Looking Back At 2015

Ever since I had Matthew, I have had a brand new love of New Year's Eve. I have been able to reflect back on the year and have SO many amazing memories involving Matthew. Since he's only 2.5 right now, the last two years on this day we have relived all of his firsts and funny little things he did for short periods of time. We have marveled at how much he has changed throughout the year. 

This year is no exception. I got home from work and I'm sitting here with him thinking back on his year. 

He turned two.

He built an amazing bond with our sweet new dog. 

He started ECI, and through that we have gotten to hear his amazing little voice (that this momma has waited SO LONG to hear!). 

He has grown! He can grab things off of the bar counter that he couldn't even reach if he stood on his tip toes a year ago. 

He got to do his first Easter egg hunt.

 

He moved into a toddler bed. 

He cut the last of his teeth (we are ALL so relieved that stage is done!!). 

He met a pig and a few baby bunnies, and we realized that he has THE biggest heart when it comes to animals. He loves every single four (or three) legged creature he meets. 

We have watched him gain confidence with new people and new situations, and in communicating with us. 

We took our first road trip with him, and he far exceeded our wildest hope for how he would do: he was SUCH an amazing traveler! 

He turned forward in his car seat, making all car rides a blast for him now. 

He has become increasingly obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine this year. 

And he became fascinated with police cars, which amazingly led to a visit from our local PD with fun stuff for him!

We began eating at our dining room table, which Matthew really loves doing! He looks like such a big boy doing it. 

He also decided Going Bonkers was his own little Happiest Place on Earth. 

And then there was this adorable phase:

He enjoyed playing with paint for the first time when we painted pumpkins (this was a big moment for him!). 

This was the Year of the Minion Obsession, too! Here is his reaction to the very first time we watched Despicable Me (the first of MANY times):

He rediscovered his love of books this year, making his list of Christmas gifts mostly books (which he definitely loved immediately upon opening).

We have soaked up all of the family time we could. We have loved every single second, every single smile, of 2015. 

And with our home study kicking off 2016 on Saturday, I sit here and wonder if this was our last year as a family of three. This time next year, we could have three or four children running around here...a thought that is both incredibly exciting and a little nerve wracking to me.

I first blogged about the start of our adoption journey on April 8, 2015. Since then we have taken too many classes to count, read and filled out endless piles of paperwork, and laid awake so many nights talking quietly and excitedly about our family growing. About how much we can't wait to open our home and our hearts to the children we know God has waiting for us. 

I have all of these hopes for Matthew this coming year. I hope to see him just blossom in his final months of ECI. I hope he is able to get into this amazing preschool-type program his ECI lady was telling us about. He will be turning three, which just astounds me! Time is flying by so fast...

On another note, I am excited to help one of my oldest friends plan her WEDDING this year! We have ten months to plan and party and make amazing memories, and I am SO honored to get to stand by her side through it all. Being a maid of honor has always been a dream of mine, and so I plan to do this right and make sure every event is as epic as we can make it for Molly and Aaron. 

All in all, 2015 has been so wonderful. We love making memories, and I always love taking a million pictures to capture our beautiful life. We are eagerly awaiting to see what awesome adventures 2016 has in store for us!

Happy New Year, everyone!

First Meeting With Buckner

Time sure has a way of moving slowly when you are looking forward to something. When we had Matthew it's like someone pressed the fast forward button on life, two years have gone by in a blink. But getting to this first interview with Buckner has seriously felt like an eternity! 

June 3, 2015: Dede showed up around 3:00 to watch Matthew. Andrew and I made the VERY long drive to Buckner for the first time. We pulled in and we were instantly impressed. It looked like a quaint college campus. Red brick buildings sprawled out on the property, lots of big trees at the entrance. I don't know what we expected, but this definitely wasn't it. It far exceeded what we were picturing. 

We followed the instructions in the email and pulled up to the education center. I felt very jittery walking in, I was excited and anxious. 

The lobby was grey. Many different shades of grey, but done in a way that was surprisingly warm and cozy. We signed in with a sweet receptionist who immediately informed us that Kristin, our adoption specialist, was stuck in traffic on her way from a meeting at their corporate office. We had just been in said traffic and understood. We didn't end up waiting for very long, but a bunch of people passed by us in that time: every single one of them stopped to say hello, ask if we needed water, and if we had been helped. Even the security guard. We felt extremely welcomed and at ease, they could not have made a better first impression on us. I was fascinated by the really old photos on the walls of the building from decades ago and of early groups of children they helped. The building was very fascinating, I would love to go back for some sort of tour. 

Kristin arrived and we loved her instantly. We went to her office and began what ended up being an hour and a half long interview. She wanted to know all about us, our family dynamic at home, what we were looking for, if we had any questions or concerns, why we were wanting to adopt, and then explained in a lot of detail what would be happening in the coming year. It was a LOT of information so I will do my best to recount what she said accurately:

For any number of reasons, a child or children are removed from their home and placed with a foster family. There is then an 18-month period of trying to reconnect them with any suitable and willing biological family members. Once the 18 months is over, they have (I think) 90 days to fight the court's decision to terminate the rights. At that point, the state looks at the foster family to see if they want to move forward with adopting them. If not, that's where waiting families like us will come in. CPS will send out feelers to the agencies across the state with the children's file, history, all known information on behaviors and things like that. They will ask for either all suitable matches from the agencies or a top few choices to be reviewed. If we get picked, CPS gets our file from Buckner for review. They will send all files to be given to us and a list of questions. We would meet with Kristin to give our answers and discuss the situation. 24 hours later we must say if we want to commit to moving forward with these children or pass. If we agree to move forward, a meeting is arranged with the CPS case worker, Buckner, and us. If at the end of that meeting we are all on the same page, then we would start the process of meeting with the foster family and the children. This would likely be the first time we got to see what the children looked like, pictures aren't always with every file. After a series of meetings and such, and once we for sure want to keep moving forward, the children will move in with us. There is a six month trial period, if you will, before we can finalize the adoption. 

But before any of that can begin, we have a slew of trainings and seminars to attend, all between now and mid-July. It will be a very overwhelming month for us. Not only do we have to put in this huge time commitment to a place that is 50 miles away, I am likely starting a new position at my work in August, with a month-long training starting first week of July. Andrew has two trips planned for work before the end of this month. And we only have some of the dates covered with a sitter for Matthew, with ZERO bites for the other days. 

So we left Buckner that afternoon, our brain overloaded with dates and information and our hands full of paperwork and a required reading list. And we were excited. Because all of the craziness that's about to take place brings us that much closer to our children, who are out there somewhere. Hopefully safe and well, just waiting for us. We agreed that doing this round of classes, rather than waiting until September, makes the most sense. Otherwise our kids will be waiting that much longer for us to get to them, and we don't want to waste a second. 

Our first training class is all day this coming Saturday, and we are anxious to dive into these classes! After they are done, we get to move onto the home study, and then we wait for the phone call that we are matched with our kids. 

It's a long, busy road ahead...but we are ready!

Great Expectations

I have gotten a lot of questions lately about the adoption process in general, our preferences, things like that. I am happy that everyone seems really excited for us and wants to know more! But I know from one person asking that it might be a concern that any questions might seem insensitive and they weren't sure how to ask, so I wanted to answer some of the questions I have been getting here, so if you're too shy to ask...well, now you don't have to, haha.

I have been asked why we aren't trying to adopt a newborn. And the answer is simply because we don't feel led to do that. For starters, it costs a small fortune. And we are able to easily afford the Waiting Texas Children (WTC) program, which is adopting from the foster care system, and feel that the small fortune spent on one newborn could be much better spent to put towards the lives of the 2-3 children we plan to adopt. Then there's the consideration that based on numbers, newborns are easier to find homes for. So many people who adopt want a newborn baby, someone they can raise from the start and know all of those memories for their adopted child. There are over 6000 children waiting to be adopted from the foster care system in Texas. SIX THOUSAND. Six thousand children with no permanent home. Andrew and I just know that our path leads to those children, to do what we can to help. Of course having a newborn baby sounds beautiful and wonderful, we love babies. But for our family, we know that the WTC program is where our hearts are being guided.

Another question I have gotten is almost always a follow-up to that first question, and that is "aren't you guys worried that there will be problems with the children? You see it on TV all the time." It is a very good question and the very first one I asked the lady from Buckner when we first spoke. I have watched enough Law and Order SVU and all sorts of crime shows to know how the children in the foster care system are portrayed. The lady seemed very sad as she answered my question: Hollywood is doing these children a disservice. Of course you can find cases that mirror the stories you see about runaways and drugs and violence on television shows. But the reality of the situation is that most children (at least with Buckner, I don't know that she can speak for other agencies) are obviously traumatized in some way with being placed in foster care and being told they will have to be adopted by strangers, but that what you see on TV isn't a fair representation of these children. They are sad, sure. Lost. Feeling abandoned. But there are detailed CPS files on them and anything that is of concern, and the truth is most children just want to be loved and have a permanent home. They aren't all secretly harming the neighbor's dog, destined to become a future serial killer. They are kids who just need someone to want them. So while of course we want to be sure any children we adopt aren't one of the rare children who Hollywood decided needed to be the face of the foster care system, we are going at this with open hearts and praying every step of the way that the Lord will bring the right children to us. And that's really all we can do. Much like with falling in love, we hope that when the time comes to adopt, we "just know" we have found the right fit.

And by far the most common question I am getting is: "what are you hoping for?" I don't think my answer has been satisfactory, haha. Because the God's honest truth is I don't have preferences. I thought I would. I was sure I would want to specify boys, no girls, within a certain age range, all details tailored down to a picture I have in my head. But that's simply not how it's been. Would I love all boys? Of course, I have always said I felt destined to be a mother to all boys. And yet lately I can't help but have this feeling that God is planning to throw a little girl into my all-boy plan, haha. And that makes me happy, too. I just want to adopt children, ANY children. I don't care what they look like, what their skin color is, if they have a disability, how old they are, anything. From a practical standpoint, Buckner's informational online class informed me that getting too specific doesn't always work out, as it can limit the number of children you get to know about. We want to be open to all possibilities, and like I have said: as hokey as it may sound to some of you, I am going at this with the knowledge that I trust the Lord to bring us the exact perfect little blessings our family is meant to have.

I know I keep saying "I", but I have had several conversations with Andrew (it's all I can think about lately, after all) and he is in complete agreement. We are so excited to think that in the next year or two our whole lives will be radically different. Our small family could suddenly be full and loud and busting with love. Holidays will be so different, in the most wonderful way. We have been saying these last few holidays as Matthew's growing that we look forward to him growing and the way our family dynamic will evolve into different activites and all of that. And I lie awake at night dreaming of future Christmas mornings with more children, more birthdays to celebrate and more memories all year to create.

I feel like I need to hold onto those dreams because I know that there are long anxious days ahead. The road to adoption isn't ever smooth and simple. So to get me through, I have my visions of our family growing, even though I don't have images in my head of what these children will look like. And I still have a nagging suspicion I will have to learn to do a little girl's hair somewhere along the way, haha, but I'm ready. I haven't ever been more ready for anything in my entire life.

Step 1 Towards Getting Licensed

The last week or so has been such a mental whirlwind for us. First of all, the amount of support and love and encouragement from our loved ones has been overwhelming and much appreciated. We are extremely excited for this next chapter of our lives, adding to our family is something we want very much and we couldn't be more anxious to provide a home to children in need.

Today I spoke on the phone with a very sweet lady from Buckner International, she answered a lot of the questions I had and shed some light on the three different adoption programs that they offer. The programs are Foster-To-Adopt, Waiting Texas Children (WTC), and Domestic Infancy Adoption (DIA). DIA is basically being chosen by a pregnant mother to adopt her unborn child. The costs associated with it are dramatically higher, but we would eventually get a newborn baby to adopt when we are chosen. The wait time is longer, as only 10 babies per year are placed through DIA.

We are wanting to adopt at least 2 children, preferably siblings, so DIA isn't the program we feel is best for us, as amazing as it sounds to have another baby. We aren't interested in Foster-To-Adopt, either, because a fact about this method is that the majority of children in this program are eventually reunited with biological parents after treatments or other biological family members. We would most likely get attached to the children we were fostering, and they would probably never become available for adoption.

So that leaves us with WTC, which adopting out of the foster care program. These are children with parents who have lost their parental rights and other family members have not been able to be found as willing or suitable. Our desire for siblings will almost certainly be able to be fulfilled through this program. Cost-wise, there's a $1000 fee (that is refundable once placement becomes permanent) and then any adoption fees from an attorney at the end of the process. Our company pays up to $5000 in adoption fees for us, so that will be a huge help as well.

Tonight I watched a 40 minute online informational video, and completion was step one on the road to getting licensed for permanent placement of children in our home. Tomorrow Andrew will fill out our application and submit it, as well as find time in the next day or so to watch the video himself. It gave detailed information on each of their programs and the company's history (which dates back to the 1800's, it's an AMAZING organization that is about so much more than adoption, I encourage all of you to take some time to look them up!).

I don't know how I'm going to go to bed tonight, my head is swirling with statistics and requirements and HOPE. I felt more sure of our decision with each passing minute of the video. This is where God wants us, I feel it in my soul. I am definitely anxious and excited and nervous and hopeful and all sorts of emotions, haha, so please do not hesitate to ask me questions or engage in conversation with us about this, we want to talk about it with anyone who wants to listen.  =)

Alright, I have to try and get some sleep. Good night, everyone!

The Start of Our Adoption Journey

I don't remember the exact moment I knew I wanted to adopt. I was a teenager, I know that. The church I used to work at held an annual adoption event where families with adopted children could come together and celebrate. I often got to go with my mom when she worked childcare for it, sometimes I even worked in child care as well. I think that was my first real introduction to the world of adoption. 

I do know that for my entire adult life, it was in my mind and in my heart that adoption was going to be a part of my journey someday. When I met and married Andrew, he was always in full agreement that it was going to happen. Our plan was always to have two of our own, then someday adopt. 

Our infertility journey is no secret at this point, I have always done my best to be transparent and open about our struggle and eventual success with our beautiful little boy. So it seems only fitting to be as transparent and open about this slight change of plans. 

We were going to get pregnant again. We were telling everyone we weren't, because last time wasn't a surprise. Our family knew what day we were taking our pregnancy test after our Two Week Wait and there was no big surprise with a clever announcement, nothing. And we really wanted to do that. So since the day Matthew was born, most people were told that we were "never doing that again." And every time they protested, we would laugh later, looking forward to the day we could truly shock them with a pregnancy announcement. 

But somewhere along the way, our hearts became conflicted. There was more to consider than a lot of couples have to consider when planning a second pregnancy. Our chances of multiples were real, and multiples was something we both agreed we could not handle. Our support system is lacking due to our location and other factors, and we just felt if we got twins (or more) with such a busy boy like Matthew, we would feel even more alone than we already do sometimes. There is also the chance an ectopic pregnancy could happen and my last tube would have to be removed: taking the decision to have more children out of my hands completely. I want that decision to be made BY me, not FOR me. 

Then there's how hard my pregnancy was. The nausea. The high blood pressure. The bed rest. That was all hard enough without an adorably crazy-busy toddler running and climbing. Being pregnant and having Matthew just became something I was dreading, and that left me with a ton of internal guilt for months. I took way too long to talk about it with Andrew. We had a plan, and I was changing my mind and assumed he would be disappointed, even though we had been going back and forth for months at this point. So I kept it to myself, thinking as time went on I would change my mind back to our plan and all would be fine. But I just felt more and more guilty at how much I didn't want to be pregnant anymore. Finally talking to Andrew was like letting go from holding my breath for a long time, it was such a whooshing relief. He was understanding, supportive, and not at all disappointed in me or angry. I felt silly, haha, because Andrew has always been incredibly supportive and loving. I think a small part of me wishes we could go with our original plan, but there is too much that could happen that we don't want to, and the much larger part of my heart knows that shelving that plan is the right thing for us. 

And so that decision moved up the talk of adoption. We have a vague idea of what to expect from this process, but we are fully aware that it will end up being emotional and possibly heart-breaking at times. I just know in my heart this is what we are supposed to be doing. I am not carrying around any guilt or stress about completing our family: our heads are clear and our hearts are open. We are ready to begin. 

A wonderful lady through our church has given us a few agencies to check out. She recommended a book as well, and as I get more into the process I will share the details further. Right now, I'm public as of yesterday on Facebook as to our intentions. My mother-in-law immediately messaged me and shared her excitement at our decision. She was adopted, and so she supports what we want to do 110% and her words were so sweet and welcome. That status update was one of my most liked ones in a long time, haha, so I feel really good about the decision to share our journey, with every big and small step taken. 

I do want to make it clear that I know this process is rarely sunshine and roses, but we feel that we have to go into it with genuine smiles, strong hearts, and a positive and optimistic outlook. We know it will be difficult, but we will not be deterred. 

"I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;

in the night also my heart instructs me. 

I have set the Lord always before me;

because He is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken."

Psalm 16:7-8

An Open Letter To My Son

Matthew,

Tonight I finally finished adding to your 18-month email and sent it. I always end up forgetting the small things that make my heart smile. I end up revising it half a dozen times, and when I discover something after hitting "send", I just make your father type up his own and have him add it. He never minds. 

I found myself including a rather sappy part, more about your future than anything happening now. As morbid as it is, a huge part of the reason I do those emails is so that you have my words. Life is unpredictable, and should something ever happen to me and you grow up and I am not there...well I want you to be able to look back at all of the emails I sent that chronicle our life together. I don't keep a baby book, this method to me is more detailed and more personal. I pray that someday you read these and I'm there to smile about it and reminisce with you about all of the wonderful things you did through the years. I pray that someday when I inevitably am not there that you still keep those emails, and look back with fondness and love at the memories I so lovingly captured for your adult self. 

I have so many hopes and dreams for you, as most parents do. The "usual" ones: that you're happy and healthy and live a long time with a wonderful family of your own someday. But I see into your kind little soul, and I pray that we as your parents are able to nurture that. I want you to grow up knowing, loving, and believing in God. To live a life FOR God. To always have that love for music that you have now. I'd love for you to be passionate about anything artsy: writing and music and poetry and drawing are parts of my soul I hope very much live on in you. I used to want to leave my mark on the world through my writing. But now? YOU are the beautiful mark I'm leaving on this world. And whether it's art of some kind or whatever you are passionate about in the years to come...just do it. Follow your heart and your dreams. Don't ever let fear stand in your way or anyone tell you that you can't. Life is so fleeting, we are only given a short time in the grand scheme of things. So spend that time laughing. Loving. Giving. Praying. Following the path your heart urges you to travel. Be whoever you want to be. And along the way, your father and I can't wait to be your biggest supporters. We will be at any sporting event or theater production or concert you ever are a part of. If your passion is drumming, we would gladly get you a drum set. I wasn't ever able to practice doing what I loved as a child (the piano), and so I always swore you would have my support in following your dreams. 

You already have such a sweet nature and kind heart, I hope with all of my heart you never lose that. This world can be so cruel and unforgiving, but there is also so much beauty and love and hope...those are what I pray you focus on. 

I just want your life to overflow with happiness. I promise you I will always do my part to make sure that happens. As much as I already miss the baby you used to be, I am ready and waiting to watch you grow up. There are so many adventures we have to go on together. And oh, my sweet lovebug...it is going to be such a wonderful journey!

But for now, you're here in my arms. Sleeping peacefully, most likely dreaming of climbing on things without me pulling you down. Or maybe binge-watching Wallykazam all day with an endless supply of vanilla milkshakes and Gerber puffs. Your father just kissed me goodnight and stared at you for a few moments before smiling and telling me how precious you are. 

That's my biggest hope for you, when all is said and done. To always and forever know that you are wholeheartedly loved by your father and me. 

I love you, cheeky monkey. "I have loved you for a thousand years, I'll love you for a thousand more."

Love, 

Mommy