Lenten Questions

Every year as Lent approaches,  I promise myself I'm going to make "this" Lent a time of faith and spiritual reflection for me and hopefully my family.  Every year, Easter comes so quickly, and I realize we (I) haven't done anything I was hoping to do.  This year has been no different.  Last night, something changed for me and I hope it continues.

I was standing outside the classroom in the Catholic school, waiting to pick the boys up from CCD.  I was looking around at all the children's artwork lining the hall and glanced down at a table.  On the table, there was a Lenten Reflections booklet.  I picked it up and opened it.  What was the very first passage I read:

Start where you are and follow where it leads you.

I'm going to do just that.  Start today.   There may only be about 3 weeks left in this Lenten season, but I'm going to make the best of what's left of that time.  I'm going to try my best to post daily (ok that may be stretching it - but often) the reflection quote from the booklet and give my thoughts about it.

Here it goes:

 I pray to move with intention past my own sense of importance and control, past my ideas about life, into the Spirit's presence.

This devotion really hit home with me.  Through the years, I have posted about our infertility and our feelings of loss of control.  Then God does what He does best.  He smacks me upside the head during Mass with a passage about His divine plan - not ours - that I never had control in the first place.  I still laugh about Mark and I just a few months ago.  We held on to all those baby things for 3 long agonizing years.  Struggling physically and emotionally to have another child - enduring 4 more heartbreaking IVF failures and the devastating loss of a pregnancy.  Then one day, we decided enough was enough.  I told Mark I was not only packing away all the baby items, but it was all leaving the house.  We shed some tears as we packed away baby blankets, hats, little socks and onies, and the occasional pacifier found stuffed in a couch cushion.  Most where happy tears - filled with memories of the boys as infants and toddlers.  But yes, some were sad - filled with the reality of our infertility battle scars caused by so many losses along the way.

God said, "Come to me, and I will give you rest."  When the last box left the house......we let it go.  All the pain and burden of our infertility was gone.  We both felt lighter than we had in years.  We are the Mommy and Daddy to the most amazing children on the planet and that is/was enough.

Then God did what He does best.  A phone call on a random Tuesday.  "How would you like to be Mommy and Daddy again next summer?" 

This is where our infertility story ends......and our adoption journey begins.

We have learned that we must reach out to God with intention.  Not hoping He will hear our prayers, but knowing.

Our Little Rocker

Bryson....

I Was Warned....

Since my niece was adopted and several close friends of ours have grown their families through adoption, we have been warned that the.....ugghhh....stupid questions would arise.  I have been waiting for them to start.  After all, we have gotten a multitude of stupid questions about our infertility process - ok there is no stupid question but there are definitely inappropriate questions.  It has officially begun.


"Wow, you guys have done IVF how many times and now adoption?  How much does all that cost?"  Thank you for being so concerned about our overjoyed feelings about being parents once again.  I'm glad there are people like you who are looking out for our financial future.  Seriously, we all make choices.  We have chosen to spend our money on the greatest and most precious gift of all....parenthood.


"I think it is so great you are adopting.  Especially since you have bio children.  I would love to adopt and give a child a better life."  Yes, you are totally right.  Adoption is exactly like saving a puppy at the pound.  We are such good people.....NOT.  We are adopting for the most selfish reasons - ourselves.  We want to be parents again.  We want another child in our hearts and arms.  This is all for us.


"What if the child doesn't look like you?"  WHAT?!  If I was concerned about "who" the child would look like, I would have paid the best looking super models for eggs and sperm.  After all, it's not like my beauty is at the top of the list - oh wait - yes it is but the world hasn't recognized it yet!


"I just can't understand how a woman could "give-up" her child.  I could never do it no matter what.  I love my kids too much."  First of all, women do not "give-up" their children.  They pain stakingly agonize over "placing" their very-much-loved child with another couple.  Secondly, choosing adoption for the baby is the most selfless act of love a woman can ever do.  She loves the baby so much, that she is willing to put her own feelings aside so her baby can have all he needs.   Birth mothers (parents) have my total respect and admiration.


"You are going to have an open adoption?  That must be scary."  We are not "going to" have an open adoption.  We already have an open adoption.  Open adoption is not scary to us.  I would be terrified of a closed adoption.  We want our child to know his/her birth family and it would break my heart for us not to continue that relationship.  However, the future is not set.  Every birth parent and adoptive parent handles and copes with the emotions in a different way.  We will be understanding and non-judgemental if our relationship with the birth family changes over time.  But when our son or daughter looks me in the eye and asks about his/her birth family, I want to be able to look him/her back with my head held high and reply with honesty, "We did and have done everything in our power and your best interest to maintain a relationship and contact with your birth family."  I'm hoping that as life goes on, we actually won't have that question at all because we will still have an open line of communication with the birth family.  As the birth mother and I have already learned, we are open and honest with one another.  We are building a relationship on one common ideal - what's best for the baby/child.


We want an open adoption because we want to get to know the birth family, to establish trust and open communication, to help alleviate the uncertainty for our child’s birth parents and loss by other members in his family of origin, and for our child to have the benefit of knowing his first family, to feel connected to his roots, to know their love if possible. I know this might  not be easy for any of us, necessarily. But we feel it is important to try to offer that, even if it means stretching outside our zone of comfort.


My hope on my judgement day is that my character and integrity not be called into question with being an adoptive parent.  

Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody's going to know whether you did it or not. - Oprah

Rear facing is safer

Welcome.....

I would like to welcome Mr. Bryson Quinn into the world and our family.  He was born March 18 at 8:02am.  He was 7lbs 12 oz and 20.5 inches long.  He is soooooo cute!  Miss A is a proud big sister.

Bryson, we look forward to getting to know you and watching you grow.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Wishing all our fellow Irishmen a great day!  I hope all the Irish blue eyes in our family are smiling today!

When Irish eyes are smiling,

Tis like a morn in spring.

With a lilt of Irish laughter

You can hear the angels sing

When Irish hearts are happy

All the world is bright and gay

When Irish eyes are smiling

Sure, they steal your heart away.

Motherhood

I was in a discussion the other day with a group of moms.  Since several are pregnant and I'm "expecting" we began talking about when we first felt like a mother.  Everyone, but me, agreed that it was sometime during the pregnancy. 

Since we have battled IF and conquered twice, I said I felt like a mother long before the pregnancy began.  My journey to becoming a mother started long before the positive pregnancy test.  I did agree that my love grew for my boys with each passing day of the pregnancy.  I was able to feel and experience the life growing within my body with each kick and roll.  But this time, I'm not experiencing the pregnancy.  I'm living it through phone calls and emails and my love for this baby grows deeper with each passing day.  I view myself as a mother of three children.  I am the mother of this baby.....already....even though the baby is not growing within me.

I have been asked what the boys think about the adoption process.  The home study case worker asked Dominic what he thought about it.  I wish I could have recorded the answer so I would have it forever in his own voice.  He said, "I just want a baby brother or sister.  I don't care if the baby grows in Mommy's tummy or H's tummy, he'll still be my brother or sister."

We love you Little One.  We are all counting down the days until you are in our arms.  I read this quote in an adoption blog and I just love it:

 Motherhood transcends biology, transcends adoption, and builds its foundation firmly upon love.

Miss A in the Infant Seat

I received the infant seat last week.  I'm in love.  Miss A was a gracious model (and cooperative this day).  While she is about 1/2 inch too tall for the seat, she still fits great through the shoulders and leg room.  I'm so glad.  This will be a great seat for our new baby.  It is designed wonderfully for preemies/low birth weight babies, and growing infants.  I'm pretty sure we can get 2 winters out of this seat.

For those wondering, it is the Safety 1st OnBoard 35 Air SE.

A Marriage Test

Mark and I successfully completed another test to our marriage!  We managed to install the boys' basketball goal without a single argument!  Dominic is loving it.  I'm just glad he wants to be out there even in the 40 degree weather.  This week we are supposed to be approaching the mid-50s and 60's.  Thank goodness.

We received an email that our home study is complete and finalized.  That is a huge step in our adoption process that is now behind us.

First Pictures

Here is HE or SHE......

Car Seat Craziness

I couldn't resist a great deal I found on the infant seat I wanted.  The car seat arrived yesterday....just feeding my car seat fix!

But we did have Miss A over the weekend so I had Luke's Marathon installed rear facing.  He wanted to try it out and allowed me to take pictures.  Believe it or not, he still fits in the seat by height but exceeds the rear facing weight limit of the seat.  Here is my handsome model:

And just for comparison, here is Luke in his regular seat - the Britax Frontier.

Luke loves and begs to rear face in the vehicles. He says it is more comfortable than forward facing.  But he still remembers rear facing not too long ago.  I didn't know about extend rear facing with Dominic.  He said he wanted to ride rear facing too and attempted to pretzel himself into the seat.  It was so funny to watch him.  He managed to get in the seat but is too tall for it - not to mention well exceeds the weight limit.  He wouldn't let me take a picture of him sitting in the seat.

Nashville Pictures

Adoption Update

I'm happy to report that all is going well.  H seems to be feeling a tad better these days - still tired but I don't think she is as sick.  She is being monitored closely for signs of pre-term labor and IUGR that she has had in the past.  So far all is looking great.  We are still prayerful for a healthy 37+wker.

We are waiting for our home study final report.  I'm anxious to check that big hurdle off the list.  We should get it soon.

We are working on baby names these days.  This is difficult for us because we have such a large family and do not want to use a name that is already taken.  Plus, Mark is very tradtional with names - especially boy names - making this even tougher.  Then add in Dominic and Luke who are both being very opinionated about their future sibling's name.  Picking a girl's name was easy.  We have had a girl's name choosen since I was pregnant with Dominic.  If the baby is a girl, her name will be Delaney Nicole.  Now back to the boys.  After all my suggestions (and some helpful ones from friends/family) we have 2 first names that we are working on.  Isaac or Gabriel (Gabe).  I like Matthew, Andrew, and William for both.  So we are still on the name search.

I also ordered the car seat.  I was going to wait another couple of months, but I was just "window shopping" on-line last week and found the car seat for a great deal.  I couldn't pass it up.  It should be here next week and that will give me plenty of time to figure out our car seat puzzle in Mark's Camry.

Welcome March

We had a great trip to Nashville last weekend.  We all had a good time and I will post pictures later.  The most exciting thing that happened was that we were in a tornado on Thursday night after we got to the resort.  The alarms went off and they wanted everyone to move into the stairwells or the lowest levels.  We found out the next day that the tornado was about a half mile away from us.

Other exciting news is that I'm getting my "bumpy legs" (as the boys refer to them) all fixed up this spring.  I have had a consult with a vein doctor and we are just waiting for the approval from my insurance company.  Originally, the doctor thought he could get both legs done in 2 sessions.  But after my full ultrasound of my legs, he thinks it will take at least 3 if not 4 sessions to completely treat/remove all the veins that are causing problems.  This is because my bad veins literally wrap themselves around my legs from front to back and he said he will have to work on just the fronts one week then work on the backs of my legs the next week.  I'm very excited about this procedure.  Mainly for the health reasons - the pain and swelling of my legs - but the best side effect is the appearance of my legs will improve greatly.

Luke is still not 100%.  He spiked a fever again the other night and still has a horrible cough and runny nose.  Dominic and I are both fighting colds too.

I'm really hoping that spring weather is just around the corner!