Run the Race

These days, I've traded running for hiking, but I still enjoy being outdoors

   

    I was a runner in high school.  I was not the fastest or strongest, but I did enjoy the satisfaction of finishing the race.  My cross country coach, Coach T, was great.  He encouraged me to do my personal best and gave me some great tips that have been helpful not only in racing, but also in our adoption journey.
    The first tip from Coach T was to prepare.   In cross country this involved stretching and coming to the race with a good attitude.  Muscles needed to be warmed up for the grueling work that lay ahead.  A positive attitude kept the mind focused so that I could "push through the pain."  In adoption, preparation is also important.  My husband and I spent months researching adoption and deciding what path was right for us.  We talked about our expectations, made a plan for our finances, and gathered our friends and family for emotional and prayer support.  
     The second tip from Coach T was to pace yourself.  Cross-country involved a 3.25 mile run.  In track I ran the one mile and two mile.  Sprinting would not have been a smart option.  Very quickly, I would have been out of breath and unable to draw upon the resources needed to finish the race.  Adoption is not a sprint either.  For most of us, our adoption journey involves a long distance run.  Some of us are one milers, some two milers, for some it may even seem like a marathon.  The longer the journey, the more important pacing is.  We could easily be consumed by all the work involved in adoption:  the homestudy, the birthmother letter, and networking.  We could use up all of our resources and be left unable to finish our race.  Pacing ourselves, through setting small manageable goals and taking breaks, is the best way to ensure success. 
     The third tip from Coach T was to press in.  In cross-country the course is varied.  There are flat runs, twists and turns, uneven ground and even obstacles such as huge hills to overcome.  Coach T taught us that the most important time to press in was when there was an obstacle.  Most runners lose steam going up a hill, so he taught us to take that opportunity to push harder and pass up our opponent.  There is something very empowering about tackling a hill at 100 percent.  In adoption, there will inevitably be obstacles along the way-failed matches, long waits, delayed paperwork.  That is the perfect time to press in even harder.  Facing these obstacles head-on will help us to grow stronger.  This is the time to draw upon the resources of your faith, friends, and family. 
     The final tip from Coach T was to persist.  Finishing the race is what really matters.  As I said before, I was not the fastest or strongest runner, but I was still an important part of the team.  Whether I finished first or last, it didn't matter as long as I did my personal best.  The adoption journey takes a lot of patience and persistance.  There are days when it would be easy to give up, but then we would miss out on the prize of parenthood.  It doesn't matter whether we are first or last as long as we keep running and finish the race!

Hebrews 12:1  "Let us run with perserverance the race marked out for us."      

Jim and Amy Hoping to Adopt: Beauty Will Rise

Jim and Amy Hoping to Adopt: Beauty Will Rise: "This is an old picture, but it reminds me of how forests grow back with such beauty after a fire
The last few weeks have be..."

Beauty Will Rise

This is an old picture, but it reminds me of how forests grow back with such beauty after a fire

    
     The last few weeks have been an emotional roller coaster.  We have experienced great joy and great sorrow, peace and confusion, faith and doubt.  This hasn't been an easy season, but it has been a time of growth.  I thought I'd take a few minutes to share a little bit of what has comforted and encouraged me, in the hopes that it might encourage you as well. 
     As most of you know, we recently matched (and unmatched) with a birthmother for our adoption.  We were so excited to match!  It really was a time of rejoicing and expectation.  We were so happy to be able to call up family and friends and share our great news (so many had "labored" with us for years, offering up prayers and sending words of encouragement our way).  We talked to the birthmom almost every day and things seemed really solid.  Even though we knew that nothing was a guarantee, we began to make plans for bringing our baby home.  We talked about baby registries, joked about preparing for sleepless nights, and basically allowed love to blossom for this little one we had never met.  We traveled to have our match meeting and the first day of meeting the birthmom went relatively well.  We spent the whole day together...talking, dreaming, and making plans for the baby and her.  She even invited me to feel the baby kick and as the tiny foot thumped against the palm of my hand I thought, "Wow, this is really happening!"  We went to bed that night, so happy, so thankful, so at peace.
     But what a difference a day makes.  Without going into details, things began to deteriorate with our birthmother the second day.  Instead of spending the day with her, we sent text messages back and forth...beginning to suspect that something was wrong, but unsure of what to do.  When we did spend time with her that day, it was a very different experience from the day before.  It felt like our world was crashing down around us and there was nothing we could do about it.  We tried to hold on, we kept hoping for things to turn back around, but in the end (and after many tears and prayers) we had to let go.  This was not our match...we were crushed, confused, and left wondering how things could go so wrong, so fast.
     As the days went on, it was confirmed over and over again that we made the right decision to unmatch.  In reality, the birthmother had likely already walked away from us- but we were still left with so many questions.  What had gone wrong?  Why didn't we see the red flags earlier?  What would happen to this baby that we were already beginning to love?  Why were we allowed to come so close to having a baby, only to have our dream crushed once again?  Why did God allow this to happen?  How much longer would we have to wait?
     We still don't have any real answers to our questions, but faith and trust and peace are slowly returning.  We do know that God cares and has given us awesome friends and family to encourage us and hold us up in prayer.  Thank you!  You don't know how much it helped to hear from so many of you that you were praying for us and believing with us.
     One one particularly hard day, I put in a cd by Steven Curtis Chapman called "Beauty Will Rise."   The songs on this cd were written after he and his wife lost their little girl to a terrible accident.  The words come from a place of grief and pain that I can't even imagine...yet the songs also speak of hope.  Much like the Psalms of David, his faith is renewed and restored through raw honesty with God.  I found myself encouraged through lyrics like:

     "When I cannot have the answer/ that I'm wanting to demand/ I'll remember you are God/ And everything is in your hands..."
    
     "Even then I will say again/ God I trust you, I will trust you/ Even when I don't understand...I know your heart is good/ your love is strong/ your plans for me are better than my own..."
    
     "God is it true that you are thinking of me at this moment?/ God is it true that you hear every prayer that I pray?/ God is it true every time my heart beats you know it?/ Well if it's all true then that must be you I hear saying 'trust me'." 
   
     But one song really captures the prayer of my heart right now.  It is called "Beauty Will Rise."  It is based on Isaiah 61:3.  "To all who mourn, He will give beauty for ashes, joy instead of mourning, praise instead of despair..."  The song talks about how "Out of the ashes, beauty will rise." 

     "Out of these ashes/ Beauty will rise/ And we will dance among the ruins/ We will see it with our own eyes/  Out of these ashes/ Beauty will rise/ For we know joy is coming in the morning/ In the morning/ Beauty will rise"

     Ashes are not beautiful.  They are grey, lifeless, and an ugly reminder of destroyed dreams and hopes.  Yet, God says that out of these very ashes, He will bring beauty...He will bring hope...He will bring Life.  What a comforting thought.  We don't know why we had to go through this.  We definitely don't like the pain.  But if we allow Him to, God can and will cause beauty to rise in our hearts and lives.
     More than ever, we truly believe that there is a baby for us...we continue to pray, to hope, and to trust.          
      

Jim and Amy Hoping to Adopt: Bumps in the Road

Jim and Amy Hoping to Adopt: Bumps in the Road: " Vacations rarely go as planned. There are usually little bumps, sometimes boulders, in the road that attempt to derail the fun and rel..."

Bumps in the Road

     Vacations rarely go as planned.  There are usually little bumps, sometimes boulders, in the road that attempt to derail the fun and relaxation.  This week Jim and I have been in Denver.  He is here for work.  Me...I'm having a mini vacation before our real vacation next week.  We have definitely had our share of bumps this week....
     Bump #1:   The first bump in our trip was waiting at the airport for the hotel shuttle to pick us up....outside on the curb....in 95 degree weather...for over an hour!  There was a whole group of us waiting and each of us received a different story when we called the hotel. 
     Bump #2:  Our first night in Denver we were given a tiny room with a double bed- yes, ONE DOUBLE BED!  I didn't think there were any hotels left that still used double beds.  Jim and I sleep in a queen size bed at home.  When we were newlyweds I think we had a full size bed.  Trying to sleep in a double bed made for an interesting first night and neither of us got much rest.
     Bump #3:  The hotel we stayed at had a free shuttle that would take you anywhere in a five mile radius.  This was great, except for the fact that it was always going to the airport and was not available to take us.  Most days, this was fine (we didn't mind walking) except for Tuesday when we ended up getting caught in a thunderstorm.  First lighting (did I mention we were walking under large power lines?), then sprinkles, then a downpour...we ended up taking cover in the lobby of a little business and waiting until the worst of the storm had passed.  
     Bump #4:  Today I decided to do our laundry.  Usually I wait until we get home, but since we are going from this mini-vacation into our real vacation, we needed clean clothes.  There was no problem washing the clothes, but the dryers were BOTH out of order.  With all the other "bumps" this week, I just had to laugh.
     Yes, vacations rarely go as planned, but despite the bumps in the road (and maybe even because of them) we had a fun and entertaining week!  In the end, everything worked out.  The hotel shuttle did eventually arrive at the airport.  We were moved to a larger room with a king size bed for the remainder of our stay.  The hotel dried our laundry in one of their commercial dryers.  And the shuttle was available our last night in Denver to take us to one my favorite restaurants- Panera Bread.  The "bumps" in the road were good bonding experiences and we will be telling these stories for some time to come.
     Life also rarely goes as planned.  Our road to parenthood has had it's share of bumps and even a few large boulders.  We could choose to let those "bumps in the road" discourage us.  We could give up and decide the pain isn't worth it.  But we would be missing out, not only on our final destination (parenthood), but also on the many bonding moments along the way.  In the end all of our experiences, even the bumps, will become part of the story of how our baby came to us!  And that will be a story worth telling!!!




Here we are at one of my favorite restaurants- still smiling!



Production, Not Reproduction | A blog about open adoption & host of Open Adoption Bloggers: Open Adoption Roundtable #27

Production, Not Reproduction A blog about open adoption & host of Open Adoption Bloggers: Open Adoption Roundtable #27

The Weekend Intensive

     Recently I joined Open Adoption Bloggers.  It is a group of online bloggers from all walks of the open adoption process- adoptive parents, birthparents, waiting families etc.  From time to time they have a online roundtable discussion and this month's topic is "first meetings".  I've enjoyed taking a little time this afternoon to scroll through the other blog posts- most have been touching stories of the first moment the adoptive parents saw their new baby.  Sweet, precious stories, and yes I'll admit it, a few brought tears to my eyes (especially the couple who picked up their new baby girl at Starbucks!





Our adoption agency, Independent Adoption Center- Pleasant Hill

      Since we are in the waiting process and still anxiously looking forward to that first meeting, I thought I'd take a totally different approach and talk about our first meeting with our agency- The Weekend Intensive.  Technically we "met" our agency for the first time at an informational meeting a few months earlier, but this is the meeting that truly began our relationship with the IAC.  The Weekend Intensive is definitely appropriately named.  It is a weekend to jumpstart the homestudy process that includes interviews, a class on adoptive parenting, lots of information and lots and lots of paperwork.  It's hard to truly compare the experience to other first meetings, but there are aspects of a first date, job interview, and summer crash college course. 



Jim in front of the IAC

      First Date:  We were so nervous!  I don't think either of us got much sleep the night before.  Jim usually doesn't get nervous so the fact that he was nervous made me even more nervous.  I labored over what we should wear- something not too dressy and not too casual.   Checked and double-checked my hair and make-up and tried to eat some breakfast.  That didn't go over too well.  It just added rocks to the butterflies flying around in my stomach.  We arrived really early, so we sat in the car holding each other's clammy hands and took a moment to breathe and pray.  Finally, when we thought we were in the "appropriately early" range, we went in and were taken back to a conference room to wait.  Of course we were the first couple there!  At first the wait was excrutiating, but slowly other couples and singles began to come in (looking just as nervous as we were) and we finally relaxed- a little.



Amy by the pond in the courtyard during one of the breaks

      Crash Course:  My husband used to take something called J-terms when he was in Seminary.  It was a course taught during one of the breaks (January, June, or July).  Basically, the idea was that a whole semester course would be jammed into three weeks.  The Weekend Intensive is the J-term of the adoption process.  At the beginning of the weekend we received a two inch binder filled with information on all sorts of topics:  how to write a birthmother letter, requirements for photos and website design, ideas for networking, guidelines for the homestudy visit, various articles on the adoption process and raising adoptive children, how to pay for your adoption etc.  Some may have felt intimidated by the binder, we actually took comfort from it.  We knew there was no way we would be able to remember everything we learned over the weekend, so having a reference to take home with us was invaluable.  And although our brains felt fried by the end of the two days, it was extremely helpful to have an overview of the entire adoption process so we knew where we were going.



Jim by the same pond

      Job Interview:  Part of our weekend was spent completing the necessary interviews for our homestudy process.  First, Jim and I met with our adoption coordinator, Kerrin to sign our contract and complete our profile.  Then we were interviewed together and separately by our social worker, Devon.  Both women were very warm and friendly, but we still had interview jitters.  We had already done the "hard" work of writing our autobiographies and filling out our questionares.  This definitely helped to prepare us for the interview questions, but the butterflies returned anyways (thankfully this time without the rocks).  We answered all sorts of questions about our childhood, our philosophy toward parenting, our educational and family backgrounds, our marriage and why we wanted to be parents.  Most of the information was already in the application and paperwork we had turned in, so I think part of the interview process was for our benefit- to help us begin thinking about how adoption would change our lives. 



Amy in front of the IAC

      Remembering back to that weekend, I think that over the course of the two days our nervousness subsided while our excitement began to build.  The first thing I did when we got into the car was call my parents, and then my sister and brother, and then Jim's family.  It was the weekend that the adoption process went from an idea to a reality.  We were on a journey (and still are) to becoming parents!  So while we wait for the first meeting with our baby, we look back to the first meeting with our agency where it all began. 



Our celebration dinner at Half Moon Bay