Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Meet Hope

After I miscarried last January, I met a dear friend for lunch.  She had two gifts, one for me and one for Jamie.  Below is a photo of my gift, we named her Hope.  It's amazing how much comfort a sweet, snugly, silky stuffed animal blanket can provide.  We're 35 and 39 and she sleeps in our bed every night.  And, it doesn't even seem weird to me.  It's a constant reminder that we have friends and family rooting for us, and that they have hope, too.  Hopefully someday Hope with get lots of love from the next addition to our family.

The other day Griffin was napping in our bed.  I found him like this.  He has hope, too.

Thank God for our dear friends that give us hope, even when we've felt we lost it!

And so begins the holiday season...

On Thanksgiving I woke up thankful for all we have....we are truly blessed.  As I got ready I strarted thinking about last year's Thanksgiving celebration, it was extra special because we had a baby on the way.  Finally, the miracle we were waiting and praying for.  We hadn't told many people, it was fun to have a little secret that only a few family and friends knew about.  I was reminded of the family member that inquired if we were pregnant, and we didn't respond, but smiled.  We announced at Christmas that we were expecting a baby in the summer.  We were SO happy, Griffin included! 

So, on Thanksgiving, the tears started streaming down my face, even though I was trying to stop them.  I cried on and off on the way to the farm, I couldn't help myself, I tried.  Grief hit and wasn't going to leave my side.  We got to the farm and I laid down for a bit until I could get myself together.  I received hugs and went on with our thanksgiving celebration...we do truly have a lot to be thankful for.  Hours later I was holding our sweet niece that was born several weeks before our baby was to arrive. She fell asleep on my chest and I received great comfort from her.  We're blessed to have such sweet nieces and nephews in our life to remind us of how good life is.  Such precious little miracles that make even dark days bright!

I've found that life feels good and happy, but suddenly and unexpectedly grief and disappointment can sink in.  I'm sure it's part of the healing process, and I am sure I will always feel grief because of what we've been through. But, the important thing is for us to live life so that our joy is our focus....and we learn to cope with our grief in the best way we can. 

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Nope, haven't heard a thing and a note about diapers.

It's only been two weeks and we've had 1,239 people ask is if we've gotten a call yet.  OK, it hasn't been that bad, but I think people we're dreaming of a magical story in which we went in the book and several minutes later we got a call.  Good thing that's not what we expected!  I'd love to have a magical story about a quick match, but I'll take a magical story at any time.  We just want to grow our family, my timeline for it has disappeared.  I hope that it doesn't come back, this way of thinking is much easier on my heart.

Today I was visiting with Griffin's daycare "mom".  I asked her what she'd think of us using cloth diapers.  She said that it wouldn't be a problem at all...it would make no difference to her.  Really, really cool!  So, I think that I'll start that search after things calm down a little bit (if they ever do!).  Some days I get scared to act like an expecting mother, and other days I allow myself to put my whole heart into it.  I daydream about it, but I don't really "do" anything for it.  So, the search for the perfect cloth diaper may be just what I need to begin the nesting process!  I need to let go of the fear that I won't get to be a mom again and keep my hope alive!

A special thanks to my friend Tawnia for inspiring me to consider cloth diapers.  XO

Monday, November 21, 2011

Avoided Drama

It's probably bad to use the word drama in this case, but that's what I did today.  See, I don't like drama.  It upsets me, and I can get myself worked up plenty without it! 

We got a call tonight from our friend that told us he knew of a woman that was pregnant and was looking for an adoptive family.  She decided that she was going to parent the baby.  And you know what I said?  "Good for her!" And, I meant it.  I turned to Jamie and smiled, "Look at all the drama we avoided by not pushing the situation."  Maybe my intuition is kicking in?  Maybe the Big Guy upstairs has filled me with grace and peace (and patience?? No, I doubt I have that.)?  The right baby will find his or her way to us.  (Or if I am being really optimistic, the right babIES will find their way to us.)

This is a good stage.  Waiting, but only 2 weeks, so it doesn't seem very long.  (I won't count those years we've been trying!)

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

RESOLVE Conference

Last winter Jamie and I attended a RESOLVE conference in the Twin Cities.  It was in March, so after our 3rd miscarriage when we were struggling to determine what we should do next.  We filled out the initial one-page document to apply for adoption through LSS, but had so many questions.  I didn't feel like I could go through with the last round of IVF first, but the road to adoption seemed equally as never wracking.  So much unknown. 

The RESOLVE conference was a major turning point for us, you can read about that here.  I am extremely grateful for the conference and the volunteers that gave their time to make it happen.  At the conference, I completed a form that indicated that I would like to volunteer for the conference in 2012. 

Yesterday I got an email asking if I'd be willing to volunteer for the upcoming conference and outlining some options.  I'm excited!  I hope that many others experience the comfort, support and information we received when we attended. 

Monday, November 14, 2011

Where does faith fit in? How about God?

I don't think I've written a post solely devoted to God (or maybe I have?).  Which based on our faith, seems a bit strange.  I was reflecting on that the other day, then in dawned on me, it seems obvious to me that God has been woven into this entire process that I don't feel the need to write about it.  We trust that He will lead us through, and that we will be blessed with another child. 

We will frequently be hanging out as a family....playing, eating dinner, on a Thompson family adventure, and one of us will point to the sky and say "thank you".  We know God got us this far and will continue to lead us.

He's why most days I feel strong despite what we've been through.  If you would have told me years ago that I'd get through 4 miscarriages, a barrage of medical testing and treatments, administer nearly 100 shots to myself, and shell out thousands and thousands of dollars to do it--and still love my life, I would have thought you were crazy.  But, here I am, doing just that, loving my life.  (But, I'm certain it would be EVEN better with a baby in my arms!)

And it helps to have a really supportive, thoughtful and loving husband.  I'm just sayin'.

Touch Base with our Social Worker

Our social worker is a wonderful woman, she checks in periodically and truly makes me feel "in the loop".  I emailed her a question a few weeks ago, she responded right away, and then followed up again the other day.  She got us linked up to a blog through LSS that provides us with timely information and monthly adoption statistics.  She also mentioned that there were several expecting women looking at family profiles.  It made me want to vomit.  OK, I didn't really vomit, but it made me nervous!  I want ALL of the families to get selected....we met so many wonderful people during our training and I know they've been through what we have.  They want to grow their families, too.  But, I want us to get picked, too.  I have faith that we will get matched with the right family/ies, but I also fear rejection along the way.  Probably because it seems like we've had so much in the last two years.  Rejection, loss, sadness.  I feel like we should get some sort of "get out of jail free card", but I know that's not how it works. 

After about a day, I felt less nervous and went back to my normal, "it will all work out" mentality.  We will wait patiently and trust. 

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Assumptions

A friend asked me about the adoption process the other day, a colleague of hers was nearby.  I filled her in.  Her colleague asked us how long we had to wait for Griffin.  I told her 9 months {plus 2 years of "trying"}, he's our biological child.

I think I better get used to people assuming that all of our children arrived to our family the same way.  (Well, when you look at it another way, they will have...through God.)

I feel blessed to have the opportunity to have our family grow in two very special ways!

Goals

I went to a self-motivation/goals setting seminar a couple of weeks ago.  The instructor was full of life and his hilarious stories and comments kept me captivated.  He talked about goals, writing them down, developing a plan, researching....and how all of this leads to accomplishing goals.  I could have easily written next to his step by step plan the stages of our adoption process.  It was fun for me to see the correlation and appreciate how the steps LSS developed for us should lead to our goal of having another child. 

One thing the instructor kept reiterating was positive energy.  Surrounding yourself with positive people.  Skipping the news.  Listening to positive music, because music truly affects your spirit.

I got in the car and one of my favorite songs was playing very loudly, I called my friend that also attended the session to tell her the words I heard: "We don’t have any money/We’ve never had any money before/All truths told we’re downright poor"!  I was laughing my head off.  I guess if we need to focus on paying for the rest of the adoption, I should find another song to focus on.  :)  The song If I Could is by Storyhill, it's a love song and reminds me of Jamie and me.  Here's the beginning: "You have a heaven in your eyes that I’ve been looking for\ The fire that’s in the sun is in our hearts".  It's a beautiful, beautiful song. 

If you know me well, you know I generally ALWAYS have Christian radio on, so back to KLOVE I go!

Griffin's Prayers

We pray with Griffin every night.  He likes to pray for "everyone, even the people we don't know".  The other night he prayed for "the baby that will be in our family someday." And, to "please have it be soon."  What a sweet, hopeful big brother!

One Try Left

I got a call on my cell phone at work the other day, I didn't recognize the number, but thought I better answer it since I give my number out at work somewhat frequently.
It was a representative from the Attain IVF program, the "insurance" type program we used that guaranteed us 3 tries at IVF, if we didn't bring home a baby, we'd get our money back.  (This was about a $16,500 investment and didn't include the expense for medication {very expensive} and ultrasounds.)   The representative wanted to let me know I had another IVF session left.  I wanted to laugh out loud.  That just doesn't seem like something a person would forget, but maybe some do?  I refrained from exclaiming, "We DO?  That is WONDERFUL!" and instead I told her the truth, "Yes, we are aware of that, but thank you for calling."  That extra session will be sitting there for a while until we figure out what to do.  See, we still have a frozen embryo in Minneapolis, the agreement is if we cashed out now we'd lose 25% of the funds because we have a frozen embryo.  And, if we cash out after I am 36, we lose 25% of the funds because of my age.  Decisions, decisions!  By the way, we just paid $275 to keep that little embryo frozen for 6 more months.  We'll see.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Griffin's Point of View

The other day I got the holiday Winkflash catalog in the mail, I was checking it out and Griffin said, "Mom are you reading adoption books again?"  I laughed out loud!  Apparently we've been a bit engrossed lately!

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Good Decisions

We've made a couple of decisions in the past two weeks that have made me feel good, like real adults or something!  :)  I planned to go with Jamie and some friends on a work trip with him to Indianapolis....I know we would have had a blast.  We always, always have a great time with the friends we were going to go with and we both love to explore new cities.  But, the flight would have been $300, plus food and whatever else we ended up doing (and we aren't exactly the type of people that spare expenses on trips).  Jamie and I have been blessed with lots of great quality time lately--including a great anniversary trip in July to the Red Wing/Maiden Rock, WI area and a wonderful week in California celebrating our good friends' wedding.  So, I decided not to go.  The money will be put to good use for our adoption and I'll be able to concentrate on Griffin.  I was torn for a while about what to do, but am so glad I decided to stay home.  We're planning a  fun, local get together with our friends soon!

The next one was on Jamie.  He had a fish house made the year we built our home.  It's been fun for him to have, but it's one more thing to deal with....you know how that goes.  Something to get a permit for, pull on and off the ice, maintain, blah, blah, blah.  And, he has a portable fish house, too.  So, he posted the fish house for sale, and it sold!  The gentleman that bought it will be happily using it on a nearby lake.  And, we'll happily add the money to our adoption fund.  (And, no worries, I am certain that in a few years down the road we'll have a spiffier fish house!) 

Friday, November 4, 2011

In

Our contact at LSS in Minneapolis emailed me today that we are officially in "the book" and that our online posting will be up within 24 hours.  So, as of November 4, 2011, we are officially a waiting adoptive family!  Interesting since it seems like we've been waiting a long time already, but this is a new wait.  A wait with a chance. 

I'm hopeful that the end result is what we've been dreaming of for years....a bigger family.  To be even more blessed than we are already.

What will we do during our wait?  Enjoy G-man.  Organize stuff, lots of stuff.  Research cloth diapers?  Sleep.  Live the profile.  Be thankful for what we have.  Embrace being a waiting adoptive family.  (Cyn, that word was for you!)

I feel like we just got accepted into an exclusive group that we've been waiting so long to be part of!  :)

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

I know of someone....

I hesitate to even post about this {because it doesn't seem like a big deal} but then I reminded myself this blog is about our process.  So, here's part of the process.  We had someone that we know mention in an email the other day that they know a woman looking for an adoptive family.  I didn't react like I thought I would.  I didn't put together an email with our profile, web address, etc, etc, etc.  I didn't ask about the woman, I didn't give a sales pitch.

I feel like if it's meant to be it will work out.

I walked the friend of ours through the process and answered some questions about private adoptions versus adoptions through agencies.

I told him that if she was interested in information about us or LSS, that I would be happy to provide it.

I don't want to push.  I don't want to be aggressive.  I want to respect this woman and the difficult decisions that she has to make. 

I don't expect anything to come from this.  If it does, I'll certainly be overjoyed. 

I'm keeping my trust in the Lord, that He'll guide us through this process and that our family will grow.  And, I'll trust my intuition that the right match will work out for us.

Profile update, we're in!

I got an email from our LSS contact in Minneapolis today, she has everything she needs to put our profile in the books--YEAH!  We had to complete 3 more forms (I'm super thankful we have notaries at work!) and we're done!  Our online profile will be posted as soon as they receive the notarized documents.  I honestly can't believe I overlooked them....clearly a sign of the mass amounts of paperwork we've completed! 

I've been trying to get motivated to do some more work on the adoption website I started for our family.  It's just that there are SO many other fun things to do in life instead.  Maybe tomorrow......