Adoption prayer

A friend on a message board I am on shared this prayer with me. Yesterday was Respect Life Sunday at her church, and they had this prayer to share. I thought it was beautiful and wanted to share it.

Prayer to Conceive or Adopt

Lord God, my desire for a child grows stronger every day.
Cradle me in your love and calm all my anxieties.
I look to you for insight to make the dream of parenthood a reality.
Stir in my heart the desire to follow your will in all my decisions.

Give me courage to trust your guiding presence.
Deepen my faith in your plan for our family.
Shine your divine mercy and compassion upon me.
Amen

Call Intercept

The positives and negatives of caller ID. It's great, because you can tell you is calling you. Unfortunately, some of those calls show up as "call intercept", not telling you who they are. You have to pick up the phone and it tells you who it is.

Lifetime comes up as call intercept. So every time we get a call intercept, a quick fleeting thought goes through my mind that "this could be it!" It happened again today, around 1045 AM. The phone rang. I checked the caller ID, and it said "call intercept". But no. It was just a recorded message from the post office, with an offer of some business products and services they want me to try.

Why can't that call intercept be someone we want to talk to? Why can't it be Lifetime with the call that our baby is being born, come pick him/her up? Why must it be the post office?

Ah, well. Someday that call intercept WILL be Lifetime with the news of our little one to be. For now, we'll just keep looking at caller ID and hoping the call will come soon!

We learned something about websites tonight

Apparently, if you take a domain name and forward it to another; if you mask it, then your shopping cart won't work!

UGH.

And we've had it that way for several weeks =(

It's working now though, and we taught the godaddy.com tech guy something!

We're back in business!

So if you've tried to buy something from www.worth-the-wait.com, the site works now!

An Awesome Baby Book

I was in Barnes and Noble using up some birthday gift cards when I stumbled across this book in the adoption part of the parenting section. It's called My Family, My Journey: A Baby Book for Adoptive Families.

It is possibly the closest to the baby books that we had as children that we can find. We are estatic to have found it, and can't wait to use it.


We have Our Chosen Child, and it's a great book too. We look forward to filling it out along with My Family, My Journey.

Most baby books we have found either are related to 1. a pregnancy or 2. international adoption. Since we are adopting domestically, neither fits for us. We had thought about making a scrapbook, and not having a baby book, but we really wanted to just find a baby book too.

We love that it has pages for all the special "adoption related" moments, including "Why we chose to adopt", "How we found you", "people who helped us find you", "waiting", "matched" (when, how we found out, how we celebrated), "Our Journey to you" (it includes where you were, how we got to you and joyful memories- so it can be used internationally or domestically), "our very first meeting", "all about your name", and then traditional things about coming home, family, showers, introductions and celebrations, announcements, firsts and favorites, month by month the first year (height, weight and milestones), etc. It even has a page for "what we know about your birth family and where you came from". That is so cool!

We are looking forward to filling it out (hopefully sooner rather than later!)

A nibble is better than nothing

For our check in this month, we did get some interesting news. Nothing major, but a nibble is nice.

We are busy here with birth mothers, adoptive families, projects, etc. Your name has come up a few times this past month regarding birth mother and their potential adoption plan. I hope that we call you soon with a great situation.

That's the first time we've had THAT happen, the first time it's been reported to us that someone is looking at or considering us. So that was cool!

Still Sick

Well, we're feeling a tad better. Mike had to call out another day today. Wow, he hasn't been this sick in a long time. Mostly, it's just feeling weak. I'm off to do a Girl Scout workshop in a little bit, and he'll stay and sleep.

He should be fine tomorrow. If not, he's going to the doctor!

Nothing new on the adoption front. We are hoping to hear about our update today, but that's about it. I hope everyone is having a great week!

Support

It's nice to find a group of friends who understand what you are going through, especially when your life or family building is a bit outside the "norm" of the "traditional" way of building a family.

I found this recently on an adoption related message board. I have my Lifetime specific yahoo group, and it's great. I also have been active on the adoption board on The Nest, and the adoption section of babies.ourlittleuniverse. All three of them are wonderful, and I'm enjoying the folks and friendships I have received from them, not to mention the wonderful information I have gained. And I would be wrong not to mention my blogging circle, and those who are going through the same experiences. They are wonderful!

I recently found another one, and it feels like home. It's been growing in leaps and bounds, which is wonderful to see. And the folks there are so sweet. It's the perfect mix with the others. I feel like between them I now have a group where I belong.

Often in the adoption community, there are message boards that are not quite as positive. Some are a fairly decent mix, and some are more negative. There really is something out there for everyone.

It's hard when you are trying to figure out where you belong. Who you can identify with, and who your true friends are, be them online or in real life. Through something like infertility or adoption into the mix, and it's even harder.

I am very fortunate in that I have wonderful "non-adoption" friends as well. We mesh really well, and all are smart enough to recognize that we bring differences into our friendships. Differences that make us all unique, yet all get along so well. We know that we can turn to each other for support. And it's those friends that I am thankful for, for keeping me "sane". That keep me from thinking about or focusing on adoption all the time. Yet I know they will be some of the most excited when we finally do get the call.

Some of my friends have kids. In fact, when we have little ones. we'll already have several "playgroups". Our kids already have lots of "aunts" and "uncles" and friends, they just don't know it yet!

As we grow through our experiences, our lives change. Friendships come and go, and you realize who your true friends are, who is there for the long run. You figure out who you can turn to for support, and who can turn to you for support. Those people, and family, are the most important part of life. And you need to do what is best for you, make the decisions that are right for you.

We want to thank our support system.

Thank you.

sharing bugs

One thing that we are going to have to get used to is the sickness factor. I know typically when a family member gets sick, the rest of the household gets sick too.

Mike and I are experiencing that right now. We went to a birthday party yesterday for my nephew. And tonight we went out with Mike's parents for dinner to celebrate my birthday. On the way home, my sister called and asked if we were sick. Apparently she had a stomach virus all day. Nope. We weren't sick.

Notice I say "weren't". We are now :( . Mike started to get sick not too long after we'd gotten home. After his parents left, he told me that dinner had not sit well with him. I started to feel ill about an hour and a half later.

We split up- him in one bathroom and I in another - luckily we can do that right now! And we've been sick since then. Mike called his work about 1 or so, to tell them that he'd most likely not be coming in to work. We're doing a self imposed quarantine so that we don't make anyone else sick.

We sure hope that we didn't end up making Mike's parent's sick. I'll call them in the morning to let them know about our experience. And hope they don't get it too!

Ah, the joys of family hood. When Mike and I first started dating, he used to get "sick" every time he saw our nephew. He wasn't used to the germs that kids bring, and didn't have much of an immunity for it. He's getting better now, as we get more and more nieces and nephews, and they grow.

I can imagine that when we have kids, his immunity system will get even better. But every so often, a real doozy of a bug comes, and knocks the whole family out.

Gotta love it!

15 months already

Yep, it's 15 months since being contracted out.

While realistically our profile has really only been shown about 13 months or so, either way- it's been a while. We're comfortable with it, but we are ready to move on to the next phase of our lives- parenthood.

Hopefully, someday in the near future!

Glad to be home

It's so nice to be home! I had a great time on the girls cruise, but am so glad to be home! Mike met me at the airport with carnations (my favorite flower!) and a kiss. I was so glad to see him :)

It was a great trip, all 4 of us are Lifetime adoptive families. Two had adopted already and it was nice to chat with them. We even got to meet one of the little babies :) We all meshed really well and had a wonderful time.

fun family reunion, now off on a girls cruise

Thanks for the birthday wishes. It was a lot of fun. I got to spend the day watching my nieces and nephews, which meant a lot to me. It was nice to be there with my sisters, their families, my brother, and my parents. Most of my cousins and both my aunts were also there. Some of my dad's cousins were also there. It was a ton of fun, and a very nice weekend.

Now, I am sitting at the airport waiting for a flight to Vancouver. Mike dropped me off at the airport in San Antonio, and I flew to Houston. I'm hanging out watching the Sunday Night Football game and waiting for the flight before mine to take off so I can sit at the gate until the flight is here. It's going to be a long flight, and I arrive at 1154 PM, which is 154 AM my time. Then, I get to find a taxi to my hotel :) Luckily they take US dollars for taxis from the airport!

I am going on a repositioning cruise with some friends tomorrow. I have not met them "in person" yet, but one I talk to on the phone occasionally, and the two of us IM with a third, and the fourth is in a yahoo group with us. We are all either adopting from Lifetime, or have adopted from Lifetime. Actually, it's split evenly- two of us have adopted already and two of us are still waiting.

We are looking forward to it, and having fun hanging out together. We leave Vancouver tomorrow, then end up in San Francisco on Wednesday. One girl and I are spending Wednesday night there, an flying out on Thursday. We are both on the same flight to Phoenix, where she will stay, and I'll fly on to Houston. Mike is going to pick me up at the airport when I arrive on Thursday night.

I've been wanting to do a girls cruise for years, so it's nice to be finally doing it. It's kind of neat that the folks who are going are all Lifetime folks. I am SO ready for a vacation, I can't wait to just relax.

Another cool thing about it is that this is my 5th cruise with Princess, which means I become platinum after this one and get even more benefits when I cruise with them. I can't wait :)

The only thing I am sad about is that we were hoping we'd have a little one at the reunion, and that Mike would be taking off part of this week to stay with our little one while I was on the cruise. Well, on the positive side, he gets to save his vacation for a later date....

37

Growing up, I never thought that at 37 (hopefully!) I'd be a first time mom. I figured by now I'd have two or three (possibly even 4) kids. When my mom was my age, she had a 17 year old daughter, and 4 kids. I wanted to be like that too.

It's funny what life sends your way.

I wouldn't trade the path my life has taken, I am so very thankful that I met the man of my dreams, my soulmate. And I can't wait for him to be a daddy. While I wish we'd met when our paths most likely first crossed, we just weren't ready. But now we are, we have a solid family life, and it's time we became parents.

I am really looking forward to (hopefully!) becoming a mom at 37. It's going to be an exciting year.

Mike and our niece

Mike and I were chatting the other night about how much fun we had this weekend. And how, at the cookie party, our niece was so so cute. Mike was in the computer room, and a couple times she went in there to get him and bring him out with the rest of us. She wanted him to be there too.

He is so good with her, and you can tell that she loves him too. It's so cute to watch them together. He jokingly says he wants one like her. If we could be so lucky... she is a doll baby!

It's sweet to watch them together. I know he's going to be an awesome daddy to our little ones.

This weekend was fun

We had a great time this weekend. Mike and Blake got to have a lot of bonding time. It's fun to see him try to "reason" with a 5 year old. He learned to adapt pretty quickly though =) And they had a lot of fun. We all did.

Blake was a big help with the cookie parties we had. He loved showing people how to do things, decorate cookies, and playing with the little ones. He was so eager to eat the cookies, he couldn't wait until they were finished baking!

While he was here, he lost his third tooth. So the tooth fairy came and brought him a "ticket" ($1). He was super excited about that. But he was so funny as to who he would tell or not tell about his tooth being gone.

Mike got to learn a bit about five year old temper tantrums and how fast they can be happy and sad and moody. And how often a little one gets grumpy before they fall asleep.

It was a great bonding experience, and learning experience for all. And we can't wait to have those experiences with our little ones.

warms my heart

As I sit here writing this - Mike is helping our 5 year old nephew get ready for bed. I love watching him help the little guy. They've been having fun this evening. I was running late for stamp club, and had to finish my "homework", so Mike had Blake for the evening. I was there, but not really, since I was doing my homework. Mike and Blake got Blake's room ready, made hot dogs (on the grill!) for dinner, and ate together at the kitchen table. It was nice for both of them. And fantastic for me to watch Uncle Mike and Blake eat, hang out, and communicate. Every so often Aunt Liz has to help interpret something, but other than that I pretty much left them on their own.

They went with me to stamp club (I was just going to drop off my homework, but the leader invited me to stay and work on the projects that club was doing tonight. So Blake was visiting with the other kids for a while. Then, Blake, Mike and the kids played Wii while I finished my last project. It was wonderful to see Mike and Blake "bowling" for the video game.

Mike put Blake to sleep tonight. Made sure he brushed his teeth, said his prayers, and read him a story. Now they are both about to go to sleep. They are both exhausted =)

I can't wait until it's our little one that Mike is helping to bed. I know he's going to be a great daddy!

Tomorrow Blake and I have a very busy day, but we are going to go see Uncle Mike and take him out to lunch for mexican food. It's going to be fun!

preparing for a storm and keeping busy

Well, I guess a positive to not having a little one yet is that it's easier to prepare for a storm. We are supposed to get hit by a tropical storm that just sort of popped up in the Gulf of Mexico today. No biggie. We have food, water, groceries, cat supplies and today was laundry day- so we should be set. =)

When you have a little one, you need to think of making sure you have enough diapers (we're already stocking up on them, we use coupons when we have them!), formula (same thing- coupons are awesome) and clean clothes for baby. Plus all the other little extras to keep a little one entertained should the lights go out or you get stuck inside for a while.

Our nephew is coming over to visit this weekend. He's 5. I am going to pick him up tomorrow after school lets out, and bring him home. He and I are hosting a cookie decorating party this weekend. Since it's probably going to be rainy the rest of this week- baking cookies is the perfect thing to do with him.

We are also going to go visit day care centers. I put together some kits for Noah's Ark to drop off at day cares (there are about 8 within a 2 mile radius of my neighborhood alone!), and figured it would be something fun we could do. We'll just go down the one major road, and he can be my "helper" when we go in to the day cares and drop off a packet. I was at convention, so I was able to preorder (and have now received) 400 of the $5 promotional gift cards with mini catalogs. So I am taking them to all the schools in the area, along with a packet of information about Noah's Ark.

My Adoption Shop is taking off well. I added another name to it as well, bought the domain name Unique Baby and Parent Gifts. I was receiving some feedback that my shop was going to be too restrictive and not encourage everyone to shop there. So, I have both names now =) Though the official name is My Adoption Shop. I am really enjoying getting it together, and ordered my moby wraps today. My onesies are also on the way, as well as bath toys and some other goodies. But my lollipops are really popular right now. Which is cool. They are fun to make!

One thing is that it keeps me busy, which is really good- and takes the thinking of adoption constantly off my mind. The best way to let the time go by is to keep busy! But I do like that once I get up and running, both Noah's Ark and My Adoption Shop are both extremely family friendly. I will be able to work as little or as much as I want to, and can get together the My Adoption Shop orders at night, after our sweet little one has gone to bed. Yay for flexibility!

Well, off to scrounge up some dinner for Mike and I.

And another quiet weekend

We've got nothing planned this weekend. Which is probably a good thing. We've got some work to do on the website, and a few things we can do around the house. And of course, it's football season! We'll be watching tons of football too =)

It's been a busy week fortunately, with not a lot of time to really think. Sometimes thats a good thing. It's not always easy keeping up a positive attitude, sometimes you just want to cry. But it's ok, and in the end it will be worth it. The ultimate goal of building our family makes up for the heartache and all that is going on right now.

No one ever said it was going to be easy, they just said it was worth it.

So true.

Tuesday is an exciting day!

Two of my friends are in labor, and will become mommies today!

My friend didn't have her baby yesterday- so he'll most likely come today =) How exciting, I can't wait to hear that he is finally here =) Mike and I are going to visit when she'll let us, and we've bought him the cutest little outfit. She's going to be a great mommy, I'm so excited for her!

And, another friend of mine is adopting from China. Adam and Tracy find out find out TODAY who their baby is!!! They have been waiting for so long, they had a LID (log in date) of 11/22/05. And FINALLY, they are going to get to see a picture of their little one. And bring their child home in a few months. SO exciting! Though it's a different kind of labor, she's in labor too!

So send labor dust to my friends =)

Happy Labor Day

We just wanted to say Happy Labor Day to everyone. Mike is off this holiday, and we're headed up to a dinner at my sister's house with the family later this afternoon. Other than that, there is not much going on in our household. We'll probably work some more on the website, we've added some new product recently.

An exciting thing, one of my friends went into labor today. Hopefully it'll be a short one, and her little guy will be here today. So exciting, and I know she is ready!

We were joking recently that it would be really neat to have both our little ones around the same time. Who knows, it might happen if we get the call soon.

Have a safe holiday everyone!

Slow weekends are ok, but...

Well, it's another slow weekend here in our household. We're enjoying it, sleeping in, catching up with TV, doing some Noah's Ark and My Adoption Shop work... but still. We are MORE than ready to give it up for a busy kid filled weekend.

We know, we'll look back fondly on these "quiet" times soon, but for now... I guess what they say is true "the grass is always greener on the other side".

Our turn will come in due time... for now, it's just another weekend for us as we wait...