Ten Months

Ten months ago my husband and I made the decision that would shape the rest of our lives.

We decided to adopt.

Many tears and much prayer and SO MUCH TALKING went into our decision. We are adopting domestically, we are hoping to adopt a pair of siblings 6 years old or younger.

Ten months have passed since we made that first phone call, throwing our names into the ring so to speak. Ten months. If we had been announcing a pregnancy at the same time as we announced our plans to adopt we would be holding our child now. We would have made a birth plan, picked out names, decorated a nursery, decided between cloth and disposable diapers and so much more. Most of these are things that we're not going to be able to do. Someone else is going to name our children, and they may even be out of diapers before they come home to us. And some days that makes me incredibly sad.

But I am going to teach my children to read, and print their names. We are going to teach them about love and about the Lord. We are going to talk to them about how they want their bedrooms decorated and create a room that reflects them and will be a haven for them. I am going to be the one cheering when they cross the stage at graduation and crying when they are walking down the aisle on their wedding day. I can already see Jonathan teaching them to ride a bike and hammer a nail. I am going to buy cute outfits and give good night kisses. We are going to take dorky family photos in matching outfits. My fridge is going to be covered in art work.

Ten months have passed, and I have no idea how much longer we'll be waiting. Things are moving forward right now, but at some point they'll pause again. And I'm okay with that. This is my journey, this is my path. Someday I'm going to be a mother.

Adoption (and Life!) Update

J & I with our new nephew in the hospital

Well, I'm alive.

And I have a new nephew. He's pretty darn cute!

I don't even think I wrote about Jonathan's brother and his wife (David and Tracey) being pregnant. Probably because when they first announced it I was pretty darn devastated. It was August, they had gotten married in July. J and I had been married six years and been trying to have a baby for five of them. It was like a punch in the gut.

But, the sort of weird thing was, that we had reached our decision to begin the adoption process and made our "we're expecting" announcement on Facebook less than two weeks before they let us know that Tracey was pregnant.

Still a punch in the gut, I can't lie. But so much easier to handle than it would have been otherwise. And, I think if we had made our decision after their announcement we would have questioned ourselves about whether or not adoption was truly the right decision for us, or if it was just a reaction to David and Tracey's news. (Anybody else see God's hand in this? We totally did!) It was tough at times, watching them prepare for the arrival of their tiny human, but it was also exciting. We were finally going to be an aunt and uncle! And so we focused on that, and we focused on preparing for our own tiny humans. And we survived. (More than survived!)

Speaking of our adoption, things are moving along more quickly than we had expected. We finished our PRIDE training course at the end of March. We were told it would likely be a minimum of two months (but closer to 4 or more) before we heard from a social worker about beginning our home visits. Well, we got the email last week looking to start setting up our home assessment, and our first meeting will be this coming Monday. Totally freaking out, but totally thrilled to begin the next step in the process.

And, while we wait for our own children, we're going to spend as much time as possible snuggling and spoiling our nephew!

xo, Sara

An Early Christmas Present

My husband, J, and I made the decision to adopt around the middle of August 2015. It was a decision years in the making and one that we didn't make lightly. There were a lot of late night conversations, a lot of prayer, and a lot of tears. We know that this isn't going to be an easy process, and it's definitely not going to be a quick process. There is definitely going to be a lot of waiting. (After five years of trying to conceive, I think we're pretty good at waiting, but this is a whole new situation so it's really hard to say!)

During our intake interview (a quick phone call with a social worker) the process was explained in brief. After the intake interview would be an information session. After the information session would be a 9-week training course. After the training course would be the home assessment. And then after the home assessment would be the real wait. There was no time line for how long anything would take. The social worker who completed our intake interview told me that she didn't know of anyone who had waited for more than a year to get accepted into the training course, and during our information session they explained that the seats in the course were prioritized based on certain conditions. Based on our desire to adopt two children under the age of six we figured we were in for a bit of a wait. When we were being cautiously optimistic we hoped to hear something about our course mid/late February and when we were feeling less optimistic we expected we'd be starting our course in the early spring. 

A week before Christmas Eve I took a break from wrapping presents to quickly check my email and was completely shocked to find an email from community services inviting us to a training course. I actually couldn't even open the email - I handed my phone to J and told him to read it first. We were invited to a course beginning January 11th. 

That's today. 

We're attending our first session tonight, I'm scared and excited and a lot of other emotions that I don't even have names for yet. I'm looking forward to connecting with other families in our area who are in the same phase of this journey and I'm looking forward learning more about this process and about what to expect as our journey continues. But I know everything isn't going to be easy to hear, I know there are going to be heart breaking stories and scary stories shared in this course. And while I can't claim to be "excited" about that part, I know that it's necessary and so so so important to know as much as possible.

This journey is like nothing I've ever experienced, but I love knowing we're a little bit closer to bringing our children home.


xo,
Sara

An overflowing, grateful heart

On  Thursday we announced to Facebook that we had started our adoption journey. It was something
we debated for a while. We are so so so early in the process that it felt a little like announcing a pregnancy before the end of the first trimester. And we have no idea how long the process could take. There is a very real possibility (and kind of a frightening one) that it could be six years before we have our child. However, we are so excited and I am a colossal over-sharer, so we went for it.

And we were blown away.

I've never posted anything that ended up with over 100 likes. And the comments were so unbelievably sweet and supportive. And they came from people I hadn't talked to in years, and people J has never even met. We also learned that an old friend of J's is in the process of adopting internationally. The experiences that led her and her husband to adopt are very similar to ours so we are looking forward to getting together with them in the near future. My staff, my co-workers, and especially my boss are so 100% behind us and I'm pretty sure I can already feel the prayers from our church family.

It is going to be a long, bumpy road and I know that. There are going to be mountains, there are going to valleys and there are going to be prairies when we feel like nothing is changing at all. I can't say that I'm ready for all that - I am impatient and and I am emotional - but all of the support is going to make it so much easier to bear.

Sharing our Journey

I think it's fair to say that I'm going to be talking a fair bit about our adoption journey in this space. Where before my blog was a jumble of all kinds of things, I think it's probably going to be a lot about this new chapter in our lives. (And I'm probably going to blog more regularly, at least during the times there is something going on!)

J and I talked a lot about whether or not I would use this space to talk about our adoption journey. The final verdict was yes (obviously) but I will only be talking about our journey. I think Emily at ember grey said it best, I don't want to share a story that isn't mine to share. I will talk about how we got where we got, and I will talk about the process (in part because I found it extremely hard to find blogs/resources for Canadians adopting within Canada and in part because I have a feeling there are going to be times I just need to do that!), but our child will have their own story and how they share it ~ or don't share it ~ with the world will be their choice.  

Please don't think that the only thing I'm ever going to talk about is our adoption journey though! Once I get my blogging groove back I am hoping to also continue sharing book reviews, recipe reviews, and bits and pieces of my life and experiences. This is still my space, and I am still hoping to grow it.

My life changed today

My life changed today.

Or maybe it was yesterday.

Yesterday we made the decision, today we made the phone call.

My husband and I have made the decision to adopt.

And when I say "we made the decision," what I really mean is that we've spent a lot of time in prayer and in discussion and we've come to the realization that we are being led to adopt.

And it feels amazing.

Other than our parents we haven't really told anyone yet. For now it's just us, until we know we're approved. (If I can keep the excitement to myself!)

This afternoon I called the Nova Scotia adoption line. I spoke to a kind woman who took our names and contact information. She gave me the basics and I was told we'll be contacted within 10 business days.

The waiting has begun.

I hung up the phone and cried.

I am scared.

And I am excited.

My life changed today.