Trust His Heart.

So when you don't understand...
When you don't see His plan...
When you can't trace His hand...
Trust His heart.

A nibble and no bite...

On Monday, our adoption caseworker called with a potential birth family for us to consider. She gave us a few basics about the birth family. Based on the information the caseworker gave, we decided to have our profile sent to the potential birth mother. The birth mother and birth father live in Florida. We knew that if this was our match and our baby, we would have to go to great lengths to make the long treck to Florida to meet her. She received our file along with 5 others.

After two days of waiting and wondering, we learned that the potential birth mother decided to parent. While we were excited that someone could potentially match with us so soon after our last failed match, we were a little disappointed that we are now waiting again. I have to remind myself that our child is out there, and that baby just wasn't him or her.

On the up side, we now don't have to hop on a plane to Florida at the last minute only to wait out the mandatory 48 hour time period to find out if birth mom would decide to parent or if we would be driving, yes driving, home with a newborn across several state lines. Don't get me wrong, I would travel to the end of the earth and back for my child. But I am just sayin' ...

As far as future potential matches go, I am going to give up my power so to speak. I have asked our adoption caseworker to not contact me in regards to potential birth mothers and instead to contact D. I get easily excited and thus easily deflated with possible news and I am going to give myself a little break for the mean time and allow D to manuver in the driver's seat. D is not going to notify me of when our adoption caseworker calls unless she brings up a scenario he isn't sure about. This should be interesting...I am not sure how long I can manage to "not know" but I am going to give it a shot. My heart and my head both need a time out to just be for a little while.

So for now, I will continue to decorate the nursery and find as many distractions as I can while the time passes. The decorating part is not going quickly by any means so for a little while I will be distracted... I think.

Always,

April

Learning as we go...

On Friday, D and I had the pleasure of attending a wonderful dinner party. The dinner party was a "waiting and approved" dinner party for families that are waiting to either be matched with a birth mom or are waiting of the arrival of their baby after already being matched. Our adoption agency has a family association in our area and we are delighted to be apart of it. We had the opportunity to have dinner and chat with not only other couples going through our same process but the president of our adoption agency as well as the author of the book Hope Deferred. The author, Andrea Harrington, gave us a brief glimpse into her own adoption journey. She shared with us the blunt honest truth as well as tips that she learned along the way of what adoptive couples should share with others and the details that should be kept private for sanity's sake. I walked away from our dinner Friday feeling hopeful and a little proud.

I left hopeful because not only were there couples "waiting" like us but there were several couples that just completed their adoption match. It helped my head as much as it did my heart to see how wonderful things will be when our time finally does come. It also gave me a sense of comfort because we now have new families that will be apart of our lives from this day forward. There will always be someone we can call when a question arises in regards to adoption. What do you do when the kindergarten teacher asks for a family tree project for school and part of the assignment is to paste newborn pictures of our child that we may not have? What do you do when your child asks you about the night they were born? It dawned on me from the get go that there would be situations that D and I would have to face with our child that biological parents won't. I am relieved that we are not going into this alone, we are far from alone. I know there will be challenges and I know there will be bumps in the road, but that can be said for any family regardless of how they are built only our family bumps will just be a teeny bit different.

I left feeling proud because one of the things Andrea shared with us was that she wished she had found a way to let friends, coworkers and family know general statuses about her adoption process all at once instead of having told anyone and everyone every single nail biting detail only to regret it later when every 20 seconds she was asked "So have you heard anything yet?!." Hence, this blog! She had wished she only allowed a small select group of people to ride the roller coaster of emotions, ups and downs of the journey. It is a daunting ride and most people don't have the heart to sit and watch as your emotions are up and excited one day and deflated and crushed the next when plans change or birth matches have a disruption.

I am relieved I started this blog. I do want my friends and family to know what is going on with our adoption, even if it is just the general overview of it. I realize I don't post on this blog often and that is mostly because there really is nothing to report until there is actually something to report. Yes, odd. I am still learning what I "should" tell and what I "shouldn't" tell. We are a work in progress yet...

I am thankful to my friends and family for caring enough to ask about our process and for being wise enough to know that if I had good news to share, trust me I wouldn't wait 2.5 seconds before sharing it with you. I am thankful to my closest and dearest friend for braving it out and riding this roller coaster with me. The exciting, sad, overwhelming and good parts and even if it is just by text message alone. I am thankful to our parents that are excited about what our future holds and for already celebrating the grandchild that hasn't even arrived in our arms yet. If we haven't told any of you thank you for your support, it is not because we are not thinking it but it is because the words simply fail to do justice of our appreciation. ♥

Always,

April

My fortune for the day...

The keys to patience are acceptance and faith.

Accept things as they are, and look realistically at the world around you.

Have faith in yourself and in the direction you have chosen.



...and the waiting continues..

I never knew I was this impatient, but apparently I am. After our match failed last week, our adoption caseworker asked us if we would like some time to deal with this loss because a match failing is indeed another loss and of hope being squashed again. I immediately said no. I said we will deal with this loss together but I didn't want our adoption process put on hold any longer than necessary.

It has been a week and we have heard nothing which isn't abnormal at all but it still stinks. Waiting as I said before, is no fun at all. I am trying to find things to do with myself in the mean time and so far my focus is on the nursery. I have picked out a bedding set and ordered it. I wouldn't have ever done a gender specific room to begin with so my buying neutral baby bedding wasn't difficult for me to do at all. Picking out which pattern I wanted or which style I wanted, well that was another story. I must have stared at hundreds before I finally decided on one. It was shipped today and should be at my house in a few days.

I am excited about it. I am excited to start and finish a nursery. I know that may sound odd to some but I can't just sit around and do nothing. I have to do something productive and just sitting here is not productive. After the nursery is finished, I will have to find a new project. I will deal with that when the time comes though... until then, I am off to babyland.

Always,

April

Done.

I am sad to write that our match with A is officially done. A had baby on the 4th of July. We found out this afternoon that A has officially decided to parent the baby which makes our match with A officially over. I am mad and sad and mad and sad and mad and sad. D reminded me as well as many of our friends and family that it only means the baby that is meant to be with us was not the one that A was carrying. We wish A and baby the very best.

So for now... we are a "waiting" family again. Waiting for a match and hopefully next time it will be the perfect match.

Always,

April

Wise words.

No vision and you perish;
No ideal, and you're lost;
Your heart must ever cherish
Some faith at any cost.
Some hope, some dream to cling to,
Some rainbow in the sky,
Some melody to sing to,
Some service that is high.

~Harriet Du Autermont

No news...

Waiting is no fun. We don't have any updates to share but we are slowly but surely trying to prepare for whatever happends. It is difficult to not become emotionally invested, almost impossible really.

As far as we know, A is still waiting for baby to make an entrance. Until baby is born there is nothing to do but twiddle our thumbs...Oh! And watch the gazillion trainings we have to finish as well as preparing a nursery, finding a pediatrician and dealing with health insurance.

Side note: If anyone dares to assume that adoption is easy. They are dead wrong!