Again?

I am pretty sure we are embarking on failed adoption #2 in one month. It is pretty hard to maintain a good perspective right now, let alone trust God. Enough said.

That's my girl!

Playing with headbands. She is for sure a girl and a sucker for all things girlie.



tisk tisk...tantrum in the making. I think she wanted more beans and I told her she had to eat her carrots and pineapple first. I think this little cry session lasted about 30 seconds before she realized I wans't giving in.

Encouraging words from the Lord

Isaiah 43:5-7 "Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you up from the west. I will say to the north (i.e. birthmom, Kazakstahn, China, Korea) 'GIVE THEM UP' and to the south (Satan) 'DO NOT HOLD THEM BACK.' Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth--everyone who is called by my name, whom I created FOR MY GLORY, whom I formed and made."

Isaiah 61:1-3 "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me...He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted...to give them beauty for ashes...that He might be glorified."

"In adoption the fearful become beloved, the scorned become adored, the nameless become cherished, the lonely become the laughing, and death becomes life abundant."
-Kerry Hasenbalg

There are children all over the world that are being gathered up and brought into the fold of the family of Christ through means of adoption. Our baby Micah is one of them. It is nice to be reminded that he will bring him/her to us. His plans will succeed. The word "ashes" in the bible represents great pain, sorrow, and even death. God takes dust, dirt, and debris from two broken lives or families and glorifies himself by placing the fatherless in a home. Can't you just see him stooping down from heaven and picking up dust and garbage left behind from infertility, then the dirt and debris left behind from an unplanned pregnancy. At this point it is all still just a handful of ashes. But God is working! And when he is done running his fingers through the mess, his glory shines through as one little child who is now called beloved, a child who is now grafted into the visible church.

Well, here we go again!

We have yet another possible adoption on the horizon. This is different though. This adoption will be totally private...no agency involved, only Christian doctors who want to do the right thing. When Jordan was in the NICU the doctor who discharged her asked us to contact him when we were ready to adopt again. He is a very encouraging Christian man and loved seeing our family adopt an African American baby. So we talked with him some last spring. We exchanged contact info but honestly I never expected to hear from him. He only sees this kind of thing once a year if that. When we met with him we were given a list of OBGYNs in the area to contact. These are docs that he networks with, all who have a heart to see babies placed in good homes. This isn't a money making thing for them. In fact, no one wants any money at all! So anyhow, I called all these docs but wasn't able to meet with any of them. Our NICU doc said he would just make sure to mention us to all of them and hope they remembered us later. That was nearly a year ago. Well guess what? One of them did! He has a patient who wants to place her baby for adoption. She asked him to take care of things for her. I suppose she just couldn't emotionally deal with it and wanted someone else to do it (get a family and make arrangements with the hospital). I assume she feels pretty weighed down and simply couldn't make decisions for herself. She needed someone to do it for her. As far as I am concerned, she has already made some invaluable decisions. She decided 8 months ago that his child would live. Now she is deciding that she wants more for this child than she can provide. Those are two huge decisions. I hope she doesn't sell herself short. I don't even know her but I know that if it all goes through I will think she is one of the bravest people on the face of the earth. But back to the story...her OB remembered his conversation with our NICU doc and BAM! Now we wait. We do have a bit of a wait ahead of us, anywhere from 2-4 weeks I think. That is a long long looooong time for this anxiety sufferer. But I'll get through like I always do.

We aren't telling our agency any of this! I wouldn't want them to take us off their waiting list just in case this other one doesn't go through. But 4 weeks is an eternity in adoption terms. What if the agency calls with a baby? Geez, my world could be overrun with babies if I play my cards right LOL! Kidding. I wouldn't do that. But really, at this point we know God has a baby for us. We just don't know where. We also know that this baby will be in our home soon. Experience and just knowing how adoptions work tells us this. Time will tell. But honestly, it is all very ironic to me. God never ceases to amaze me.

So is your list of things to pray:
1. I am still praying for signed papers by the end of this month. I am especially praying this now that I feel there is a wait ahead of us. The waiting is physically hard on me. I can't even begin to describe that.
2. Pray for this birthmom...for peace and the comfort that only God can bring.
3. Peace in my heart. I know in my mind that God is in control and sovereign and when it is our baby and our time, things work out. But my body just goes a little nuts. I don't have much control over it. Hence, the anxiety. While I do feel pretty good about this adoption and don't feel at all like this isn't our baby or we shouldn't proceed, I am still very nervous. I can't begin to explain how my body physically takes on stress.

Imagination

While eating a piece of cheese Jordan decided to pretend it was a phone. Here she is with an orange piece of American cheese up to her face and she is saying "Hello...ok...yes...goodbye." What I wouldn't give to have just an ounce of that imagination!

How to wait

This Shaohannah's Hope devotional (or adoption companion as they call it) is really doing my heart some good. God is using it to help me know how to rightly react to the ups and downs of the adoption process. The swings from high to low can be too much for me to handle at times. To say that it feels like a piece of my heart is with Micah would be an accurate way of summing it up. At the same time I want to enjoy every last second of this time; once Micah arrives it will never be just me and Jordan again. It is easy during this time of waiting to be child focused instead of God focused. I have to admit that there have been days when I prayed more for this baby than I prayed for his glory. Over the last couple of weeks I noticed that my prayers did seem to be more God centered than they had been in the past. Then I read in this devotional a little blurb about the waiting. "...if you are longing more for the child instead of the Savior, you may want to pause and take inventory of your realationship with God." Infertility has a way of doing that to a person. Every Christian I know who has struggled through infertility and/or multiple miscarriages would say that at one point or another they became child centered. When you want something so bad that it hurts it is hard to remember God. I would say that this described the types of prayers I prayed even a couple weeks ago. I constantly prayed for the baby and birthmom but never prayed for God to be glorified. After the failed adoption a couple weeks ago my prayers changed. I had no choice but to seek him in a different way because they way I had been praying was not comforting. Since then I have been praying that God would be glorified even through the birthmom's relinquishing of rights. Anyhow, God is teaching me that waiting is not active. Waiting is a resting in prayer until the desired action takes place. I am to invest in the wait and not stir in idleness. I am not invest in prayer and the relationship I have with my family. I am not waiting on some mom to deem us worthy; I am waiting on God's time.

Obedience

After bath time tonight Jordan promptly dumped out her entire bucket of foam letters and numbers. Then she scattered them throughout the room and went on to a new toy. At this point I knew she was going for the puzzles...all of them...to dump all the pieces all over the floor. I told her not to get out another toy until she picked up her letters. And to my amazement SHE OBEYED! She even did it cheerfully as she sang the clean up song from Barney. How do we obey? All the way; right away; and with a cheerful heart. This small moment made staying at home worth it.

Calling all prayer warriors!

I have been praying every day for a while now that God would bring Micah home. Now I want to take that prayer just one step further. I want to pray specifically every single day that God will bring Micah home before the end of this month...I will even settle for papers being signed by the end of the month. That is only 2.5 weeks away, so God has to work fast. Let me preface by saying that I will not be mad or frustrated with the Lord if he does not answer this prayer. Disappointed maybe, but not mad. God is sovereign and already knows where and when Micah will be home. But the Bible is so clear that as a believer I am to pray, and to pray specifically, and that prayer changes things. I am not sure where the sovereignty of God and the prayers of people meet. But clearly God answers prayers even though he foreknew the decision he would make and the road he has for us to take. These are two of the crazy things about God that I will never understand, nor will I ever try to understand. It ranks up there with predestination...I get it, but I don't. So anyhow, I am asking all my peeps (how do you like the use of that word?) to pray with me. Wouldn't it be cool if all over the United States people rejoice in this answered prayer because we all had a part in it? Pray with me. And if you wouldn't mind, leave me a comment so I know who is praying. Thanks!

Now onto something else...we applied for a grant through Shoahannah's Hope. We won't know for a couple months, but they did send us a little booklet that had a 14 days of devotions in it. While I would hardly call it challenging devotions, I will not hesitate to call them encouraging. This is a little exerpt from the day one of the devotion. Steven Curtis Chapman recalls how he knew God was calling him to something big. The title of the day's devotion is An Invitation to Know God. SCC was watching some of their best friends dedicate their latest adopted child. At this point SCC wasn't convinced that they would adopt a second, let alone a third time. So here goes. I'll do my best to leave out stuff that isn't necessary to getting the point across.

God lifted my heart, He said "...I've heard you pray, 'I really want to know You and experience You.' I know you mean that...(seeing the family on stage) There it is; that's my heart...This is a picture of the Kingdom of Heaven. There it is, in front of you...I delight in setting the lonely in families, so I'm going to keep pouring out my love for orphans, and I'm looking for hearts to pour it into. I'm looking for people who really want to do what I'm doing...You don't have to do this, but I"m inviting you in, because I want you to know Me, and I want our relationship to go deeper. If you really want to see Me show up, I want to take you on another adventure." That's why there are so many waiting children...they are each an invitation from God's heart, saying "Come and know Me. And I will make myself known through you..."

So there it is. That alone gave me the perseverance necessary to keep going. I'll wait for the next anxiety ridden phone call just so I will see and know God more. Why he chose this road I'll probably never know. But we'll keep going until this baby and the next and next are home. We aren't going to use the lawyer for a couple reasons. In the end God showed us that his will is to stick it out with the agency. Adoption is messy, painful, thrilling, and uncomfortable all at the same time. I'll deal. I always do. In the end God always shows up. Enough said :)

Failed adoption. Again.

You know, I am getting just a tad tired of the process, the system, the whole shabang. Tuesday morning we got a call from the agency because we had been chosen. Yay, right? Well, unfortunately, it is never that easy for us. We can't ever get excited but we do anyway. How can we not get excited? The social worker for the birthmom called within a couple hours to set up a three way call with the birthmom for the next day. The social worker and the birthmom had just gone to the doc and guess what? She was 4 cm dialated! We were so close to having a baby. The social worker felt very confident that birthmom would place. She had said and done all the "right things", things that social workers look for, things that point toward the birthmom going through with her decision. She had owned up to her decision to her family even though it meant that she may not have a place to live when it was done. Birthmom had a birth plan which included not seeing, touching, holding, or naming her baby. (To be honest, when I heard this my heart grieved for her. I have never birthed, but I cannot imagine going through hours and hours of intense pain, giving birth and having that rush of emotions with empty arms. I could picture her bawling in the arms of a family member. I cannot begin to imagine the pain that a birthmom must feel when she has takes pen in hand to sign her name to a paper that states that she will never again be a mom to the child she carried for 9 months. The idea that this birthmom had to wall herself off emotionally in order to carry out her decision broke my heart.) I prayed for her that night. I thanked God that she had chosen life for this baby. She gave HIM (yup, it was a boy) the opportunity to see the orange in a butterfly's wings, to feel a caterpillar crawl up his finger, and to know the heartbreak of love. She had chosen life for him; it would be foolish of me to think that she didn't have people telling her she had "options". It has been estimated that as many as 50% of all pregnancies in the African American community are ended by abortion. I even told God that no matter how this adoption turned out, I was thankful that she had chosen life for this little boy. I meant that. Anyhow, the next day the social worker and I waited on the phone for 15 minutes before giving up and realizing that birthmom was not going to call in. It was apparent to me that she had changed her mind. No matter how positive the social worker tried to be, I have been here before; I knew that this was a sign of things going from hopeful to a dead deal. As far as I know the social worker still hasn't heard from the birthmom. She avoided all calls, even turning her phone off at one point.

I must admit that after getting the call I sat to pray for a minute. I felt in my spirit that this wasn't our baby. I quickly prayed that God wouldn't allow us to be strung along for weeks if this wasn't our baby...that if he wasn't to be in our home the mom would go into labor quickly and not sign. I didn't want to be strung along for weeks only to have her back out. Being a severe anxiety sufferer that I am, I banished the doubt over this baby and chalked it up to being overwhelmed. I am terrible at making decisions so I tend to just do what seems right and trust that God will shut doors if we are going in the wrong direction. I didn't tell Scott how I felt. I just assumed it was anxiety, stress, and fear. Despite all of that, despite the fact that obviously what I felt deep down was true, despite the fact that God answered my quick prayer, I still feel angry. I still feel frustrated. I shouldn't though, should I? I mean, after all, I should feel relieved that I serve a God who loves me enough to answer that prayer, and quickly. Trust me, there is part of me that is breathing a sigh of relief. But the biggest part of me is just mad. Why would God allow us to go down this road of heart break again? I don't get it. I really should focus on the fact that he answered my prayer. But the thing is, I am and have been praying every single day for him to bring my baby home. I have wept over the fact that Micah is out there somewhere and I have no idea where. Why not answer THAT prayer? Instead I am here in tears because yet again the adoption fell through. This is the FOURTH time this has happened to us. FOURTH! Infertility was hard enough. Adoption, even if it were smooth and relatively easy, is very hard. Why add four failed ones to the list of hard things Scott and Shannon will have to deal with? And, hearing someone say to me "Your baby is out there" or "You have to trust his ways; he knows best; blah blah blah" doesn't make me feel any better. I know that stuff. Duh, I know my baby is out there. That is why I pray every day for him/her to be kept safe and healthy. I know I have to trust his ways. My problem isn't a lack of trust. My problem is that I am ticked off. I am mad that the birthmom who is unemployed has made the decision to parent. How does a person who is unemployed with one kid and another on the way decide that keeping the baby is the best and most responsible thing to do? I am mad that in her obvious grief and pain, she made the decision to hurt my family by not even owning up to the fact that she has changed her mind. So you changed your mind, big deal. You have that right. But call someone, anyone, and tell them! Don't just avoid calls and pretend that the decision to let someone call me and tell me I had a baby on the way, yes that decision that you made 24 hours earlier doesn't exist. I am mad because due to sin, I have to pay an unimaginable amount of money, time, and emotional energy for my babies. AND, I am ticked off that there are actually people out there that think Scott and I should save up before adopting, that we shouldn't finance adoptions. If I had to wait until we had saved every dime then we wouldn't have Jordan. In fact, we would still be saving. Boy, those people would hate to know that we don't finance any of them...they are on credit cards! I am mad at the fact that we can't be open about the cost and our struggles with people out of fear of being judged for choosing to double our debt for this next baby. I am mad because we actually have the option of working with a lawyer who has figured out how to avoid the ups and downs families go through but we can't use him. He costs too much...but guess what? I am willing to pay the extra money just so that next time we get a call we don't have to wonder if it will go through. With the lawyer, it will go through. He doesn't place until papers are signed, but you pay for the ability to avoid the anxiety that I dealt with this week. I am mad because right now I dread the next call we get. I dread hearing "you have been chosen" knowing I will have sleepless anxiety filled nights ahead of me until that mom signs papers, only to wait 10 days to go pick up my baby because during that 10 days birthmom can decide she made a mistake and change her mind. That is something I should look forward to but instead I cringe thinking about it. I am pissed because at 1:00 in the morning I am up crying over this instead of sleeping. Insomnia. I don't remember the last time I fell asleep easily. I assume that in the near future I will be rather sleep deprived so my insomnia will hopefully be cured.

ROFL! This is so funny!

I think she drinks a little more than she admits too. take a listen...and yes, I love the Ellen show. I rarely get to watch it but when I do, I laugh my butt off :)

Bible mama!

I started daily Bible times with Jordan. We read from her big girl bible (A.K.A. Big Picture Story Bible) before her nap. Then at night we read from the baby Bible before bed. We use the baby bible at night because the stories are very very short. By the end of the day I too am short...so it works. Anyway, every single night she gets into bed and askes for the Bible first. It is as if she doesn't care about other stories anymore. I know she does but I love that she asks for the bible. I also know that she doesn't have any understanding of what the Bible is. We tell her it is God's word but thus far, she hasn't asked any questions about God. So I assume she has no clue what the Bible really is. BUT, she asks for it every single night. My conclusion is this: at the age of 2.5 her spirit is craving the truth. It amazes me! I have no other way to explain it. The illustrations in the baby bible are boring and the words are simple. It really shouldn't be all that interesting to her at this age. But she got a taste of what is good and wants more!