Merry Christmas

I just wanted to take a moment to say Merry Christmas to everyone.  It is so easy to forget the true meaning of the holiday during this time and I am just as guilty as the next.  Count your blessing this year and take time to thank God for them.  Yes you many not have had some of your prayers answered but know that God may have been busy answering a bigger prayer for you that you do not realize, or that he was working on the one you do have in his own time.

Many blessings to you and your family for the up coming year!

 

Love

Melinda and Joe

 



 

 

 

End of the year

As the year comes to an end and the holidays approach it is always hard to slow down and take time to think about the things that have happened over the past 12 months.  I just like everyone else never take the time to stop and “smell the roses.”  This year I feel like I need to.

This past year has been full of so many ups and downs.  Good times and bad, happy and sad.  We started the year out with so much hope for our adoption.  With every passing holiday we sat and thought will this be our last New Years as a family of two, then our birthdays and Easter and Memorial Day, our Anniversary.  By the time July had come around it was like oh no not another holiday.  Each passing one brought sadness and dread not happiness and joy. 

But I need to realize that the adoption was not the only thing going on in my life.  My father had not 1 but 2 health scares this year and 3 surgeries and by the grace of God he is cancer free and bouncing back from neck surgery.  My mom has been my biggest supporter and shoulder to cry on.  My relationship that had not been so great with a family member who was my best friend growing up is back and I am loving every second of it.  I celebrated the birthdays of 2 nieces and a nephew who are all over excited at the idea of a cousin. 

We had an amazing fundraiser for our adoption that always makes me emotional when I think about the love and support of so many people in our lives.  Those we know and love and those we don’t know so well but came to support us anyway.  To have our family and friends to work so hard to help us reach our dreams means more than any one knows.

During this all the one relationship that has gained the most is my relationship with God.  Maybe he had me travel the road I have over the past year so I would be walking one step closer to him and trust in him and his plan.  God knows my heart and he won’t let me get hurt any more than he thinks I can take.  He has also shown me it is ok to keep any news close to my heart until I am ready to share it and people will understand if I don't if they find out that we know something and didn't tell.  Emotions run very high for all parties involved in adoption and things are forever changing, day to day and minute to minute.  It is also our decision as to what type of adoption we want to have and that is ok too.

So as this year comes to an end I find myself still being hopeful about the entire adoption process but cautious about it too.  I am going to celebrate Christmas this year with a new light in my heart and hope too.  Hope that next year will find my family well, my friends well and life being better than every.  I will wake up Christmas morning not worrying that we don’t have a baby yet but that my family is together and doing well, but hoping is silence that maybe just maybe this might be the last Christmas with 8 people at my parents and just Joe and I at our house.  That maybe my nieces birthday present this year will be the baby she asks about every time I see her.  I am just going to trust that is all going to be ok, I have no other option but to do that.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas!

Love

Melinda

365 days....

That is how many days on Sunday it will be since we were home study approved.  For those of you who don’t know the adoption process there is paper work, more paper work, interviews, back round checks, references, and having your home checked for them to determine if you are fit people to parent and if your home is fit.  Sort of funny if you think about all the people who have children and you have thought wow how is that possible.  And I don’t care what you say you have all thought that at 1 time or another in your life, I mean we all shop at Wal-Mart!  A little intrusive, yes, to me a little over kill, yes, a lot of money, God yes!  But I have nothing to hide and I know I will be a good mom, not saying a perfect mom but a good mom! 

 I have been really torn as to how much to share in what is going on and what not to share.  Do I write every time we make contact with a birth mom, do I write every time we get shown to a birth mom?  I mean yes I want to yell it from the roof tops each time it happens, for a couple of reasons.  First from pure excitement and second the more prayers the better right?  Plus I want to share it with everyone who has been so supportive and pray for us everyday.  But it is also very emotional for us if we tell people every time because when you see them again and they ask you and it didn’t have the turn out you wanted it brings all the emotions up again.  I know people aren’t asking to be mean, they are asking because they really care.  But there are parts of this journey that will be private and hard to deal with for us, so if you don’t hear anything that does not mean there is nothing happening, there in fact could be great things happening, we are just choosing to get a handle on them for ourselves first.  Have our time to pretty much grieve for the child that was not to be or to wrap our minds around the fact that some mom felt we would be great parents to her child.  To lay the foundation of a trusting and loving relationship with her for the years to come as we move through open adoption.  There have been many times over the past year I have wanted to throw my hands up and say I am done, I can’t to this to myself anymore, but then I rethink and know I can.  God choose us because he knew we could walk the road and handle it.  At the end things are going to be so amazing when it happens if it’s in 9 days, 90 days or 9 months.  I know it is going to be amazing because I have seen it with our friends and “fellow” blogger who had been placed and have “their” baby at home.

So please keep praying for us and know that as soon as we feel ready to share any big news you will all be the first to know.

Love

Melinda

Blessed

When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is brought in our life, or in the life of another

Hellen Keller

 

In the past year we have had a lot of “miracles” in our lives as we move along the road in our adoption.  I am always so amazed and taken back by the kindness of the people in our lives, if it be family, close friends, old and new, and people we simply don’t know.  Yesterday was no different!  We had an amazing turn out at our fundraiser and so much support from the people who love us and people, who really didn’t know us and might have just been there for the baskets, but that is ok; we hope our story and cause moved them as much as we were by them being there.  It also makes you realize that no matter what good or bad family is the best.  My parents are the best, they have done so much for us and yesterday was no exception, my dad made the most adorable wooden doll cradle, that some lucky little girl will be getting to play with, an amazing picture stand that my friend now has in her new home and all of this while pushing through his own pain, and being 5 days before major neck surgery, he is my hero!  My mom was just as amazing, helping me get baskets and get the word out and telling me to not worry about it when I cried that I didn’t think it was going to work, she is truly my best friend.  Also my brother who helped us as much as he could.  He is also just a few days away from surgery.  Keeping those two “down” was a struggle but they did well listening and helping in other ways.  My Aunt and Uncle worked their butts off selling tickets at the party and my Uncle made and donated an amazing wooden blanket chest for us to chance off.  My cousins who also helped!  Kelly your support has been amazing since you know what my heart is feeling right now.  Wendy, I told you last night what I had to say, so I hope there are no other words needed, because I can say them right now, I have nothing but I love you.  To a new friend who also gave us an amazing prize to chance off.  You have left footprints in our hearts that will never go away and I know that you will forever be a part of our adoption story and life.  If I am forgetting anyone I am so sorry just know we love you all.

After we got home last night and things settled down, I went upstairs to the nursery to just sit and think and reflect on the day.  It hit me that this baby, that we don’t know, has SO much love around it already.  The amount of love makes my heart overflow; I wish I could bottle it and send it to any birth mom that is considering us, so she could be assured of just how much her child will be loved.  The only thing I can do is pray to God that he lets her feel in her heart when she is thinking about it.  That she welcomes us as extended family and to allow us to share with her child the amazing family and friends we have.  I feel it in my hearts it is going to happen and when it does it is going to be so amazing.  Life is good and only going to get better!



 

Love to you all

Melinda and Joe

Lessons

So to say the past few weeks have been hard would be an under statement.  We had made contact with a birth mom and were emailing for 6 weeks or so and were really confident that we were going to get matched with her, only for it to fall through.  I spent a lot of time questioning some things and wondering about stuff.  At this point it doesn’t matter what the truth is or isn’t, it is what it is.  I will just be more aware the next time.  I want to first say I wish “E” all the best with her baby and the family she picked.  She is due any day now so please say a prayer for them all. The same week that happened, so many other things happened, things I guess I wasn’t ready to happen all at one time, and didn’t handle them all so well.

There have been many dark days for me in the past few weeks.  It sort of comes in waves for me.  I do really well for a while and handle it ok.  I have learned that as long as I am busy with other things and don’t think about it too much it is better.  So that leads into me having to find things to keep me busy.  Maybe now is a good time to go through all those boxes and things that sort of get forgotten and I mean  forgotten as I haven’t needed anything from them since we moved 3 years ago, so I am sure they are just taking up space boxes.  Getting things ready for when “the” call comes because when it does I think I might be too busy to be worrying about getting things in the nursery ready.  Because of right now most things are in bags with tags still on them. 

I have also realized, after much talking to me by my mother and husband, I think with my heart.  I jump at my first reaction.  Sometimes a good thing sometimes it’s not.  Over the past few weeks I don’t think it has so much been a good thing.  I have realized I may have some psycho tendencies.  Laugh if you want, but we all have them and admitting it is half the battle right?  So I am half way there right?  This is not an easy process by any means, and I think each person’s journey is different.  If you talk to a family that was matched pretty much right away, yes they had their stresses and struggles, but they are different than a family that may have been waiting for 2 years to be matched.  Or a family that was matched and then the mom decided she wanted to parent her child.  Everyone’s journey is different everyone’s feeling are different.  That being said, that doesn’t make any of them wrong.  It also doesn’t mean your journey is over once you get matched there are so many other things involved. 

I have taken a step back to really look at things and also look at myself.  I am really trying to become the person I want to be and when things are right in my life things will be right in so many other areas.  I have learned a lot about myself and still have a lot to learn.

 Melinda

Emotions

The past few weeks have been really hard on me in the emotions department of this journey.  I find it hard to write on this blog because there are alot of things we can't talk about.  When we get information on "situations" from our agency there are things that we are told that are very hard to digest and understand, but they are also things we can not talk about with others.  This has been hard for me, hard to say I have given you a real feel of what this journey is like, when I have not.  As I have said to Joe so many times the past few weeks I feel like my world is spinning out of control and anyone who knows me I HATE not having control.

It is hard not to get attached when you make contact with a birth mom who is a possible match.  You spend weeks getting to know someone and then they pick someone else and you never hear from them again, in a small way it seems like losing a friend and a baby all in one motion.  I feel like I need to guard my heart but I don't want to become "cold" to it all and not show what a caring person I am or how I am feeling.   So at this point it is a do we try to network on our own and have this happen again or just stick with the agency?  We are open to feed back and suggestions at this point.

This process stinks, it is hard, it is trying and so many other things people won't tell you.  You check your email like every 10 minutes, you keep your phone with you at all times.  Maybe I am different from other people but it has become my life not part of my life.  I need to get back to living my life I guess, or at least find a balance.  Joe and I have alot of thinking to do and alot of decisions to make and to what will happen from here.  So please pray for us that we follow the road that God is trying to guide us down.  He has big things planed for our lives and I hope we get to them the way he planed for us.

 

Melinda

Not much

has been going on since I last posted.  There has been a little activity with our profile at the agency.  A few weeks ago there was more activity in 2 days than in the past 8 months, needless to say it was a very stressful 2 days with very little sleep and alot of last minute decisions.  On a Tuesday afternoon we got a text message from our social worker to check our email.  There was an email about 3 different situations,  that is what they are called at the agency, and they wanted to know if we wanted to be considered.  After much thought and arguing and prayer, we had to say no to all 3 of them.  From time to time agencies get calls from county CYS agencies about children for adoption that is what all 3 of these were.  The down side was they were sibling groups and after alot of thought we decides would could not go from a family of 2 to a family of 4 overnight.  As much as it hurt me to say no, I also needed to look at being able to take care of the children they way we needed to.  Then when I emailed our social worker to tell her our decision she had another situation from the same county, the baby was due the next day!  We said yes to that one.  We found out last week the mom had the baby, a little boy.  There is alot of red tape involved and alot of monitoring from the county that will be needed and with our distance from the county it doesn't seem that it will work out for us.  We do ask that you pray for some friends of ours that we meet at some meetings through the agency.  They are being considered as well for the same situation, they live much closer to the county and if it can't work out for us who better than a family we have grown to love!!

We have also had a birth mom find us through some listings I placed on-line and we have been in regular contact with her.  I am not sure where this will lead and what will happen.  I do know that it has been an eye-opening thing and I have some personal struggles with some aspects of this.  This is something I need to deal with on my own and with God.  He knows what is in my heart and that is all that matters.  I pray that this mom finds peace with what she decides to do and what path she plans to take.  I can't imagine what the birth mom's go through to make this decision and this mom is trying to do it on her own with no help from an agency.  I think she worries about having some sort of contact with the adoptive family because she has 2 other children.  I am really trying to keep my heart guarded until she contacts our agency and we get the go ahead that we were chosen.  I will keep you updated as we go with it. 

So that is what is going on for now.  I promise I will try to be better and not wait so long in between updates!  Reading back through the post I guess not much isn't a good title..lol!

 

Melinda