Fear

Jesus,

 

We decided to take time this morning to pray and I need to thank you for revealing the deepest parts of my heart to me. I know it is not a gift that you give to everyone and sometimes I wish you wouldn't give it to me; but today...Thank You.

 

I have been ignoring you...ignoring you...now. After all of the good, after all that you have done, after all of the joy. You have been ignored and it hasn't been on accident. Something has been building and I have been wondering what was going on inside; in the deepest corners of my heart. Things went so fast...we were so ready and then all of a sudden we had to be ready because your gift was here. We loved and cherished our time with him and we still do but I am walking through the motions and not reveling in all you have given and today you told me why.

 

I am afraid, I am terrified and I am holding on to all the control I can muster up. Those feelings are still there, somewhere deep inside...you messed up last time. You screwed it up for us and I can't possibly trust you with this one. I can't let you help me and give me the strength I need, I can't be fully joyful because what if you see and you screw it up again. As if I have any say in what you decide. Jesus...I still can't trust you.

 

Today, I realized that we have been talking about dedicating Isaiah. I have just walked through the normal mommy motions when it comes to this, of course he will be dedicated. But, today I remembered that post about a year ago...the one where dedicating was so scary in my mind. I remembered that it still is. I am very afraid and that's what I've been doing since November 19th...I am too afraid to trust that you really gave this gift and that you aren't going to take it away. I am afraid that the pain and the turmoil and the ache will start all over again. I am too afraid to be vulnerable to you and to Isaiah and to anyone who wants to bless us. I am too afraid.

 

Jesus, please change my heart. I need your continued healing...here I thought I was all better. ;) I need you to open up my heart...come in and fill me with your love and your joy and your strength and your healing. I need you to soften me, to make me vulnerable again, I need to trust that you truly do all things well. All things. Jesus, bring true joy that is not stifled by fear...true love that is not stifled by fear...true peace that is not stifled by fear. I love you and thank you for your gifts; gifts wrapped in perfect little boy wonderfulness and gifts that reveal what is at the core of my being. I feel much better... :)

 

Elle and Isaiah's mommy

Time...

Let me begin by apologizing...I have had ideas and thoughts and inclinations and aches to post and well, the time escapes me. I am trying to do way too many things and I have not made time for the thing I love very much and the outlet that God has given me. So, in light of that, get ready...cuz the thoughts are overflowing this evening and they may spill out in a very unorderly fashion.

 

It is almost Christmas...the jolliest time of year. I can't help but remember last Christmas; so very different from this Christmas. I, if you can imagine it, had been having some serious self-pity. Self-pity in the midst of all of the A M A Z I N G N E S S around me. Sometimes, most times, I despise the human side of me. I was self-pitying, as we affectionately call it, because we may not be home for Christmas. We are here, in Florida, at Christmas time. Have you ever been in Florida at Christmas time? It is, quite honestly, the most depressing place to be at Christmas time! :) It is 80 and the sun is shining and the breeze is blowing and it is not cold. There is no snow, there is no rain, there are no clouds, there are no gloves, there are no coats, there are no boots, no scarves and no hats. Santa and Frosty decorate yards with their sunglasses and Hawaiian shirts on...seriously, I am not lying.

 

So, one day as I was almost in tears over the fact that we may spend our first Christmas as a family of three away from the rest of our family, God decided to speak. I am pretty sure I was pumping ( breast pumping, that is, because I am trying to induce lactation which is the most non-fun process ever but fun at the same time because it's all for a sweet baby boy that you ALL should totally get to know because he is AWESOME). TMI I am sure...God speaks at weird times what can I say.

 

I thought about that last Christmas...the one that Elle should have attended. The one that was supposed to have red dresses and red bows and happy baby smiles and pretty baby earrings and little girl sweetness. I thought about the sadness that loomed over that day and how we smiled at the joy Jesus had given, but the darkness still tried to permeate. I remembered the ache and the tears that came when we got a chest with her name on it, a scrapbook of her life and when Grandma read the story that she picked out just for her. I remembered the pain, just for a moment.

 

Then, Jesus spoke.

 

Remember, Nicki, remember when all you had was 12 hours with her? Remember when you smelled her and snuggled her and stared at her and spoke to her and held her close? Remember when you knew you had to do all those things because soon your time would be up? Remember that time? I have given you this time because that time was cut so short. I have given you 4 weeks and counting with a precious gift. Four weeks to smell him, to snuggle him, to stare at him, to speak to him, to hold him close. I have given you the precious gift of time and I need you to realize it and appreciate it.

 

God is so...I have no words for you tonight. Well, apparently, I do but in regards to how incredible he is and how magnificent he is and how perfect his timing and planning and purposes are...I have none. I love him so and I cannot tell you how much this time has meant to Wesley and I. The timing of God's plan has been so perfect. We have been allowed by each of our employers to travel to Florida and to stay here as long as needed. We have no stress, no worry and so much support. We have been given a gift by our Lord and by our family and our friends. Thank you to each and every one of you for all you have given. We are in awe of you and all you have done and are doing, our words will NEVER be enough.

 

My sweet Jesus, thank you for time. Thank you for a precious baby boy that has a wildly beating heart, big beautiful eyes, pouty pink lips, a tiny nose and teeny ears. Thank you that we get to spend our days snuggling him. Thank you that Christmas this year will be full of J O Y even if it's celebrated away from the rest of our family. Thank you for keeping our Isaiah safe and warm and protected while we are away from him. Thank you for the life and dreams and plans you have for him. Thank you Jesus for that sweet baby girl that still teaches me a lesson or two on a daily basis. Give her some sweet kisses from Daddy, Isaiah and I...we love you and Merry Christmas Ellersley Grace...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elle and Isaiah's Mommy

Isaiah Samuel

Ecclesiastes 3:11 Yet God has made everything beautiful for it's own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end.

 

Our Isaiah,

 

We could not see the whole scope of what God wanted to do. We were stuck on what we thought was best for our hearts; so much so that we could not even see you right in front of us. That day that you came into the picture was a hard day for Mommy and Daddy. Only seconds before you were mentioned our hearts were broken all over again. Another baby girl was ripped from us, no more bows and no more headbands. No more pink walls and no more tutus. We were devastated and we were angry and bitter, yet again. We were burnt and we weren't sure we wanted to even put our hand back toward the stove for another shot. We said no to you and we moved on. Isn't it amazing how God works...He always makes sure He gets His way and we are ever so grateful. I type this with tears today because I am so grateful that He gave us another shot to love you. He opened the door and gave us one more shot to say yes to loving our teeny, tiny chili pepper.

 

We can hardly put into words what you mean to us. You are the answer to a long awaited desire. You are the answer to years of prayers and you are the soothing ointment to a lot of scars. Our hearts were pretty broken when your sister left, she brought a lot of joy but she left a lot of pain. Since her death our hearts have been soothed by Jesus more and more each day. He has held us and given us joy through all of the painful moments. He has given more than we ever thought was possible after the death of a child; peace that is not comprehendable this side of heaven, joy and laughter overflowing every day, strength to overcome the sadness and patience to wait for his perfect timing. Then, He brought us you. I am trying to think of words to say...I am coming up empty. I am in awe, He has made me speechless.

 

You are perfect. You are our little chili pepper. You are joy. You are so cute. You are so warm. You are so alive. You are so sweet. You are hilarious. You love to scare mommy. You have the best smiles. You make the most amazing silly faces. You poop a lot. You spit up a lot. You love to snuggle. You are our tiny enchilada. You are so teeny. You love story time. You hate having your blood pressure taken. You have stolen our hearts. You are ours...

 

You are now two weeks old and we still cannot believe that you belong to us and that they will let us take you out of the NICU some day soon. I am pretty sure that day we will both be wondering when the security guards will come and stop us because this cannot really be real life. We spend most of every day with you. We let you sleep in your little incubator and sometimes we get to hold you. Those moments are like a far away dream...the world turns fuzzy and takes me back to that day with your sister; those moments that are also like a dream. I look down at your little tomato head and I remember hers. Her tiny head and her sweet smell. Your smell is fabulous in a different way, you are a boy and she is a girl...girls are just sweeter smelling, daddy will teach you all about that. I find myself watching you and making sure you are breathing. I hate that I do that and so does daddy but it is what it is. Daddy just keeps saying that he's so grateful that your heart is beating. He and I both love feeling it beating against our chest, one of the best feelings ever.

 

We are so grateful for you; Isaiah Samuel. You and all of your dinos, and blue hats, and football sleepers and blue blankeys. We never knew we loved blue so much...our hearts leap at the sight of it now. All this time we thought Jesus was growing love for a sweet baby girl and little did we know he had a great, big plan. He had love for us to take for a tiny, sweet, 3lb 10oz little guy. Our hearts have been growing and growing since we got the call to come get you...meeting you was the most surreal experience in our entire life. We couldn't stop smiling and I am sure you thought we were crazy! I am sure you remember but as soon as you saw us you raised both your arms up above your head, like you were doing 'SOOOOO BIG' just for us. You were waiting for us and oh we were waiting for you...what a moment that was for Daddy and I.

 

We love you our little chili pepper and we cannot wait to do all the things with you that we have been longing to do for many, many years. Jesus has made everything beautiful in his time and we could not be more ecstatic about it...

 

 

 

 

 

 

We love you to the moon and back sweet boy,

Mommy and Daddy

The Mysteries of My God

Life does not always go the way we plan...it's a running theme in this blog and if you've been here long enough you are probably tired of hearing it. Well...hear it again my friends, hear it again loud and clear. Most of the time I say it with a bit of sarcasm and bitterness in my tone but this morning at 6:26 am I say it with the utmost of joy and gratitude. Life does not always go the way we plan...

It all started on Thursday, November 1st. Our agency called to say that the birth mother who chose our family to adopt her baby girl had changed her mind. She wanted another family, ours was not enough. We were in the middle of packing our bags; we were in the middle of purple tubs full of pink clothes and pink towels and pink wash cloths and pink blankets and pink headbands and pink bows and pink tutus. We were ready for her, our family was ready, our friends were ready.

We were devastated but we took the blow and tried to remain standing. That same night our agency presented another birth mom who didn't know the gender of the baby she would be having in early January. They presented the details and asked if we would like to allow God to give us a chance at that baby. They said that this baby's mother didn't want to choose a family and the situation was basically ours if we wanted him or her. I hung up the phone and I tried not to cry but of course, the tears came. The anger and bitterness and sarcasm and questions over and over again. The agency sent the birth mother's info and I erased the email as soon as it popped up in our inbox. We didn't want gender unknown, we wanted a girl. Wesley came home from work that night and I was already asleep, he cried and prayed on his own.

The next morning we talked and we both decided that we wanted to be gender specific in our adoption and we called our agency and changed our stance to girl situations only. We got one call...for a baby girl that was born at 28 weeks but I knew my emotions would not be able to handle the road that little one would face. Twenty-eight weeks was before our Elle...the dangers of that were too much for my fried heart to handle. My poor Prince, he deals with a lot of fried emotions himself and mine to boot. So, we waited and waited. It felt like years but truly it was about a week. :) Patience...not a strong suit, remember?

We walked around our home and still prepared our room for a sweet little girl that we just knew would be coming soon. We bought pink curtains and we bought a nice changing table and we bought a vase with pretty flowers in it that light up. We girlied up the room pretty good.

Somewhere around the 15th or so of November, in the midst of all the girly stuff, we decided that being girl specific was just selfish. What if God really wanted to bless us with a sweet baby boy and we were too stuck in our girl ways to realize it? What if we missed out on a blessing because we thought we knew what was best? What if we tried to make our plan fit into God's plan instead of making His fit into ours? We called immediately and changed our plan...still not wanting to go full steam but we decided on girl or gender unknown.

My mom, being my mom, remembered the gender unknown baby we were offered that awful Thursday night and so we asked. "Oh, that baby was matched with a family yesterday, I am so sorry!" our agency said. But she had another gender unknown baby...one in Utah. So, we decided to present to the birth mother of that baby and our profile was sent to her. It was sent on Friday, November 16th, Wesley's 27th birthday. It was sent to the agency and then they would be mailing it out to her, she was due to receive it on Tuesday or Wednesday the following week. Follow...God's plan gets messy...

Friday night we went out to eat with Wesley's parents and my parents for his 27th birthday. Yay for birthdays! We talked and laughed and the discussion came to adoption. Wesley's dad talked and talked a lot about God's plan and how it can be a mystery and we never know how He will work. He brought up a family that he had encountered who knew a girl in our area who was thinking about adoption. "But, she is having a boy..." he said. We laughed and said that it didn't matter to us what the baby was, we thought our hearts were set on a girl but we had no idea the plan that God had. We walked away from that dinner and we decided to pursue this teenage young lady with a sweet baby boy.

Saturday came and so did a flood of emotions. Wesley was a mess, I was grouchy as ever and it was just not pretty in our home. We tried to relax our minds and not think about either situation we were being presented with but it is nearly impossible to do that. Sunday came and we had Thanksgiving dinner at our church. Praise God for something to get our minds off of adoption. During the dinner a tiny, sweet, blond teenage girl came over to us and said she had something to tell us. She was in from out of state, visiting with her family. She said "Hi, I am Elizabeth and I'm from West Virginia. I heard in church this morning that you guys are adopting and you need wisdom and strength and patience for the journey. I wanted to tell you about a couple in our church who had trouble getting pregnant and they decided to adopt. They went through the whole process and the waiting and eventually they were matched. They went to get their baby and after having him for 2 days the birth mother changed her mind and they had to give him back to her. It was absolutely awful but a month later they were called again and now their son is 2 months old and he's perfect and adorable and everything is so great. Please hold on, don't give up! It will happen, God has a great plan for you both." Seriously??? Where do these people come from, right? God is so C-A-R-A-Z-Y!!!

So...we straightened up a bit and got our bearings back and moved on with life. Monday came and with it came a call to a lawyer about private adoption. This situation was so far from happening but just in case God wanted to get crazy we had to be ready. So, just to make sure you are on board...we are anticipating our profile book being shown to a birth mama in Utah and we are calling a lawyer about a private adoption of a baby boy, oh that is due November 23rd... :) I forgot that part. Emotions on OVERDRIVE! So, the second I get off the phone with the lawyer in Ohio I get a call from our agency.

I said hello and I just heard laughing..."Ok, so, I have another situation for you guys..." My heart skipped a beat, and my breath caught in my throat. My blood pressure also probably rose to epic proportions, I do not handle stress well. I laughed and said, "oooook, I just got off the phone with the lawyer about this private adoption but what's up?"

The world went into slow motion as she told me about a baby boy that was born Sunday morning at 1:07am. He was 3lbs and 10oz and 16.5 inches long. He has a head full of brown hair and his birth mother was 31 weeks and 5 days when she delivered him. My head is spinning... Oh and remember the situation we offered you the night we called to say you lost that other situation? Yeah, that's this one...the family he was matched with backed out...they don't want him anymore and he can be yours if you say yes.

My skin, instantly, was red and blotchy...does your skin do that? because mine totally does when I am stressed to the maximum...

I got off the phone and called Wesley..."Soooo, what do you think?" I asked.

"I think yes...I think we should say yes..."

"I think so too..."

:)

I called her back and told her yes and then I just laughed and laughed and wrote down as much information as I could about our little guy and his birth parents.

 

Elle and Isaiah's Mommy

Hold My Heart

Well, tonight was heart-wrenching.

 

One reason and one reason only.

 

She changed her mind.

 

The daughter that we thought we had, we no longer have.

 

Jesus...hold our heart...again...

 

 

 

 

 

One of my lovelies sent this song to me tonight...when I say my lovelies I mean one of you, our readers. It is perfect for tonight and for the moment that we are standing in right now. I cannot believe that we are standing here but none-the-less, we are and I suppose I should not be shocked. Pain, agony and destroyed dreams should be something I am used to by now, right? You must excuse my sarcasm (pride and anger) tonight, it is going to be flowing quite freely. If you are lucky, you will be saved from a cuss word or two also...I make no promises.

 

Guys...for real? Can I just get a big 'FOR REAL' please? This is just unreal... I am annoyed with God, He is annoying. I love Him, I love His plan, I KNOW it is perfect and I KNOW there is a gorgeous, sweet, beautiful baby somewhere in this world that belongs to us but HE IS STINKIN' IRRITATING! Why does He seem to feel that we can handle so much? Our emotions are just fried, completely fried.

 

I just thought of a friend, an almost family friend. She is going through one of the most torturous, heart breaking aches this life has to offer. Adultery. I bet she thinks God is pretty darn annoying right now. I bet she wonders why. I bet she cries at night because all of her dreams have been shattered. I bet her body aches for the warmth of another. I bet she wants to yell and scream all sorts of cuss words at the walls around her.

 

Thank you Jesus for putting my small, minute problems in perspective...Thank you for the month of November and all that it means regarding thankfulness. Thank you for a loving husband who, through adultery, came to know you and love you and respect me. Thank you for dreams, even ones that are sometimes shattered. Be with us tonight and be with this friend. Give her peace, Jesus. Lots and Lots of peace...Thank you Lord for always holding our hearts...

 

Elle's Mommy