Down payment

Well, it has been about two weeks since I posted, and praise God we have accomplished so much! We have nearly completed our homestudy phase. Apparantly many couples take 2-3 months to complete this and we started just two weeks ago! We are finishing up some online courses and waiting for the last of the paperwork to filter in, but we are nearly done. Next is the dossier phase. This is where we prepare our file to bring to Russia that basically states that the US stands behind us as a couple able to care for a Russian child. We are so thrilled yet still praying for nothing to hinder us in this!

Last Thursday I paid the Agency Fee for the adoption. A heafty sum of money - enough to feel like there is no backing out now! I am so thankful for God's peace that surpasses my understanding! Every morning I awake with this peace. As the day goes on, I do tend to get more apprehensive - money, time, chores, work, even telling this surreal adoption story to someone - I get anxious and start to second guess. But God is so faithful to clear the slate every morning and renew my peace! I know it's the right thing and God's will. But why is God's will so hard sometimes? Even when we know the blessings are so amazing!

We went on a camping trip this weekend in the mountains, and I was lulled asleep and awake by some awesome noises of God's creation - I washed dishes alongside some wild turkeys eating the grass in the meadow. I mountain biked next to grazing cows. I watched hawks circle overhead and awoke to woodpeckers right outside our tent. I even watched a squirrel eat a hole in our trash and escape with a banana peel. I didn't even scare him away - I just watched. It was an amazing weekend of enjoying our Wild God! Huge trees, canyons, and mountains with skies filled with birds of prey, side by side with small lakes and gentle meadows filled with butterflies.

My husband reminded me that we serve a God with wild heart, and that he loves to watch us be bold in His world! It renewes my faith that God loves the fact that we are going to travel half way around the world to a once hostile land to take in an "orphan" that, in Russia, is barely considered to be human. These children will carry the "orphan" label with them their entire life and always be treated as one of the lowest civilized classes. We will be entering enemy territory - as many Russians believe that the only reason someone would want one of their orphans would be to sell it's body parts or use as a slave.

I already love this baby as if I carried it, and I haven't even seen a picture. But it is enough for me to know that God knows the number of hairs on his head and I pray is putting a new song in his heart right now.

Don't worry little one - we are coming for you! But be prepared for a wild life - full of adventure, passion and love!

The scales have tipped...

Well, after much prayer and petition, my heart has settled. God asked us to count the cost, to pursue all avenues and take our findings under great consideration. I am reminded of the Lady Justice - blindfolded holding out the scales. I can only imagine that under the blindfold, in the depths of her soul, she looks to God to place the measures on the scale. God did that very thing for us. He has made his will abundantly clear that we are to choose the route of international adoption!

Jesus himself tells us that praying in His name he will grant us the desires of our heart! Sometimes - like little children, we don't like the gift wrap the gift is delivered in. There are some beautiful packages with delicate bows and ribbons, thick satiny paper and elaborate tags. Almost like Alice in Wonderland where the cookies say "Eat Me" and the bottles say "Drink Me". We have no idea what's inside or what it will do to us, but we are enticed by the package. Satan loves to give us beautiful packages to unwrap. Once we choose one of these packages, the others seem to fade away. The one wrapped in comic strip paper or leftover grocery sacks hold the real treasures, but we can't get passed the wrapping!

This was part of the revelation I had in my decision. God has obviously taken away my ability to conceive or carry a baby to term - for a season. And it has taught me much about humility! But then the Lord presented two gifts - adoption or surrogacy. He said, "Look over the wrapped packages very well. Feel how heavy they are. See how beautiful they look. And then choose." I was enticed by the surrogacy package. A baby that is physically ours! Our flesh and blood. Our genetic makeup. Easy to relate to. "That's your dad!" or "That's your mom!" "She's got my eyes" or "He's got his daddy's smile" - just like we do with our precious child now! But then I picked up the adoption gift. This baby is not me...not Chris! We played no part in this child's life yet. But yet when I held the package for the adoption gift, and held it up to my chest, it fit right inside the void perfectly! How much better is a child that God created and then gives to us! When we have nothing to do with it at all! God is not limited to our gene pool. He could pick anything he desired to bless upon our family!

And the scales tipped...

Now we are full steam ahead! We attended an informative session at an agency recommended by a friend from work who adopted her son from Russia. They were absolutely a top notch company! Full of information! We had really been thinking about Africa or China to adopt, but Russia seems to be a better fit for us and our family. For the past week we have been acquiring and filling out paperwork. Next week is our homestudy interviews and Doctor Appts (and more paperwork!) But none of that bothers me. I have such peace and excitement about this process. I am praying that I don't need to learn any patience! That God knows what child he wants us to have already and that nothing would stand in our path for bringing home that precious one!

The hardest part is deciding what choices to make! My paperwork required us to choose boy or girl. Emily has prayed for a baby sister for about 3 years, but she also wouldn't mind a baby brother. Chris and I had also really wanted another girl. But I had a prophetic dream that an Eagle came down to me with a scroll. I unfurled the scroll, and written on it was the name of our child. I couldn't read the name, but I knew it was a boy name. I was so shocked, even in my dream, and I couldn't get it out of my head. So we changed our paperwork to select boy or girl. If there's one thing I learned it's that I don't want to miss out on one more blessing God has in store for us, so I will let him choose! :) Boy referrals come before girl ones (Currently, baby girls in Russia are in higher demand than boys.)

Please pray for us as we go through the process. I'd love to hear your kind words of encouragement. I'm sure the whole process won't be easy, but I do pray that it will bring much glory to God!

Spokoinoi nochi

Patience is a Virtue...

...virtue is a grace...Grace is a little girl who didn't wash her face. I think of this Shel Silversteen poem every time I think about God's grace. Probably especially since Emily loves to read those poems! But patience is much more than a child's poem. Patience is one of the hardest things for anyone to learn - especially Christians. The saying goes, "Never pray for patience!" As according to scripture:

Romans 5:3 (King James Version)
3And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;

and who wants more tribulations! This road of infertility has lead to a great lesson in patience. I'm an only child. I may not be the stereotypical spoiled brat, but I do have great expectations and being patient isn't at the top of my list. I have had very little patience in my life. I want something done immediately. I'm top of the heap! I'm the only one. I had a mom and dad that sacrificed a lot to make me happy. And I had no model for waiting on the Lord and praying. I was told things like, "YOU can do it," "YOU can make it happen," and "YOU are in charge of your destiny!" So I did work hard. I did well in school and my career. And sometimes I would achieve greatness - and sometimes I didn't. And was I quick to complain! "Bill is making more than me - yet I am more qualified!" "I didn't get promoted! I demand to know what it takes to reach the next level. I will do it!" and "I didn't get as big a raise as Heather! What is the problem? Where do I need to improve." A vicious cycle of comparing myself to ambiguous standards and demanding more. More responsibility. More work. More time. More travel. Whatever it takes to be recognized as elite. And by God it was all about me!

Well, isn't the Lord cute. He put me in situation after situation like that. In school, there was always one person better than me! Dating - boy did I kiss a lot of frogs trying to find my prince. On the job, I would work hard, but I was slow to promote and slow to advance. Of course I had years where I did very well, but the reward was soured by the wait! All goals were achieved, but I always let the rough road of the journey spoil the achievement.

I had always planned to be a PhD. I wasn't sure in what, but I was sure I wanted to teach college. So I pursue my bachelors and go immediately into grad school. Now that seems noble, but I actually was so frightened to enter the workforce full-time that what may seem ambitious to some was actually my way of staying safe - attending school was safe for me! Well, I finished my Master's degree and decided that maybe I couldn't take several more Indiana winters. I decided to throw in the towel and face the dreaded "career" part of my life. I got a job and started working as an engineer. But for years, when recanting my life story, I would say, "I went to grad school, quit and came to work." I realized years later, I never even mentioned that I did receive my Masters of Engineering! I never claimed the prize I did obtain because I fell short of my goal of PhD!

I do it all! I want to be in control of my home, bills, laundry, my family's needs, meals, arrangements, activities, vacations, weekend plans, etc. I tend to take on so much that I have a friend who calls me "The Amazing Andrea" and promises that one day she'll make me a cape!

And then there was my fertility. I assumed like anything else I would be able to plan it out, and achieve the goal! I got married and within 6 months we began to work on being pregnant. Well, that was a process that took 9 months. Much longer than I expected. When Emily was born healthy (although I didn't have the best pregnancy) I assumed that having number 2 would take a while, but not too long. Well, here we are. Emily is almost 6, and we are not there. I should have bought stock in EPT with as many pregnancy tests and ovulation predictor kits as I have bought. I would read pregnancy and conception websites incessantly during the TWW (two week wait.) I would mark temperatures every day, worrying over each .01 degree! And all it did was add stress to my life - affecting my husband, my work, and the child I do have!

God is so good. He has shown me now that the girl who peeked at every Christmas present could now wait days after the holiday to find out what's in the box. He has taught me that all blessings come from Him and how amazing they are! He has made me able to see the greatness in my achievements because they are with his help, and he is showing me how every blessing can bring Him glory!

Romans 5:4 and 5 goes on to say...

4And patience, experience; and experience, hope:
5And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

The hope is the goal. Patience is the tool. If we have patience, we have hope! Patience in other more modern translations is worded as "perseverance!" To persevere means to overcome adversity! Funny how hope plays into that as well! If we have patience we can endure the trail, persevere with hope and enjoy the success and the fruit as a gift from the Lord!

I do pray still for that second baby. In whatever shape or form. From my womb, my genes or someone else's, I know that God will help me to remain patient, and persevere! And best of all, enjoy the blessing as it will bring me joy and bring glory to God!

Baby Steps toward Surrogacy

Last night was a big step forward. I have a friend, Andrea (same name as me ;)) who had tongue and cheek offered to be a surrogate for us! I later asked her how serious she was about it, and after talking with her man, she told me 100%. YAHOO! The only problem is, we know nothing about the process! I had done a little research and found out the info she has to find out about insurance, and how her significant other needs to agree to abstinence during certain periods of time (this is where he wavered ;) but still agreed).

Then we talked about heavier subjects - what if multiple fetuses take? What if they split? Would we down-select them? (The parts that are so hard to think about, nonetheless discuss) We appear to be on the same page there too! We talked about how our families need to spend more time together. We talked about how our girls (she has two girls, we have one) would feel about her carrying a baby and us taking it home! We talked about what would happen to the unborn baby if Chris and I passed away (or at least that we have to figure it out), which got them thinking about their own life and families. There's so many things to consider! So many things to do!

Lots of time in prayer are getting us through this time! God always seems to bless my steps when I step out in prayer and action. Having a goal is important, but remembering it's His ultimate plan and we have no idea what will happen helps thwart heartache and disappointment along the way.

The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler

Just finally watched this Hallmark made-for-tv movie about Irena Sendler that aired last Sunday. She helped provide aid and moved more than 2500 children from the Polish Ghetto during WWII. At the end they showed a clip of her in 2005 (she died just last year at 98 years old!) and she was talking about Mother's day. She was asking for everyone to remember the Jewish mothers that had the bravery and courage to let their children go. Any mother would tell you that the decision to let your child go - to live in a world foreign to them, to likely be converted to Christianity and lose their Jewish background, to forget their families and risk never seeing them again - is not a decision most mother's could make. It makes my heart ache to think of having to send my child to the unknown, forcing her to forsake her identity for a new one, never speak her native language again, yet asking her to remember it all so that she can one day pray and hope to be reunited with family or provide help to others. I don't know if I could be so strong. I pray that I could.

In her interview she also asked for everyone to remember the brave Polish families that took in the Jewish children, risking their own lives every hour of the day from being discovered. And then again when the war ended and efforts were made to reunite these children with their Jewish families, the pain and anguish they must have felt to give up those children they loved for so many years.

We remember the past, yet I feel it is important to know that this is not a savage act that humanity will never repeat. It is happening today. China's "one child" policy has created an outrageous situation where babies are being aborted after the ultrasound can determine the gender (they prefer males for many reasons) and selling their children on the black market to avoid exorbanent fees. Also, kidnapping is on the rise as well. There are a shortage of women to marry, so some families are seeking females to raise to be wives to their sons.

Many other parents in Asian nations that see no hope for their children and they fall into traps of selling their children on the black market, thinking they will have a better life. The reality is many of these children are being sold into the sex trade and are forced to commit horrifying acts at a very young age.

In the Sudan of Africa, the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army) is a militant rebel group trying to forcibly overthrow many governments in Africa. They rape and pilliage villages, and they steal and enslave the children to train them as guerilla fighters - they even send many back to their villages to kill their own parents! Many villages cannot rest peacefully at night for the threat the LRA poses. Many families send their children to walk, alone, over 5 miles to a city where they can more safely sleep and the children must walk back in the morning. Adults cannot go, as they must stay to protect their home.

I am a mom, and I cannot even imagine the heartache these mothers must endure every day! I do know that the suffering I feel from being unable to have another child is nothing compared to what these mothers of past and present are doing for their own children. There are desparate parents in the world that don't know what to do. They don't know who to trust. I know the heartache I feel is why the Lord has given our family the desire to look into international adoption. I don't know if I would be brave enough to do what Irena did, but I pray that God would use our family to make a difference.

International adoption may not be your calling, but there are practical things you can do. Samaritans Purse and other organizations have programs to which you can provide financial assistance, to help prevent human trafficing and rescue and rehabilitation of children in the sex trade. If you know a missionary or missionary organization, support them. Make sure you do your due dilligence and throroughly check out the organization you wish to support (we are called to be good stewards of what the Lord has provided). And pray that your gift would bless a child and their family.

Importance of community

I dedicate this post to my Friday Ladies! Love you girls, XOXO!

(Eccl 4:9-12) Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up the other; but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help. Again, if two lie together, they keep warm; but how can one keep warm alone? And though one might prevail against another, two will withstand one. A threefold cord is not quickly broken.

I am considered by most to be pretty outgoing. I'm a say-what's-on-my-mind kind of person. (Yet still working on that whole running my thoughts through the filter of the Holy Spirit before they come flying out of my mouth thing!) But since I work and live in the world, I still had a lot of friends of the world, and didn't have a large Christian community to which to turn in the troubled times. I did a few women's bible studies, but I wasn't developing strong friendships. Of course, since I am the extrovert, my husband is the introvert, and he would practically run me out of church to the car to be the first out of the parking lot and avoid what he called the "F-word" - FELLOWSHIPPING!

We started to recognize that we did need a community of believers in our lives - to balance the time we spend in the world in our day to day lives. My husband and I made a concious decision to get involved with a small group at our church focused on marriage. We started meeting people, young and old, who could share their experiences and minister to the needs of our marriage. Out of that group, a friend and I started a women's group. This is a real ecclectic group of ladies where we can really get real together. We have experienced marriages thrive and marriages end. We have seen babies be born to ladies in the group and babies be taken from the womb. We have watched careers thrive and careers end in lay-offs. We have seen great health and we have seen extreme physical conditions and pain. We have met each other's moms and dads and had to deal with the problems of aging parents - physical ailments and mental ailments. We have survived natural disasters and are working together to get emergency kits in everyone's homes and cars. Our studies tend to go very slowly...but that's because there is a lot of bearing and sharing happening!

One time when I found out I was pregnant, I sent all the ladies a picture of my postitive home pregnancy test! My friend Sharyn said, "I can't belive I'm looking at your pee on my computer screen!" But we rejoiced together. I knew I was blessed to have a great group of ladies praying with me and for me. But it sure came to it's fullness when I lost that baby. I would email out updates - First happy news - "Ultrasound appointment today! Pray for great news!" to bad news "The technician and the Dr. can't find a heartbeat. Pray for a miracle." to no news. No news because I was too emotionally wrecked to write. Too emotionally wrecked to pray! All I could do was cry for days. They emailed encouragement. They sent cards. Their family members whom some I never met sent cards! They brought food. And they prayed and interceeded on my behalf when I couldn't!

You will still go through the valleys, but the difference is when you have a strong relationship with the Lord, and a supportive community, your stay is much shorter. Within a weeks time, I could praise God again. I thank God for those ladies, because their prayers were answered to bring me through it!

Make sure you aren't alone in your journey. Ecclesiastes talks about two being better than one and gives many practial expamples, but then it ends with the "three-fold cord". Wait, I thought two was better than one...how is that three? Jesus said in Matthew 18:20 For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them. When you have a friend who's a believer, Jesus is the third-fold in the cord. And there lies the power to overcome any trial or adversity!

Watch out for those dogs

Paul writes, "Watch out for those dogs, those who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh. For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Sprirt of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh..." Paul is writing to the Philippians here (Phil 3:2-3) about letting legalists influence us. Jews commonly referred to Gentiles as "dogs". But here Paul is referring to those who live by rules for rules sake - not for the relationship in the Lord.

I never considered any other way to have a baby other than the "right" way. Intercourse with my husband. Until just recently I've been known to say things like, "At least I have one perfect child. If that's all I ever have, that's okay with me." I would have never considered adoption because for one, I wanted my "own" child, and two, I have seen some adoptions go awry, and I know I couldn't deal with that (or didn't want to deal with it). I never would have considered surrogacy, because I would not want to "play God" with all the embryo decisions.

Children are a blessing and a gift from the Lord. That is for sure. But God also puts desires in your heart, and glimpses of what the blessings he has in store for you. I prayed for God to take the desire to have another baby away from me. And there are days I am ambivelent. (I thank the enemy for those days) But there are days when the desire is so strong, I could weap!

What I have learned since I became a Christian is that every blessing has at least two purposes. Every blessing has the purpose to, well bless you. But there is something we usually need to do, accept, challenge or lose along the way. And that is because every blessing also has the purpose to make us more like Christ. Usually, because we are human, we learn more in the painful times than we do in the blessed times. If everything were handed to us, how could God see our growth? How could we see our growth? It has been such a huge blessing to me alone to see how far I have come and changed since I became a believer.

All this to say that your infertility is an issue between you, your spouse and God. No one else. When well-meaning people in your life try to tell you all the reasons why you shouldn't seek a test or treatment to track your reasons for infertility/miscarriage or to become pregnant, you need to remember that it is not up to them. You need to do what you and your spouse together feel is right in the eyes of God in your situation. And God is so good! I think that when I was saying those things, the timing wasn't right for me. But now God is saying, "Pray, seek information and come back to Me so we can chat."

When I suffered my miscarriage at 10 weeks I recieved some great advice from a prayer-warrior friend of mine. She said, "You must have a lot of grace with people, especially Christians. They are going to say some things to you that will sound really stupid. But they don't mean to hurt you. Have a lot of grace with them." This is my advice to you - Seek the Lord continually in your situation, and have a lot of grace with those well meaning "dogs" in your life.