Reflecting on 2013

I stumbled upon a message from a friend this morning that was written to me on March 30, 2012.  This was the day we found out our frozen embryo transfer had not worked.   This is just a small portion of our conversation.  "My heart hurts for you guys, however God's plan is greater than what our plan is. Being able to put your faith and trust in Jesus through the difficult times is what will get you through. Today my cousin posted a song by Laura Story called Perfect Peace. You seriously need to listen to it...It talks about letting Jesus bear your load because he gives you perfect peace, though this life is hard, know that I will always give you perfect peace!"  This was my response: "I will never understand why I have had the struggles that I have, but I do trust God and know one day he will answer all my questions and explain it all to me.  In the mean time, I just need to trust that he knows what he's doing.  I will be a mom someday!"
    So today I reflect on 2013 with the biggest smile on my face and my little monkey asleep in his crib (although he cried and faught it, but only for a minute.  Mommy knows best). Its so hard to believe I've been a mom for almost 9 months already.   My wild, strong-willed, smiley, busy, blue eyed almost 10 month old blessing has taught me so much in 9 months. He's taught me that sleep is overrated, the simplest things are hillarious ( who knew saying BA BA BA could cause incredible laughter?)  He's taught me that life is so interesting and everything is fun!
Another lesson is that people come into your life for a reason.  They give you strength when you don't think you have it.  Some people come into your life when you least expect it.  It even happens when you are applying hair color on a client!  I can laugh now about the day we found out about this little 2 week old who we now call our son.  Yes, I had a client in my chair.   I remember the emotions I felt, the days that followed, and the incredible respect I had for J's birth mother and father.  When we met them a few days later, I remember telling his birth mother that I love her.  I explained to her how strange it felt to tell someone that you've just met that you love them, but I did then and still do. I have an incredible respect for the decision she made, putting her own feelings aside, to make the plan for the future of her son.  She loved him so much & knew he'd not have the life she wanted for him if she parented him.  Then she chose us, people she'd never met, to care for and love him for the rest of his life.  If God wasn't at work in this situation,  I'm not sure who was! 
We continue to have a relationship with his birth family.   We will always share a special bond and our son will always have people who love him unconditionally.  We will cherish the day forever when she placed him in our arms, gave him a kiss and told us she loved us. 
She was his mommy that gave him life & I'm the mommy who helps him live his life.  What a wonderful blessing.

    2013 has been the best year in our lives and marriage so far.  We look forward to 2014 when we move into our dream home. Although not nearly as exciting as 2013, but still extremely exciting!   We are building new memories with our little family.   God continues to bless us beyond measure. I'm so glad that I trusted His plan and followed my heart.  Sometimes it was very difficult and I questioned it, but I kept on keeping on and now we are praising Him and His wonderful glory.  God is good!

First visit with birth family today

When we began this adoption process in April of 2012, my perspective on open adoption was quite skewed.   If you asked me then what I thought about potential visits with our future child's birth mom or dad, I probably would've told you that would make me uncomfortable. If you suggested maybe even visiting our child's extended birth family, I may have thought that was a crazy idea.   I probably wouldn't have wanted it that way.  Afterall, I've watched Lifetime Movie Network a time or two and have seen how those stories turn out.  They never go well. 
Thank goodness I have since been very much educated about open adoption and how beneficial it is for not only our child, but for us and his birth family.

Today we sat down for nearly two hours in a room, all by ourselves, with two people who love our son unconditionally.   They are his birth grandparents.   They drove over 5 hours one way, just to see him for a short time.  They just sat there and stared at him, tears in their eyes, and thanked us over and over again for allowing them to be a part of our son's life.  They played with him, took a million pictures, smiled, laughed, cried and even fed him his bottle.  They brought him presents & even included a nice card for us along with a gift card to a local restaurant so we could have a date night.

We are so incredibly blessed to know our son is so loved by not only us & our family,  but by his birth family and extended birth family.   Open adoption will allow them to watch him grow throughout his life.  I'm so happy I was educated about openness in adoption.   What a blessing it is.

Its just a formality

Yesterday was such a wonderful day.  Yesterday our son became ours forever.   To hear the judge say that your son will be known as yours forever is just a formality.   In our hearts he already was ours.  This just made it legal through the government. It was a special day.  I cried happy tears and we celebrated afterwards with cake and dinner.  October 14th will always be a day we will celebrate.   We are so blessed for the amazing people in our lives who made this happen.  If it weren't for God and J's birthparents, we wouldn't have him.  We will continue to thank them every day.  We pray that some day J will understand the deep love they have for him.  I'm grateful for the opportunity to be this little man's mommy for the rest of his life, but I will never forget about the sacrifice his first mommy made.  She is our angel on earth. We thank God that she trusts us to care for and love him.  She won't be disappointed.   We have so much to share with him.

A new story begins

I've been thinking about this moment since the day we began this adoption journey almost 2 years ago.  The day has FINALLY arrived.  Tomorrow we will stand before a judge and be told that our son is legally ours forever.   He has been our son since the moment they placed him in our arms, but to hear that its legal now will give me goosebumps and bring me to tears.  We have waited a very long time to become parents and these past 6 1/2 months have been filled with the biggest blessing.  We are this little boys parents and will love him unconditionally until the day we die.  He has filled our lives with incredible joy.  I still pinch myself to make sure I'm not dreaming.   God has blessed us with the sweetest blue eyed boy in the world.  God sure knew what he was doing when he chose him to be in our lives.  I'm so happy that our plan hadn't worked.  God had a much better one.  Adoption has given us the family we desired.  We look forward to watching our son grow and change every day.  Tomorrow we will close one chapter in our lives and begin a new one.  We will be a family forever. We cannot wait to write a new story.

Feeling blessed

Last night I shared my blog with someone who is considering adoption and noticed that I haven't written in a long time.  Life has been busy.  The best kind of busy!
As I type this, my 6 month old blessing is asleep in his swing.  Sometimes I still pinch myself to make sure I'm not dreaming!
  We just finished our last meeting with our social worker this morning.   Its hard to believe that this journey began over a year ago and in just a few short weeks will be coming to an end.  We will finalize our son's adoption in mid-October.   Our story will not end, its just beginning.   Our family is blessed with the most beautiful blue eyed little boy.  He laughs and smiles nonstop and continues to bless us and our family in ways we never imagined.  We are so grateful to all who helped us get to this point.   The support of our family,  friends, pastors, co-workers, social worker & attorney has been amazing and we couldn't have gotten to this point without all of you.  Thank you is not a big enough word for how we feel.  Most importantly,  we are forever grateful for J's birth family.   We continue to keep them updated on his life and will continue to do so.  We thank God every single day for bringing them into our lives and providing us with the greatest gift we will ever receive.  God has great plans for our son.  We cannot wait to see what the future holds for him. 

Baby J is 2 months old today!

Our little munchkin is 2 months old today and has been in our home for almost 5 weeks!  Man, time does fly when you're having fun!  My dad always tells me every year on my birthday "Time flies by the older you get.  One day they are babies, and then you blink and your baby is in her 30's".  I used to laugh this off.  But boy is it true.  These last 5 weeks have flown by.  I don't even want to imagine him growing bigger.  I'm soaking up every second.  I love my little man, my husband and the life we've created.  LIFE.IS.GOOD!  BUT it could slow down a little.

5 weeks old today

Its so hard to believe that our baby boy is 5 weeks old and has been officially a part of our family for 1 week.  This has been the most exciting and exhausting week of our lives, but we wouldn't change a second of it!  We are so incredibly blessed by the love and support from our family and friends.  God is so amazing and we are truly blessed to have you all help celebrate our little man's arrival.  As I sit here feeding him, I remember what it used to feel like to dream about this day.  I remember how much it hurt to hear another friend or family member was expecting.   I remember how it would hurt to get that invitation to yet another baby shower. Now we are making plans for baptism & I will be attending a baby shower for ME this weekend!  Let me tell you, I would experience every single bit of pain, tears, paperwork and failed fertility treatments over again.  It all led us to finding the little boy who was meant for us.  It took 6 years to get here.  But we all believe it took that long because our son wasn't in this world yet.