Hello Kitty & Strawberry Shortcake

In my heart, in my mind, in the deepest part of my soul, I’m ready to move on. I have pushed the sad days behind me, let the anger wash away, and set the questioning to the back burner because until the day I die, I’ll always wonder why our first adoption attempt had to come to an ugly end. I’ve been spending hours on the computer, leaving my 3 year old to play or watch way more NickJr than I’d normally allow, but I’ve done my research. I’ve toggled back and forth between agency websites and .pdf files and Excel spreadsheets. I’ve narrowed it down to two countries, both with special needs adoptions, both from Asia, both with similar financial frameworks.

It’s a process that changes by the minute, by the hour, by the day. I woke up yesterday morning in my typical I-hate-mornings fashion. I fought to get my oldest out of bed and into the shower at 6:45. I just kept poking him in his top bunk, squeezing his arms and legs, ignoring his moaning and complaining until he slowly slid down the ladder with a thud to the beige carpet. I threw on yoga pants and a t-shirt, brushed my teeth, washed my face and ran a brush through my hair before going downstairs and getting yogurt and fruit on the table for breakfast. Then it was off to the bus stop and back home to clean up and start the day.

But I was angry yesterday. I never got a response from an agency with a waiting child whom I was very interested in. I questioned the agency twice and no reply. Then I got the one I didn’t want to hear. “We’ve found a family for her.” Great for the darling little girl with chubby, kissable cheeks, but it’s another loss for me. I took a shower in tears. I actually told God to take away my heart for orphans because I can’t deal with the pain anymore. How’s that for asking for something clearly against what it says in the Bible! I’d be a hypocrite for naming my blog Psalms 82:3. Those were about the only words I could utter to Him though. They were real and I meant it. Take it away!

We recently purchased a new kitchen table big enough to accommodate a new addition to the family. Yes, we bought the table the day before the Nepal shut down, wouldn’t you know. But I didn’t care for the chairs that accompanied my new Ikea table, and I purchased the table alone. So, yesterday afternoon I had planned to drive all around Lincoln to find at least 4 chairs that would match my espresso, almost black contemporary table. It was an ugly drive with angry adoption thoughts at every red light. Why are You doing this to us, God? It didn’t help that none of the stores I visited had chairs that would suit us. It was a bust at every store. My mood kept going down the drain.

My youngest is a great shopper and never made a fuss. I even promised him a stop at Toys R Us to browse and play if he was good at the furniture stores. Unfortunately, we had to buy a birthday present for our neighbor girl, so a trip down the pink, girly aisles was in order. I didn’t want to do it. I saw all the Hello Kitty, Strawberry Shortcake and Littlest Pet Shop toys that I had once intended to buy for my Nepali daughter. I found myself in the aisles of the toy store literally throwing my hands up in the air in utter defeat and letting them fall back to my sides with a heavy slap on my legs. I’m sure I walked out of the store like a disciplined puppy with my head down and tail between my legs. This is torture! Take it away!

We came home, ate lunch and cleaned up just a touch before friends would be coming over at 3:30. I had a few moments to check my email before heading to the bus stop in the afternoon. There was 1 email from an agency that has been known for excellent customer service, so I knew I could ask questions about their waiting child program and investigate my options.

Oh, how 1 little email can change your mood, your day, your outlook! The email was sweetly written by an adoption caseworker who understood the loss of our Nepal adoption. This agency is currently struggling to bring Nepali children home who had already been matched to their families before the shut down announcement. The caseworker explained what we’d have to do in order to switch countries, what kind of children are available, what country has the best program for us and he even included photos of 6 beauties who were looking for someone to call mommy and daddy, if we were paper ready, which we are not. He was confident there is a little girl out there for us and he never once pushed me to go with his agency and leave mine.

Those 6 faces made me cry tears of complete joy. I smiled through the slow stream running down my face, knowing there are children out there who are still in need. I marveled at how beautiful these babies were and their unrepaired cleft palates, club feet and ear deformities were a blur to me. I must have looked at their photos a dozen times before Jay came home from work.

Bring on the pink aisles at Toys R Us, the Hello Kitty, the Strawberry Shortcake Dolls! There's a little girl out there who needs me, needs Jay, needs 2 big brothers, 2 fluffy white American Eskimo dogs and goofy guinea pig to boot.

Yes, I’m ready to move on.

I Don't Do Weeds

I just finished reading the second book that an old friend from high school and church recently published. One of the chapters was a list of things she does do and a list of things she doesn’t do. It was a fun chapter to read but I struggled with the idea of why I should write my own lists. But I found it quite applicable during this drama called adoption.

Things I do. I am the caretaker of our home. I do the cooking, the cleaning, and the bill paying. I bathe the children, I changed their diapers, I made homemade baby food, and I led the potty training efforts. I feed, bathe and groom our two dogs. I care for the guinea pig. I run all the errands. I buy generics, much to my oldest son’s dismay. When Jay’s back was out this winter, he was on doctor’s orders to avoid shoveling. I became the snow remover, me in my 5-foot, 3-inch, and 20 pounds overweight frame. Wouldn’t you know that this new duty had to happen the year we had 2 blizzards back to back. Our 3 car driveway was drifted with 3 ½ feet of snow, 4 feet in some places, I kid you not. I opened the garage door during the second blizzard and just cried in my garage wondering how on earth I would conquer that without a snow blower. Thankfully, 3 strange men came by and blew it out for us while I struggled to remove the top foot and a half of heavy white stuff with my plastic, blue snow shovel. I’ve never learned who they are, but I believed they were hired by my neighbor to do his snow removal. Whoever those strangers were, they did it with joy, smiles on their faces, a spring in their step, actually! That’s what service is supposed to be about. Find joy in how you can surprise someone by serving them during their time of need. It will make their day for sure, but it will make your day so much more. God just works that way and I practically laugh at His mathematics in that equation.

That leads me to a thank you. There are those of you out there who are serving us by praying us through this rocky time. When I cannot find the words or sometimes even the sheer desire to talk to God about what is on my mind, you are there lifting our family, our future daughter up to the God who listens intently to His children. I am humbled by your dedication to our family and our cause. You must know that we could not get through this without those prayers. If any of you have ever uttered a single word to God on our behalf, please make yourself known. I want my daughter to know how many people it took to get her home, how many people cared that much about her, about us, to spend their time thinking of us and asking God to direct us. And when we see Jesus face to face, I know I’ll be surrounded by so many more people who have been carrying us along the way in dedicated prayer. I am forever grateful.

Things I don’t do. There are many things I don’t do. I don’t iron, except when it’s absolutely necessary like for weddings, funerals, first day of school, picture day. I don’t mow the lawn. If I have to do the snow removal, then Jay can mow and do the trim! I have mowed the lawn when Jay’s back has been out, but our weed whacker is a beast and so I never do the trim! I don’t exercise regularly, thus the 20 extra pounds that I hate but don’t do anything about. I don’t subscribe to magazines. I don’t go out for regular manicures and pedicures.

But I’ll talk about one because it is what struck me today. Thank you, Shauna, for admitting that you don’t garden. Neither do I! I hate yard work with a passion and I’m sure my neighbors just shake their heads in lament over my weeds, my burned out grass and my lack of landscaping. I believe my disgust stems from the fact that my parents were always busy on weekends tending to the 2 waterfront acres we had in South Barrington. The yard work seemed to come first, then playtime. I remember always wanting my mom to go swimming in the lake with me most every hot summer day, but she’d always tell me to wait until she was done with the yard work.

I’m in no way blaming my parents for it at all! Now that I’m a homeowner, there is definitely a necessity to keeping a well manicured lawn and flower beds. And 2 acres? Forget it! I’ll stick with my tiny quarter acre, thank you very much! I have no green thumb.

This morning I weeded the front flower bed after putting my oldest on the school bus. My sister-in-law is visiting with her 2 kids later today and like my grandma Myrt always said, “I just want the front of the house to look nice.” I have no idea what these weeds are. I have no desire to Google them or ask my local professional at Lowe’s. But I had been gone for 10 days on my annual trip home to Chicago and I came home to monster weeds that have taken over everything. I pulled these tree weeds, as I call them, which are over an inch thick in the stems and taller in length than my 3 year old. I pulled vines that seem to be choking the life out of the bushes. I pulled the thick grassy weeds and the thinner, winding, round-leaf weed that creeps and spreads like wildfire in my beds and in my lawn despite TruGreen’s best efforts this season. Those two weeds always accompany each other.

This year I also pulled up roses that I have hated since we moved in 5 years ago. I never understood why the builder planted them. They are pastel pink, thorny, scraggly, small, buggy and just downright ugly in front of my red brick house. Some people would say these rose bushes are pretty. Why would you ever dig up a rose? Sure, pull them up, but replant them someplace else. Some wouldn’t imagine eliminating these three from my yard and wishing them good riddance in my garbage can.

We’ve all heard the analogy of God pruning us, chiseling us, refining us, more into His likeness. I wonder if he hates pulling those ugly weeds in my life as much as I hate pulling weeds in my front flower bed. It’s dirty work. Despite wearing gardening gloves, my hands and nails always come out filthy. On a hot summer day, it’s a sweaty mess even in the shade of my north facing front yard. Let’s not even talk about the bugs that scurry around when I’ve unearthed them from the soil beneath the weed’s roots.

Does my yard look better when I’m done? Absolutely! It’s acceptable at the very least. Sometimes it looks downright nice. And do my neighbors appreciate it? I’m guessing they do a happy dance behind closed doors when they see me out there doing the work. On a side note, I do find weeding much more enjoyable when I have my 2-year old neighbor B chatting with me through the white picket fence. Thanks for keeping me company this morning, buddy!

But what about those rose bushes? Maybe I pulled those out at the right season in my life. I mean, I waited 5 years. Why now? I don’t know. But I’d like to put something beautiful in their place. Something that’s bright, vibrant, maybe changes color in my favorite season of fall. Maybe some bright Golden Sedum to balance the Moonbeam Coreopsis at the other end of the flower bed. Maybe some mini Hollyhocks because red is my favorite color. All you gardeners out there, I’ll take your two cents and will consider most any suggestions. My front flower bed is empty at one end with the removal of these roses.

I know there’s something beautiful on the other side of this adoption loss. I’m determined to find it. Maybe God just needed to pull out the rose bushes first.

Uncertainty on Our Anniversary

Six years ago, Jay and I found ourselves going through a really rough point. We were both working in Illinois, working opposite shifts so that one of us could be home with C who was an infant. Jay's job was boxing him in with no room to grow or climb the ladder. I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom to our son. I eventually went down to working only two days a week and that was wonderful. The best of both worlds, having most of my time at home with my baby boy and some time at work and contributing to the bills and bank account.

Jay started interviewing across the country for different ministry positions. Dozens of resumes were sent, phone interviews scheduled as well as flights to different locales. South Carolina, two churches in Southern California, and two in Illinois were all quite serious about us. The two in Illinois actually told Jay, "You're the guy!" only to tell him at the very end that he wasn't the guy. Both of those churches made other hires. One of those hurtful rejections came at the tail end of Jay performing his 34 year old brother's memorial service! I'll never forget standing in the kitchen at church, in my white chef coat, in front of the ice freezers, in tears on the phone with Jay as he told me news of the latest rejection. He was crushed and couldn't take anymore. There was nothing on the horizon, nothing bright and brilliant, no hope. We felt empty.

We're at that point now once again, not on the job front, but on the adoption front. We are so full of questions about why this had to happen, why God would put us through the loss of something He was calling us to do for Him, why we had to invest our finances only to lose them and be unable to continue with any other program. Surprisingly, I've been stronger (which isn't saying much) than Jay at this point. Sure, I'm angry, hurt and heartbroken, but I know God is doing something in us right now. And if there is a daughter for us out there, He will lead us to her. My dear husband is having a much harder time and is asking more questions and strugging to find answers. He'd be such a great dad to a little girl!

After we gave up looking for a new career for Jay, he got this email from a church in Nebraska. Nebraska. What's in Nebraska? Corn? Isn't that the horribly boring, neverending state you drive through just to get to Colorado? He sat on that email for a couple of days and didn't even mention it to me. When he did, he reluctantly asked me if he should consider it. We did and the rest is, well, history. We're here in Nebraska. God showed us the way. Jay has a great job and I'm staying home raising our two boys. Our move here has been instrumental in our decision to adopt in monumenal ways. It's not perfect here and I'd more than love to move back home someday to my home church and to my family that I ache for. But for now, we are here and I could write a whole essay on the joys of Nebraska. (Sounds like an oxymoron, right?)

So, today we celebrate 9 years of marriage during another really rough, painful season, one I'd really just rather fast foward through until, say, January and see where things are. We'll continue on this lonely path, holding onto each other until we are laughing and dancing like fools on the other side of this mountain, with a daughter in our arms.

I'm clinging to a verse that my friend Hilary uses in her email signature:

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. ~Hebrews 11:1~

Awful News

Well, here we are, visiting my mom in Illinois. Jay is attending the Global Leadership Summit at Willow Creek and he just called me to tell me the news. The US has decided to pull out of Nepal.

You can read the reasons why here.

We are heartbroken as we await news from our agency. I understand that our funds we have paid towards the Nepal program will NOT transfer to any other program. So, we will have to discuss our options from here on out.

I can pretty easily say that due to the loss of a lot of finances invested, our adoption journey will come to an end. Maybe we'll try to have a biological daughter of our own. Maybe we'll try to adopt in years to come when the finances are replenished.

But either way, please pray for us. Sorry for the short, abrupt post. We just need time to discuss. But we are away on vacation and this horrible news cannot wreck our fun. There is joy and I'm choosing to find it.