11 Life Books Left out of 25

Been a long time since i updated last. For the first several months i didn't want any updates from Little Angels Adoptions but the last few months greg & i realized we should call in and see what's going on. Turns out, those periodic calls helped us to feel hopeful. The last information i received was that we had 11 books left out of 25. That made me hopeful that our lifebooks are going out to birthmother's and being viewed. I was told that a book went out to a birthmother in Santa Cruz which is very exciting as it would be great not to travel for this adoption!! So she gets our book and other ones and then chooses. She's due in January. I really believe with all my heart that the stork will bring the right baby. I think that's why it doesn't sadden me to not have been picked yet..it's not our baby then and it should be placed with the family she's supposed to go to. In the meantime i've experienced a bit of freedom having both boys in school everyday til 2:10. I've re-grouped and re-energized and i'm enjoying this free time stage i'm in before it disappears again. I love helping in both thomas's and andrey's classrooms but i'm not an over achiever which i'm so thankful for! I got in for an hour or so or bring work home to do. I still find the morning goes quick even with several hours of free time. It's just sooo quiet and i haven't had that for so long. The boys are sooo cute in their uniforms and they love school. Andrey has asked when the baby is coming and that kind of just makes me want to cry. Coming to terms with the end of my fertility has been an on-going process but focusing on that i can have an infant daughter even though, its so hopeful. I continue to struggle with knowing that some woman's heartbreak (i'm assuming she's heartbroken) is going to be one of my greatest joys. Hard to get my head around that...maybe i can think of it another way so it's not depressing. I feel like baby Clara is getting closer, i'm feeling hopeful and excited. I've gained a bunch of weight from the breast feeding hormones and my feet hurt so yah, i'd say i'm about 9 months pretend pregnant!

Roses & Violets

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
my sweet girl, where are you?

Waiting Waiting Waiting

ah, the waiting is getting to me a bit. I have days where i don't think about our daughter to be and then there are those days that it seems like it's never going to happen. I try to stay away from the what if's...hard to do sometimes. I look at my boys and i'm so pleased that they will have a sister...what a joy it is to have children running around even if it's so tiring as a parent. I'm last of 5 kids - i have 2 older brothers and 2 older sisters and i loved my childhood. I write a great deal about this in my first blog when we were adopting from an orphanage...my dream was to give a child the kind of childhood i had and we succeeded i'm sure. Giving the kids what i had is what keeps me going when i get tired. Family life really is a beautiful thing...i find it most fulfilling..i just need to keep believing it will happen and it will, it will, it will, it will - i keep telling myself!! :)

3 growing families!

This last week has been so exciting for our Little Angel Adoption family...3 families met and brought home their baby daughters...oh, it was so beautiful to see their pictures on Facebook...it brings such hope to all of us waiting and a bit of bitter sweetness to those that have been waiting quite awhile for their turn.

I'm hanging on to the hope that there's a baby girl for us...the process of inducing lactation has been hard on my body & mind as i'm taking enough progesterone to make my body think i'm pregnant so my body looks like i'm pregnant...i've gained weight - even my arms are fatty now..which i'm not totally horrified by because when i do start breastfeeding the weight will come off but sometimes i think oh my, there better be a baby at the end of all of this! I am experiencing lots of mood swings which i hate...having 2 boys to take care of requires that i have all my faculties about me. So basically, feeling crazy like when pregnant but i have no baby in me. This is where strength and perserverance comes in handy...just keeping my eye on the goal and having educated faith that this is all for a reason.

During the Wait

Waiting is a part of adoption...it's a chance to practice one's endurance and one's faith. You don't know what child is out there waiting, but you have faith that there is one. You don't know when you'll get the call, but you know there will be a call. While waiting and preparing my body for breastfeeding, i've been busy with Thomas who got Mono. Doctors said it was tonsilitis but when he wasn't getting better we went to the hospital for some blood work because his spleen was swollen and it was a mono diagnosis. Me Greg and Thomas and Andrey had come up with a list of fun summer daily trips we were going to make. I had a plan so we'd have a summer filled with joyful experiences. Well, a huge lesson - life often times has other plans and all at once i was housebound with a sick and often times combative child. He's better but spleen still swollen...dr. said no physical activity for 4 weeks...a spleen can rupture and one can die from that. Talk about anxiety!! I've been hovering around him trying to protect him from possible falls or punches from his brother. Ah, this was not my summer plan but i'm adjusting and enduring. I have a nice babysitter for andrey to take him out once or twice a week so he's not bored and his Uncle Jon has been running him around too. I'm enduring and being faithful that these circumstances will change soon. School starts in the middle of august and life will change again. I think once you accept that life is full of suprises (some wonderful some not) that life is so much easier to live because you expect change. That's what i want to teach my boys. So while i'm waiting, i'm preparing for our 3rd child...the milk is there, the crib is up, the girl clothes are washed and hung...just waiting for that very important call that someone has chosen us.

A good place

...i've been thinking lately what a great place i'm in. I have 2 children that i'm enjoying each day and a hubby who loves being with us. We are going to add to our family which excites me so much..it's time for a change...lets shake it up a bit and add another member of the family!

I'm very excited to be waiting for "the call" - i think about when and how it will happen..will we have to travel far or near, will greg and i both go or just me..i wonder who the child and mom will be and what this new experience will teach me. Good thing i like surprises!

Thomas starts 1st grade in the fall and Andrey will start Kindergarten. These little guys have brought me so much joy and at the same time, they've really made me doubt my mothering skills. I have had my patience and sanity really put to the test. Hard to explain what 2 little active boys who are only 14 months apart in age can do to a mom. I find that i live each day in a state of different emotions...the morning can go smooth, the afternoon could stink. The car ride to the park can be peaceful...the car ride home could cause me angst to where i must pull over. I was watching the Duggards this morning on TLC and i was thinking that they must have super easy kids because having just 2 really challenges me. At times, i've just started crying from the stress..not knowing what to do in a situation. It doesn't make me not want to have more kids, it just makes me wonder how to make the hard times better. Andrey and i have our ups and downs with feeling close to one another...it seems like we get really close when we have lots of time together and then greg comes home and he forgets me...really, this is not normal - seems he's not capable of feeling close to us at the same time. Anyway..reading to Andrey, playing with him, and taking care of him when he is sick, helps with the bonding. Andrey had a stomach bug for the 1st time and he vomited and it scared the heck out of him. I went into mothering action and helped him for half of the night until he finally fell asleep.. the next morning he said "mommy made me feel better" which is probably the best compliment you can give me.

Hot pink ridiculous carpet!

At target yesterday - another one of my favorite places besides Costco. Andrey and I bought the baby little newborn diapers and a hot pink carpet for the nursery...i figure if i'm going to do the pink thing it might as well be a wild pink.
I've had so many boy things from thomas and andrey that i love the softer feminine colors...i'm moving furniture in and out of the nursery like a mad woman. It's very exciting not knowing who is going to join our family. I learned awhile back that life has suprises and good thing i like suprises! I have a little baby bag packed in case we get a hospital call...that is where a mother has given birth and she's in the hospital and she wants to give her child to another family to raise. I want to be ready to get on a plane or car or wherever and make it there quick.

we are all in the same boat one way or another

One of the things i love most about life is that no matter what situation you're in there's probably someone else in the same boat or close to it. As i get older my heart is so grateful for those people. I guess it started with the miscarriages and reading the writings of all the women who knew what that was like...i didn't have to feel alone, i wasn't alone. And now, i've been warmly welcomed by our new adoption facilitators Little Angels "waiting families" group where many woman have accepted me as a facebook friend and offered support to me. I am overwhelmed by the generosity of people's hearts that they can still wish others the best while they're wishing the best for their self and i realize that i live by this too. In the bible, it's summed up by weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. It's that simple and it works. We should all be cheering for each other because as you get older you realize that there really is no race and we are not competitors but we are all striving to achieve our life's work. Wow, i think i just may be mature. ha!! Well maybe that cup of coffee and pizza and chocolate i had this morning really made me philosophical!

Coffee!

This is Greg's face after i suggested we have some garage sale fundraisers (with andrey we had 9!)
thank you to all of those who bought coffee from the Dini coffee shop! We receive a check every month with the proceeds from our sales...we just got the first check and deposited into our account so we can pay some fees. Thank you! I know there's so many folks fundraising for so many deserving causes...if you know of anyone that loves coffee and wants to try something new feel free to share blog or coffee shop with them! thanks...we will continue to sell coffee right now and our main fundraiser because just the sound of the word fundraiser makes me a little sick - only cause of andrey's adoption where it was like a part time job!

An answer maybe

i was writing to my neighbor jenny who has recently moved out of our neighborhood. She was asking me if there was a certain baby coming or was i just speaking in general. While i was thinking that there is no specific baby, i am anticipating our new dini baby soon...it dawned on me that this baby girl who is going to be in our family is the reason why we may have not been able to have more biological children. Now you have to be sort of a believing, spiritual person to get that because i do not believe that everything we see with the human eye is all there is. There's so much more and every once in awhile we get a reminder of it...one of the books i was reading called it the thin veil between heaven and earth.. I'm hoping that when this baby girl is in my arms, God speaks to me and tells me that my grief was not for nothing and that we were supposed to adopt this baby girl. I hope more sense will come out of it. I have a hard time believing that my eggs just aged out when all around me are women who are having babies from 36-40! My mom had me at 40 years old!

This & That

well i'm happy to report that the preparation of my "girls" is working...the breasts (sorry dad!) are supposed to go up 1 cup size and become sore and heavy. Yes - well that's happened and i feel good about that. The only thing that scares me is the warnings for the YAZ pill that i have to take for the progesterone - it's so scary - heart attack, stroke, etc.....i just have to be on it for a month or two longer because that's when i'm hoping we'll matched with a baby.

On a frustrating note...i'm suffering from a bad bout of sinusitis still i think...i'm having the sweats at night and it's so horrible! I keep thinking that maybe i'm having bad side effects from the meds i'm taking but it seems that my sinus's are still giving me trouble. Anyway...boring stuff but i just want to be 100% well so i can prepare for this baby. It's an exciting time around our neighborhood - new babies for 3 of us...(I included myself on that)...some sad stuff on our block too but that's how life is...there's happy and sad at the same time.

Going to church now with the monkeys. I love those boys and they exhaust me at the same time..i walked out of the house the other day and andrey had gotten the ladder and had climbed up on it to try and get something out of the tree that he threw up there on purpose. I try to give the little siberian tiger some freedom but he'll end up on the roof it seems!

It still hurts...

i guess there's always going to be a raw place in my heart that hurts for the child i can never carry. I accept that and have been so excited anticipating our next adoption. I walk thru life and feel good but then once in awhile someone will say something or i'll see something and i feel a shot to the heart and i remember, my body can't hold a pregnancy anymore and i let myself have about a 5 second pity party and then i move on. Someday it'll make sense and i'll have the answers. Like i always say, it's because we had thomas that i'm able to not have a complete emotional fit over the miscarriages. I was able to experience one beautiful pregnancy - well compulsive barphing not beautiful - but the end result was a miracle. I thank God i got to experience it once - Greg and I are able to see our eyes, and nose and traits in Thomas and for whatever reason, that feels good. I know there are couples who never get to experience even once and for that, i'm sad...i don't know why these things are the way they are. Seems like mom's who are drug users are able to crank a lot out and the women who are eating carrots and taking their vitamins can't. Well i know that's not true but it often times feels unfair. Then i remember that suffering is a part of life and the only way to make sense of things is to be grateful for what we have because we're only in this life temporarily. I try to rejoice with others and i do feel other's sadness in tough times. Maybe when we meet our little girl, whenever she's going to show up in our life, i will understand the painful journey to this point. I think though, death changes a person and now that i've had 3 little lives die - i realize life is so precious...we all have a heart beat that can stop at anytime...well i hope heaven is a real great place - which i know it'll be but for now, we are humans, struggling.

mommy's milk

One of my biggest concerns about adopting an infant was that i would not be able to feed her and that would make me feel so sad. I breastfed thomas minutes after he was born and it was amazing to me that i was keeping my baby alive with milk from me. Besides the bonding and attachment that comes with breastfeeding, i cannot put aside the nutrition it offers. There is nothing that replicates breast milk. Also, i cannot imagine getting up in the middle of the night and warming up a bottle. I never used a bottle with Thomas...i didn't have to, the milk was always available and warm.

Sooooo, i thought about it and was extremely motivated by my friend Anna who adopted an infant and brought in her own milk!! It's called adoptive breastfeeding aka, induced lactation. I figured if she could do it i could do it. I've been following the protocol she used and she's been helping me so much (thanks anna!) It's fairly easy...you take a high progesterone birth control pill so your body thinks your pregnant and then a medication called domperidone... you stop the pill about 5 weeks prior to the adoption and keep on the domperidone and then you pump like crazy! Ok, so i'm really praying that i will have milk for this baby...i hope that my "girls" remember that milk was produced before so maybe it'll happen. I'm so overjoyed that this is even an option for me. I won't miss out on feeding my baby and that means everything to me.

Homestudy visit complete

We completed our homestudy visit today with our adoption social worker. It took about 3 hours. We discussed the questionaires we filled out and she made sure our home meets standards. (like medications being locked up, no ungated bodies of water, etc.) She talks to greg and I individually then as a couple. It was an enjoyable visit as i've learned so much from this woman. She has 2 biological children and 3 adopted. She knows her stuff. She did our post placement visits for Andrey. She writes up a report about us and our home- this is a step that anyone who is adopting thru an agency has to do. It's a fairly easy process. We have completed the necessary paperwork and just waiting to do our cpr/1st aid training and waiting for our FBI clearance. I have to say that after doing an international adoption that this is a breeze. She talked to Andrey about his feelings about having a little sister and he was so sweet....he shows so much excitement. It makes my heart happy that this will be a new season in Andrey's life. Oh, also on an Andrey note...i found out that since we're done with all our post placement visits, that Andrey's "case" is closed. So before that happened i asked if we could send his birthmother a letter and picture of him (i wasn't sure if we could or they even knew where she lives)... i did a short and sweet letter and sent a beautiful picture of Andrey to our adoption agency - they will send it to the facilitator in Russia and see if they can get it to her. It gives me the chills to think that she may hold andrey's picture in her hands! She's always been such a mystery...all i have is a small picture of her and copies of her relinguishment of parental rights docs. I look forward to see if she writes back and sends me a picture.

This is a Domestic Infant Adoption

so we signed up with "Little Angel" Adoptions which is a law firm. They are a husband wife team. She works with helping birth moms who want to entrust their child to adoptive parents or those who just need help (clothes, etc.) Her husband is the attorney and he does the law side of it. So Greg and i have paid a flat fee, put together our "resume" which is a beautiful life book and our picture is on the Little Angel Adoptions website with our "dear birth mother" letter. Any woman who is thinking about giving her baby to adoptive parents, can search the website and pick the parents she wants for her child. I like this because it takes the shame and mystery out of how adoption used to be. It's an "open" adoption in that greg & i will know the birth mother and she will know us but we both agree on how much contact with want with eachother. When a birthmother picks us, we'll meet her or talk on the phone and see if we're a good match. If we are, we wait for her to give birth and we may or may not be invited to the birth, and then the legal paperwork is done and she has 30days to change her mind i believe. Ah yes, there is risk in everything in life. After the paperwork is signed the child is legally ours.

If you want to see our profile you can log onto
http://www.littleangeladoptions.com/ and click on "waiting families" - scroll down and greg and i are at the bottom of the page....you'll see our picture. It's very interesting how this type of adoption works..wanted to share with you.

What happened to the plan?

What happened to my plan? It was all so clear. Have a biological child, adopt a child and then continue to have more biological children. Our journey leading us to Andrey was full of adventure and challenge and I proudly wrote about our updates in a very special blog made for us. I find myself back here writing again (a new blog) and realizing how life's plans can be unexpected. It's baffled my mind actually and the last year i've allowed myself to grieve and to accept that we are not having more biological children. As you remember, we didn't adopt Andrey because we were infertile, we felt a true call. After we brought Andrey home we became pregnant 3 times very easily and none of the pregnancies lasted. I was very strong after each miscarriage just focusing on that the next pregnancy would be the one that made it. Well, it was not to be...a specialist told us that it was my age (eggs) and that after i gave birth to Thomas my eggs rapidly declined. Hmmmm....i can remember when the doctor said that it was as if my heart was stabbed...my worst fear happened, i ran out of time to have more kids. Of course we could keep trying and keep suffering but Greg and I decided no, not good for my health and for the sake of our family and mental health. I had 2 ways to make sense of the situation - being angry at God for saying yes to His call and then running out my biological clock OR believing that we were not meant to have another biological child after Thomas and that there must be another child who needs us. Another adoption. It took us a year to get to this place where our hearts said yes, lets adopt again. We are not finished with our family! So here we are, signed up with an agency/attorney and waiting to be matched with a baby girl in the US. So many people followed our adoption with Andrey and we were humbled to receive the love and support. I feel that for those who want to share in our next journey, this blog will be the way. When i was suffering miscarriages, i read blog after blog about women experiencing the same trauma and it got me thru it. I feel our story took a real twist and it's interesting to me and if it's interesting to you we'd love for you to see how this next Dini adoption unfolds. All i know is that my heart heals each day a bit more - with every sweet item of pink clothing we receive, and with each look at the nursery set up, i can believe that God has a plan for us.