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.

Divinely Guided

I spent most of Saturday doing some major cleaning. Not the normal dishes, vacuuming, making the bed stuff (although, I did that stuff, too)... I'm talking about cleaning dark corners of the house - going through things that have been sitting in the less-used rooms of the house.

I discovered what appears to be Marc's own life-time supply of his necessities - shaving gel, deoderant, breath mints, pocket knives. If we ever are in an emergency and we can't go to a store for an extended period of time, Marc will smell great! And, if I'm desperate enough I'll smell just like him. Not that he smells bad! Just that I'll smell like a man. Oh well. I guess we need to make an inventory and keep track of what we really need when we go to the store!

So, anyway, it was in the middle of finding his "treasures" that I came across this little white card - smaller than a business card - with a quote on it. In Marc's handwriting it said this:

"I believe I am always divinely guided. I believe I will always take the right road. I believe that God will always make a way, even when there appears to be no way."

- Commander William Robert Anderson

(I had no idea who this guy was, but wikipedia tells me that William Anderson was a naval office and commander of the first submarine to successfully sail under the polar ice cap surrounding the North Pole. Pretty cool, huh?)

So, anyway, I had to re-read the quote for emphasis... and then I thought back to an experience from a couple of weeks ago. I was sitting in one of my classes when my teacher brought up the idea of life being "planned out" for us. I sat back, interested to hear what others would say about it. I was sure there would be others who have seen evidence of some greater plan coming together in their lives - whether they attribute it to their religious beliefs or to some belief in "destiny."

The only vocal people were the ones who thought such an idea was silly. I was left speechless... partly because I needed more time to think through things more clearly. While I don't believe in things being "predetermined," I do believe that there are things that can only come together with divine help and intervention.

I've thought a lot about my own life since that class discussion and tried to explain away the divinely guided moments of my life and count them simply as mere coincidence. No matter how hard I try to do it, I just can't. There are things I've seen come together in such miraculous ways, that there is no other explanation except that God had a hand in it coming together the way it did.

About a million experiences from my mission alone come to mind. Italy is a sacred place to me - a place where I first became aware of the Great Orchestrator of life. The stories I could share! Unbelievable stories... except they are true life experiences.

But, perhaps the divine help I'm most grateful for was finding Marc. It was six years ago this week that we first met. On Halloween night 2001, my roommate Julianna came home and said "Marc found out today that his dad passed away... if you see him, let him know you're thinking of him." To be honest, I didn't even know who Marc was or what he looked like, even though we'd been in the same ward at Church for over two months.

Then it was a week and a half later that the same roommate informed me of Marc being involved in a very serious car accident. At this point, I thought "Holy Cow! Where's this guy's break? Is his father's death not enough?" Then, I thought of my brothers... and I thought of how lonely they would be if they were going through the same awful things being surrounded only by male roommates, who sometimes don't know how to reach out to other men during emotional times. And, I decided I was going to change that.

So, I would seek out this "Marc" at Church the next day and offer my friendship to him... and here's where the story just begins...

...to be continued... :)