Oh God, How I Need You

This post is going to be very candid and I'm not going to censor myself because I just can't do that anymore. I'm exhausted with holding in things I need to release. So read this with an open heart and mind as I give a look into a window of my struggle with faith. I'm not going to edit this. I'm not going to change anything to be more eloquent. This is a rare glimpse at my heart in its rawest form, words written as they come to me.

 "For He has not ignored or belittled the suffering of the needy. He has not turned His back on them, but has listened to their cries for help" - Psalm 22:24

If I was asked last week if I would continue on with Christianity and faith my answer would have been no. Absolutely not. The past year of losses has been extremely hard on me and my faith. I was just beginning to trust God with my heart again when we lost Baby O. My walls instantly built themselves back up, my heart was turned to stone against Him. I would be laying in bed at night, saying prayers to Jesus with Rocket Baby and struggle with teaching him such bullshit. That's what my faith had become. Bullshit.

We are great people, I think. We are kind and generous.  We are law abiding, we are fantastic parents. We are stable. So our losses don't add up to me. Why the heroin addict on the streets can pop kids out like tic tacs and we struggle...it's still a sore spot in my heart. So much so that I actually questioned how strong my desire to raise Rocket Baby in the church was. I began to abandon all hopes of restoring my commitments to God and myself and my family.

We had a night last week where I can comfortably say I hit bottom. I could tell that I had reached my lowest point and I had to decide if I was going to stay on a destructive broken path or if I was going to let God in and heal. I evaluated myself and my life, who I am and who I desire to be. I evaluated my morals. It's in that broken, bottom of the barrel moment that I realized God's promises are not bullshit. He did not put me on this earth to kick my while I was already down o to watch me slowly self destruct. He just didn't.

The bible says God is the same. All day, everyday. Nothing about Him has changed since the beginning of time. His love for me is strong. I don't know why we had to lose Angel Baby and I'll never understand why we had to give up Baby O either. It hurts. I miss them both. I miss who they could have been with us and my heart aches to hold them and love them the way I've held and loved our darling Rocket. In all the confusion and all of the hurt and all of the why's, I feel myself trusting God again. Trusting His word and trusting His desires for me. Trusting His plans. I'll never understand them, but I can learn to live with them.

Losing a baby is life changing. We are not the same people. I just don't care about the things I cared about before. Losing a baby changes your world view. Things that were once important are now so painfully mundane, but in a good way. In a way that changes everything. I'm more focused on my family and nothing else really matters. And I'm ready to start talking. I don't think Baby O would want to look down from Heaven (where I truly believe his soul rests) and see his mama so broken and hurt, so I'm doing everything in my power to change that for him and for Rocket Baby, who deserves to have as much of me back that I can give.

"Teach my song to rise to You
When temptation comes my way
And when I cannot stand I'll fall on You
Jesus, You're my hope and stay"

Tomorrow, You're Only A Day Away

It's almost here! Tomorrow is our Foster Parent orientation, and we are so excited. My sister is all lined up to watch Rocket Baby (who has his first Vacation Bible School experience in the morning) and Trevor and I are very much looking forward to this first step! At the orientation we will listen to a local case worker talk about the process and requirements and at the end we will be able to ask questions. I do know we have to complete a safety course as well as a CPR course before we can get our license, then we wait!

I have a ton of questions I want to ask, but the most specific is the extent of our parental rights. Will we be able to make decisions on things that are important to us? Will I be able to nurse? Things like that. Breast feeding is definitely the most important thing to me since Rocket Baby nursed for 28 months and I would love to have that same relationship with our future child.

A lot of people have asked if we would like a boy or a girl, or if we care about ethnicity. We have chosen to keep our options as open as possible, with only one possible restriction that I am choosing not to share here. I'm not so secretly hoping we end up with a beautiful Mexican girl (I'm part Mexican), but would be thrilled to add any child to our family. We are so ready to love another little. I have baby carriers ready to snuggle and a 2.5 yr old tot isn't always the best snuggle buddy.

In the meantime, we are still taking financial donations. Foster To Adopt *can* be free, but we aren't sure if our case will be that way and want to be prepared. Any money left over will be donated to other families working through the adoption process, as we are excited to join in the adoption community as a whole and would love to support them. If you would like to donate to us, you can do that here. And since I haven't shared any photos here recently and words get boring, I'll add some updated photos of us and Rocket Baby. Enjoy!

Thoughts

I told Trevor today how glad I am to never be pregnant again. We decided at the beginning of my pregnancy with Baby O that we were not doing it again. It completely messes with our family dynamic. I spend the majority of my pregnancies hovered over the toilet, our house gets destroyed, and Rocket Baby is parented by the tv. It just isn't worth it for our family. It isn't worth the risk or the heartache.

I hear so often of women who know they're done having kids feeling a bit sad that they've come to the end of their birthing years, but I could not be more excited that this chapter is over for us. I don't get emotional about it at all. And maybe those things will come one day, but for now I have non existent feelings on the matter.

What I am excited for is adoption. Just thinking about our Foster To Adopt process brings a smile to my face. I cannot wait to get this ball rolling. I cannot wait for our child who is created for us. Our orientation to become foster parents isn't until July 15th and I really wish it was tomorrow. Or yesterday. Or last week! I've already started communicating with other foster to adopt moms and I feel like I'm entering into a special community of parenthood. One I'm very excited for.





If you'd like to donate financially to our adoption, click here!

Abundant Blessings

I apologize in advance for any typos, as I'm writing this post from my phone. I just couldn't wait to get to a computer to write about this amazing day filled with blessings!

It started a few days ago when we received some amazing donations for our fundraising garage sale. The items we received are amazing! Some of these things I can't believe anyone was willing to donate and not sell themselves. If that wasn't enough this morning i woke up to find a friend in the Babywearing community bid on an auction I had going, won, and told me to keep my wrap for our future baby. Instant tears. Rocket Baby thought I was nuts and was disappointed I had delayed our game of Super Mario.

We had a great day at the park with another friend and it was so nice being out with someone who wasn't afraid to be around me. It's been almost 6 weeks since Baby O left us and I still find it hard to be around people. A lot of the times I can tell when they're feeling awkward around me or they say intrusive things. I dont mind talking about Baby O and would prefer if people gently asked questions to get it all out there. It's much better then feeling out of place and like I'm a freak of some sort. Since that's not what this post is about, I will repeat that it was wonderful being with a friend who treated me like normal.

I can feel my faith being restored. It's so odd. I was expecting it to be a slow turn back to my faith, but when God is so blatantly pulling for you, tugging at your heart, it's hard to ignore. He is fighting for me. He isn't sitting by waiting for me to come around, He is fighting for me. I can feel it. M important enough to fight for. My husband, our sons. We are important enough to fight for. What an honor to know the Lord is hard at work for our faith in Him. And I cannot wait to see what comes of our story, of our loss.

Baby O And Moving Forward

A large part of our adoption journey centers around pregnancy loss. We have had three. The first was four years ago before Rocket Baby, an undetected molar pregnancy I carried for eighteen weeks. The second was just this past October, we found out at fifteen weeks that Angel Baby passed at twelve weeks. The most recent was Baby O.

I knew something was off, but I was also convinced that it wouldn't be serious. Or maybe it would be serious, but not life threateningly serious. Maybe amniotic bands (which a friend in the baby wearing community is dealing with, though for now all looks good), or maybe our baby would have needed a surgery after being born or would have just come early. I was a bit scared I would end up in the hospital trying to hold onto our baby just long enough for survival, but I really wasn't overly concerned.

I had called my ob the Friday before we went camping with friends, our first camping trip as a family of three. I had been cramping and was a touch concerned. My ob was out but my previous ob said it sounded like dehydration and drinking would help, which it did. I didn't even bother telling my husband the ob told me to take it easy because I didn't want to ruin our first camping trip, which thankfully isn't relevant to Baby O's loss. Camping was fun, I was enjoying it and Rocket Baby was thrilled to have endless outdoor time, but the cramping continued. It got worse when I moved around too much and eventually I started spotting. Trevor and one of our dear friends assured me everything would be alright and I just took it easy and relied on Trevor to help chase Rocket.

We ended up leaving early because the spotting wasn't stopping and whenever I moved the cramping got worse. I honestly wasn't expecting bad news. I wasn't expecting to have our world rocked for the third time in our near seven years of marriage. You just cannot be prepared to hear your child, your sweet baby you've felt moving inside of you no longer has life. When it takes a trained ultrasound technician longer then a few seconds to find a heartbeat, nerves take over. At a certain point, I just knew. Trevor knew. He saw them use the thermal portion of the machine. He saw that our baby had no color.

We aren't exactly sure when Baby O passed, but based on his weight it was likely between sixteen and eighteen weeks. I had just heard his heartbeat four weeks prior. Losing a baby at twenty weeks is rough. I want to be vulnerable with everyone and share our experience for the sake of understanding our decision to adopt, but there is something so devastatingly special about his birth, I'm not sure I can share it with anyone that isn't family and since they have yet to hear the details, now five weeks later, I don't think it's fair to share it here with the world. I don't know if I'll ever share it, it means to much to me.

We knew at the beginning of this pregnancy we weren't going to do it again. Baby O was meant to be our second miracle baby, as we now realize what a true miracle Rocket Baby is. His feisty spirit likely helped him survive to birth. We also knew that adoption was always on our radar. We both wanted at least four kids (although I will always push for five+) and we knew we wanted to add kids that weren't created from us, but were created for us.

Today I made our appointment to attend a Foster To Adopt orientation. I'm scared, I'm anxious, but I'm so excited. We both are. Scared because it's still a possibility a foster to adopt baby would be taken away. Anxious because we are so ready to expand our family and love another child, and excited at the possibilities of it all. We did look at private adoption agencies with plans on fundraising and accepting donations, but the costs were so daunting I was getting discouraged.

Private adoption agencies seem less risky then foster to adopt. It seems less likely that a birth mother will change her mind. Talking to some of my friends helped me realize that no matter what, there will be risks, and foster to adopt is truly where my heart has been all along. So we are taking a giant leap of faith and following our hearts and hoping for the best.

In the meantime we are still going to be fundraising and taking donations. We are planning a garage sale in the coming weeks and also have a GoFundMe set up to reach our Foster To Adopt goal of $4000. If we raise more then the amount needed for this adoption, we will save it for future adoptions. If we choose to keep our family a family of four, any extra funds will be donated to other families to help them expand their own families.

My relationship with God is hanging by a thread, but I'm holding on. I'm holding onto His promises and I'm believing He truly cares about our desire to grow our family. Somewhere a child is being designed for us. A birth mother is making tough decisions. She will chose to trust us to love her child because she loves her child enough to let them go. My heart is already so in love with this unknown baby. So bursting with joy at what the future holds for all of us. We have been chosen to join a throng of people lucky enough to be entrusted with a child they did not birth, and I'm honored to enter into this community.

A For Adventure - Adventures In Adoption

I figured now was as good a time as any to dust off the ol' blog. As much as I love writing, I just haven't had the time, patience, or resources to do so. A lot has happened since my last post. My husband and I have lost two pregnancies. One at 15 weeks in October 2012, and one more recently at 20 weeks, just a few weeks ago. In total we have three children, although two we wont get to hold until we meet again in Heaven.

This blog is now going to serve a bigger purpose. To keep those interested in our adoption process in the loop. We have no plans on ever trying to have kids of our own again. We feel strongly that God is pulling us in the direction of adoption, to what capacity we are unsure of. But we're ready. We've been ready. Although our faith is on shaky ground, we are once again choosing to trust God's plans for our lives. We are choosing to believe that our heartache will serve a divine purpose. We are choosing to believe that we will have more children.

Adoption has always been on our radar, although I do admit it was a distant plan. Now everything is so real. Research is happening and plans are being made. I don't think I've ever requested more information on any particular topic in my life. And all the information out there is so overwhelming, but exciting at the same time. Things are getting real around here and we will anxiously await the arrival of our new little one.

Rocket Baby's 3 Part Tutorial On Preventing Mom From Cleaning

Important lessons on keeping your toys all over the place. Because having them put away is inconvenient to our plots for mass destruction.

1) get ridiculously upset when she starts picking up blocks. So upset that it irritates your already sore throat and you break out into a nasty coughing fit. The added sympathy of being sick works well in your favor.

2) escalade from just generally being upset to full blown crocodile tears. At this point the sore throat has now caused you to become raspy/lose your voice. Put on your most pathetic face and get ready for the final step.

3) decide you need to nurse for 30minutes. It's also imperative you don't bother your mom too much or she will threaten to take your milk away. Apparently being repeatedly smacked in the face makes her cranky.

Congratulations. You have now wasted an hour of her time.


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