Fantasies and Fears

Everyone has fantasies throughout their life; whether it be becoming a princess or superhero when you are young, or meeting Mr. or Ms. "Right", starting a family, with a house, a dog ecetera...when you are older. However, along with those fantasies comes fear.  Will Mr. "Right" ever come along, will I be able to support my family, so on and so forth. Let's face it, life is scary and it comes with so many "what ifs".

When Dan and I started the adoption process we only imagined the fantasy ending, where the child would be ours and there would be no other " parents" to speak of. We were both very adament about not wanting much to do with the birth parents.  Fear overrode our thoughts and we didn't even want to venture down that road of those "what ifs". More often than not I feel like the birth parents have a bad name. Don't  get me wrong I do know that there are instances that it is not in the best interest of the child to have contact with their birth parents; however, through our journey we have genuinely loved the relationship we share with Peyton's birth parents.

After we brought Peyton home we were still unsure of the relationship we wanted with her birth parents.  I sent them a few letters with pictures that first year but that was about the extent of it, Until October 2013.  Peyton was 17 months old and after much talk and prayer we decided to go down to Phoenix and visit them. My heart raced and I was so scared I didn't know how to act, what to say or where to even begin. Thankfully, before we got out of our car, Dan said a quick prayer and assured me that everything would be fine. Our visit went amazing and the conversation flowed freely. Peyton was pleasant, she gave her waves, blew kisses and all was good. 

After a few days of letting our meeting sink in, Dan and I began to discuss our thoughts. It was amazing what God had done to our hearts, both of us! We so much enjoyed our time and conversation with the two people who gave us their child, our miracle. Through our conversation we decided that these two people are as important as Peyton and our relationship with them might be a path for them to meet Jesus. Not only that, but how cool for Peyton to know where she came from and to see that these people love her, but are unable to care for her. So many times I see adopted children yearning to know their backstory and what life might have been like if the situation were different.  This lack of understanding sometime leads them to resent their adoptive parents. Open adoption may not be the best avenue for every situation, but it has been an unexpected gift for our family!

Today we headed down once again to meet with Peyton's birth parents.  We received an added bonus when my cousin brought her four kids as well. As I mentioned in an earlier post, my cousin has adopted 4 of Peyton's biological siblings.  All five kids were there and their birth parents seemed pretty happy.

The youngest two weren't loving the pictures but this wasn't the first picture those two weren't happy about. Check out this funny one from about a year and a half earlier!

All of this to say, that no matter what the situation might be, birth parents are humans as well.  Sure, we all make mistakes and that is why God sent Jesus to die for us. When situations in life with others seem hard or scary, just remember that you may be the only chance they have to experience Jesus.

Getting the word out

With anything in life you have choices, from the simplest things like what percent of milk you drink to the most important things like whether or not to have a relationship with Jesus. When it comes to adoption there are also so many choices and ways to pursue it. Dan and I have decided to open ourselves up to every avenue and then see what The Lord has in store for us.

For example, we are open to any race and any gender. The only thing we don't really want to fudge on is age. From the beginning we have felt that it is important to always have Caleb be our oldest, he is a natural first born and for the sake of us all we don't really want to mess with that one. There are also so many different avenues of adoption, from overseas to foster care and everything else in between. With each of theses avenues comes so many risks and emotions. But in the end when you have that wonderful gift in your arms it makes everything worth it.

When we first began the journey of adoption we started out by getting our foster license. With Dan being a teacher and me staying home this was the best way to start out our journey because we were able to have our classes and home study all for free. We received our license in November and eagerly anticipated that 1st call. We were sure that it wouldn't be very long because most of the people in our foster class were filling their homes soon after they were licensed. Now, I am so thankful we didn't receive any calls early in the process and that the few we did during that time didn't pan out.  It was that May when our  baby girl arrived( see the Peyton post).

Which brings me to why this post is called "getting the word out", Peyton's adoption was not through the state or through an agency, it was a private adoption. Private adoptions are when you cut out the middle man, which is a scary thing to most people. I wanted to start this blog not only because we wanted friends and family to walk with us through our journey, but because you never know how the Lord works. Maybe just maybe someone will know someone else who is looking for an adoptive family to love their child. By getting our names and hearts out there who knows what might happen. We are also not opposed to going through an agency and that just might be our next step.  We simply don't know when the next opportunity will present itself, but we are sure excited to see what is going to happen!

Thank you all for going through this journey with us, and we welcome you to join us in praying for God's perfect will to be done!

http://youtu.be/rAlE2EnUP5A

Being "Wrong"

Adoption is one of the biggest leaps of faith you can take. There are so many unknowns, so many questions. However, if you are willing to tackle those unknowns and questions, it is one of the biggest blessings and gifts you can receive.

Living in the US we have come across so many people that only want perfection. Babies are aborted if they do not meet the "normal" standards, so many people choose not to adopt because there might be something "wrong" with the child. What I don't think many realize is that even having your own biological child there is a great risk of something "being wrong". Unfortunately because of sin there is something or many things "wrong" with all of us. 

When we ventured down the road of adoption there were skeptics throughout our process, some of them were even family members. Early on I remember Dan being afraid of bonding with a child that was not blood. (I know this is a fear of many people) 

I will be completely honest with you, when we picked Peyton up from the hospital we thought she was cute and were in awe of her but there wasn't this awe ha moment where we took one look at her and fell deeply in love. The whole thing was actually pretty weird and surreal. It took us a few days  to let everything sink in and realize this is our little girl.  However, it did not take long at all for her to completely capture our heart. 

As time went on both Dan and I felt like I had given birth to her, that's how strong our connection became. There is no difference at all between the love we have for either of our children. And guess what... They are both as far from perfect as the rest of us :)

Dan and I often explain adoption to people like this: We feel as if it is the closest thing that we as humans can experience to God's love for us and adopting us into his family.

This is just one of the songs I have heard about adoption that I love and agree with completely!

http://youtu.be/rAfmrM5937s

Caleb and "Why"

Having children and not having children... They can both be very touchy subjects when it comes to the "why" of it all. Whether it be a mom who is continuously popping out kid after kid, or the woman that so desires children and has not been able to make it work. Onlookers always wonder, "why?"

My "why" began to form when I was 24 weeks pregnant with Caleb. The first 23 weeks of my pregnancy were normal, I mean sure I was so sick everyday, every second, but that's normal right? :) At my 24 week check-up my Doctor informed me that she could not find my cervix and rushed me to the hospital. Long story short they discovered that I had 2 uteruses... Yes you saw that right... 2 uteruses! ( my mom says I had a twin and ate her in the womb..ha) anyways because of the double uterus I also have 2 cervix's, which somehow got all messed up and tangled throughout the pregnancy. Needless to say I was watched very closely for the next few months and put on bed rest, not fun! I was able to make it all the way to week 32 before any other major complications arose. At week 32 I went back into the hospital and they were able to hold me off for 2 more weeks. At 34 weeks my contractions started to get very painful and close together so they decided to do an emergency C-section. Because of my double uterus and the twisting of my 2 cervix's, when my doctor made the incision on my stomach, she also completely severed one of my cervix's. This sent the team of doctors into a frenzy as I began to lose tons of blood. Caleb was delivered but I was in rough shape. They reattached my cervix, gave me 2 blood transfusions and separated us because of our separate issues.

Since Caleb was delivered so early his lungs were not yet developed. The first few nights he had a lot of complications and they were unsure if he would even survive, but thankfully The Lord had plans for that boy and he pulled through. 

He had to stay in the NICU for a while, but we were able to hold and love him through this time. 

Because of all of these complications we were unsure if I would be able to have any more biological children until I became pregnant again when Caleb was only 11 months old. We were nervous but ecstatic at the same time, after all we both wanted a big family. Unfortunately, at 10 weeks I miscarried. We were sad but hopeful that we could have more... After trying for a number of years I have not even had another miscarriage. We both know that Gods plan is better than ours and are so thankful for not allowing me to get pregnant because as my sister in law says "God gives the best gifts" and both of our kids are truly some of the best gifts God has given to us! 

So that is the story of my "why" and I wouldn't change it for anything.