Normal, everyday life

I just read a blog post recently from my friend Jules that talked about joy. It got me to thinking a lot. It is hard to be joyful when things are hard. Lately here, things have been hard. Sometimes I feel like it has been about 17 years of nonstop hard, but I try not to look at it that way. After a lot of prayer, and after circumstances beyond our control, Jeff and I have decided not to continue with the adoption process. I hate the decision, but didn't see any other door. It is a long story, with lots of different things involved. We found out a lot since starting the adoption process. One thing we found out was that birthmoms are wanting only open adoptions. It is a rare thing for them to decide semi-open. Jeff and I aren't comfortable at all with open adoption. We also are finding out that birthmoms placing their babies is becoming a rare event. One adoption agency I contacted said that they stopped doing domestic adoptions because they were only doing 1 every year and a half. Our agency never would tell us how many adoptions they had done last year. They also would not answer my questions each month when I asked if birthmoms were coming in. They also kept changing our wait times. When we started out, they said the wait was about a year. It is now over 2 years. With almost 10 families on the list, and I'm assuming no birthmoms coming in, I would imagine that the wait time is way over 2 years. Add that to the fact that we won't do open adoption, and we are looking at years and years. Many adoption agencies have decided not to do domestic adoptions anymore, and are only doing international adoption. We would love to do international adoption, but we had a hard enough time trying to come up with even half of the $17,000 needed this time. How could we come up with $40,000?? Adoption has become a money making, sell the baby to the highest bidder market. Sad, but true. Birthmoms are keeping their babies or aborting them, not placing them for adoption. I wish it weren't the case, but it is. I wish I had other options, but I don't. I have to be okay with things. I have to be okay with Evie being an only, even though it tears me up inside. I have to know that God has a plan, even though I may not understand any of what is happening.

So how do you have joy, in the midst of all of this? I am realizing that we can find joy in many things if we look at things with different eyes. I can find joy in the fact that I have a beautiful daughter, and a wonderful husband. I can find joy in the fact that I know Christ as my Savior. I can find joy in the beauty that God created. As I have sat here typing this, I had a hummingbird almost land on top of my head. He sat about a foot away and stared at me, completely still (he even had landed with his wings stopped). He sat like that for a good 2 minutes. I was in awe. Also, as I sat here, 2 Orioles came and stood about 3 feet away from me on the deck. We have had 3 of them come at a time. Here is a picture of them (it is a bit hard to see 2 of them...they are on the top of the shepherd's hook). They are the babies that had been in the nest.


I can find joy in our newest little furry family member, Zeke, who is so much fun. He does a lot of sleeping...

Changes

Sometimes I think writing can be really cathartic. Really healing. Being able to blog has been that way for me a lot of times. I actually love that most people I know personally don't read my blog. I hope that doesn't sound bad. It just helps me feel more free in what I write.

I'm feeling pretty shredded emotionally right now. Majorly defeated. It looks like we are not going to be able to do the adoption. Financially we are hitting a brick wall, and can't come up with the finances. I keep watching these old tv shows and movies, and these people who want children are given children. Given. They didn't have to pay $20,000 and have to endure being scrutinized to the point of insanity. I sure wish it was still that way. I have been going through every range of emotions. I feel guilt that Evie will not have any siblings. I feel sadness that we will only have one child. I feel frustration over my body, that it failed me. I hate the feeling of failure. I hate how people don't know things, and they make comments because they don't know. We always hear this from people when they see Evie: "Is she your only? Really?" I remember when we first moved to this area, and were living with my parents. Their church had Vacation Bible School, so we decided to take Evie to it. One of the workers came up to me later, and nastily asked, "Is she your only?" I said yes, and she proceeded to tell me how terrible I was for not having more children, and that if Evie had siblings she would be better at sharing. It was horrible. People don't know, so they make judgements. Jeff thinks I should just blurt out, "Well, she does have 7 siblings, but they all died". He said that would shut the people up. I haven't done that yet. I absolutely cringe when I get the "how many kids do you have" question. I bristle.

After trying to save and save for the adoption, and not getting anywhere, we started looking into embryo adoption. Embryo adoption is where we would adopt frozen embryos, and I would carry them like a normal pregnancy. I researched for weeks because the cost is a lot less than traditional adoption. The problem is that the success rate is only 26%. That is so low. After finding that out, Jeff and I talked about trying again. I started researching the genetic issue I was diagnosed with. It is called a Balanced Translocation (I'll call it BT to save typing). I called the genetic specialist we went to 11 years ago, and asked them to send me all the paperwork. Back when we got the diagnosis, not much was known about BT. Now there is a lot more information. I got my paperwork last week, and researched online all last week. I found that with the BT, most women on average lost 6-10 babies. Many times, a baby would implant and they would carry it, and it would be chromosomally unbalanced. After delivery, the baby would die shortly after birth. Some babies lived, and had severe problems. What got to me the most was reading about the babies that were "fine". I joined a BT board, and the women would excitedly tell about the babies that they finally were able to carry that lived and were healthy. Then they mentioned, almost like a side note, that their baby tested positive for the same BT they had. In other words, their kids were healthy, except that when they grow up and go to conceive, they (whether male of female) would have to endure the same horrible things that come with BT. Almost all the women who had healthy children said that their kids were BT carriers also. So besides all the horrors that could happen in a pregnancy with a BT, I would knowingly be risking putting my child through what I have gone through. That option flew out the window after I found that all out. Every time we turned to a different option, we have hit a wall.

Jeff was gone all last week on business. When he came home on Friday, we wanted to do something fun. We went to the mall, and went to a pet store. Evie played on the floor with the most adorable puppy ever, and I laughed and laughed. He was called a Havanese, and he was like a little bunny, hopping all around. The little guy brought me joy. Then Evie went on the bungie jumper at the mall. Have you all seen that? It is where they strap the kids into a harness, attached to all these bungie chords. Then they can jump on a trampoline and go about 30 feet into the air over and over again. Evie loves to do it. My little fearless child. She did about 20 flips. I couldn't watch. She had a blast. Afterwards, we went to a Japanese restaurant where they make your food in front of you. Jeff's company paid for it (they do that for the families after a long business trip). We sat at a table with total strangers, and the chef made the table light up in flames, and threw food at our plates. It was really fun, and the food was great. Afterwards, as we were leaving, everyone commented on how adorable and sweet Evie was (she was off looking at the Koi in the pond). People tell us that all the time. She is super outgoing, and well adjusted, despite not having siblings. That is a comfort to me. She said later that she had the "best day she has ever had". She says that a lot, so we must not be ruining her life by not having more kids. That comforts me too.

I am trying to come to terms with all of this. The hardest part is going to be telling everyone. The awkwardness of it all. We are going to give back the money that was donated, then that door will be closed. Amazingly, Evie is fine with all of it. I thought she would be heartbroken. She just wants a kitten. Her siblings will be furry and soft, and walk on 4 legs. I feel better just writing. Less heavy in the heart. I need to move on. I need to walk away from all this grief and sadness and loss that has enveloped me for all these years. Having more children is not going to be part of the picture for my life, and I need to be okay with that. I need to know that I am not a failure as a person. I need to know that having a child isn't what defines a person. I still have a lot to work through.

Birthday, tree and goodies

It has been a busy last few weeks. Evie is doing much better, and got over the chickenpox pretty fast. The problem now is that she is covered with scars :(. She has at least 4 on her face, some on her chest, and some on her back and belly. I kept telling her not to scratch because she could scar, but she would dig at them at night. I'm trying some different scar remedies to see if I can get them to go away. Some of them are pretty good sized craters.

Our yearly tradition is to go cut a Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. Because Evie was feeling so terrible, we waited a week before going to get one. The only time we could go was after Jeff got off of work. By the time we got there, they had closed the area where you could go cut your own tree, so we had to pick one from off the lot. We still got a nice tree. We were all bundled up because we thought we would be out in the cold for awhile. It only took us 5 minutes to find our tree! We took SiSi with us, but she couldn't get out and run around like normal. It still worked out though.

My sweet girl turned 10 years old on the 6th. She had 2 parties. One was with her friends, and it was on the Saturday before her birthday. The girls were all homeschooled, so the creative, energetic, and super imaginative juice was really flowing when they were here :). It was really fun!  Here is Evie at her first party...

The Sunday before Evie's birthday, she asked me to do her hair special. I put it in braids, and she slept on them. Her hair turned out so pretty!

Evie also lost a top tooth on the day of her birthday party with the girls. I wanted to show off how cute she looked :).

On the morning of Evie's birthday, she woke up early and asked if she could open up her presents from us. We said that would be fine, since Jeff still hadn't gone to work yet. She had fun playing with her toys all day.

We homeschooled on her birthday, but had a relaxed, fun day and played lots of games. She had to do some computer work, so Daisy kept her company. Don't you just love how Daisy is sitting, with her legs on the computer??

At night, both sets of grandparents came to celebrate Evie's birthday. We had a lot of fun! We ate some great food, had cake, then played a fun game called Apples To Apples Jr. We had never played it before, and it was really fun!

I have been going a little crazy with making stuff lately. I have been on this homemade beauty products kick. I had been using a deodorant that was labeled "natural", but I found out had a lot of really bad chemicals in it. I have read a lot about women and breast cancer, and many naturopaths and even some doctors believe that deodorant/anti-persperant can be a cause of breast cancer because of all the chemicals. I found a recipe online for making my own deodorant. I LOVE it! It does an amazing job, is super cheap to make, and is good for me! I made 2 different scents. Here they are...

I also made some homemade face cream. This is actually a recipe from my friend April's website. It can be used on your face and body. I really like it so far! On my face it can be a little oily, so I need to tweak the oils to figure out how to make it less oily for my face. I'm using it on Evie's face too, along with therapeutic grade essential oils, to get rid of the scarring.

Today I made a homemade toothpaste, from a recipe I found online. It has baking soda, glycerine, salt, xylitol, and essential oils. I like it. I have only used it today, but it makes my teeth feel really clean.

We are slowly trying to start accumulating baby things. We are borrowing a crib from a couple at church, so that was a huge blessing! I also bought some of these....

Okay, I know it is a bottle, but isn't it the cutest thing ever?? I decided I wanted to do glass bottles this time around. I have read so much about plastic leaching into the food, especially when heated. I wish I had known that when Evie was a baby! Next on the list to buy is cloth diapers. Yep, I'm doing cloth. We did cloth with Evie, and it was great. I know people think it is awful, but it is SO great. No having to worry about running out of diapers! You just wash and dry some. Plus there aren't chemicals, and you aren't filling up the landfill. Plus, there is nothing more adorable than seeing a baby in a cloth diaper :).

Sorry this post is so enormous! I told you we have been busy these past few weeks!!

Fall

Oh my. Has it really been almost 3 months since I last blogged? Here is the reason. For several months, this has been my "station".... 

I have never canned this much before! I thought I was done after I did the grape juice. Isn't it pretty?

Then Jeff brought in a huge amount of green peppers and tomatoes from the garden. He said, "How about making some more salsa. So I did some more salsa.

I was really starting to feel like this about my canner at this point....

I am so glad to be done with canning!! It is so worthwhile, but so exhausting! We had an overabundance of peppers and tomatoes, so after canning, I froze peppers and dried tomatoes. I'm still trying to figure out how I am going to use the dried tomatoes! The peppers are great frozen. I froze them halved, and then I make stuffed peppers with them. They are yummy! I just need to figure out how to use the dried tomatoes. I dried them because I had so many of them canned that I didn't want to can anymore!

Besides the canning, we have been finishing up with the adoption homestudy. We had our last meeting this past week, so the paperwork is done!! Yippee! They told us that the paperwork on their end of it should be done right after Thanksgiving, so they will be ready to show our profiles to the expectant moms that come in. Wow, it all seems unreal! We are seriously needing to start working on the nursery. We found out today at church that someone has a crib they can give us, so we are so thankful for that! We have tons of clothes...if the baby is a girl! If we have a boy, we have no clothes right now. We also have been trying to come up with names. That has been harder than I remembered. Evie keeps giving her suggestions, and they are usually the names of her dolls :).

I have been amazed at how God has helped me to get stuff done through all of this. I have been able to keep on track with homeschooling, and Evie has been able to do Bible quizzing and homeschool get-togethers. I still have tons of things to do, but I'm trying to pace myself. We are planning on starting on the nursery after Christmas. I am going to have to move the homeschool room to the dining room, which should be interesting!

I hope it won't be months and months before I blog next!

So much to do.....

We are just all tired out! lol :).

I haven't had much time to blog lately. I finally finished all the paperwork for the adoption, and we are sending it this week!! Yay!! Between that, and canning, it has been a really busy time. I canned 20 pints of salsa, 28 quarts of pickles, 25 quarts of peaches, and 7 quarts of tomato sauce so far, along with drying herbs. See why I am not blogging? lol! The garden has been so good this year. I am so thankful. My tomatoes have been late, but I have been getting some from Jeff's parents. Mine are loaded on the vines, but are just now turning. I am only going to do sauce and chunks. I am done with salsa. I still have applesauce, pearsauce and grape juice to do, so fall is going to be busy!

We start homeschooling tomorrow. I had planned on starting it in August, but I wanted a little bit more vacation time. This time around, we are NOT going to homeschool year round! That did not work well at all. The breaks during the year were great, but once summer hit, it was so hard to get it done! We didn't get our 180 days in until the end of July, but we did finish. This time I am hoping to go Labor Day through Memorial Day, with very few breaks in between. That way we get a long summer.

On a hair related note, I am trying some new products to try and bring out my curls. They are from Jessicurl. Since I am trying to save as much money as I can for the adoption, I sold a bunch of stuff on eBay to get the money for the hair products :). I ordered this stuff called Rockin Ringlets, and Confident Coils. I had a sample of the Confident Coils, and was so happy with the results! My waves really came out, and stayed very nice without frizz. If I worked on it, I could get some nice curls too. I was fighting the wavies before, but decided again to try and embrace them. My hair is just not ever going to be straight unless I straighten it with a flat iron, which takes way too much time and kills the hair. So, I guess I'm a wavy girl!

Garden pics and news, news, news!!

I am finally getting around to putting pictures on here of my garden! It is going quite crazy, and there are lots of pictures, so for those of you who are bored to tears with gardens, please bear with me :). The first pic is of my yellow squash and zucchini. They yellow squash is starting to take over my beets. You can see some broccoli in there, along with some cabbage.













My bell peppers are doing so well. They are so sweet! I picked about 25 of them the other day. My freezer is getting full of them. Love that!



My beans are about done. Sad! I wish they would have kept on going. I planted 5 rows, and they did great, but didn't last as long as I would have liked. The next pictures are of my beans, and then of the whole garden.

My ground cherries are going to town. I have 6 plants, and they are loaded. They are really sweet, and I love that they fall onto the ground when they are ready. I just need them to fall all at once!

My cucumbers are growing and growing. Doing the vertical gardening has worked well for them. I have made several batches of dill pickles so far.

Here are my trees....oh wait, those are tomato plants!! They are HUGE! Our fence in the back is 6 feet tall, and they are taller than the fence! They are loaded down with green tomatoes. I am going to be really busy when they start turning red!!

Here are some pics of our produce. We are getting the most ginormous cucumbers, and even when they are this huge, they are still crisp! They are making some great pickles too. I am definitely going to grow this variety again next year.

Our peppers have been huge too. I haven't let them turn colors. I read that once you let them turn, the plant stops producing. I have been picking them green. Look at the size of these two!

Besides gardening, we have been a tad busy. Want to hear our news????? Our news is that we are in the process of adopting!!!! We are in the beginning stages, and are just finishing up our paperwork. After that, we will start our homestudy. Then we will be in the waiting stage. We are going through a different agency than the one we used with Evie. We want to adopt an infant domestically, just like we did before. It is an exciting time!! Evie is sooooooo excited! She has the baby names book out about every day, and she talks about the adoption all day long. The waiting is not going to be super easy for her :). We have lots of work to do :)!!

The blessing of adoption

I have been crying lots of tears of joy this morning. My cousin and her husband just adopted this beautiful little girl last night from China. They are there right now. Every time I look at this picture, and the pictures of her with her new parents, I just bawl. Knowing all they went through, and how long they have waited, I am just so thrilled for them. They wrote about how surreal it all was, and how they felt shell-
shocked. It brought back memories of when Jeff and I first held Evie. Unlike with a pregnancy, adoption doesn't have 9 months of preparation. Most of the time people wait and wait, then everything happens super fast all at once. You almost never know when things will happen. It only took us a year to get Evie. It took my cousin and her husband almost 5 years to get this precious baby. The wait for adoptions seems to be much longer now than when we adopted. Domestic adoptions are becoming so scarce that most people are adopting internationally.

When we were waiting to adopt, we found out a month before Evie was born that we had been chosen by Evie's birthmom. After Evie was born, we had to wait to see if her birthmom would really go through with the adoption. When we got the call to go to the hospital because Evie was really ours, we really didn't have any emotional preparation. It was SO surreal. I still remember just staring at her. I thought I would be crying hard, but instead I just couldn't wrap my brain around the fact that I was holding my daughter. She was absolutely beautiful, and such an amazing gift. I am so thankful that her birthmother chose life for her. As I look back and see the journey we have been on, I cherish all the memories. She has been such a huge gift to us. There are verses in the Bible that talk about how God adopts us into His family when we accept Jesus Christ as our personal Savior. Having adopted, I see those verses in a different light. I view Evie as my flesh and blood, even though I didn't give birth to her. If I see her that way, in all my human-ness, how much more would God my Father who is perfect see us that way! My heart is so full this morning. I am so thankful for the blessing of adoption. I am so thankful for this new, beautiful baby girl in our family, who will grow up in such a wonderful home. What a blessing knowing that she will grow up hearing about the Lord. God is such a good God!

Ponderings

I am a deep thinker. I always have been, and in some ways it is good. Other times it drives my husband crazy :). I come up with some wild ideas during my thinking times. Evie is turning 7 in another 3 days. I am in shock about that! SEVEN! Where did the time go? Whenever her birthday rolls around, I always think about that day, and the day we saw her for the first time. We didn't see her until she was 2 days old. Here we are at the hospital. Jeff and I were dazed and thrilled to be parents, all at the same time.














And here we are when we brought her home that same night. She was the most beautiful baby. She had hair that was unlike any color I had ever seen on a newborn.

Anyways, what does all that have to do with deep thinking? Well, I was thinking about the journey of adoption, and what a wonderful thing it is. I was thinking about how much I would love to do it again, but also thinking of the massive costs. When we adopted Evie, it was pricey, but doable. The costs have gone up dramatically since then. Why, I have no idea. So here I am, thinking of wild ways to make almost $20,000. When we started the adoption process 8 years ago, our church suggested we do a fundraiser. We did, and it actually helped us raise almost all the money. It is amazing how God provides! Now, we are in a new area and going to a new church, so that isn't really an option. So I'm just brainstorming. I'm thinking thoughts like: if I have just 20,000 friends who gave $1, I would have enough! Lol! Okay, that one is a little nuts. I know that if God wants us to take the adoption journey, He will provide. It just seems like a HUGE amount of money! So I'm off now to go do somemore deep thinking :).

Thoughts and ramblings

I have a bunch of thoughts rolling around in my head today. I really was enjoying blogging, and reading everyone's blogs. Now some blogs are becoming so negative that I can't even visit them. I thought blogging was supposed to be fun! I am realizing that life is too short to get stressed out about stuff I read online. Life is going to happen, regardless of what is written about on someone's blog. I can change things by prayer, and by taking action on things, but obsessing about issues isn't going to help make my life any better. I know that God is in control. He is not shocked off the throne by things that are happening. I am so thankful that He is my God. I'm so thankful for the gifts He gives us.

I think I have been getting riled up reading political blogs because of the abortion debate. In my mind, it should not be a debate. I have been pregnant and know that a baby has a beating heart in the womb at 5 1/2 weeks of age. I have seen my ultrasounds. I know that is not a blob of tissue. I just can't figure out why others don't seem to see it that way. How can someone who has felt life move in their womb, seen an ultrasound or ever held a newborn baby even think that life doesn't begin at conception? People talk about Pro Choice. Does that baby in the womb get a choice? I get so aggrevated that adoption is rarely even talked about as an option. At Planned Parenthood clinics, women are advised to abort or keep the baby. Adoption is not even a consideration in their minds. I have been thinking a lot about Evie's birthmother lately. What is crazy is that today I received a letter from the adoption agency where we adopted Evie, giving us some updated information about Evie's birthmom. That has only happened one other time in Evie's 6 years of life. I had been sending letters and pictures to the agency for them to send to her since Evie was born (this is customary in adoptions). We have what is called a semi-open adoption. The birthmom doesn't know our last names or where we live, but we send letters and pictures to the agency so they can send them to her. I had been concerned about her for quite some time because we had been sending stuff, and the agency said they had lost touch with her. She finally contacted them, and has had some personal problems, but is doing okay. All day yesterday, before I even got the letter, I had been thinking about her for some reason. Getting the letter today brought back all kinds of memories for me. I was thinking about the first time we met her, right before Evie was born. She was 8 months along, and was a beautiful and sweet person. She was tiny, except for the round belly. I think that many people have this idea that birthmom's really want to give their babies up for adoption, and that they don't really care about their babies. They don't realize what an agonizing decision it is for them. She was so emotional during our meeting, that Jeff and I almost didn't want to go through with it because we felt so sad for her. Her pain was raw, and it was real. On Mother's Day I always feel great sadness for her, as I'm sure it is a hard day for her. I am so grateful for the gift she gave us. Yesterday and today I was remembering the moment when Evie was placed in my arms at 2 days old. I don't think I have ever seen a more beautiful baby. She had tons of hair, and amazingly it was the exact same color as mine. God did that just for me :). I remember that first night with her, and Jeff and I kept turning on the light just to stare at her. A lot of it seems like a blur. Lack of sleep will do that to you! Thankfully I kept a diary during that time (and still do), so I will have those memories in writing.

I think adoption is one of the greatest gifts. I get a little glimpse into what it is like to be in the family of God. According to the Bible, in Ephesians 1, we are adopted into God's family when we accept Christ. So just like Evie is now forever a part of my family, I am forever in God's family. He sees me as His daughter. This year, Evie asked Jesus into her heart. What a blessing that was for us because now she is a part of God's family too. I am so grateful to God for His gift of salvation. What a joy to know that I will forever be with Him, but also will be able to be with others that I love who also know Him.

Happy Easter!

What a beautiful Easter we had here. I love Easter. As a believer in Jesus, I am so thankful for what He did on the cross. He died on a cross for our sins, and 3 days later rose from the dead. Because of what He did, we can be assured of eternal life if we put our trust in Him. What an incredible gift He gave us! Easter weekend is such a wonderful time to reflect on that gift.

We had my family and Jeff's family over for dinner after church. We had a wonderful dinner of turkey roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole and layered pea salad. We also celebrated Evie's adoption birthday. She actually gets 2 birthdays :). One is December 6th, when she was actually born, and the second one is March 14th. Jeff was gone on the 14th, so we thought we would celebrate it on Easter. March 14th is the date when her adoption was finalized 6 years ago. We were able to take her home when she was only 2 days old, and then 3 months later we went to court and had a judge finalize it. We celebrate that date like another birthday, which helps us to talk about the adoption experience with her. Plus it is super fun! She gets presents and cake :). I made her a spice cake this time, as she LOVES spice cakes (and I was able to make it gluten free/casein free). When Jeff was gone on business, he bought her the new Barbie Mariposa doll, and the movie. She screamed at the top of her lungs when she opened it :).

I love this picture of Evie. It was right before she opened her presents, and the picture is just completely her. Her personality is really fun. She is always smiling, laughing and singing. I wish I were more like that (although people may think I was a little nutty if I went around singing all the time at my age! LOL!).

We finished the day off with making pictures outside with sidewalk chalk and playing frisbee with Sierra. Evie got a huge box of sidewalk chalk from my in-laws, so she will have fun with that.

Last of all, here is my wonderful Hubby just sitting in the sun checking his email. He was relaxing after running all over the yard with Evie and chalking with her. It was a really fun day!