A BIG Announcement

You all know our thoughts on adoption. Our thoughts on children. We would love to have more, but it probably isn't the best idea for me to physically bear children any more. We are not ruling out the possibility forever, but at least for years to come...it's a  "maybe someday" thing.

So no...I am not about to announce that I am pregnant. ...You can relax. haha

We have always wanted to adopt, and even though I thought the idea was more realistic after all the trauma and complications with Ava, I have wrestled with the thought over the past year. Over the last few weeks/months, Joey and I have talked more about it seriously.

I was even half way through filling out a free application with Lifetime Adoption Agency. (who are awesome btw)

Then I had a thought...

I should look at Reece's Rainbow.... I had looked on there before, I had seen people's blogs talking about the children on there. I read a blog about a family that had their own child with down syndrome, and adopted another from RR. I truly felt like, Wow...I could never do that. Those people are amazing!

I saw the story about Mia Kareen going around the web, and remembered seeing Kareen on RR before she was adopted. My heart was suddenly opening more to the possibility that we could do that too.

So...I went over to Reece's Rainbow. I thought everyone that's adopted from there talks about how they were looking at the children and one just stood out to them. I went there to look fully expecting to pray for those children, feel bad for them, worry over them...and move on from the website. Back to filling out the application with Lifetime. Which by the way is kind of a go between between birth mothers and adoptive parents, you normally get matched and get the child at birth. How awesome is that, it is also domestic, and much cheaper and simpler than international adoption.

So I scrolled through the little boys. Of course. Lol... We have three girls already, we need some more manliness in our house. haha I kept thinking, nope no one's standing out to me. And then I saw him... ( I even get that heart gripping feeling just writing about it now) Jaxon...I scrolled past him, and then back up. I clicked something random, and went back... I closed the window, and then the computer...there was no going back. I know now that it was one of those life-altering moments...when everything changes forever and there's no changing it.

I thought, can i ignore this...Does God really want us to adopt a special needs child from Reece's Rainbow? I could not get Jaxon out of my head all day. Meanwhile Joey had no idea I was even looking, or seriously thinking about it.

After He got home from work, I thought again about Jaxon. I thought, there's no way Joey's gonna want to do this. But I kept thinking about Jaxon, so I went into the desk/computer where Joey was studying. I simply said,  " I want to show you something..."

I took over the computer and took him to the link where he could see Jaxon. I went to walk away and he started asking me questions about the orphans, what happens to them etc. So I explained a few things, and left him as he began his research. :) (I love my husband)

In the next couple days, we heard a sermon on adoption. It was not directly about adopting, but about the correlation between earthly adoption, and the adoption we have being chosen by our heavenly father. This was too obvious for me to ignore.

The next day we heard more preaching and I don't remember exactly but there were some verses in there that made me think, and ponder more on this adoption thing.

Later that night Joey came to me (he caught me staring at Jaxon's picture on my computer. lol He said, maybe we should seriously pray about this. (even though we both were already praying) I said, "Really?" I was surprised. His response was, "well this is obviously something that is weighing on both our hearts, and it's not going away, so we should at the very least pray about it, and we'll see what God does from there"

Over the next week or so, I was on a roller coaster. Ups of feeling confident that god was calling us to this, downs of other things in life weighing me down, ups of things going good, downs of doubt when seeing the true cost it would take to bring this little boy home...reaching for faith to know that if this is what God is calling us to, that He will provide the funds. Searching for the strength to know that we can do this, we can raise this precious boy as our own, because God has called us and will give the grace, the strength the presence of mind to do it well.

On the same night that Joey had said we should seriously pray about it, I saw a status update from a friend. A fellow mom to a precious little boy with that magical extra chromosome. It said, "God doesn't call the equipped, He will equip those He calls" That just spoke volumes to me...especially facing the decisions and choices that we were facing. Then in reading the comments, she mentioned that they felt God calling them to something, and to pray for them. I felt such a strong "feeling" that they were being called like us to adoption of a special needs orphan. Where would this idea come from you ask...well. I'm assuming it came from God, because I emailed her and basically told her I would pray for them, and them poured my guts out about our thoughts of what God was calling us to.... And you know what. She wrote back and said that's exactly what she was talking about and how awesome it is that God would put it on both our hearts to ask each other (she was gonna write and ask me, but I got to her first) HOW AWESOME IS THAT!!

Not only did God see fit to give us a friend that will be hopefully taking a similar journey at the same time....but He gave us both that "feeling" of knowing that's what the other was thinking.  I am so thankful for my special mommy friend. She has blessed my heart so much in these last few roller coaster weeks!

Pray for their family as they seek to adopt! They are going to be such a blessing to a precious child!

As for us...

I have begun emailing with the right people to find out about the program for the region Jaxon is in. I was waiting to be sure that he is available for adoption to "announce" our plans to everyone, and Today I got that email.

The region he is from is also supposed to be a "blind region" where you adopt without prior knowledge of medical problems. But I was able to receive some information on him, and we are pretty excited to move forward. Please pray for us as this is a long hard process.

It requires a lot of faith! it requires a lot of money, which also means a huge leap of faith for us....and lots of fundraising. it requires lots of paperwork, lots of questions, lots of anxiety...for me the anxiety is not knowing if they will accept us. I'm confident that God will give us what we need, He will provide the way and the means to get His will done...I fear them saying, sorry you can't adopt him. But that's just me in my weak flesh I guess.

Pray for us. We need lots of prayer and support through all this.

I know there are plenty of people out there that would question, "why not domestic adoption" why not adopt a child with special needs here?" etc "but it costs so much" and on and on...

All I can say to that is...you'll have to take that one up with God. I was not looking for this, I was not expecting it. I was more than ready to begin a domestic adoption, it would certainly be much easier to adopt from here, less travel, less expense, less lifelong needs (if adopting a typical child) and the list goes on. BUT ... God has called us to this. There have been so many things confirming this to us, that I can't even begin to list them...I told you a few, but there are so many little things that only my husband and I would see or see as significant. It just tugs our hearts, and we truly are not taking this lightly.

We see how hard this could be, we know the costs...we are fully trusting that God has called us to it, and He will bring us through it. It is not something we can walk away from now. There is no turning back. Some people may not understand it,  but we know the Lord's will in this matter, and to ignore it would be much more trouble than the things we think will be hard going through it. Think Jonah and the whale.... I don't plan on going through some belly of the whale lesson to decide to obey God.... I hear ya Lord!

On that note...
We were driving somewhere, and on the radio we started to hear the story...again of Mia Kareen...I had never heard it on the radio before...I slowly turned to Joey and grinned...he was looking right back at me with a big smile on his face. I couldn't believe it. Here we were talking about all the things to do with this adoption, what we could/couldnt do etc. and this came on the radio. I said, "OK God I get it." Joey and I both just gave each other that look, like I guess we're doing this.

Since then, as I said I have been emailing back and forth, finding out the steps we need to take to begin, what the whole process entails. etc.

We came before our church last week and asked for prayer in the matter, and on the way home pretty much settled it. We are fully committed to bringing Jaxon home.  I knew in my heart that I wanted to bring this little guy home. I was already afraid that I would be too attached and they'd say, "he's not available for adoption anymore" But I have to let go and let God, if God wants me to get attached only so I will pray for Him...then that's ok. It would be hard, but I have to trust God wholly in all of this...it is a step of faith each day as thoughts come and go through my mind. I am constantly having to surrender it all to God.

I will leave you with a picture of "our" little guy. Please pray for him. I think about him many times a day, and pray for him, wonder how he is doing etc. Pray that the process will go smoothly, and pray that we will be successful in raising the funds we need to complete the process.

As for now we are asking for you prayers as we get started. We will be updating ad we get further in the process, and let everyone know about donations and fundraising etc. We thank you all for your constant support of us as we have gone through so much since having Ava. We thank you for trusting that we are following the Lord, and we thank you for all the encouragement that has been given.

Pray for us as we begin this new journey. It will not be easy, but God will see us through it.

Also feel free to take a look over at Reece's Rainbow. Not everyone can adopt a child, not everyone is called to do so, but there are many ways to help. You will see children waiting for families, those that are in the beginning stages, those that are almost home. It will touch your heart for sure. And most of all....pray for these orphans. They will be institutionalized at about 4-5 years old if not adopted. They do not deserve to live this way, because they are different. More on this another time.  Keep us in Prayer! (The money that is donated to Jaxon on RR is given as a grant towards adoption fees etc. )

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. ~James 1:27


Keep Looking Up!

A Poem I came Across...

I saw this somewhere as I was browsing the internet...I thought it was good.

Here it is.  I'm not sure who wrote it.

A SPECIAL CHILD

You weren’t like other children,
And God was well aware,
You’d need a caring family,
With love enough to share.

And so He sent you to us,
And much to our surprise,
You haven’t been a challenge,
But a blessing in disguise.

Your winning smiles and laughter,
The pleasures you impart,
Far outweigh your special needs,
And melt the coldest heart.

We’re proud that we’ve been chosen,
To help you learn and grow,
The job that you have brought us,
Is more than you can know.

A precious gift from Heaven,
A treasure from above,
A child who’s taught us many things,
But most of all- “Real Love”

Falling Behind and Moving Forward...

A Little more than a month ago I finally went in for a procedure on my tailbone. As most of you know For almost a year after I had Ava after most of my other injuries were healed or feeling better I still could not sit. Technically I could but it was excruciating if I had to sit, especially on something hard, I avoided going out as much as I could for as long as I could, but finally got tired of being stuck at home all the time just because I'd have nowhere to sit if we went out, and I had a low endurance for walking.

We ended up buying one of those reclining lawn chairs to help me be able to sit in certain places. It has been a wonderful blessing. Though I've always found it kind of comical when people look at the chair or me and say things like "aw you must be so comfortable" or "I need one of those it looks so nice and comfy" I can tell you that chair has been a lifesaver for me many times, but comfortable is not how I would describe it. haha Necessary yes! I sometimes wonder how comfy it would be without the pain. Must be nice.

I have had trouble every step of this journey with getting appointments with the right people, being believed by dr.'s and not just brushed off. I was finally able to see a physical medicine dr who made a plan to do therapy and see me in a few months. Well when everything else improved with therapy, but not my tailbone (in fact it felt worse) I tried to see Him again. Only to turn up and be told he was out for the month (after just coming back from being off, weird!) Was given an appointment a month later with someone else.  Yes...every time I needed something I'd have to wait a month at least. I was getting tired of waiting to be helped...yet thankful to be feeling much better than in the beginning. It was hard to balance demanding to be helped for the still occurring problems, and being content with the healing I had and God's blessing of LIFE!

Needless to say...I waited. I was finally able to see the dr and he seemed to know exactly what he was talking about pointing out the places on a skeleton that I was hurting saying words that I can't remember but sounding like he thought there was a reason for the pain. You see most people right from the beginning brushed off the fact that there were other problems besides my pubic bone separating. I had a whole host of other issues that went unaddressed for a long time. I learned how to "be the squeaky wheel" but even then...medical people have a "nice" way of still brushing you off. It's ridiculous what they get away with.

This dr got me  set up to see someone else. whose title is escaping me right now. but he would see about the problem and do a procedure that would hopefully help with the pain. Apparently only time will fully heal it, but the steroid shot can tide you over. A month later I got to see him, and he explained that all the tests and things were probably coming back normal just like I thought because of my position. It didn't hurt when laying but when sitting, and all my tests were laying down. He explained how there's a joint between the spine and tailbone and when I was injured it could have been jarred and made "loose" so that when changing positions. like sitting the joint moves causing my tailbone to have pain when I sit, but to look fine laying or standing. (makes TOTAL sense) So he did the procedure, which was SUPER painful. Had to stick needles and stuff into the gap on the outside of my tailbone, and go through the joint to inject the other side. I got to look at the screen guiding him, and it was pretty cool. After the procedure he told me that it was understandable that I hurt a lot because to was probably his most painful procedure that he does. He said I did really well tho. (no wonder they offer anti anxiety meds ... )

The first day I had intense pain and could hardly walk. The pain I normally had while sitting, tense, stuck feeling, was occurring even when I walked. Which he explained was probably because injecting the joint had tightened it, so it would feel  like that at first. After that though, I tested it out and was able to sit at the dining table and get up with ease!!! I normally would have to be "dragged" slowly and lifted up while in tears to get up. I could NOT stand up on my own cos of the stuck pain feeling. It was SO amazing to feel somewhat "normal" again.

Fast forward a couple weeks after and I am now thinking more about "officially excersizing" I went to curves before we were married and for a while after, til I was 24/7 sick with Kyah and had to cancel. I just couldn't do it. I have wanted to go back for a long time, but could never justify the extra expense on myself. Living on a small budget is made a lot easier when you don't spend money on yourself. haha Through all this I have learned to be able to balance the me stuff a little better with the family stuff. I was starting to see how not only the excursive would benefit me, but also the chance to get out for a bit.  I am home all the time. I am a stay at home mom/wife. But we also have one car, and if I go somewhere it is a walk to the park, or I get up at the crack of dawn to take joey to work, and use the car for dr apt etc. I don't mind being home raising my children. I'm not the type to feel like I always need to be out of the house. I feel that God has blessed me in that. I have to be home a lot. I do at times get that "cabin fever" feeling. But mostly am truly content to be home all the time with my girls, teaching them, spending time with them, keeping house and preparing things so that my awesome husband is able to study and learn and minister. We both decided that it would be good for me and in turn be good for the whole family for me to start going back to curves. I figured I could go at my own pace, and not put any strain on my body by only doing things at the speed I was comfortable with, and if any machines hurt, I would skip it.

So, I joined curves. It has been wonderful for me to have that time for me. When Joey gets home at 5 I go to curves. I have about an hour away. Drive time which varies depending on traffic, workout time of about 30min or so, then driving home. I have missed driving time in the past. When i used to nanny I would get to pray, sing, and worship God listening to my christian radio. Music is such a help to me. I was missing that being home all the time. (with a radio in the house that doesn't pick up the christian stations, so we can only use cd's, thankful for pandora these days! variety of christian music!) Anyway...babbling...Having that time to myself in the car, to sing to think to praise the Lord, has been so beneficial. Working out was hard at first and I took it easy. But as time has gone on I am feeling a difference in how I do it.

I was noticing I had more energy when I'd get home. It was like a second wind. I'd work at home all day doing things, then go workout, (dinner in the crockpot for family while I'm gone) I'd get home and eat, then be able to clean the kitchen and do dishes with my extra energy, clean the floors, finish up laundry etc. I was feeling awesome. Accomplishing so much, and just loving how much more normal I was feeling. I even had the thought. " I feel like I'm back to normal" ....and then it happened.

I was making dinner one night. (on the stove for a change) AND loading dishes. It was a wednesday, so I wasn't going to curves. I don't go on weds cos of church. Joey was sitting at his desk studying and had put Ava on the floor by him to sit and play. She suddenly (first time ever) flung herself forward and face planted HARD on the wood floors. OW! He picked her up and comforted her, but she kept looking at me and crying. So I went over and tried to comfort her. I had left the stove when I went to her. Completely forgetting about the dishes. So as I was doing the "bouncy, rock, sh sh sh thing" I stepped backwards...and my foot tripped on something I felt myself just fly backwards twisting my ankle in the process. I flew backwards over the DISHWASHER DOOR!!! Landed on my back and must have put one hand out to catch myself cos I hurt my wrist too, AND poor Ava bashed her head on the cupboard. (probably when my other arm tried to catch myself) I burst into tears, Joey got Ava and wanted to know if I was ok. I felt absolutely horrible that I was trying to help her and I had hurt her worse...I limped out of the room and went to lay on my bed. realizing then that my back really hurt!

The next few days I felt so discouraged. I had been doing so good, feeling almost normal, and then I fell. I couldn't go work out. My back felt tight all the time, low back tailbone, neck shoulders, kept getting bad headaches. I was really worried that I had set myself back. I was not in the intense pain I had when I was first injured. But my immobility reminded me of part of my recovery. It felt like I had set myself back months again. There were a lot of tears that week, and frustration as I had been keeping up well with the house and everything, and then suddenly I had to rest again, and you know when the mom rests...as Jack Sparrow would say... everything goes to pot. :) I sent a lot of time in prayer and being thankful for how far I'd come, trying to be happy with all the blessings I still had and seeking God's will in this setback. Turns out, after about a week. I felt a lot better, and was able to ease back into things. That first workout being back was really hard, and a little painful, but afterwards I felt so good.

I am now enjoying my time 3-4 times a week. M,T, Th Fr. Going to curves, and having that hour of me time. I have spent years not really having any, and am content with that too. This is just an extra blessing. I still get to spend my days doing school with my girls. teaching them the ways of the Lord, being an example to them of how to care for a household, and teaching them to be responsible...I still get to feed my family. I am especially thankful to my husband who has allowed me to do it. Our typical schedule would be he comes home has a little down time, and after eating studies. He has emoting to do every day. mondays and tuesdays are spent studying for weds, and every other tues he has greek class, wednesday he preaches, and thurs he has a weekly conference call with some other preachers to talk about things that they are studying together. (another thing he studies for) friday he is usually studying in general, sometimes we get to have some family time or us time. He has spent a lot of time the past couple months working on a new church website. He has taken the time from his busy ministry schedule to allow me to have this time. I am SO thankful for this. And for having such an awesome husband who spends so much time in the Word of God, he puts so much into his studies, and I am so blessed when I hear him preach, you can tell He has stuied hard. We have also been Going to Tracy church while they are without a pastor almost every other week, so his weekends have been also spent with lots of study for sundays. I am so proud of my husband and all he does. I am blessed to be able to do my part in allowing him the time and the freedom to study as he needs to. We have been blessed with his work schedule allowing him to work extra on other days to have every other monday off. Our Family mondays, are such a blessing, and the time for me to "catch up" sometimes on those mondays while daddy does something with his girls is just priceless.

All in All...God has been so good to us. He has brought us through the fire...and refined us. I feel so blessed and encouraged for all the strengthened and new friendships I have made this past year. I am also thankful for the revealing of character in some. It is sad to realize people that you thought were true friends aren't BUT it is a blessing to be able to pour into the true friendships and bless each other, and know that God has allowed me to have so many awesome people in my life that I never expected.

We are excited for what God has been revealing to us through all this, and are happily seeking His will and finding it. What a blessing to follow the Lord in everything. I could NOT have gotten through this trial without Him. He has truly been my rock.

Since I'm being sentimental. Special thanks to those who helped us so much in our time of need. financially, food wise, cleaning, encouragement. Just being there for me, and understanding who I was even while going through a huge trial. I so appreciate my friends who stuck in there for me, and never doubted me. God is good and I am so blessed.

More to come on Ava's BIRTH-day...and Ava's Birthday...in future posts. Thanks for reading.

Keep Looking Up!

I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Phil 3:14