Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Meeting our Birth Mom
We got to meet our Birth Mom Saturday and it went better then expected. In the beginning everyone was a little uncomfortable and nervous, but as the hour and half went on we all relaxed and got to know each other a little bit. She is as sweet as can be and a very good mother to her nine month old daughter. She has a had a hard life and is just unable to provide for herself and two children. The highlight, for me, of our time together was asking her if she'd pick Tucker's middle name. We felt like she deserved that and that he would always be honored that he had a name from us and from his Birth Mom. She was blown away. You could tell she was not expecting that, but that she really wanted to do it. She invited me to go to the doctor with her Thursday. This is the first week of her every week appointments and I'll get to hear Tucker's heartbeat! I'm so excited I can hardly wait for Thursday to get here. Everything we have hoped for our Birth Mom has offered. We haven't had to ask for anything but she has said that she wants us to hold him first, to cut his umbilical cord, to stay at the hospital with him, that our families can come and visit in the hospital just anything we've thought we'd like to happen, but would've never expected she is graciously offering. At the end of our meal together we exchanged phone numbers and got to visit a little while yesterday. She is just such a sweet blessing! I really think in time we made add her and her daughter to the family as well! This is another answered prayer. I've been asking God to give us the opportunity to be a blessing to our Birth Mom like she has blessed us and the Lord gave us a teenager who only has a foster family herself to love and encourage. Continue to pray for our Birth Mom as she faces the last days of her pregnancy!
Friday, March 26, 2010
Baby Business
I've had baby fever for three solid years now and we've been trying that long. April will be three years since we took any preventative measures. It's been hard, really hard sometimes. It's tough to see others getting what you want so desperately, but through this time I've been able to see why God tarried in certain times in our life. But since moving to Sayre in October of 2008 it's been harder to see why God hasn't allowed us to create life. I've been to doctors and been on medicine and celebrated with what seems like a million friends as they have become Mommies, all to no avail.
At the end of October of 2009 I went to Women of Faith with our church. I went to hang out with grown-ups and was fairly overwhelmed and uncomfortable because it's so different from the youth events I'm used to. But Stephen Curtis Chapmen performed and he talked about adoption and his family's story and it just broke my heart. I spent a summer in Africa in college and I knew then someday I wanted to adopt but both Chris and I thought it would be later. Ya know how we like to plan things? Well our plan was to get married, have a couple kids of our own, & THEN adopt from Zambia. But the Lord has a weird sense of humor and His plans, as usual, were a little different from ours. I came home from that conference hesitant to talk to Chris about adopting. He told me he needed to focus on one thing at a time so I held it in for about a week. When I couldn't wait to talk to him about it any longer I approached the subject with great sensitivity only to find out he'd too had it on his heart. In the days following we started checking into local agencies. I knew I wanted an infant so DHS wouldn't be the route we'd take. All contacts pointed to one place... Deaconess Pregnancy & Adoption in Oklahoma City. We called, got on their website & finally applied in November. We just fell in love with them and their approach. All roads seemed to lead to DPAS for us. The first step was to attend a weekend educational conference in February so in the mean time we talked with family members and researched and tried to prepare. After the conference in February we filled out a mountain of paper work and have just been waiting for our approval.
Until this week. Everything changed this week.
When we got home last weekend from our CRAZY ski trip our FBI background checks were waiting on us and we were so excited! They told us it would take 6-8 weeks to get those babies back so we were elated when they arrived in only 3 weeks. On Monday I mailed those in along with our profile book.
DPAS received our FBI Background Checks, our profile book, our last reference letter & our DHS background check all on Tuesday. That NEVER happens! Tuesday evening we get an email saying that they are ready to move forward and wanted to do our Home Study soon because there are birth mom's approaching their due dates and aren't matched. So we celebrated! We were so excited for things to be moving along so smoothly.
Wednesday was Golf Coach Chris Gordon's first tournament and to top it off Sayre was the host so to say he's been stressed this week would be a massive understatement. So we both spent Wednesday at the golf course. Around 3:30 he was tallying scores and things were hectic. There were nearly 100 people in a space that was designed to maybe hold 30. I was sitting by watching him do his thing and I got a phone call from a number I'd seen before that day. Holly from DPAS called earlier Wednesday to set up our home study so I assumed she was calling me back to tell me something else. When I answered it wasn't Holly, it was Dierdre. Now I thought this was wierd but I figured she had a question for me so I fought my way through a cloud of high school golfers and got to where I could hear her. Then she said words I'll never forget..."I have someone here who has some good news for you!" I knew then. I started crying, no weeping. Uncontrollably. Shocked. Then a soft voice came through the line and she introduced herself and then told me that she was having a baby boy on April 20th and she'd like to place him in our home!!! I couldn't even form words to express my humble gratitudte to this wonderful stranger! She had looked at our book Tuesday evening and chosen us. I ran to grab Chris, pushing my way through a sea of boys and grabbing him as I tried desperately, but without success to pull myself together. I pulled him outside and handed him the phone and our Birth Mom shared the news with him. We both were just overwhelmed because we didn't think DPAS could even show our book to anyone until after our home study, but they did!
WE ARE HAVING A BABY BOY IN LESS THEN A MONTH!!!!
As soon as we got home we began calling family and sharing our news. Everyone just freaked out and we all still are. Things are helter skelter for sure as we scurry to do in three weeks what most have 9 months to accomplish but we have the most wonderful families & church family to help us.
I spent Thursday talking with people about shower dates, making invite lists, picking our nursery decor, crying several times throughout the day with my mom and sister, and trying to obsorb all of this miracle.
Today, Friday, we are in Purcell & are going to spend the day registering for baby stuff. Whirlwind doesn't even begin to describe this feeling, but it's the greatest one I've ever had.
I'm going to be a Momma. In 25-ish days. To a Baby Boy who we are naming Tucker. We just feel so incredibly blessed!
A little background on Tuck: his Birth Mom is Mexican & Native American and his Birth Dad is African American. His Birth Mom's Mother died when she was 12 and she spent her teenage years in foster care with a Korean family. She had a baby girl in June of 2009 (do the math!) and is only 19. She knows she can't parent both of these children. Tucker hasn't been exposed to ANY drugs or alcohol during the pregnancy and our Birth Mom has been to the OBGYN since her second month. We get to meet her tomorrow! She wants us in the delivery room & at the hospital, but after that is unsure about how much of a relationship she wants with us & Tucker. She is my hero and I love her so much without even meeting her!
Please pray for us! The next few weeks are going to be insanely crazy! Here are a few specifics...
- Continued Safety for Tucker and his Birth Mom
- That things will go smoothly tomorrow and we would bond with her instantly & easily
- That she has been honest and will follow through with her commitment
- Finances! Since it is so much faster then we thought God is going to have to provide!
- For us. That we would not only get all the preparations done for physical things but that we would also be prepared emotionally & spiritually. And that we would be able to remember these days with great clarity so we can continue to tell what God has done!
TO HIM BE THE GLORY!!!
At the end of October of 2009 I went to Women of Faith with our church. I went to hang out with grown-ups and was fairly overwhelmed and uncomfortable because it's so different from the youth events I'm used to. But Stephen Curtis Chapmen performed and he talked about adoption and his family's story and it just broke my heart. I spent a summer in Africa in college and I knew then someday I wanted to adopt but both Chris and I thought it would be later. Ya know how we like to plan things? Well our plan was to get married, have a couple kids of our own, & THEN adopt from Zambia. But the Lord has a weird sense of humor and His plans, as usual, were a little different from ours. I came home from that conference hesitant to talk to Chris about adopting. He told me he needed to focus on one thing at a time so I held it in for about a week. When I couldn't wait to talk to him about it any longer I approached the subject with great sensitivity only to find out he'd too had it on his heart. In the days following we started checking into local agencies. I knew I wanted an infant so DHS wouldn't be the route we'd take. All contacts pointed to one place... Deaconess Pregnancy & Adoption in Oklahoma City. We called, got on their website & finally applied in November. We just fell in love with them and their approach. All roads seemed to lead to DPAS for us. The first step was to attend a weekend educational conference in February so in the mean time we talked with family members and researched and tried to prepare. After the conference in February we filled out a mountain of paper work and have just been waiting for our approval.
Until this week. Everything changed this week.
When we got home last weekend from our CRAZY ski trip our FBI background checks were waiting on us and we were so excited! They told us it would take 6-8 weeks to get those babies back so we were elated when they arrived in only 3 weeks. On Monday I mailed those in along with our profile book.
DPAS received our FBI Background Checks, our profile book, our last reference letter & our DHS background check all on Tuesday. That NEVER happens! Tuesday evening we get an email saying that they are ready to move forward and wanted to do our Home Study soon because there are birth mom's approaching their due dates and aren't matched. So we celebrated! We were so excited for things to be moving along so smoothly.
Wednesday was Golf Coach Chris Gordon's first tournament and to top it off Sayre was the host so to say he's been stressed this week would be a massive understatement. So we both spent Wednesday at the golf course. Around 3:30 he was tallying scores and things were hectic. There were nearly 100 people in a space that was designed to maybe hold 30. I was sitting by watching him do his thing and I got a phone call from a number I'd seen before that day. Holly from DPAS called earlier Wednesday to set up our home study so I assumed she was calling me back to tell me something else. When I answered it wasn't Holly, it was Dierdre. Now I thought this was wierd but I figured she had a question for me so I fought my way through a cloud of high school golfers and got to where I could hear her. Then she said words I'll never forget..."I have someone here who has some good news for you!" I knew then. I started crying, no weeping. Uncontrollably. Shocked. Then a soft voice came through the line and she introduced herself and then told me that she was having a baby boy on April 20th and she'd like to place him in our home!!! I couldn't even form words to express my humble gratitudte to this wonderful stranger! She had looked at our book Tuesday evening and chosen us. I ran to grab Chris, pushing my way through a sea of boys and grabbing him as I tried desperately, but without success to pull myself together. I pulled him outside and handed him the phone and our Birth Mom shared the news with him. We both were just overwhelmed because we didn't think DPAS could even show our book to anyone until after our home study, but they did!
WE ARE HAVING A BABY BOY IN LESS THEN A MONTH!!!!
As soon as we got home we began calling family and sharing our news. Everyone just freaked out and we all still are. Things are helter skelter for sure as we scurry to do in three weeks what most have 9 months to accomplish but we have the most wonderful families & church family to help us.
I spent Thursday talking with people about shower dates, making invite lists, picking our nursery decor, crying several times throughout the day with my mom and sister, and trying to obsorb all of this miracle.
Today, Friday, we are in Purcell & are going to spend the day registering for baby stuff. Whirlwind doesn't even begin to describe this feeling, but it's the greatest one I've ever had.
I'm going to be a Momma. In 25-ish days. To a Baby Boy who we are naming Tucker. We just feel so incredibly blessed!
A little background on Tuck: his Birth Mom is Mexican & Native American and his Birth Dad is African American. His Birth Mom's Mother died when she was 12 and she spent her teenage years in foster care with a Korean family. She had a baby girl in June of 2009 (do the math!) and is only 19. She knows she can't parent both of these children. Tucker hasn't been exposed to ANY drugs or alcohol during the pregnancy and our Birth Mom has been to the OBGYN since her second month. We get to meet her tomorrow! She wants us in the delivery room & at the hospital, but after that is unsure about how much of a relationship she wants with us & Tucker. She is my hero and I love her so much without even meeting her!
Please pray for us! The next few weeks are going to be insanely crazy! Here are a few specifics...
- Continued Safety for Tucker and his Birth Mom
- That things will go smoothly tomorrow and we would bond with her instantly & easily
- That she has been honest and will follow through with her commitment
- Finances! Since it is so much faster then we thought God is going to have to provide!
- For us. That we would not only get all the preparations done for physical things but that we would also be prepared emotionally & spiritually. And that we would be able to remember these days with great clarity so we can continue to tell what God has done!
TO HIM BE THE GLORY!!!
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Ski Trip '10: Warning it's LONG!
So I've felt like I haven't had anything "blog worthy" to write about for a long time. There are things going on, but I'm just not quite ready to release them to the whole wide world. But even as this trip was unfolding I was thinking...BLOG POST!
I'll start from the beginning... About a month ago a family from our church invited us to go skiing with them in Pagosa Springs, CO at Wolf Creek. We went back and forth about going or not because we've been trying to save as much money as possible for some other goals. But in the end we decided we'd go. It's hard to turn down a ski trip where all you have to pay for is gas, rentals & lift tickets. The plan was we'd leave as soon as church was over last Sunday, but Chris was sick so we didn't leave until Tuesday morning. Again after much deliberation.
We skied half a day Wednesday and things were going well. That night we went to the natural hot springs and soaked our sore muscles, it was wonderful! Thursday was going to be everyone's last day to ski so we got up and at it early. Chris and I both decided to get different boots because ours were hurting the day before. After a little while we got our skis on and up on the lift. As we started to get off the lift I heard Chris smack against the icy ramp. I thought to myself, "Great way to start the day!" I'm not so sympathetic, especially with my husband, until I realized he couldn't talk. The ski patrol and lift operators rushed over to him and were asking all kinds of questions and he couldn't answer. That scared me! But as they continued to check him out he came around and we thought was going to still be able to ski. But Chris ended up getting a free ride to the bottom of the hill curtsey of Steve with Wolf Creek ski patrol.
We both spent the rest of the day at the lodge because I was worried about my little husband. The next day was Friday. We knew a storm was supposed to hit Oklahoma so we decided to come home early. We left Pagosa around 2 p.m. and thought we'd be at least an hour or two ahead of all nasty weather. We made it about four hours to Clines Corners, New Mexico.
About three miles north of the gas station that is that town we slid off into the ditch. Chris handled things wonderfully and I really wasn't too worried. A very nice man saw us go off the road and turned around to pull us out. We decided to stop at Clines Corners and go to the bathroom and fill up before heading east on I-40. Much to our dismay the interstate was closed right before we arrived. So we debated our options: wait it out in our car, try to drive 30-ish miles west and try to find a hotel, or navigate around I-40. All the while the storm getting worse. We opted for option #1. A night in our car. Neither of us had ever slept in our car before so we knew we were in for an adventure!
After a lovely dinner from Subway, compliments of the gas station we got settled in for the night. It was funny to watch the hysteria that people were feeling. I mean buying bags of sandwiches just in case we were there for days or something! I've never seen Subway be such a hot commodity before! It really could've been a lot worse! We could've had our youth with us, been left on the side of the road, or I could've been by myself. We made some serious memories! We read a book, we laughed and I self medicated. I soon realized sleep wasn't going to come on it's own so I took a tylenol PM and slept well till about 4 am. We slept in our coats with the car running and a window cracked. The Element really wasn't too bad! I mean it wouldn't be my first choice, but we definitely got a much earlier start on Saturday then we would've otherwise. We got on I-40 about 6:30 Saturday morning. We drove several hours to Santa Rosa, NM and stopped here for breakfast.
I just wanted to be out of the car! Plus this place is the kind of place that my husband LOVES! He wishes he could host Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives, I think that is his dream job. We also used this stop as an opportunity to "freshen-up."
We were able to make the rest of the trip without incident. It was a super LONG trip but definitely a memory we won't soon forget. After only 26 hours we arrived back in Sayre. (It should've only taken 10 hours) We picked up our dog, showered, and got to sleep in OUR bed. Never underestimate the power of your own bed! It works wonders! Here we are all clean & ready for bed in our bed. A happy family once again!
I'll start from the beginning... About a month ago a family from our church invited us to go skiing with them in Pagosa Springs, CO at Wolf Creek. We went back and forth about going or not because we've been trying to save as much money as possible for some other goals. But in the end we decided we'd go. It's hard to turn down a ski trip where all you have to pay for is gas, rentals & lift tickets. The plan was we'd leave as soon as church was over last Sunday, but Chris was sick so we didn't leave until Tuesday morning. Again after much deliberation.
We skied half a day Wednesday and things were going well. That night we went to the natural hot springs and soaked our sore muscles, it was wonderful! Thursday was going to be everyone's last day to ski so we got up and at it early. Chris and I both decided to get different boots because ours were hurting the day before. After a little while we got our skis on and up on the lift. As we started to get off the lift I heard Chris smack against the icy ramp. I thought to myself, "Great way to start the day!" I'm not so sympathetic, especially with my husband, until I realized he couldn't talk. The ski patrol and lift operators rushed over to him and were asking all kinds of questions and he couldn't answer. That scared me! But as they continued to check him out he came around and we thought was going to still be able to ski. But Chris ended up getting a free ride to the bottom of the hill curtsey of Steve with Wolf Creek ski patrol.
We both spent the rest of the day at the lodge because I was worried about my little husband. The next day was Friday. We knew a storm was supposed to hit Oklahoma so we decided to come home early. We left Pagosa around 2 p.m. and thought we'd be at least an hour or two ahead of all nasty weather. We made it about four hours to Clines Corners, New Mexico.
About three miles north of the gas station that is that town we slid off into the ditch. Chris handled things wonderfully and I really wasn't too worried. A very nice man saw us go off the road and turned around to pull us out. We decided to stop at Clines Corners and go to the bathroom and fill up before heading east on I-40. Much to our dismay the interstate was closed right before we arrived. So we debated our options: wait it out in our car, try to drive 30-ish miles west and try to find a hotel, or navigate around I-40. All the while the storm getting worse. We opted for option #1. A night in our car. Neither of us had ever slept in our car before so we knew we were in for an adventure!
After a lovely dinner from Subway, compliments of the gas station we got settled in for the night. It was funny to watch the hysteria that people were feeling. I mean buying bags of sandwiches just in case we were there for days or something! I've never seen Subway be such a hot commodity before! It really could've been a lot worse! We could've had our youth with us, been left on the side of the road, or I could've been by myself. We made some serious memories! We read a book, we laughed and I self medicated. I soon realized sleep wasn't going to come on it's own so I took a tylenol PM and slept well till about 4 am. We slept in our coats with the car running and a window cracked. The Element really wasn't too bad! I mean it wouldn't be my first choice, but we definitely got a much earlier start on Saturday then we would've otherwise. We got on I-40 about 6:30 Saturday morning. We drove several hours to Santa Rosa, NM and stopped here for breakfast.
I just wanted to be out of the car! Plus this place is the kind of place that my husband LOVES! He wishes he could host Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives, I think that is his dream job. We also used this stop as an opportunity to "freshen-up."
We were able to make the rest of the trip without incident. It was a super LONG trip but definitely a memory we won't soon forget. After only 26 hours we arrived back in Sayre. (It should've only taken 10 hours) We picked up our dog, showered, and got to sleep in OUR bed. Never underestimate the power of your own bed! It works wonders! Here we are all clean & ready for bed in our bed. A happy family once again!
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