Backtracking - Benjamin's birthday

Back in Decemeber when I posted about Benjamin's first birthday, I meant to come back later and add photos, but then the battery died and I couldn't retrieve the photos. So, even though it's almost two months later, here are the photos.

I made a snake cake. I got the idea from my friend Becky, who makes the most amazing cakes. After looking through photos of some of her cakes, I chose this one that seemed simple enough for a non-cake maker, like myself, and one that wouldn't be too hard to not mess up. Still, my snake didn't turn out nearly as awesome as hers. BUT, I was pretty happy at my attempt to something more than a 9x13.

If you recall, Benjamin wasn't into eating the cake. Instead, he grabbed fist-fulls and squished the cake through his fingers. But, he was loving the ice cream - definitely a Mama's boy!

One of his favorite toys of the day - the air ball popper. His birth mother, Tracey, and his birth grandmother gave it to him. Ben and Hugh both get excited when we turn it on and play with it. They love it!

I loved capturing these moments between Benjamin and Tracey. Even though he's only a year old, I get the feeling that deep within him there is an understanding of who Tracey is and how he came to us. I'm so grateful for our open adoption, for the relationship we have with Tracey. I know there must be some bitter-sweet feelings that come with participating in big events like this with us. She continues to amaze me with her ability to continue to put her love for Benjamin ahead of her own conflicting emotions. Benjamin will never doubt how much he is loved by his birth family.

Birth Mother's Day

I've been reminiscing a bit today....

Three years ago, today, we received the official news that we were approved to adopt. (Which actually also marks the birth of this blog.)

Two years ago I enjoyed Mother's Day more than any other before it... anticipating approaching motherhood with twin daughters.

Last year I couldn't handle facing Mother's Day, so Marc and I made a weekend trip out of town. We hiked through Muir Woods, had dinner at a delicious little pizzeria, and attended church the following day in a ward where no one would know our story. While motherhood felt more real with the birth of our twins, the reality was that I still lacked the experiences of a 'normal' mother. Visiting the cemetery and using my licked thumb to wash off the dirt wasn't exactly what I wanted from motherhood experiences. I hungered even more for the real thing... the real cheeks to clean with my licked thumb and everything else that comes with being a mom.

Today... well, today my heart is full. For the first time in my life I'm not dreading Mother's Day. All because of a brave and compassionate woman who has played a key role in making me a mother. Tomorrow would be another dreadful holiday if it weren't for our sweet Tracey. I don't know how I can ever adequately express how indebted I feel to Tracey for the gift of motherhood she has made possible.

Today is considered Birth Mother's Day, appropriately so. Today we are celebrating the Birth Mother who gave life to our little boy who we have been "expecting" for the last three years.

We love him. And, we love her. And, we always will. 

Blessings - Part 1

After writing that last post, I intended on writing a follow-up the very next day. I thought I would finally find the right words to share what happened next. But, I'm still struggling.

Have you ever experienced something that feels so special that, while your heart shouts for joy, shouting it from the rooftops seems inappropriate? Instead, you want to whisper it quietly into the ears of those who are closest to you, hoping that they'll feel the sacredness of what you're sharing.

Over the last couple of months, we've felt completely overwhelmed with feelings of gratitude for the healing we've found in the last year. Choosing to go through every grueling part of the grieving process has turned out to bring a new beauty to life. And, in seeking to know and understand my role and purpose in this season of my life, I've found answers come in the form of blessings that I never expected, that I never could have dreamed of.

Here's me whispering in your ear...

On the last day of August, we received the first bit of unexpected and joyful news. Even though we hadn't officially gotten back into adoption, we received an email from Tracey, a birth mother, letting us know she had chosen us to adopt her baby boy. The experiences that led her to find us have felt so clearly Divinely guided. From our first contact with Tracey, we have felt the Lord's hand in this blessing, this miracle. And, I can't help but wonder what role certain angels have played in helping this all to happen.

It is difficult to express the love and admiration we feel for Tracey. I have struggled a bit with the contrast of emotions that come with this approaching adoption. While we feel joy at the blessing this little boy will be in our family, we know the choice for Tracey is not an easy one. It pains me to think of the grieving process she faces. We know something of pain and heartache from losing a child and it hurts to think that she might be experiencing some of that. That's why I'm so relieved with our mutual feelings about having a very open adoption. I hope that through the years we can somehow find a way to adequately express our love and gratitude to Tracey.

As expressed in this article about adoption, our greatest hope for Tracey is that she will find "that from the ashes of [her] deepest pain, [God] has made something beautiful."

I find great comfort in my firm assurance that she and I share the same loving and merciful Father who sees the full picture of our lives and knows the details of every feeling, every unspoken yearning, every hurt and every fear. Because of His perfect love, He knows how and when to send the right joys and pains that will teach us lessons of life that will help us become who He intends for us to become. He clearly works in mysterious ways... and I'm constantly amazed at how perfectly those mysteries are resolved.

Baby Boy is expected to arrive January 11th.

(That's only seven weeks away!)

All in a month...

So, we returned home from Australia and discovered some big changes were coming. I have to apologize for keeping you in suspense. I could have just jumped in and shared what's happened in the last month, but I felt like yesterday I needed to go back and reminisce a little about where we've been and what's happened in the last five years.

Because what came next is something we NEVER would have expected.

As you know, we both came down with some cold/flu thing the night before we came home from Australia... making that 18-hour plane ride home a complete nightmare. But, anyway, Marc got better after about a week. I, on the other hand, stayed sick and got progressively more sick.

And, then we found out why:

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After five years of NOTHING, then all of a sudden THIS. These are just some of the feelings we've experienced:

awe

an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, fear, etc., produced by that which is grand, sublime, extremely powerful, or the like

won·der

to be filled with admiration, amazement, or awe; marvel

de·ni·al
disbelief in the existence or reality of a thing.

be·wil·dered

completely puzzled or confused; perplexed.

grate·ful

warmly or deeply appreciative of kindness or benefits received; thankful

Still, after having weeks to let the news sink in, I can't say a prayer without weeping. I've thought a lot of Mary and her feelings after the birth of Jesus - "But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart." And, this year in seminary studying the Old Testament... when we were discussing Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Hannah, I felt such a deep connection to their heartache and anxiously hoped to one day also experience their joy. And, now, with this news, feeling so overwhelmed and even undeserving.

I don't want to say we had "given up"... but, we were completely at peace with the probability that we wouldn't have biological children. We were so thrilled with our plans to create our family through adoption. We LOVE adoption. We will continue to be advocates of adoption and spread all that's good about adoption with all we know. We have gained SO MUCH from our adoption journey - knowledge, understanding, empathy, sensitivity... not to mention the incredible birthmothers we've met and other adoptive couples who have become such dear friends. And, hopefully we will still have the chance to experience the full miracle of adoption.

Words can't describe how grateful we are to the Lord for allowing our paths to cross with "B". We are so grateful for how she has blessed our lives. She has changed our life, simply from the example she has shown us of courage, of faith, of purity and integrity. We have never met anyone who matches the qualities she has already developed. She is one of the most amazing individuals we have EVER met. And, we're looking forward to a lifelong friendship with her.

As you can imagine, we've had some conflicting feelings and emotions over the last few weeks. While we are ever so grateful for the miracle of this pregnancy, it's been hard to let go of our plans and dreams of adoption. I guess, in the end, our dream is to realize the blessing of a family, however the Lord sees fit to allow that to happen. Things change, plans are altered... and I know the Lord is involved in the details of how and when things come together.

Sharing this news is very difficult for a few different reasons, one of those being that I know all too well how painful it is to hear the news of yet another person getting pregnant. It kills me to know that this news could be painful to someone out there. I don't know why this has happened for us. It's very humbling, even to the point where I know there are so many out there who are more deserving of this blessing than us.

It's also very scary knowing that there could still be "changes" that happen. We are trying to just focus on finding joy and wonder in the miracle that comes with each new day. And, we are filled with comfort, knowing that whatever tomorrow holds, the Lord will take care of and provide for us. He always has and He always will. As long as we align our will with His, we will always be okay.

Even better than okay.

Oh, and there is one other detail about this pregnancy:

All in a year...

I know it's been a month since we've updated our blog... thanks to Carrot Jello for not letting us forget! There is so much... it's really hard to know where to start. Maybe it's best to start from the beginning...

A year ago today we received our official letter in the mail from LDS Family Services, informing us that we had been approved to adopt. That was also the birthday of our blog. Adoption was the main purpose behind creating this blog, hoping we could get our information "out there" and find the birthmother of the child who was meant to join our family. So, happy 1st birthday, blog!

We've had quite a journey. Five years ago we started trying to have a family. We actually got pregnant within a couple of months of trying, but lost the baby soon after initially getting the exciting news. It was just enough time to get attached and make dreams for that little one. But, we healed and moved forward, sure that the wait wouldn't be long.

After passing the 2-year anniversary of our miscarriage, after no luck of getting pregnant again, I finally allowed myself to admit that we had a problem. Infertility. That started a year and a half of doctor visits, tests, procedures, referral to an infertility specialist, surgery, drugs, disappointment, discouragement. And, amidst all that we went through, there was no explainable reason why we couldn't conceive. We still had more options we could pursue with our infertility specialist, but the more we went to her the more we felt like we weren't in the right place. That's probably because the last visit we had with her she scoffed when we told her we were looking into adoption. Excuse me? Then, she told us we would never have a child, unless we went with IVF. Yeah, I had no desire to see her after that.

For about six months we had been talking about adoption, and finally decided to attend an adoption orientation meeting. We listened to birthmothers talk about their experiences placing their babies for adoption, we watched as two young families shared how they'd been recently blessed by the miracle of adoption. Basically it was five hours of free-flowing tears. As we left that meeting, Marc summed it up perfectly - "we leave doctor appointments feeling discouraged and sad... and then we leave this meeting feeling joy and excitement at the renewed hope of having a family."

The answer was so clear to us. We knew that we were meant to jump into adoption and we were so excited. We received all the paperwork and got it completed as fast as we could. We couldn't wait to be approved and start our search for our child.

So, May of last we year, we were approved. The day we got the letter in the mail was a day of joyful tears... we were one step closer to our dreams coming true. September came and all of a sudden we were contacted by three birthmothers. Our contact with one of them lasted for three months, and we thought our Christmas miracle was on its way. But, there turned out to be some complications with the situation and things didn't turn out like we hoped.

We were thrilled, though, when we were contacted by an amazing girl on New Year's Eve. Of all the contacts we had had, there was something very different about our feelings towards "B". There was an immediate connection, a feeling of recognition... like we already knew each other.

There are a few reasons why we haven't shared any of our experiences with "B" here, mostly because it has been so special to us and we wanted to save those details for our private journal, until the time was right. After only a few weeks of emailing back and forth, we spent a day with "B" and her family. We saw Juno at the theater with her and her Mom. It really felt like an out-of-body experience... it was such a special day we spent with her. We left, loving her even more. Everything went better than we ever could have hoped.

Because of the delicacy of her situation (beyond her control), there were some risks with us getting involved so early, which she was really open with us about. She was in her fourth month when she contacted us, so our pathways joined together pretty early on in her pregnancy. She has had some uphill battles to fight and we have really appreciated being next to her, witnessing her bravery, her faith, her determination to accomplish the Lord's will. She has won our admiration for life.

Since returning from Australia, to our surprise, the Lord has made some serious alterations to our plans. As a result, I've felt such a wide range of conflicting emotions - joy, sadness, wonder, confusion. But, overall, as we've watched the Lord make these changes from every direction, we have felt very much at peace that He is completely in control... AND He always has been. We make plans and we work towards fulfilling our dreams in any way we can, and then we learn that sometimes even those plans that we were so sure about aren't quite what we thought they would be. But, the Lord, in His great wisdom, knows exactly what He's doing. And, though we can't understand perfectly at this time the purpose and reason behind those plans, in the end the blessings He has in store for us are even greater than we could ever imagine.

I've reflected a lot lately on a quote from C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity:

God's work in our lives can be painful, but His ultimate goal is to transform us into something better. Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what he is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is he up to? The explanation is that he is building quite a different house from the one you thought of — throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but he is building up a palace. He intends to come and live in it himself.

Well, I wasn't planning on making this a two-part post, but seeing as it's already getting so long, I think we'll finish this later. Plus, I think I need a little break... it's hard to put so many feelings down in words that won't ever adequately represent what's going on in those inner layers of the heart.

Please understand if it takes us a few more days to share the details of the rest of the story.

Adoption Vocabulary

Marc just left for his Judo class. I'm about to leave for a soccer game. Our team only has two games left after today. And, who knows where we'll be for the rest of the day... so, I thought I'd give you something to do.

When we first got into adoption, we learned from our case worker that there are correct and incorrect words and phrases to use when talking about adoption. It was really helpful for us to learn how to say things in a way that represents adoption in the positive and beautiful way that it should be represented. So, the other day I was thinking about posting the list we received, but then realized that Carly had just posted it on her blog.

So, go check it out... you may learn something new. Plus, she has a really incredible adoption story that had me in tears. I have loved seeing her perspective as a birthmother... it helps me so much to learn the feelings and emotions on the side of birthmothers.

We have really appreciated Carly and the other birthmothers we've "met" throughout this process and the ways they've enriched our lives and deepened our love for the miracle of adoption. They are incredibly strong, mature, selfless women, who demonstrate awe-inspiring faith and courage in choosing adoption for their child. Just amazing.