Somebody Has a Woobie...

or a lovey, blankie, or whatever you want to call it.

And it is absolutely not the one we sent to him in Korea, you know the one I have 2 of.  Nor is it the little frog lovey we bought 2 of, one to send and one to keep. Nope. I had put some blankets around the edge of his crib because he rolls around a lot when he sleeps and smooshes himself against the sides of the crib (probably need to just buy a bumper since he is no where near being able to climb out of his crib). Out of those blankets he chose this one, not sure why. But he is not parting with it, that is for sure. It's pretty cute actually.

This blanket was a gift we received at our 1st baby shower. I think I need to make a trip to the store. :-)

Thank you Wendi!

"Mommy, put my boots on!"

These boots (along with the school bus) are a gift from Wendi. The boots are such a special gift to me because they remind me of a my time in Turkey when I got to jump in a puddle with her son Elijah. It was such a wonderful moment for me where I just knew the kind of mom I wanted to be and knew that somehow I was going to be okay as a mom. 

What a blessing!

Thank You Deni!

I received these in the mail from Deni this past week. What a blessing! I love these books and I can't thank you enough Deni! I teared up reading them. They are going to be a such a great way to start talking to Joshua about adoption. The book on the bottom left is a memory book that is specific to adoption.

Deni's gift was especially meaningful because she experienced a horrible loss this summer when she and her hubby were the victims of an adoption scam. For her to take her pain and bless me through it is just amazing. But praise God, that is not the end of her story, she will be bringing Cala Fay home in July!

Adoption News/1st Baby Shower

1) Our adoption agency had a waiting families support group meeting for families adopting internationally on the 8th. I ended up going even though my cousin was staying at my house while he was in town visiting (his sister lives here also and the plan was for him to spend the morning with her so I wasn't completely deserting him). My hubby was kind enough to make him breakfast and play host so that I could go to the meeting. That was during the time when I was at a low point emotionally (as I wrote about here) so I just felt like I needed to be there. I think just getting to do something, anything, to make this whole thing feel more real was helpful at that point. There was nothing said that was particularly helpful, I think just knowing that I am not alone was enough. It seemed that there were others that were having an even tougher time with the wait.

I think the best part for me was getting to see Jen and have lunch with her afterward. She had just found out that her son's paperwork was being processed for emigration permission, so it was fun to celebrate this news with her. She should be getting her travel call any day!!! I also got to meet another adoptive mom-to-be who got a referral in December and I am hoping to get together with her very soon. The support of others along this road is so helpful.

2) It is that time again. Has it really been a year already? Yes, we have to update our home study. We have a doctor's appointments on Feb. 2nd, we have requested our driving records from Florida, and we have put in the form to get the background clearance from the state of Maryland. If you remember from the last home study, this was the form that took 9 or 10 weeks, when the one from Florida only took 1 week. It held up the entire process. Hopefully, that won't be the case this time. Other than these items, everything else is pretty simple: some forms to sign, employment letters, and tax and financial information to compile. Unfortunately, they recently doubled the fee from $250 to $500 for an update :-(

3) We got another update on Joshua. The reason we received another one so soon is because he was hospitalized from Dec. 29th - Jan 4th for bronchitis. We didn't find this out until this past Friday, 10 days after he was released from the hospital. According to the update he is doing fine now and is at home with his foster family. I cannot tell you how hard it is to find out your son has been in the hospital. I wish I could have been there to hold him. But the reality is that he doesn't know me. I am not the one who can give him comfort right now. And so I thank God for his foster mother. Please keep him in your prayers as these type of respiratory illnesses are very common in preemies.

4) We finally got new pictures of Joshua!!! You will not believe how cute he is. I will post the pictures as soon as I get the originals so that I can scan them in (they emailed us a PDF with the pictures scanned in).

5) This past Saturday I had my 1st adoption shower!!! This is most likely the 1st of 3 showers. I will also have one with my friends here in Maryland and one with my family in Florida. It felt so surreal. The morning of I was so excited; I kept thinking and even asked John a couple of times, "Is this really happening? Am I really going to an adoption shower. For me? With baby presents?" The shower was held by the ladies from my Apples of Gold Bible study (the one I took part in last fall). It was a bath and book-time shower (though I also got a couple of really cute outfits!).

What I really loved was that it was very Christ-centered. We opened with prayer and delicious food and then afterward everyone shared a favorite bed or bathtime memory or ritual that they did with their kids or from their own childhoods. Then we had a game where we had to pick out safety pins from a bowl of rice with our eyes closed - much more difficult than it sounds. I really appreciated the fact that Kelly (who planned the game) made a great effort to choose a game that was appropriate to adoption (she even gave a short message about how she chose this particular game because it represents us finding our son in spite of all the difficulty and read Romans 8:14-16). And the best part was that whoever won got a prize for me, so either way I couldn't lose. After the game I opened presents and then we had a short devotional.

Lastly, we had a time of prayer for Joshua. Joanna (who organized the shower) made me 31 little prayer cards, one for each day of the month, done on scrapbook paper and then laminated. They are on a ring so that I can hang them up on a hook to have them nearby to pray for Joshua while I am caring for him. One one side of each card is a prayer and on the other the corresponding Scripture. I can't wait to make this gift for other friends. During the prayer time she passed out two of the cards to everyone and we spent time praying them over Joshua and us. It was such a perfect way to end the shower.

And now for a few pics. I didn't include the group shot since I didn't ask if anybody minded if I posted it.

 

 

 

 

 

Look at these train bookends - so cute!

Can you believe I actually have all this baby stuff in my house!!!

Trip to Florida

Sorry for my blogging absence. I was hoping to have a few posts finished that I could schedule to post while I was gone, but the week leading up to my trip to Florida was pretty busy. I am trying to be a little more cautious regarding posting information about times when we will be gone. That may be silly or unnecessary, but it doesn't seem wise to me to announce to the world that I will be gone for a week, considering this blog is not anonymous. Anyway, I spent last week in Florida!!! It was a wonderful trip and I had such a great time. I went down to Eglin AFB which is located on the panhandle of Florida near Destin, an area I affectionately call "southern Alabama" because in truth it is more like Alabama than Florida. This is where we lived prior to moving to DC and we still have many friends in the area. In many ways, being there felt like going home. I love the warmth of the people there.

On my first night there, we had dinner at the Back Porch so we could watch the sunset.

I will never get sick of the beautiful white sandy beaches in Destin or the sunsets.

On Sunday, we got to attend our previous church and then have lunch afterward with some friends from our old small group.

At lunch, we received our first gift for Joshua! This beautiful quilt, done in a pattern called "Take Five" was made by our friends:

Later that evening we got to have dinner at their house and hear all about Tim's trip to the Congo.

On Monday, I got to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving with Joia. She gave us this super cute outfit for Joshua. It says "Daddy's #1 Draft Pick." I love that it is the same style pullover that John likes to wear.

Later that evening, John and I celebrated our 7 year anniversary a few weeks early at Fleming's Steakhouse - so good!

 

The rest of the week involved dinners with friends, Wednesday night dinner at church, and attending the ladies Bible study I use to go to. 

At the ladies Bible study, they are doing a Beth Moore study on Psalms and the discussion ended up being on Psalm 127. I have previously written about my thoughts on that Psalm here and here. It was kind of a difficult discussion for me because Beth Moore makes the point that you can "mother" other children in your life even if you don't have children. Frankly, that whole idea just does not ring true to me and I find the words hollow and of no comfort whatsoever. The whole thing about being a spiritual mother is probably a whole post in itself, but how can anyone really compare the experience of parenting children and ACTUALLY being a mom to some vague notion of "mothering" other children (like in Sunday school class for example). Sorry, they don't even compare. There ended up being somebody who was dealing with secondary infertility in my discussion group and so I am glad I was there because I think it would have been even more difficult for her if there had not been someone else there who understood what she is experiencing.

The day after the discussion, I was actually feeling pretty down, so much so that I chickened out on going to see my friend Joia at the Cash in the Nursery sale. It just felt like it might be too much. I think I might need to get over my fear of the baby section at Target before taking on such an large scale event.

And last, but certainly not least, I got to meet Lisa of While I'm Waiting! We met at Beef 'O' Brady's and I think we must have talked for almost four hours. It was so wonderful to meet her and have a chance to get to know each other better. She has such a beautiful heart and such amazing faith in the Lord. I feel so blessed that through blogging, I would have a chance to come to know her as a friend. I was so excited to meet her though that I think I talked way too much : )

 

I was definitely sad to leave Florida again and say good-bye once again to our friends there. Good-byes are so hard. I was happy to say hello to our pup when I got back though - I missed her a lot!

Gifts

I was asked recently if the few gifts I received when I was pregnant made things more difficult once we lost Johannah. So I thought I would address this for anyone else who might be wondering. For me it really didn't make things worse, if anything having a few gifts gave me something tangible to hold on to in the midst of my grief, especially that first day. That being said, I probably would not want to receive clothing or toys again. For whatever reason those were the hardest things for me to have. They were given to me by my sisters and brothers, as well as one of John's friends at Christmas. To them, I say please know that I so appreciated the gifts you gave me. However, I felt like they were meant for Johannah specifically, so I just could not keep them. I donated them to a ministry at my church called Supper on Saturday that feeds poor families in our area. A couple of the gifts (thanks Wendi and De) were actually used for her service (if anyone ever wants to ask me questions about this, please feel free to email me). My dear friend Wendi gave me a photo album that I am going to use for the pictures we took at the hospital, positive pregnancy test, u/s photos, and others. I did decide to keep a couple of things. One of my sisters passed on to me a baby quilt made by my Grandma, so of course I am keeping that. One of my brothers gave me a Chicago Cubs baby t-shirt which I am also keeping. Long ago I promised my brother that any children I had could be Chicago Cubs fans. Our family is dominated by Yankee fans (boo) and since John is not a baseball fan I figured I'd help even things out for my brother. Finally, I am keeping two stuffed animals that were given to me by separate people. One is a lion and the other is a lamb. I just love that the first stuffed animals given to me are symbols of Jesus. My counselor says this is because I am an INFP personality type. Apparently, we like metaphors.

I am happy that I did allow myself to receive a few gifts even though things did not work out the way I wanted. I know I could never go buy something myself so it is nice to have just a few things. Also, it worked out that I ended up keeping at least one thing from each person or group that gave me something.