Its Been Awhile... A Long Overdue Update

For those of you who follow our blog and are of our family and friends, you already know this. To those of you who don't know me personally, you may have been wondering why I haven't updated in a looooong time. Its been long overdue, but I'm finally getting around to posting an update.

As of June 22nd, 2009, the day after Father's Day, we found out that we are actually expecting! Via a home pregnancy test I took after being a week late, I found out that I was pregnant. At the time, this was almost bittersweet. Our hearts were so much into our adoption, but we were so very excited about becoming pregnant on our own... no doctors, no drugs, no nothing! The specialist we had seen even told us our best bet would be InVitro if we wanted to get pregnant at all. This goes to show that even doctors can sometimes be wrong.

I am now currently 17 weeks and 1 day along, with a due date of February 22nd. We will be finding out what we're having at the big ultrasound in just one short week from today! We have absolutely loved the support we received from all of our family and friends while we were in the adoption process, and we appreciate every bit of it! Evidently, God had His own plans.

Due to my previous health issues with bowel obstructions and adhesions, I've already been hospitalized once during this pregnancy for a week, about 3 weeks ago. My doctor has told me to not expect this to be my last visit to the hospital for this problem.

Because our hearts were so much in our adoption, we DO still want to adopt. Its just that now, our plans to adopt have been put on hold for a few years. I think, however, that this is a huge blessing, and I think its all been a part of God's plan. We haven't officially discussed it, but since we'll now have a few more years to save up for an adoption, I would like to adopt from Russia. Back when I was in high school, I had the rare opportunity to travel to Russia for a month as part of an exchange program with another high school in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. While there, we visited an orphanage in St. Petersburg. That visit was my first experience with orphans and an orphanage. I have always remembered that day, and something about that visit has stuck in my heart.

So, as of today, this blog will be put on hold... but just until we start our new adoption journey! And even then, there could be a new blog, separate from this one. Either way, adoption is in our hearts and is still something we want to pursue.

An Email From a Friend

Just something cute... A friend sent this to me, saying she thought of me when she saw this particular section of the email...

Teacher Debbie Moon's first graders were discussing a picture of a family.

One little boy in the picture had a different hair color than the other members.

One of her students suggested that he was adopted.

A little girl said, 'I know all about adoption, I was adopted..'

'What does it mean to be adopted?', asked another child.

'It means', said the girl, 'that you grew in your mommy's heart instead of her tummy!'

Thanks for that, Terri!

5 Weeks Today

We have been active for 5 weeks as of today. What does this mean? Well, exactly what it implies... 5 weeks ago today, we became active. But, more importantly, what's the hidden meaning here? The hidden meaning is that in 3 more weeks, I can call the agency again to check out the activity with our bio/profile. I'm only allowing myself to call every 4 weeks. After having made the call this Tuesday, I felt like I was going to make another call next week, just to see if the two birth moms with our bio had chosen yet. As the time passes, I'm finding myself more comfortable with waiting until that next 4-week mark. So, one week down, three to go.

For the first month of our wait, I felt surprisingly in control of my emotions, and more importantly, I felt in control of my patience. I wasn't really dealing with much impatience. Since this week, that has all changed. For whatever reason, I haven't been able to escape from "the wait". On Wednesday evening, the day after talking to the agency (and learning we had two birth mothers out there with our bio who had not chosen yet), I was sitting at church, trying to listen to Steve teach his lesson (the pastor's wife had asked him to lead a lesson that week), but I was literally staring at my cell phone, just willing it to ring. I even leaned over to my awesome friend, Liz, and asked "If I stare hard enough at the phone, do you think I could make it ring?". I've always considered myself high-strung, without a doubt. This week, I've been referring to myself not so much 'high-strung', but more like NEUROTIC.

I enjoy reading other peoples' adoption blogs. I came across one this week where the adoptive couple had been matched with their birth mother and their baby was born this week. As I read their blog, I looked at the pictures and read their birth story. Cue the blubbering idiot. That's me. I read her blog and I imagine what it'll be like when its me writing that blog. When its Steve and myself writing about our baby's birth story and our incredible journey from being 'parents in waiting' to simply 'parents'. It seems so surreal to me that we'll be walking around one day, just the two of us, and the next day, we could have a baby. No baby bump required. Throughout a girl's life, she imagines getting pregnant and having a family. I don't think anyone ever imagines adopting their baby. Nobody ever imagines starting their family without that pregnancy. So, to become a family without a baby bump, it just seems out of order, in a sense... I don't really know of any other way to describe it. I wonder how real our family will seem at first to our friends and family... there was no pregnancy and suddenly we've got a baby in our lives. I wonder how real it will seem to us.

ASC (our agency) encourages people to get a hobby during the wait. Ha! I've been attempting that... I've been reading. And exercising. One of the girls in my prenatal fitness class that I teach asked me if I ever stop exercising. In reality, I would love to be a lazy bum and not do a damn thing all the live-long day. But I can't. With laziness comes Satan... nagging at my mind and my heart. Trying to tell me I'll never get a baby. Trying in any way that he can to discourage me. I could swear that Satan called our house the other night. I was sitting in bed after church on Wednesday, reading my Bible. The phone rings. Remember, that was the day I was literally attempting to will my phone to ring. The phone rings. I look at the caller ID. 'Unknown Name, Unknown Number'. I don't know what caller ID will say when we get The Call. It could very well come up as a private or unknown number. My heart jumps into my throat for a millisecond. I answer the phone, and whoever it was hung up. I immediately got quite frustrated. I mean, seriously, don't hang up!!! So, I went over to see if maybe the voice mail picked up as I answered, so maybe a voice mail was left. Nope. Nothing. So, instead of peacefully reading my Bible, at that point, I was now frustrated, irritated, and definitely distracted. I know Satan likes to pick at whatever he can to distract us. I think he chose my adoption-related neurosis this time to get me.

So, right now, I'm just trying to get over this neurotic thing. Hoping it will pass... hoping I'll soon be okay with waiting right now. I hate waiting!! I hate this wait!! My goal is that we'll be calling ourselves Mommy and Daddy by the end of the summer. But in all reality, I know that that may very well not happen. For once in my life, I'm anxious to get this summer over with. Don't worry, we'll still live our lives... go out, have fun, all that fun summer stuff... But I'm ready to bring our baby home! I just want to fast-forward to that time when we bring our Baby Lannon home.

Making a Call - 4w4d

So, today I decided to bite the bullet and make a phone call to our agency. They encourage adoptive parents, especially those who are high-strung, like myself, to call the agency every once in awhile... Just to check in. So, with us having been active for a month now, I decided to call this morning. The friendly gal who answered seemed to have no problem finding our profile... I didn't have to repeat my name, give her Steve's name, or give her our ID number. When she answered, I simply said who I was and that I was hoping to get an update. She asked how much or how little information I wanted her to give me... I said to just tell me whatever she had. She said that sometimes, couples will call and will simply want to know whether they've been shown or not. They may not want to know to how many birth moms they've been shown to, nor will they want to know their status on if they've picked their adoptive parents or not. At least that's what I got from it.

So, she told me what had been going on with us lately. She said that the last week and a half to two weeks had been busier for us. We'd been shown to several girls, and even though most have chosen by now who they want to adopt their baby, there are two or three girls who hadn't chosen yet... which means we could still be in the running! I was told that one girl was due in July and the other was due in November.

Of course, I was pleasantly surprised by what I was told during this phone call. Prior to calling, I had psyched myself up to hear "I'm sorry, you haven't been shown to anyone yet".. but instead, I was told that we were shown to several birth parents and that there were still a couple out there with our information (along with any other couples who met their criteria) who had not chosen their adoptive parents yet! I am doing my best not to get my hopes up. There's always that little voice in the back of my head saying "who wouldn't choose us??", but the bigger and stronger part of me is not letting my hopes get too high. I'm cautiously hopeful. Does that make sense?

Our agency tells adoptive couples that we can very much determine our own destiny. They say that if couples come in with the glum, never-gonna-happen attitude, then they very well may not get chosen for a longer time. They said that they've noticed that couples who come in to this journey with a positive, up-beat, its-gonna-happen attitude, then those couples tend to get chosen quicker. Why? I really don't know. Maybe its the attitude that they give off when writing their bio... or the attitude that they may give off if they ever meet a deciding birth mother. Who really knows. But I have a positive attitude! I know and understand that we could be in for a long haul, but I am optimistic that this WILL happen for us! We WILL become parents through adoption, no matter how long it may take! Do I want it to happen sooner rather than later? Most definitely!! But I also know (contrary to Steve's belief) that it may not happen tomorrow. I suppose you could say that I'm 'sitting comfortably on the edge of my seat'. I'm on the edge of my seat, knowing that we could get The Call any day, but I'm very comfortable, knowing that we could have a good lengthy wait ahead of us. And we're still living our lives while we wait...

So, here we are...

Living our lives, while sitting comfortably on the edge of our seat.

One Month - 4w3d

Well, we've officially made it to the one-month mark of being active. May 15th was our activation date, and so today makes it one month... Or 4 weeks and 3 days. But who's counting? :)

We're one month closer to bringing Baby Lannon home!

Open Adoption Bloggers Roundtable

Thanks to this new blog I stumbled upon today, I've found new things to blog about when our Adoption news is slow... When nothing else is happening and I want to blog about something, I now have this... The blog titled Production, Not Reproduction has started an Open Adoption Bloggers Roundtable. So, here we go!

Your first assignment is to think back to who you were when open adoption first entered into your life. As with so many things in life, thinking about open adoption without having experienced it and actually living it out are two very different things. What do you know now that you wish you knew then? Has the reality of open adoption as it's looked in your life matched your expectations? What one thing about open adoption would you tell your past self, if you could? (If you're still in the beginning stages of your adoption journey, flip the question around: What one thing do you wish you could ask your future self about open adoption?) Be as creative or straightforward as you wish.

That last part in bold would be what applies to me, still being in the beginning stages of our adoption journey... So, what would I ask my future self about OA? Hmm, as I sit here thinking about what I would ask, I'm thinking this may not be as easy as I thought it would be. It might be more along the lines of a series of questions...

I guess the question that first comes to mind is "How do you feel now about your relationship with the birth mother? Is it what you thought it would be?" Steve and I have told the agency that we are happy with an open adoption... letters and pictures indefinitely handled through the agency, and scheduled visits, however frequently we deem them to be. We said that we would consider opening that up to exchanging last names and addresses/phone numbers depending on how the relationship with our birth mother developed. Honestly, I don't know which I would prefer... a birth mother who we see on a semi-regular basis who knows where we live and how to get ahold of us, or one who we arrange visits with for the first few years of this child's life and then just stick to letters and pictures. I have this fear of being in competition with the birth mother. I get this fear that as our child grew older, (s)he could try to develop a relationship with the birth mother... one that creates possibly a closer relationship with her than with me. I'm afraid that if our child knows his/her birth mom, (s)he might grow up to be closer with her than to me, which would then lead this child to eventually "fade us out" of his/her life. Does that make sense? So, I guess that leads me to my next question for my future self... Do you still feel that sense of competition, or that fear that the child will grow to be closer to the birth mom than to yourself?

Another question... Were your original fears about OA justifiable, or do you now find that those original fears were just due to lack of experience in the area of OA?

I suppose my questions could potentially open up a whole dialog ... Nothing that could simply be "yes" or "no"... At this point, I'm ready and willing to openly adopt. But there's always that fear in me... and I suppose its just a fear of the unknown. Not knowing what our relationship with Birth Mom will be like... Its that fear of the unknown that gets me. I'd be much better off if I already knew what to expect... The reality, though, is that no one can ever know what to expect until it happens. And even then, you have to be prepared to accept and expect the unexpected.

Adoption All Around - 3w6d ***

Its amazing how one's eyes can be opened to a particular aspect of life in the world around them when they are going through that same thing! Ever since Steve and I have started this whole process, I have noticed adoption all around me. There are three basic parties involved in adoption... you've got the birth parents, the child who is being adopted, and the adoptive parents. During the past few months, I've encountered people from all three parties. I know two adults who have been adopted, as well as several adolescents who have been adopted. I know those who are in the process of adopting, or have already adopted. I know the young woman who is choosing adoption for her baby. I've known of several instances of adoption from people around me as I've grown up, but I haven't put it all together until recently. Adoption is such an amazing gift of love, and the gift is received on all ends.

Though there are three parties involved, I believe that she who is choosing adoption for her child is experiencing the strongest and hardest emotions. Please pray for our birth mother... and for all the women out there who are choosing adoption for their babies. We may not know their names, but God knows who they are. Prayer is amazing.

Our agency's motto is that "you will get the child you are meant to raise". I think I may have addressed this motto in a prior post, but it still blows my mind. Its such an amazing thing to know that God has willed this baby into life, and even if this baby is unplanned in the birth mother's eyes, (s)he is NOT unplanned in God's eyes. God knows exactly who is meant to raise that baby, whether its the birth parents or adoptive parents. No child is a mistake to God. I have complete and absolute faith that our baby is out there somewhere, and that no matter where that baby is, whether (s)he has been conceived yet or not, whoever is carrying that baby, God will bring that baby home to us! Praise God for all the power and control that He holds! While we're waiting for "The Call", we know that God is still working on our behalf... working behind the scenes for us. We may not see what is happening and the work that God is doing, but we know He's there, doing the work for us. How amazing is that??!

By the way, the "3w6d" in the title of this blog indicates how long we've been waiting... we've been active for 3 weeks and 6 days. Hopefully I'll be able to keep track of this for all to know.

Have a great week, everyone...

***I was perusing my blog and noticed that this figure "2w6d" was incorrect. At the time this blog was posted, we were actually at three weeks, 6 days. Woohoo!