Saying Goodbye and Links

It is bittersweet, but I must tell you, I’ve decided not to write weekly posts for the time being.  I have thoroughly enjoyed writing for you all and have enjoyed the comments I received.

One of the reasons I feel like it’s time for me to step aside and let someone else take over Tuesday is because I feel like I’ve said all I was meant to say.  I’m truly passionate about adoption and love sharing my knowledge with others, but because my knowledge is so limited and I haven’t yet adopted, I feel it best if I open up the gates for others to bring forth their words of wisdom. 

So for my final post for now, I’ll be brief; I thought that both CJaneRun and TheRHouse summed up two great posts on infertility this last weekend.  Make sure and check them out. 

Keeping Perspective

A couple months ago my sister-in-law J told me that she and my brother are expecting baby #4.  She told me before they told anyone else--even the grandparents--because she was concerned about how I would feel.  She was worried that I would be hurt that they are having number four while we are desperately hoping to adopt number two.  I wasn't hurt.  I was excited for them and excited that they live just a few minutes from us so we can be a part of this baby's life.  I appreciated her concern and felt pretty special that I knew about the baby before anyone else in our families.

On Tuesday they had their ultrasound to find out the gender of #4.  (They have two boys and a girl.)  My brother sent me a text that read, "K (their daughter) is officially the last of the Mohicans."  I assured him that K will be fine.  I grew up with three brothers and no sisters and I turned out okay.  He responded with, "If she's anything like her aunt, it will take three brothers to keep her line."  Hey, now!

So after this fun exchange I started thinking about what really had just happened and started to tear up.  No, I wasn't thinking about how wonderful it was that they're having #4 and that wasn't it neat that they had been able to see him.  It hit me afresh that I will never have that experience.  I will never feel a baby growing inside me.  I will never have that "let's find out what kind of baby we're having" ultrasound.  Never.

I couldn't believe how upset I was.  I thought I was past all of that.  I'm okay with our infertility (most of the time) and I love adoption, but it was like a slap in the face, reminding me that I'm different, I'm broken.  I don't get to be in the club.  I didn't feel like B and J were reminding me of this, but our closeness was probably the catalyst for my mini-meltdown.  I love them so much and am so excited for them and feel sad that I will never get to experience the very beginnings of parenthood in the way they do.

I felt pretty sorry for myself for the rest of the day.  I called my husband to tell him the news, cried a lot, and told him I wouldn't be making dinner.  He's so wonderful.  He brought me flowers and ordered dinner.  I kind of just checked out for a while.  I let him do the bedtime routine with Olivia and wallowed a bit.

Then I started remembering that Heavenly Father knows and loves me.  He knows me far better than I know myself and loves me more than I am capable of imagining.  He's given me everything I value (and plenty of things I don't value enough).  He has plans for me.  Big plans.  He has given me the opportunity to be a mother through the miracle of adoption.  He teaches me through my experiences--the good and the tough--and provides me the opportunity to become a better person.  And sometimes I actually remember that.  I think I needed that jolt of awareness this week to help me keep perspective.  I am a daughter of God.  He loves me and wants me to be happy.  That is what I need to remember and focus on--all the time.

Answer to Prayers

"In the end, the number of prayers we say may contribute to our happiness, but the number of prayers we answer may be of even greater importance."

-Dieter F. Uchtdorf

My husband and I have been on two journeys, as we try and build our family.  These journeys have required a lot of soul searching and kneeling.  It is only as of this evening that I feel a profound peace in my heart.  I'm beginning to understand that my place in adoption is to be an advocate not for myself but for adoption as a whole, and to be the answers to prayers of people needing someone to talk to when just starting their own journey.  I feel there is much more to my purpose, but it suffices me to say that we need to be open and ready to answer the prayers of those around us.  

I thought I'd share this story with you...(here's a link to the original)

Tonight the Mr. and I were sitting on our couch watching a movie and at 8:30 pm someone knocked on our door. It turned out to be our neighbor who we've talked to once and waved to now and then. But never really got to know like we should have. She asked for me and then with a little hesitation and fear in her voice, told us that she just happened to come across our profile on itsaboutlove and she was wondering if we had time to talk to her. At first I was speechless. I thought that maybe our day had come and a birth mom had selected us. So we invited her into our messy house and sat on the couch for an hour and 15 minutes talking about the beauty of adoption. It turns out she just found out she couldn't have kids four weeks ago after an ectopic pregnancy cost her one tube and endometriosis cost her the other. She asked about dealing with grieving, what to expect with adoption, how to fill out the paperwork and so much more. The Mr. and I sat there and spilled our guts and were just so happy to be able to share our testimony of adoption. I truly feel like she was guided to our profile to help her because she doesn't know anyone else who has ever suffered infertility.  Out of the thousands of profiles out there and without the use of last names, it was absolutely God directing her to us.  
It made me grateful to have FSA and the adoption community as strength and things like girls night where we all shared our stories and such to draw strength from to be exactly what she needed. I truly feel like we've been blessed with a close-knit adoption family here locally and am so grateful to have friends to talk to and lean on. It made me even the more grateful that I could give back and be the friend she needed. She left here smiling, with hope, and peace in her heart and we couldn't ask for anything more for her. What a wonderful thing to be a part of. I love adoption and the wonderful miracles and experiences it has brought into our life.

That is absolutely a true story of mine and I'm so grateful to have felt that overwhelming satisfaction of helping someone feel at peace with their situation.  Just recently we did learn that instead of choosing adoption, the couple opted to move to Hawaii and attend school while trying IVF because their insurance in Hawaii would cover the procedures.  If after no more success, they were at peace in knowing that adoption was a great path for them.  

It is my hope that we will all be mindful of those around us, whether related to adoption or not, and be the answers to their prayers.  They might be just what you needed at a time you didn't think you needed anything.  My role in the above story came at a time where my faith in adoption was wavering.  At that moment, I committed to memory, never to be forgotten just how important and wonderful adoption is.  

Have you been able to help newcomers to adoption by sharing your experiences?

Sealed

As we were rushing out the door this morning to go to the temple, I realized I still hadn't written anything for today.

We did sealings today.  I had been endowed for seven years before Brigham and I were married.  After we were married, being a proxy for sealings took on a whole new meaning for me.  I liked doing sealings when I was single, but didn't have a full understanding of what being sealed means.  (I probably still don't.)  Today, as I was sitting in the sealing room, I was imagining having another child sealed to us--a soft little hand on top of ours.

Then I thought back to when Olivia was sealed to us.  (She screamed the whole time!)  Knowing she was sealed to us, to an entire, enormous family, changed the way I felt about her, about family, and about love.  I can't wait to re-experience that, to have another child join our family, to learn even more about the sealing power in such a personal way.

Short and Sweet

I'm going to keep it short and sweet this week because I have so much to ponder after the beautiful words of General Conference.
Two thoughts overtook me this last weekend.
First, we are so lucky, nay, blessed to believe that family is fundamental.  To quote mormon.org, "it is the most important unit of society".  Because we believe these things, we are willing to do hard things, accept infertility, and build our families through the beauty that is adoption!  I truly can testify that without my religious base, I would have never overcome my infertility.
Second, hope is a beautiful thing!  How anyone could ever get through this world without hope is beyond me.  Just hoping for a brighter future, hoping for a baby, hoping for a prayer to be answered, etc... can brighten your life.  Hope is what gets us through.  Hope is what makes us strong enough.
Did General Conference touch your hearts like it did mine in the terms of adoption and infertility? I'd love to hear about it.

Finding Balance on the Adoption Roller Coaster

Disclaimer: I originally wrote this for my personal blog www.brighamoliviasally.blogspot.com, but decided to also use it for my weekly post on http://ldsadoptioncouples.blogspot.com/.  So, if it looks familiar to you, that's why.  (Either that, or you're just as obsessive about adoption as I am and get just as stuck.)


Last week we were contacted by two birth moms.  I don't think I can aptly describe the feeling of talking on the phone with each of these girls.  Heart pounding, hands shaking, wondering if what I'm saying makes any sense, wondering what she's thinking, how she feels, why she chose to contact us.  And then wondering why she didn't call back.  (Out of respect for these girls who are faced with so many tough decisions, I won't go into details here.)


(On a side note: We've had so many problems with our phones that I worry we've missed calls or discouraged callers.  We seem to have the home phone problem fixed.  My stupid cell phone is another issue.  It drops calls, and often won't hold a signal long enough for me to be able to answer or talk for long.  Still working on this.)


I could easily go crazy!  I know I will get better at knowing what to say/ask and hopefully will get better at reading people over the phone.  But, I don't think it will get any easier.  It's such a different experience than we had last time.  


"We have a baby for you.  Can you come get it?"  Um, yes, thank you.  Knowing what I know now, I kind of feel like we cheated.  We got so lucky with Olivia and Alyssa.  Well, it probably wasn't luck.  It was meant to be.  Olivia was meant to be ours and Alyssa was meant to be part of our family.  I love how things have worked out.  I love Alyssa.  And I love our sweet Olivia.


And I love the idea of adopting again and having another wonderful relationship with our birth mom.  But I'm scared that it won't be the same.  I know it won't be the same, and I guess I don't want it to be exactly the same, but I still worry.  I worry about what the process will do to me.  Will I have any nerves or sanity left by the time we are blessed with another baby?  I'm trying to focus on getting from here to there and not getting stuck in the moment.


For me, "stuck in the moment" is checking our profile stats obsessively to see how many people have looked at our profile, how many have looked at our contact page.  (I know exactly where the mouse needs to be on each page of the log in process before I get to it.)  It's not wanting to go anywhere I can't use my cell phone (which, these days, happens to include my home and neighborhood), or where I would have to turn it off.  It's unhealthy and downright dangerous.  Would I pass up an opportunity to attend the temple because a potential birth mom might call during that time block?  Fortunately, I haven't gotten that bad.  Yet.  So, I am trying to find other things to do that are both productive and engrossing so I'm not always thinking about adoption.  Yesterday that included cleaning the house and cleaning up vomit.  (Oh wait, that last was just gross.)  I'm looking for service opportunities, I'm trying to spend more quality time with my family and with friends.  I'm looking for new adventures.  I'm coloring my hair today because it sounds like fun and because I've never done it.


"Stuck in the moment," for me, also includes focusing so much on adoption that I appear, and quite frankly, am, a little unbalanced in my interactions with others.  Someone may ask me, "How are things going?"  And I answer with an adoption roller coaster update.  And what they probably really meant was something like: "How is Brigham enjoying the new school year?  How many students does he have?  Has he moved into the new building yet?" or "Is Olivia still taking swimming and dance lessons?  Is she loving preschool as much this year as she did last year?" or "Have you done your visiting teaching yet?  What are you guys planning to be for Halloween?  Is your dog still walking on only three legs?"  Or any number of other things that are going on in my life.  It isn't all about adoption.  I'm not saying that others aren't interested in our journey.  Everyone is supportive, but it's probably rather tiresome for me to come across as having a one-track mind.


I'm working on it, but this process is absorbing.  I feel like it could suck the life right out of me if I don't find a way to balance the adoption portion of my life with the rest of it.