Saturday, April 4, 2009
A look back (first written in June 08')
Part I Babies…. Babies… Babies…. Ever from when I can remember, that was what I wanted. I was one of those “motherly” children, you know, the one carried a baby doll around every since she was little. The one that you saw in the grocery store and had to take a double-take because at first glance you thought why in the world would someone let a nine year old carry around an infant until you realized it was just a doll, The one who would actually get up ten minuets after she went to bed to give her own doll its “midnight feeding.” Obsessive? Maybe a little…But they weren’t dolls to me. They were something, someone for me to hold, care for, feed, and rock. It made me feel good to take care of these baby dolls. So I guess you could say I’m one of those people that say, “ Ever since I can remember, I wanted to be a mom.”
I’ve also always been the person who liked my ducks in a row. And when I mean a row, I want a row! My row didn’t just include the pre-meditated grocery list for the next month but the pre-meditated stops in life for the next twenty years. I knew the months I wanted to get pregnant, the years between each pregnancy, the doctors or midwives I wanted to use, and even the baby bedding! But somewhere back in my mind…. I knew… I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! Call it realist, pessimist, or just plain negative karma, I knew I would have problems in my attempt to make the ducks follow that row. But despite those ever-creeping thoughts, my drive to start a family pressed on and in June of 2007 we “tried.”
Trying for the first time was anything but romantic. I was nervous and in the back of both of our minds we couldn't’t get the thought out of our heads that just maybe, just maybe, 9 months later we would be laying in this same bed with our brand new baby.
Month one, came and gone, with two quickly behind it. “Its just the first time jitters.” No one gets pregnant the FIRST TIME! I thought. The first few months were fun though. We wanted to keep it a secret so we didn’t tell anyone. Deep down I wanted to tell everyone that passed by me, “we are trying for a baby.”
Month two passed… the little ungodly negative signs continued to rear their horrible faces at me. And talk about taking stock out in something… those little pee- sticks are expensive! In those attempts at “trying” I realized that the mind is a tricky little thing. The evidence was plain as day “NOT PREGNANT!” but still, there was a little voice saying, “maybe you took it too early, maybe your hormones aren't strong enough, maybe it’s a defective test, maybe you have that thing where you don’t know you are pregnant and you end up on the show I didn’t know I was pregnant 9 months later with a crazy story… but nevertheless, a baby in hand. However, the evidence of my empty womb would always confirm itself on those glorious days when Aunt Flo would come to my house and visit. You see, I had what they suspected was endometriosis, so every 30, 40, 50, 60 days (who knew when, I was so irregular ) the claws in my stomach came out. I’ve heard it described as having a baby… I wouldn’t have known, I had never had a baby! But the pain was severe enough to knock me down or at least make me knock on the door of the OB.
Blood test after blood test,(I was surprised I had anything left,) we found a few little “problems” with my ever- so endearing hormones. Not enough Progesterone. So… first round of fertility treatment, here we go…
In the meantime, let me take a brief side-bar to update you on other drama in my life that was taking place at the exact same time. In August (two months after we TTC- “trying to conceive” for those of you who haven’t found the blogs yet!) I had actually started thinking about adoption. Again, my pessimistic ways + “ducks in a row” syndrome led me to make sure I had a plan B. Funny how God works things out in our brain! Anyways, through a series of phone calls, someone actually called us and asked if we would be interested in being relative care-givers for a baby that would be born in the next couple of months. I thought, yeah! If God opens these doors… we will def. walk through them. It seemed like everything was in place. I had a part time job that was flexible enough to where I could work and still have a baby. After we said “yes” we found out about a series of things we had to do in order to keep this mystery baby. MAPP classes. MAPP classes are “parenting” classes that help people who are going to do foster care and or adopt. Wait…. Foster care!?!? This was most DEFINITELY not in my life plan nor my “bucket list.” But before I knew it, we were on a path and would make my ducks scatter all over God’s green earth.
Madison
I was on my way to visit a friend when I got a phone call. I can still remember the exact spot on the highway that I was, yielding onto another road. Funny as I write this, I realize that that was exactly where we were going… yielding to another plan. It was the DCF. We have a baby girl, 5 weeks old, African-American who needs a home. It could go all the way, she could be adoptable.
“Adoptable” as if she wasn’t on the market yet, we would pour our time, energy, soul, and heart into this little living breathing human being in hopes that one day she would be ours. Like a woman finding out she was pregnant, my heart instantly melted for this little one and we said yes… if God opens the doors, we will walk through them.
I’ll never forget the first time that I saw her. She was literally dropped off at our house. The five week old 8 pound baby was in a cream onezie, no socks, hair a mess and sleeping away. Once again, I’ll say its amazing what the mind and soul can do together. In one accord, they will attach their heartstrings to an infant stranger and make you do anything to protect this little one. We took her into our home that night, not realizing the tough road ahead.
The beginning was the hardest with her. Not because I didn’t have experience with babies ( I used to get up with my dolls at midnight remember!) but because deep down in my heart I was mad. I was mad that I could pour my life into this little beating soul and receive only a thank-you and a goodbye. Funny though that out of life’s greatest trials, come life’s greatest lessons learned, this was the lesson that people refer to as “it was the hardest thing in life, but I would do it all over again.” Every day I woke up wondering if it would be my last with her. Instead of worrying about how much time I had to clean, do laundry, or cook. I cherished every second with her. I would just lay there next to her and stare at her, watch her breathe and love every “stage” that I got to witness. She had the most beautiful personality and I loved her with all of my heart. She had different color skin, different color eyes, different textured hair, but I had a bond with that baby that is as strong as it is today as it was the day was temporarily “ours”.
Five months went by and in those months I can truly say that I understand what it is like to have the best days or you life and the worst in the exact some moment. Still I knew, God, I’ll walk through this door if you continue to open it.
The day she went back to her biological father I decided in my heart that God knew this would happen; He still allowed me to go through it and would give me the strength to finish it out.
I can’t even begin to describe the pain of dropping off someone you love to a perfect stranger and knowing you will never see them ever again. She didn’t understand what was going on. She trusted me, and it was so hard to look at her and know that was the last time I would ever look at her. I handed her over to the case-worker, got in my car, turned on my worship music and cried.
I had decided earlier that day that I would allow myself to cry in the car on the way home, but that was it. I wanted to be strong, others saw me as strong and probably think that I handled it with grace and dignity, but only I know the deep, deep agony that my heart felt and will continue to feel.
Still, I would do it all over again, all over again to hear the laughs, see the smiles, and to see her grow. I gave her foundation, I gave her a start, she was not meant to be mine in body forever, but she will be mine in soul as long as I live.
After that experience we decided that fostering was’t for us. We hold a deep admiration and appreciation for the people who do it full-time. It is a ministry, a very deep and real need. Madison did not hold many chapters in our book, she just held one, one that lasted five sweet months. It is a chapter that will be so dear to me and that I’m glad was written.
Collier
In the meantime, we had put our fertility venture on hold. We had begun the preliminary treatments with no success, just several concerned phone calls to the OB which ended in… you can either go to the next treatment option or quit. I had decided that the fastest, easiest way to get a baby was just to adopt…. Ha, ha, ha… boy was I in for it!! So, we decided to attempt domestic adoption. We already had all the classes from the foster care situation and just needed a home study. JUST….. for those of you who don’t know, adoption is called the “paper-work” pregnancy. And I have realized over the course of trying to bring a baby into our family that there is no easy way. So for all of you who got pregnant the first time, thank God and count your blessings! With adoption, they want to know EVERYTHING about you. They want to make sure that you are physically, financially, spiritually, and mentally stable. Although, what they don’t realize is that most likely at the beginning of the adoption process you were all these things, but by the end of this roller coaster event they call adoption you would probably fail if they re-evaluated you! So… we found an agency, walked in, paid our dues and waited…. In my mind I was in it for the long haul. I thought 6-12 months…. Three weeks later we received a phone call. African-American baby, don’t know the sex, due January 9th. We were elated! It was sooo fast! We couldn’t believe it. This wasn’t how I had planned out my ducks, but from prior experience I was realizing that most of my ducks were so far scattered that I didn’t even care anymore.
You know those days that go down in your brain file as “history”? January 11th was one of those days. I was planning to get up the next morning and wait for the phone call that the birth mother had gone into labor, but the phone call came earlier than expected. I had just gotten in bed and the phone rang… (that dang phone has brought on a lot of emotions!) it was the attorney, they baby had been born that morning and was in a NICU. He had a heart condition and it was serious. Everything within me screamed, “GOD, NO!!!!!!!!!” This has to be a dream. I have to be dreaming. Please wake me up!
But it wasn’t a dream, they didn’t know what was happening to the baby and to make matters more confusing, the mom didn’t know if she really wanted to place him or not.
We prayed and prayed, didn’t have a peace, called the attorney and our dream of a family ended for the second time that month.
The next months were months of renewal for me, soul searching, digging deep to find some answers. In the Christian world, they say lot of times that God makes your weaknesses stronger by certain tribulations. Well, in my case, the things I was most strong in, were the things tested to their max. I had always been one to believe in a Sovereign God. Nothing was a mistake. As long as I was obeying the Word, God would make everything work out. Although after the infertility, foster care, and failed adoption my absolute surrender to the sovereignty of God began to waver. Why would a good God allow us to go through this? Why would He make us loose all that money? Why would he allow me, someone who wants this SO BAD, have such a hard time? Is it because He know that I would stick with it? Is it because He wants me to be stronger? WHY!!?!?! Why the wait? Why the pain? Why the heartache?
A pastor of mine told me once that you can’t see the end of the forest when you are in the middle of the trees. As I’m writing this, I still ask these questions because none of them have been answered yet. I don’t have my happy ending. I sit and read the verse “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. Make my paths straight…. But I do hope that the next time I write I will.
Justice
Its been 4 months since I’ve opened this writing. In those four months, my previous statements almost seem positively eerie as I look back. “Make my paths straight… I guess that’s the best way to have it, to have God put your ducks in a row. That way, you know they will stay in that row! In the middle of June we received an e-mail. Baby boy, due to be born July. Even despite all the previous pain, thousands of dollars lost, and constant reality that “she could change her mind” and it would happen all over again, we said yes. It was a deep “yes.” It was not made out of desperation, but a calm deepness that I knew we were supposed to say yes. I wanted too with everything that was within me so I just had to put my fears aside one last time.
This time I wasn’t going to hold back, I decided to paint the room, get it ready, for our little baby boy. I didn’t get to prepare the same way a pregnant woman has 9 months to prepare and I wanted the anticipation of walking into the nursery not being able to wait until that precious little bundle occupied the soft crib sheets.
We went to Wal-Mart to get paint and some baby supplies, we had two weeks before he was due. I can still remember being in the paint isle and the thought ran across my mind, “ I still haven’t started.” But what was new?!?!? Just last week I had taken a test and it was negative. Why can’t I just have a normal period I thought to myself? I jokingly said to my husband “oh… what the heck…lets waste another ten bucks and get a pregnancy test, I still haven’t started.” I remember looking at the tests and picking the cheapest one because I knew that I was just blowing my money, but just in case, on the off chance, I didn’t want to be around pain fumes!
We went home that night opened the blue baby boy items we got and smiled inside hoping in the deepest parts of our gut that this little baby boy would come home with us in two weeks. We moved all the baby furniture around, put the plastic down and decided to stop and eat some dinner before we started our project. I remembered about the test, reluctantly took it out and tried. One line…. I shook my head and chuckled at myself, its amazing how one ounce of hope can stretch so far and make you try over and over again just hoping that it would be positive. I laid the test on the floor and walked out. “Well…. after we eat we can paint, I’m not pregnant!” I told my husband. We sat down to eat and all of the sudden I felt sick to my stomach, I blamed it on the non-“organicness” of the soup and went back into the bathroom. The test caught my eye and I picked it up to throw it away. But the test looked different this time…two lines. Hmmm…. I got the box out, checked, because maybe two lines meant negative (there are so many different tests I was bound to get them mixed up!). The instructions read…”two lines = pregnant”.
The image of that test will be forever engraved in my memory…. You know the moment when it “clicks.” I walked out with of the bathroom with the test in hand and confusingly said to my husband… “ um, I’m pregnant.” my husband looked at me like I was crazy. “ Don’t mess around with me Kelly.” He stated. “I’m not joking about this my husband, there are two lines on this test.” At this moment I was laughing because it was just too coincidental....indeed, I was pregnant just barely, but pregnant. I couldn't believe it, I was in complete shock that I didn't even think about cutsie little ways to tell my parents and others, I just picked up the phone and said... "uh, I'm pregnant." Funny thing when I look back, I never once thought that we should call the attorneys and cancel the adoption. In my mind, that baby was ours and so was the one I was carrying, the timing....was God. So in less then twenty-four hours, we went from a family of two to a family of four. I can't help but think back to the story of the Egyptians and Moses, time and time again God told Moses to tell Pharaoh to let His people go, God kept hardening Pharaoh's heart and each time God said...He was doing this so Moses and all of the generations would "know that I am the Lord." I can't help but think that this is God's ways of telling me... "I am the Lord, I planned it this way" You see, because of the "infertility" we sought so hard after adoption, God wanted little Justice in our family, He knew the right timing, and I truely believe that He waiting in opening my womb until we said yes to Justice.
As I write this I can hear the baby monitors' white noise as Justice sleeps away in his crib, I look over in the bassinet at my little girl that is also sleeping soundly... and I think what a good God...coincidence? No, just the working of a sovereign God.
