe it is from the months leading up to it where we wouldn't hear from her for weeks at a time.  I in no way want to come across as I don't care for her, I do and always will.  Maybe she will be like that relative you care about but don't see and talk to.  I don't know where things will go from here, I really don't.  Her parents did send Noah and Joe and I some really nice Christmas gifts and we were in touch with them.  We sent them some gifts as well.  I will say over the past 11 months our relationship with Noah's birth grandparents has really evolved.  It is nice, we don't have to talk each and everyday but it is nice when we do talk every few weeks.  It's nice to know they want to be involved but still respect my parents and worry about crossing any bounds with everyone.  Not that they in any way would do that. 
Those were our holidays.  I haven't downloaded any pictures yet to attach so once I do maybe I will do just a photo post.

Love
Melinda