Mother’s Day

Who knew those 2 little words could inspire so many different feelings in one person? I’d like to share with you the emotions I’ve experienced over the years around this holiday. 

For the first 22 or so years, I’d have to say gratitude was at the top of the list. God has blessed me with a mom who is the absolute best mom in the entire world (and if you don’t argue for your own mom to occupy that spot, we need to chat). I never could understand how one woman could have such a plethora of qualities. Selflessness, toughness, kindness, constancy, silliness, & most importantly unconditional, sacrificial love, just to name a few. Talk about setting the bar high…

Around 10 years ago, Mother’s Day began to morph in its meaning to me, almost taking on a multiple personality disorder aspect. Beginning with our decision to expand our family, through our fertility struggles, a hiatus for school, deciding to adopt & up to now it looked a little like this: excitement, confusion, hopeful excitement, envy, anger, resentment, gratitude (school break allowed me to focus back on my own mama instead of myself), hopefulness, & then back to excitement.

Why excitement you ask…

Well, this past Thursday Nick & I had the privilege of meeting with the beautiful, sacrificial young woman that has chosen us to be the parents of her baby! We can’t reveal too many of the details yet but suffice it to say we believe it was a match made in heaven. I can’t even begin to describe not only the happiness but the absolute rightness we both felt as we left that meeting. 

“For I know the plans I have for you” declares the Lord, “Plans to prosper you & not to harm you, plans to give you hope & a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

Beautiful, right? If you’ve never really thought about that verse, you should. 

While we are excited there are still hurdles to cross & a lot can happen in the meantime.  We would love your prayers & support. Please join us as we pray for this sweet lady through the rest of her pregnancy, for her doctors & nurses, for our baby & for our preparations to welcome our kiddo home. We will keep you all posted, as allowed, on the proceedings. Just know that things are happening quickly!

So, God willing, my next Mother’s Day will be an extra special one (& Nick’s Father’s Day as well!).

-Mary 

 

Let the wait begin

Wow, it’s been a really long time since the last update. A lot has happened since August. Besides all the holidays & working, Nick & I have moved into the new house & are getting settled. We’ve completed the home study process & we’ve been approved! That was a stressful time, let me tell you. We’ve made our adoption photo book & written our letter to our kiddo’s mom. I’m sure you guys are wondering what’s next.

Basically, next is the simple, yet hard, part. We wait. CAS has 3 copies of our adoption book, waiting to be read by our future birth mom. Our adoption profile is on CAS’s website (www.christianadopt.org) under the waiting families link. So now we just wait for the mom that God has planned for us. Which is harder than it sounds. 

Here’s how it works. CAS works with women considering adoption for their babies. CAS provides counseling, financial support & encouragement to these ladies throughout their pregnancy, and beyond. The women can come to CAS at any point during their pregnancy or after for assistance. So in the case that she came to CAS early in her pregnancy, this would be what happened. Once she has chosen adoption as her path, CAS assists her with making an adoption plan. Once she reaches her third trimester, adoption profiles for the waiting families are made available to her. Just as we had a list of preferences for our child, she also has a list for her adoptive family. CAS will provide the profiles that match her requirements as closely as possible. Once she has narrowed her choices, she can ask for a meeting, which is via conference call. If she chooses, an in person meeting can be arranged as well. And then, we wait for her to decide. Now, around 1/3 of all the placements CAS performs in a year are post-delivery decisions by the birth mom while she is at the hospital. In that case, the same thing as above would happen, just in an abbreviated fashion. The mom would have not have the benefits of counseling or an adoption plan, but at least the counseling would be available after placement. 

Now you see why the wait is so difficult. Of course, we want to be chosen by the right person. But being the imperfect, impatient people that we are, we definitely want it sooner rather than later. This makes it hard to see the other waiting families for what they truly are, waiting families, rather than our competition.  And besides being anxious to meet our kiddo, we have the logistics to consider as well. We could have ~3 months to prepare or we could have 2 days. We could have the chance to get to know our birth mom, to share & live out our faith with her, & to be able to pray for her. Or we won’t have that opportunity. Even though we pray daily for our birth mom & our baby, we’d love to be able to pray for specifically for struggles our birth mom is facing. 

So in order to pass the time while we’re waiting, we’re slowly getting prepared. We’ve picked up a few things, been given a few things & have some DIY rehab projects in the works. We’ve each had to remind the other that God’s timing is perfect & that our family will grow when it is supposed to grow. We’ve also been brainstorming some fund raising ideas for the spring, as we’re almost there!

So stay posted & keep us, our future birth mom & baby in your prayers!