Still Waiting...

Tomorrow marks 10 months DH and I have been waiting for our call to be matched with our birth mother.  Life has been crazy lately and when I stopped to look at the calendar I was pleasantly surprised that our journey has been continuously moving along at what seems like a rapid pace.  School is back in session so DH and I spend most of our time playing school mommy and daddy to our 150 students.  We love our school family and we love the fact that we get to share in the daily experiences of molding children.  BUT we still are awaiting "the call" to say we've found OUR child (or our child has found us).

We've also been very busy with a few other things, but because blog land is so public I won't go into much detail there.  My life has always been an open book and it still is, but there's one piece of my life I'll wait to share until a later date.  I'll just say it's also keeping DH and I busy, but we are loving every part of it!

I got to visit with my beautiful beautiful niece this weekend and loved seeing her beautiful face!  Miss Willow is something else and she has added so much love to our small little family.  After my nephew was born (18 years ago) we had to wait a long time to welcome another little one.  Here's a recent picture of her and I...

I seen this outfit for her and couldn't resist!  She sure is loved beyond words and I look forward to our children growing up together!

I hope everyone has a wonderful week and remember YOU.ARE.BLESSED.

9 Months

A couple of days ago DH and I reached a milestone in our "waiting" era.  We reached the 9 month mark.  For me, this is a huge milestone for a couple of reasons.  For one, if I were able to get pregnant, we would've been "due" to have our baby.  In a hospital.  With labor pains.  Epidurals.  Family.  Blah blah blah.  I think about how fast the time has went and imagine how fast my own pregnancy would've went if only I were able to conceive. 

We have submitted a complete makeover to our online profile through our adoption agency.  We changed our birth parent letter and traded out all of our pictures to replace the old boring ones with new ones showing off some of our adventures together.  We don't know what birth mothers look for.  We've been told my other friends who have adopted that sometimes it's the "weirdest" things that make the birth mother connect to an adoptive family.  Whatever the case may be we felt after looking at the same online profile over and over that it was time for an overhaul!

One last thing...If you are a praying person at all, I ask you to please take a moment and say a prayer for a special little boy.  I'm hoping to be able to share this story later, after all the details are worked out, but in the meantime all I can say is please pray that God grants him love and hope for all his years to come. 

Hope everyone has had a wonderful Sunday! :)

Time Keeps Moving

Today makes 8 months that DH and I have been officially waiting to be matched with our forever child!  Our social worker (Mrs. B) had to come to our new home today so she could do a walk thru of the new place and ensure all requirements were met.  We were excited to see her this morning.  Any communication we have with her connects us to the reality that we are really doing this.  We are really on our way to building our family.  I'm really going to be a mom!  We still don't know when our child will be placed with us, but we are hopeful and are strong in God's will that His timing will reveal itself. 

In other news, the laziness has officially set it with this whole summer off thing.  I seriously need to get back into my classroom and start working on new ideas for the upcoming school year.  It's so easy to "work on things tomorrow."  lol In my case though, tomorrow turns into days and weeks.  I need to step it up and get ta gettin!

I hope everyone has a wonderful rest of the week and hopefully I'll be blogging soon with exciting news!!!

Where Should I Begin...

Sooooooo many new things have happened in our lives in the past 1.5 months (my last blog).  This doesn't surprise me since EVERYTHING with DH and I moves at rapid speed! lol

*New Thing 1*:  DH and I are working on Week 4 at our new home.  We decided to take the plunge and purchase a home that was bigger so that when "Baby B" comes along it won't be such a tight squeeze for space.  We purchased a home that we LOVE and have been working on getting everything situated just the way we want it.

*New Thing 2*:  DH and I decided to move forward with foster care.  Foster care is something I hold very dear to my heart.  I have witnessed 7 children come in and out of my home and and return to family members while previously being a foster mommy before I met DH.  I have always been passionate about it.  Working with children everyday in my profession I see what the need is for good, stable homes for these children.  There just aren't enough!  Ultimately, we want to adopt out of foster care (along with our adoption agency).  We would love to have several children and will pray God sees fit for us to do so.

*New Thing 3*:  We have been officially "waiting" for a match through our adoption agency for 7.5 months now.  I have spoken to the social workers several times via email just asking for updates with our profile.  There have been several birthmoms view our profile thus far, but for whatever reason we weren't matched.  This is ok.  We know God has hand picked our child for us and when the time is right He will reveal the child to us.  So it continues to be a waiting game...aka Test In Patience.

*New Thing 4*:  DH and I both survived this past school year and are now out for the summer!!!!!  This last group of kiddos were a challenged (to say the least) but we all worked together to help develop these children and prepare them for the years to come.  Some days it was a struggle, but others it was a breeze.  I must say, I've had some interesting stories from this group! lol

I plan to get back in the swing of blogging full time again.  I've missed it.  I've missed expressing my thoughts.  I've missed connecting with my Blog Friends and reading your stories about daily life experiences.  I've just missed YOU!

Again, for those of you that do take the time to read my blog please click to "Join" me over on the right side and I'll do the same for you in return.  I love connecting with you guys! 

Blog Changes

I never have been computer savvy by any means.  Since I started this blog to document our adoption journey I've became more and more envious of those that have these cute little fancy blogs.  I WANT ONE!!!  I've searched through tutorials and apparently I'm not a very good "Googler" either because I'm just not finding user friendly information.  I want to "bedazzle" my blog and make it stand out.  I want my future child to look back and read my blog and be fascinated with what his/her momma can do with social networking.  I want to add simple buttons and links.  It's sooooo frustrating!!!! lol

If anyone out in blog land can offer some website or help me out in some way with my page I would GREATLY appreciate it!  I'm currently trying to add a button (I think that's what they're called) to the side of my page for a second fundraiser I am starting and I can't figure out how to display a button that will link to the fundraising page.  Please help if you can!  In the meantime...please feel free to click on the link below and shop away through Thirty-One as we try to raise money through fundraiser #1 :)

https://www.mythirtyone.com/shop/eventhome.aspx?eventId=E3107691&from=MYEVENTS

Happy Shopping! :)

Funding

Let me start with I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW EXPENSIVE IT IS TO ADOPT!!!!  Okay, now I feel a little teeny weeny bit better.  I'm so frustrated today!  So many things are piling up on DH and I and it feels like there's more bad than good here lately.  Don't get me wrong, I still truly feel blessed for the life God has given me and I give thanks daily for those blessings.  This is just one of those days that I wanna bury my head in a pillow in a dark room all by my lonesome...and just cry. 

When I found out 15 years ago there was no chance I could conceive and carry a baby I was only 18 years old.  It was rough.  It was tough.  BUT I prayed my way through and know with my whole heart that THAT just wasn't the plan God had for me.  I refuse to think that God didn't want me to be a mother.  This is where I struggle.  I don't know what plan He has for me in this department.  I only know that the longing I have to hold MY precious child is only getting stronger.  I pray.  I pray that God will bring me MY precious miracle in the form He sees fit.  It's hard not knowing what that way is. 

Several years ago I was a foster mommy.  While wanting to help the children who belonged to the state I was also in it for selfish reasons.  I wanted to find the child that was supposed to be mine.  The child that needed a mommy and daddy and a house full of love.  I did meet some absolutely amazing kiddos as 7 of them passed through my home and were reunited with family members.  This also left me with more of a longing than ever to have my own child.  I didn't and don't like an empty home.  I enjoyed diaper changes, baths, nightly feedings, etc. that I got to experience with my foster babies.  When the kiddos left they took a piece of me with them that can only be filled by "my" child.

So I was left with 2 choices.  I could either adopt or do surrogacy.  I met with a highly recommended doctor at a fertility clinic who assured me it wouldn't take anymore than a couple of rounds to be successful.  While he "assured" me there's still no guarantee that oodles of money would've been spent and empty arms being the end result.  So, DH and I decided adoption was the choice that best fit our family.  We have been waiting a little over 5 months now and we are so happy with how fast the time has gone.  Our only major obstacle now is the financial aspect of adoption.  We are on the waiting list for an infant through an open domestic adoption.  While we are okay financially, we are just that...OK.  We are both teachers and work harder than what we make, but we don't complain because we both love what we do.  We have a passion to teach kids, to love kids, and to be a part of the molding kids of our future. 

Here's what I'm asking of my friends, both Blogger and Facebook.  I've created a "donate" button on the top right of my blog for those of you that would be able to donate in any way.  Please don't think I'm begging for money (although it seems like I am) as I know God will find a way to provide.  I only ask that if you are led to donate that you do and in return.  Thank you so much for even taking the time to read my Blog and follow my journey of trying to becoming a mommy. 

5 Months And Updates

Today makes 5 months of officially waiting for DH and I!!!  Time is just traveling by and I attribute most of that to being so busy at work!  Since I started teaching, the years have just flown by.  Literally.  I keep saying by the end of next school year I should def be a mommy (based on the average wait time that would be 1.5 years).  We are hoping we get the call sooner, but as I've said in many posts before, we know it's all in His timing.  So we wait.  And we continue praying for patience.

I haven't blogged since March 4 and although I've been meaning to it seems these last few weeks have been quite challenging.  Here's a "quick" update...

*DH and I lost one of our students who was so very special to us
*We bought a house (new construction) and have had to pick out all types of designs for everything
*We are less than 2 weeks away from Mexico (Spring Break)
*We have missed school for snow and for flooding
*My sweet dachshund passed away from fluid building up around her heart
*We are busy planning for my younger sister's baby shower that will be next weekend

And for now, I think that's all of the "major" updates!  It's been a very busy few weeks.  I've had emotions that were high and emotions that were low.  I've leaned completely on God for His help dealing with so many different things (on top of my job and testing and not enough time to cover material and blah blah blah).  I know everything will fall into place as it should.  Sometimes it's just comforting to ask for an extra prayer...