On the Edge of a Cliff and Ready to Fly

Hubby and I spent most of the day filling out our home study paperwork, copying our personal documents, and printing out photos. All we have left are the financial statements, which apparently we get from our social worker at our first orientation meeting. This was the meeting that was scheduled June 13, which had to be postponed due to my mother’s death. S.T. (social worker) emailed us tonight and advised she’s ready to schedule the orientation meeting, so that is exciting.

We have a pretty good draft of our “birth mother” book, but we still have to make a letter that we hand out to everyone we know advising that we are wanting to adopt. I worry sometimes that no one will ever pick us, and we’ll be waiting forever, but we’ll never know until we try. We keep talking about foster care adoption, but all the meetings we’ve gone to about foster care they bring up the fact that most of the children awaiting adoption are older. My husband doesn’t want to adopt a child that’s older than how long we’ve been married, and I guess I see my husband’s point. Maybe if we have been waiting a long time for a private adoption child and nothing is working we’ll go the foster care route, or perhaps we’ll decide just to not have kids, I really don’t know.

Once we get the social work side completed, I am not sure what’s next. I suppose waiting is what happens next. I am not sure when we’re going to work on the “we’re adopting” letter, I guess as soon as possible. Tomorrow I think is going to be a little busy to work on any more of this. We can’t find any copies of our marriage certificate, which is the last document we need for the home study. We’re planning on going to the county courthouse Tuesday morning to pick another copy up.

I hope this is a little easier the second time around. I think we spent so much time thinking and debating and hoping and waiting it feels like it’s taken FOREVER to get this done. I have been looking back in my blog posts and thinking back to when we started on this journey, and it seems like we have been taking such baby steps to get here. I wonder if it’s different for couples who are given a very straight answer that they will not be able to get pregnant. I wonder if what has taken us so long to move forward with each step is that the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong, so there is always a hope that we will get pregnant. I think I’m okay with not being pregnant, but I’m not okay with not having any kids at all.

As we’ve been waiting and praying for kids, I just keep praying that God will make me not want to have kids and make me stop thinking about it. I’ve also been praying for it to get easier. I have been thankful that most people have been supportive and given us kind words of encouragement as we’ve gone down this path, rather than judging us or telling us what we’ve done wrong. That would make it even harder if people weren’t excited for us or supportive.

A lot of my husband’s family friends have adopted children, and there are a lot of adoptive families at our church, which is good, it makes me not feel as weird. In our circle of friends we’re the only ones, so that will be interesting as our kids get older. I definitely want to be open with them and let them know they’re adopted right from the beginning, but I just worry that they will feel weird if all their other friends are not adopted. I suppose it won’t really make a difference.

Those are things I want to start researching and reading about, now that we know this is the path we’re taking, and we’re going to keep plugging along until God definitely slams the door. I want to find out more about raising kids, how to bond with adopted babies, and how to deal with these different issues. I guess it’s not going to feel real until we have our child, I know we’re going to have a baby someday, but there is no set due date, no set time frame. When we first sat down with our attorney at the end of May of 07, we asked her how long it would take. She said about 1 year. We’ve given our birth mom book to one person and we weren’t selected, and no one else has wanted to see our birth mom book (but we also haven’t sent out the letters to all the different people we know). So, we’ll see if the time frame is a year, or longer. I’m trying not to think too far ahead, just trying to take it one step at a time, one meeting at a time.

Okay, I know it’s August, but I feel like posting about my husband.

We will be married 7 years January 6, 2008. I can’t even believe it, it’s gone by really fast.  I was thinking of everything we’ve been through together….Our pastor always said when you take your wedding vows you think “Better…Richer…Health” but you promise the “Worse…Poorer….Sickness.” There are things we’ve been through that I wouldn’t ever have expected. However, through all of it, my husband’s true character has shone through.

He is a jem. I know it hurts him a lot that we haven’t been able to get pregnant, there is something in him that really wants to be a dad and have a baby. He doesn’t verbalize it a lot, but I know it hurts. Me? It hurts, but I just want a child, it doesn’t hurt nearly as much when I’m filling out adoption paperwork. I’m actually sort of relieved to not have to go through pregnancy and childbirth. Now, my hubby is all for adopting. But I think there is a part of him that hurts very deeply to think that maybe we won’t ever be able to give birth to our children. Has he ever blamed me? No. Has he ever pushed me to do infertility treatments I don’t want to do? Never. Has he been a rock when I’ve been a mess? Absolutely.

I think the “Infertility Club” is something you don’t understand till you’ve been there. Before we tried to have children, I looked at couples that had trouble having kids, and I felt badly for them, but I really didn’t understand. It’s a roller coaster, it doesn’t seem fair, and every young girl that buries her baby in the backyard with the help of her mom just eats at you. Every kid you hear of that’s killed, left in a car in the heat, or suffers from  unspeakably stupid and neglectful acts makes you so angry!

My husband always says “drop them off at our doorstep” when he hears people complain about their children.  He understands exactly how I feel when something about an abused or murdered child comes on the news. He is smart, good looking, sweet, kind, and he has shown himself to be wonderful, compassionate, and Godly even in the midst of such terrible pain. I guess I want to know that something good has come out of not being able to have children. The thing I see now is that I married the most wonderful man in the whole world. In the midst of pain and adversity you can really see the character of a person. My husband has been positive, supportive, and wonderful, even though I know it hurts him very deeply. He has always loved kids, and I knew from the moment I met him he wanted to be a dad.

Honey, you’re going to be a great dad. Hang in there. I love you.

I remember when I was a kid and I would go to my Grandma Eissens house and she had a plaque with “Footprints” on it. When I was little, I completely didn’t get it. I was like “why in the world was God carrying a guy on a beach? Were they surfing together?”

Whenever I see a similar plaque or card like it, be it in a store or in someone’s home, I remember that my Grandma had it. It hung on a small wall in her trailer, by her favorite LazyBoy armchair.

I wish I had that plaque of hers. I don’t have that, but I do have a Bible she owned. It’s a HUGE guideposts parallel Bible, with 4 versions of the Bible that you can look over at once. That Bible has been a great source of comfort, to think I am reading the same Bible, the same verses, that my Grandma probably read.

My mom was her daughter, and my mom is buried next to her in a small cemetery in Thomson, Illinois. They will have matching gravetones, pink, with her name, date of birth and death, and “Mother of Jessica, Julie, John & Jeff” written on the back. It’s been surreal and difficult to make lots of adult decisions all at once (I will have driven back to Illinois from Kansas 3 times since June 11th to handle family business), but God has given little encouragements along the way. Cards from people I haven’t talked to in years, nice conversations with friends that I’ve missed, and flowers from friends and family. I have also loved being more involved with my siblings and seeing them more often – I let it go too long between visits.

So, among all the unexpected pain and grief good things have been happening. We’re plugging forward on buying a house (we made another offer this week, and we’re expecting a counter offer from the seller), but no offers on our house yet. Right now, the adoption paperwork is on hold. We just don’t have the time with all the additional paperwork and responsibilities after my mom’s death. Her passing away was unexpected – she passed away in her sleep from a previously unknown heart condition.

Posts may be scattered and infrequent for a while, but hopefully in August we will have a new house and can get moving forward on adoption again.

Something that was so sweet, we found a card among mom’s belongings in her room. We had just begun telling her that we were adopting. We opened the card, and it played “Baby, Baby” by Amy Grant, and it was signed “Love, Grandma Gloria.” That has been the hardest thing for me and my husband, too, that she was looking forward to being a Grandma and it didn’t happen before she passed away. That has been the roughest on us.

I have wanted to write this post but it’s been hard to write about. I think I’m finally ready to write about it.

About 3 years ago a friend of mine sold me a very nice wooden crib for about $75. At athat time, I had been talking to my friend about how we were trying to get pregnant. She said “well, my other friend sold me this crib and I thought of you guys, because I imagine you’ll be needing it soon.” So, I bought the crib.

It’s been sitting in our downstairs storage room ever since. It’s been sad to look at it; it’s just always reminded me of how long we’ve been trying without success to have a child.

 A couple weeks ago, I got an email from a friend at church. She periodically sends out emails asking for items for those in need. This email she needed a crib for a single mom that didn’t have enough money to buy one. Now, I will admit, at first I felt really, really angry. I had a talk with the Lord. I was thinking “Okay, my husband and I have steady jobs and we aren’t on drugs and we’ve been trying to get pregnant for years and this young gal just has a baby and can’t even afford to keep it and now she has the guts to ask people to provide for her baby?” Oh, I was so mad at the world.

 I began thinking about it….there is a crib in my basement that some baby needs. I’d been holding onto it for 3 years, always thinking “Next month is the month we’ll need it.” I’ve put off buying a mattress for it because I didn’t want to take that step until we were actually pregnant. So, I thought “I’ll just email this friend, tell her I have a crib with no mattress….and she probably won’t want it anyway since there is no mattress. That way, I’ll feel good about offering it, but I won’t need to give it to her.”

Well, I emailed her and she replied back within the hour. She said “I just talked to her. This young mom would love the crib. She actually has a new mattress, but she’s just had a hard time finding just a solid wooden crib. What you have sounds perfect” I was stunned.

I remember sitting in front of the computer after reading the email and thinking. This was the crib I had bought, anticipating using it, and it had sat there unused for 3 years. There was a mom and a baby out there that could use it. I prayed and cried, I cried and prayed some more. I typed an email back stating I would be happy to let the mother have the crib.

 Luckily, this friend wasn’t around on the day I dropped it off on her porch. I was a mess, bawling, unpacking a piece, bawling some more. If any of her neighbors saw me they must have thought I was completely insane. It just felt so symbolic and bizarre. Here I was, waiting on a child, a crib ready in my house, while some young woman was able to get pregnant and she didn’t have enough money to afford a crib. I was angry with myself for being jealous and angry, I was angry at God, I felt sorry for this young lady and her baby, and I felt sorry for me.

 So, I gave up my crib to a mom that needed it. It was really, really hard and that person probably has no idea how hard it was to do. I think God is using this as a lesson for me in the struggle of infertility. I’m glad I did it, but man, I hate how struggling with this makes me realize just how much of a monster I can be. I am a sinner, Lord have mercy on me.

My husband I have been meeting monthly with someone from our church to go over our debt. This is usually a good time, and for the first time yesterday we brought up the adoption equation.

I hate to think of kids in terms of finances, but my husband and I are in a lot of student loan debt and other misc. debt. (Though, thankfully, the credit card debt and misc. we’ve whittled down quite a bit.) We are trying to be wise in our spending and follow the Crown financial principles, but my heart really aches for a child NOW. I don’t care how much it costs, or how much debt we get into, I just really want a child!

Our friend that discusses finances also brought up the fact that adoption not only has upfront costs, but the cost of parenting as well. Clothing, feeding, educating and caring for a child. I guess I feel torn with wanting to be financially responsible and have enough saved up for a child, and feeling as if I’m getting old because I will be 30 in March.

Also, a lot of our family and friends are in the Illinois/Indiana area, and we are considering moving there someday, especially if we have children. If I get a promotion here in Kansas, I will be locked in for 18 months until I can promote up into another job in Illinois (where there are more job opportunties).

Our friend from church that works with us on finances also said that maybe we aren’t meant to have children, but maybe we are just to be people who help children that aren’t necessarily our own. (I can’t remember the exact phrase he used, but it was something to the affect of maybe we aren’t meant to be parents by birth or adoption.) I guess that’s something that I’ve been praying through, if we are meant to be parents at all.

I don’t know why I want to be a mom, it’s just something I want! Maybe that’s just a selfish part of it, I can’t even explain it. I just know there are a lot of kids out there that need parents, a lot of orphans that don’t have homes, a lot of kids whose parents just don’t have the ability to care for their children. I know my husband would be a great dad, and I want to see him as a dad, and I guess that’s a big part of it. I want to be a mom, but even more than that, I really know my husband wants to be a dad.

I guess we’re just going to keep moving forward, and see where God opens and shuts doors. That was such a tough talk yesterday.

I cancelled my appointment today with the naturopathic doctor…I am very stressed about money, and though I would like to use natural medicine, I think I would rather spend money on an actual fertility specialist. I want to find out if there is something seriously wrong first (ie, blocked fallopian tube, cysts, etc.) After that is ruled out, I would feel comfortable going back to the naturopathic doctor for natural hormone replacement rather than shots. I am just concerned there may be something serious.

A friend of a friend was going through infertility treatment and they found cancer, so I guess I just want to rule any of that out, even though blood work has been normal. I am praying for a promotion; we’re going to need to make more money to continue to get out of debt and to keep saving for a baby, either through medical treatment or adoption.

I have been convicted as well about my lack of consistent quiet times lately. I have heard a lot of Christians talk about the importance of devotionals or quiet times. Most recently, Jim Ryun and his sons were guests on FamilyLifeToday and he acknowledged the importance of daily times with Lord. (listen to it here) What am I spending my time on? What am I worried about? Where I am I going with my life? I have to make sure those questions are in order, nothing else matters in the eternity of things.

I have been trying to listen to hymns and really listening and studying the words. They are full of good doctrine and encouragement for difficult times.

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
You, who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?

The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.

Please pray for a friend of mine who is going through difficult times: pray that she would know Christ is her firm foundation.

Haven’t posted in a while– life’s been plugging along.

Talked with another friend at church, J., about her struggle with infertility. We were at a women’s brunch at her house and the entire table of conversation was about childbirth, c-sections, post-partum, etc, etc. She and I just winked at each other, which was awesome. It’s hard to explain when you’re going through a difficult time, and people don’t realize it, and then they discuss it in front of you. (More salt in the wound, please.) It was just great so have someone there who understood how I felt.

I have been listening to Marc Broussard, Fiona Apple, and Nickel Creek on my, well, it’s not an Ipod. Digital Music player I suppose. I think Nickel Creek is in Lawrence tonight (or maybe it was last week….) Have to work, sadly.

Right now, we are on the scavenger hunt for a treadmill to put in the livingroom. Also, I am tutoring someone in Spanish tomorrow so I need to get working on a practice test for him. Subjunctive verb forms, yippee!

As my husband and I have been going through the Crown Financial Ministries Course, we have memorized this scripture, 1 Chronicles 29:12 Riches and honor come from you alone, for you rule over everything. Power and might are in your hand, and it is at your discretion that people are made great and given strength. The Lord is in control over all things, and it’s at His discretion that events are sent in motion.

Even when we are going through difficult times, I must remember to praise God. Right now I am very thankful because yesterday I received a yearly raise of almost $3000. My husband has received a raise at his job; an independent business owner of our church really wants to keep Donald on, so he’s been trying desperately to get enough income to keep him as a salaried employee. Up until today, he’s just been working as an “independent contractor.” Today, he was offered a salary position. Between this raise and my raise, we think that we can make it without my husband having to keep looking for work. This current job is really in line with what he wants to do, and I think he really, really likes it. We also received a surprise financial gift from someone today.

We have accountability partners in our financial lives, so please pray for us as we make financial decisions. I feel that we, as Christians, must care for the homeless, sick, poor, elderly– so please pray we would live out the commandments of Christ in our areas of giving as well. Jesus is the bread of life, that is free, so I pray we wouldn’t focus on the temporary, as God knows we need food and clothing and shelter, but I pray we would continue to praise God through the difficult times and then good.

Today I turned on the fertility monitor again. It’s this nifty device that my husband’s best friend and wife have let us borrow. They were planning on going to a Kansas City Fertility clinic, used this machine, and they were able to get pregnant. It just tracks your most fertile days through urine test stips, and keeps track of the information in a small computer inside.

My husband talked to me a day, albeit briefly, stating “I don’t think we should go to the foster care seminar or worry about foster care or adoption right now.” Yes, I realize I skipped over the whole fertility deal (as you can see in the blog) and I think it’s because I find the whole thing terrifying. I know I am going to have to make more trips to the doctor (once the money is there) and then decide how far down the road to go.

Let’s look at 1 Samuel 1:4-7 : “On the day when Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to Peninnah his wife and to all her sons and daughters. But to Hannah he gave a double portion, because he loved her, thought the LORD had closed her womb. And her rival used to provoke her grievously to irritate her, because the LORD had closed her womb. So it went on year by year. As often as she went up to the house of the LORD, she used to provoke her. Therefore Hannah wept and would not eat.”
1 Samuel 1:10 : “She was deeply distressed and prayed to the LORD and wept bitterly.”

Now, I am thankful that I am not one of two wives. However, I think it is fascinating. Her husband loved her best, even though she was barren. Also, year after year, the other wife, Peninnah, would be cruel to Hannah for being barren. However, in this passage, it’s clear that the LORD closed Hannah’s womb. What did she do? She was distressed, and later in the chapter she says “I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation” (v. 16b)

What does this have to do with a fertility monitor? Well, I think I need to sit down and deal with this “anxiety and vexation” rather than just tossing everything aside. I haven’t wanted to deal with it, I have just wanted something to do (ie, researching foster care and adoption) rather than praying about having a child of our own.

Now, God is sovereign. And He may decide otherwise. His hand controls power and might, and it is at His discretion that men are made great and given strength. He owns a thousand cattle on a thousand hills. Everything is His. I think the message I’m getting right now is I need to walk in this, pray about every step, and submit to my husband’s leadership in this matter. So, the adoption thing is a good thing to research for now, but the item at hand is the same thing Hannah had to deal with. She went to God, went and prayed to the LORD, the One in control of her womb. May I be half the woman she was.