Adoption Thoughts

Are you SO sick of seeing our adoption self-promotions on pretty much every social media outlet and website I'm friends with you on? I'm sorry. I'm SO sick of it myself. I hate it actually. I don't love putting private information about my family out there for anyone and their dog to see. I don't love being that annoying person who keeps posting that we're hoping to adopt and asking people to spread the word. I don't love spending the time on the computer/phone myself putting together profiles, blogs, facebook pages, instagram accounts. But most of all, I really just don't like that we still don't have a baby!

Ugh, I HATE it! That is such an immature way to put it, but that's how I feel today! And often, really. I am genuinely happy for everyone around me that is pretty much constantly announcing that they're pregnant. And all the great adoptive families we know that have been blessed with their own adopted babies lately. This is great. I'm totally at the age that well, you have kids. Like, as many as you can. I hardly go a day looking on social media without seeing someone new expecting, having a baby, adopting, or whatever. And it's always great news, but it also always stings too. There, I said it. It makes me sad. When is it our turn?????? I feel like each day, month, and year that goes by as we wait makes me feel more and more like my expectations for a family have been unrealistic. Why does wanting a family have to be unrealistic?? As childish as this sounds, sometimes all I can think is that it's really just not fair. Yes, I know that life isn't fair. My struggle might be with wanting a big family and that not coming (heck, forget big family. Even medium to smaller size family is ok with me by now), and I know everyone has their own struggles. There are even a ton of people out there struggling with this same exact thing.

Every day I am so thankful for the sweet wonderful family I have. Wishing, praying and hoping for another adoption opportunity just makes me more and more grateful that we have our sweet Ashlyn. Really, the more time that goes by and the more frustrating this wait for this baby is, the more appreciation and gratitude I gain for how truly miraculous her finding her way to our family was. I often find myself thinking, "how did that even happen?!?!" And then I have a reaffirming testimony continue to grow in my heart that she was sent straight to us by Heavenly Father. And I know He's mindful of us. But that doesn't make this much easier!

I think today is difficult because, along with being Jan 1 2015, guess what else that means. We are now officially no longer an adoptive couple through LDS Family Services. At the stroke of midnight last night, their adoptive services ended. We're just flying solo. Not like in 2 years they were able to find a baby for us anyways, but still. It's actually kind of hard to take and I hadn't anticipated that it would be. I think I really thought that something miraculous might come along just in the nick of time. Well it didn't. In preparation for LDSFS "dropping us" (for lack of a better term and also because I admit it's still a tiny sore spot, mostly just due to sadness and lack of patience), we have been doing all we can to work on finding our way on our own. We spent the past 8 months since "the announcement" from LDSFS checking out different national and local adoption agencies, and we've been in contact with several law practices, lawyers, and politicians that deal with adoption and have been checking that avenue out. We have felt like it's not time yet to take the plunge in signing up with one of them. Yet. So in the meantime I have now updated our stupid adoption blog more times than I care to count, since the original posts were written back in the summer of 2012. Yeah that is starting to be a pretty long time ago. I went a step beyond sharing that on facebook and made our own facebook page. I even just made an instagram account for us too, although we will see how much I end up being able to keep that updated. And the biggest thing is that we took the plunge and signed up with ParentProfiles.com, which is the adoptive parent registry for Adoption.com. We had been putting it off because well, partially we really did have hopes that we would be found through LDSFS, and also a huge thing was the $$. It costs a good chunk to be registered on there. Not much compared to listing with a private adoption agency (which is $30K-$40K, no joke), but still a good chunk of our monthly budget that would make things tight. We have a plan to list with them for the next 6 months, and at that point there may be more steps we take at that point. All this discussing and praying and planning and crying and hoping has not been my favorite over the past 8 months, but this is what it has come to at this point.  All these things are pretty much the same self-promoting crap that I hate to write but yet feel like I'm not doing enough. We have always been and still are big believers that faith without works is dead. And we're also both the kind of people that ridiculously throw ourselves into doing all we can for whatever cause we're involved in. Welllll, growing a family, that's definitely our most important cause. One that we have been trying as much as we can to do as much as we can for. Yet are we still not doing enough? I know it's in the Lord's hands. But being people who like to be proactive and step up and work hard to do what needs to be done, it's HARD to wait....and wait...... and wait.

There is definitely the fact that our lives have been turned upside down in the past 8 months. We completely uprooted and pretty much started a brand new life in a place we don't fit in and we're not used to, with a new really demanding job and in a tiny town. Everything's completely different besides our little family. I like to keep telling myself that with all these transitions, it's why we haven't been blessed with a sibling for Ashlyn yet. BUT, even that gets me down because well, if there's a time I'm able to stay at home and not work a lot because we're in a new town, it's now. If I have the time and the desire to have more kids, what is missing? We pray EVERY DAY to be blessed with another baby. We fast for it ALL THE TIME. I know that my family and friends do the same and I appreciate more than words can ever express all the help and support and prayers and fasting from them. It brings me to tears a lot. Through all this, my faith hasn't changed in that I know we'll have another baby. I know we'll adopt again. The confirmations I've had about this were so strong that my faith doesn't waiver. I'm really thankful for that, and truthfully I suspect that I was given such strong confirmations because well, it would need to last me a pretty long time! Either way, I'm thankful for them. And I'm so thankful for all the support we have been given from all of you who read this blog. SO much.

And sorry to have another rant on here. I just have been really down today, and I think it's worth recording so I can look back on this later. (and laugh, hopefully! :) ) Probably because I spent so much time creating that instagram account yesterday, that what else could it do than make adoption be right on my mind a lot? Yet another lame effect of trying to do all I can to help this happen. But if we need to do more, we'll do more. I have some fear of how much more that will be. But thankfully I have the most wonderful husband who is my partner in everything to discuss and pray together and decide which steps are best for us on this path. In the meantime we will continue doing our best in all that we're doing, or trying anyways. We're not ones to sit around and pine away after what we wish would happen. I think we've been living our lives to the fullest that we can while waiting. We'll keep it up. I really do love you guys that read this so much, and appreciate your thoughtfulness towards us. We love you! And Happy New Year. :)