This Is What Adoption Is All About

I came into the dining room today to find my daughter drawing this picture on our dry erase board. This is what adoption is all about. A simple picture of a happy house drawn by the child who grew in your heart.

Have you seen it?

Have you seen how blog land has been coming together to raise funds for each other's adoptions? Have you seen it? I am blessed by the things I've read in the past few days!

Yulia's funds are raised.

Lynette making a quilt and then selling the the appliques she designed so that others may make a quilt while raising funds for her friend, Holly's, adoption.

I am blessed by the actions of God's people. Truly blessed!

To God Be the Glory!

It's a miracle! $20,000 have been raised for little, sweet Yulia in just five days!! Pray now for her family to hear God's call!

Help save Yulia.

Adeye from No Greater Joy Mom is trying to save Yulia. This little girl needs so much, but especially your prayers.

Garden Party

I belong to a wonderful adoption support group. The families represented are as diverse as the countries we have adopted from.

I hosted a fun little garden party to celebrate the beginning of fall. You can read about it here!

I love my adoption support group!

April is coming....

I have a friend who has a little boy who was born in April 2006. She was remarking that Kai would be 3 on his birthday and I remembered. I remembered that during the Christmas season when we found out about the baby we wanted to adopt, I said to my husband, pointing to Kai, this is where we will be next Christmas. I remember thinking that Kai would be one in the same month that our baby boy would be born. And so I remembered, that our son would be two this April. And I morn, again.

One Year Anniversary

It's been one year that we found out we would not be adopting our dear sweet baby.

Great Sadness

Sigh!

No new baby:(

We heard from our agency that we were not the family picked to adopt the little boy that we put our homestudy in for in December.

Ironically, later that afternoon, we received the bill from our agency for submitting the homestudy. Ahh, such is the game of adoption.

Actually, I am doing okay. Wondering what God has for us in all this. Wondering if I'm missing what He wants us to do. Wondering if three children is the size of our family.

Hmmmm?

Here we go again;)

Well, our agency called yesterday with a referral.

Little boy. Blond hair. Blue-eyed. One-year old.

Put our home study in. Won't hear anything until after the first of the year.

Don't know when the matching meeting is.

For those not familiar with adoption through foster care agencies.....Children become available when a county obtains permanent custody for a neglected or abused child. (PC in itself is a very long process. For instance, my daughter was in the "system" two years before permanent custody was obtained.) If the foster family doesn't want to adopt, other licensed to adopt families put in their home studies to be evaluated. Agency picks 5-7 home studies for a "matching meeting." Your social worker from your agency presents your file. Everybody votes and picks family number one and family number two.

In 2007, we put our home study in for three children. Made it to matching three times. We were picked as family number two once. Maybe this one will be the one:)

Thanks for your prayers.

Adoption Loss

Adoption loss is not a subject we talk about a lot. Or maybe there are resources out there, but we avoid seeing them because it's such a scary thought.

I am very contemplative this month. I am thinking back to last year at this time when we received the call from our agency on December 9th that a birth mother had picked our file out of a stack of files that our social worker had presented to her. We were the only couple that she was interested in meeting. We met with her and the birth father on December 18 and she said that she wanted us to adopt her baby which would be born in April.

Many things happened along the way. She failed her drug test and ended up in a women's prison. We hired our lawyer and remained hopeful. On March 9 we received a call that the baby had died. No other information was given. There would be no adoption.

I fully expected to have another child by this Christmas. We have presented our homestudy for three other children, never being the family picked.

I know without a shadow of a doubt that God is in control. And yet, I mourn. For the newborn child that was to be ours and for all the children out there that do not have families.

A Worthy Cause

Please visit McKenzie Crew

Mighty Is The Cross

I held you in my heart

Dec. 6, 2006-March 9, 2007

Great Sadness

We received a call from our agency today. The birth father called to let them know that the baby had died. I have no details, just a huge ache in my heart. There will be no adoption.

Please pray for the birth mother and father.

Please listen:
The World Was Just Too Small

Dreams

Dreamed all night about the baby. Nothing specific that I can remember, just dreams. Woke up feeling at peace, though.

Still waiting for the lawyer's phone call.

33 Weeks

Baby is 33 weeks old.

DH and I hadn't been out since early January, mostly because of my looooong illness and Vicadin induced haze. Yesterday we went out to Chipotle (Mexican place with MASSIVE burritos), got a new cell phone at Cingular--the new AT&T (LOL), and then went to Target to find a cover for new, cute cell phone so that I wouldn't throw it away like I had a previous cell phone:) While at Target, we looked at baby clothes and dreamed for a little bit.

Here's my plan. I figure I'll get a call that the baby has been born and that we can come pick it up in 72 hours, after all the papers have been signed. I will then fly into a shopping frenzy and go to Target and Kohl's and buy all of those adorable little clothes that I've been drooling over. I will bring them home and leave them in the bags with the receipts. That way, if I don't get to bring the baby home, I can return everything:(

Oh, and nothing new from our agency or the lawyer. Patience, patience, patience. Private infant adoption is sooooo vastly different from foster care adoption.

Drool

I received the new Pottery Barn Kids catalog. Sigh! There are some beautiful baby things in there. And the nurseies! Oh my! Can I dream?

No update from the lawyer yet. What's a mama to do?

Still waiting

The lawyer has not called:( So, my theory for today is that she called the birth mother's lawyer, which she said she was going to do, and is waiting for a return call. Hmmmm. I would call my lawyer to see what's happening, but at $125 an hour, I think I'll wait. :)

Baby is 32 weeks and three days!!!!!

Lawyer Part II

Saw our lawyer today at church and updated her on the changes in the birthmom's address, etc. She is going to contact the birthmom's lawyer and see if she can find out what is going on. Where the adoption is filed will be different, so questions need to be answered.

Did I say that I really like our lawyer?

Beneath the Eyes of Heaven

My husband is a guitar player and has posted many of his songs on a site called iCompositions Last year he wrote a song called Beneath the Eyes of Heaven about adoption. I spoke the song. Check it out if you have a minute or two:)

Beneath the Eyes of Heaven

More of his music can be found here. His other songs are much better because I'm not on them. LOL He plays jazz, rock, Christian Contemporary. These lullabies are particularly gorgeous.
Lullaby 2
Lullaby 3