Boring

Yep, it's been rather boring for the last few weeks. Nothing new to report, just waiting....waiting....waiting. UGH!

We did finally get some snow in MN last weekend, around our neighborhood it was about 10 inches or so. It is nice to look outside and see white instead of depressing brown! Roxie was thrilled, she just loves playing in the snow. She was bounding around the front yard with the snow almost head deep and tail wagging non stop she was so excited. When I was shoveling the front walk she would try to catch the snow in her mouth as I heaved it into the yard, too cute!

We are suppose to get a few more inches of snow today/tonight, I hope they are right. We are booked to go up north to a resort in a couple weekends and hopefully go cross country skiing as long as there is snow. So I say "let is snow"!

I should have posted this yesterday, Happy Birthday Jill!!!

Another Birthday & Happy Valentine's Day!!!

I didn't forget but I forgot to posted it here, yesterday was my Dad's birthday. Happy Birthday Dad (Don)!!!! My parents are down in Florida, they go every year, it is makes me kind of sad that I don't get to celebrate his birthday in person :( Especially this year, it is a milestone birthday, however I'm not going to say what year. Besides it how you feel inside and how you act that is the true age test, right dad?! And he passes that test with flying colors!

Happy Valentine's day to everyone! Last year on this day I was on bedrest after our embryo transfer from our IVF attempt. I foolishly told Dan that we weren't going to do anything, meaning we wouldn't be able to go out, but he took it that we weren't going to do ANYTHING :( so not even a card. Believe me, he learned his lesson and I mine. Never will I say we aren't doing anything without adding specific details. He already sent me an e-card this morning, it gave me warm fuzzies and a smile to my face!!!

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy Birthday dear Dan, happy birthday to you!

Well, not so much. Unfortunately I have a bit of the flu bug, yuck :( Woke up in the middle of night and was sick. We were suppose to go out to dinner to his favorite place tonight, Famous Dave's, which he usually only gets once a year cuz I'm not a big fan, now he stuck with leftovers or whatever he can find. Poor guy. However I did make him a yummy birthday cake yesterday, which he says is the best chocolate cake he has ever had (yes, he knows how to get me to bake for him again. Smart man.)

I can't wait to give him his gifts. Got him the basics; shirt, book and $$$ for a tech toy. I also wanted to find a baby shirt, sleeper, or whatever that had "I love Daddy" on it. Wasn't able to find anything generic in color or style so I ended up getting a Bib and burp cloth in blue tones that has "I love my Daddy". It's the thought that counts, right?! Sure hope we get to use it soon :)

No updates on the adoption front.

It was -18 Fahrenheit this morning. And yes, that is a minus. Burrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, why are we living in MN???

Little Miss do it herself

We picked up the crib and dresser yesterday. I couldn't wait to get the crib put together, so I attempted it myself this afternoon. Dan was taking a nap, he wasn't feeling good today, coming down with a cold. I was almost done by the time he woke up, he came into the room and said "things must be going well, I didn't hear any swearing". Hahaha....well he learned his lesson. I was obviously holding it in until he woke up. I was so tired and my fingers hurt from that stupid little allen wrench it came with. I had one piece left to go, I threw down the wrench and told him he could finish it. Of course he is such a sweetie and did it without giving me grief. We still haven't decided on the layout, need to work with that. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks we can get it painted and put together.

We received an email from N on Friday. She said that she would like to keep in contact with us, she still is unsure what to do but the final decision is up to her (not the birth father or her family). She had a doctors appt this week and everything looked good and found out it is a girl. She said she could email the ultrasounds pictures to us if we would like. UGH!!!! This is so hard, much harder then infertility treatments. How do I not get emotionally attached to this situation????

OT (off topic) - Just wanted to wish my cousin good luck tomorrow in the Miss America pageant! Go Miss Nebraska!!! (ssshhhhh don't tell Miss MN I'm not rooting for her) Good luck Molly!

Time to move on

We heard from N a couple days ago apologizing about Sunday. She mentioned that the birth father has changed his mind and wants her to keep the baby. She wasn't sure why he is changing his mind and she hadn't had time yet to talk to him more about it. I also got the feeling that she might not be ready to commit to an adoption plan.

We emailed her back and told her that we would give her space to let her work through discussions with the birth father and her family. And if she wanted to continue to chat with us she could.

So that is where we are at. Right now my gut is saying this is not the one, so emotionally I need to move on. We are going to start some more in depth outreach.

I had my annual appt today with my OB/GYN doc and gave her some of our cards, she said she would mention it to the other physicians in the office. Yay! What better place to do outreach then OB/GYN clinics! So we will probably take on the task of sending out letters around the twin cities to any OB/GYN clinics we can find an address for. That will definitely be an undertaking, but hopefully worth it.

On a happier note, we ordered crib bedding last week and it came the other day. It is so cute, cheery and neutral. Can't wait for the crib to get here so we can get the room painted and set up. Here are some pics of the bedding

Patience

Well I was hoping to have some good news to share, however we were not able to connect with "N" yesterday. We left her a voicemail and then tried again an hour later, someone answered and said she had to work. So we emailed her and gave her our 800# and told her to call us when she was available or send us a note back with another time to call her.

I have to say with all the infertility treatments we went through one of the good things that came from that was learning to be patient. Believe me, if you are not a patient person before infertility treatments/tests you are force to learn this virtue and fast. So we sit and wait. If it is meant to be it will be.

Patience is quiet hope and trust that things will turn out right. You wait without complaining. You are tolerant and accepting of difficulties and mistakes. You picture the end in the beginning and persevere to meet your goals. Patience is a commitment to the future.

Update

We heard back from "N" this week and she is open to a phone conversation. We thought we had better touch base with our social worker about the situation and get her feedback and input before we spoke with "N" on the phone.

Our social worker pointed out some things we hadn't thought about yet (I guess we were to excited to remember every thing we learned in our classes, oops).

She suggested that we either get in touch with an adoption lawyer before we meet face to face with "N" or recommended that we have her contact the agency. We had mentioned to "N" a couple times about the agency but it didn't appear she was ready for that step. However after we explained to "N" that there is some additional legal action that she would need to do and it would be easier for her if she was working with an agency she said she would think about it and that we could discuss it during our phone conversation.

We have a tentative phone call scheduled with her on Sunday afternoon, yay! It will be nice to hear her voice, to add another dimension to her besides the email. I hope we can sway her to contact the agency, not just for easy of the process but I truly want her to get the support she needs during this time of her life and so she has all the help she needs in this decision process, even if her decision is to parent this child.

Keep your fingers crossed that we will be able to connect with her on Sunday.

On a side note, my friend Kerri gave birth to their second child on Thursday, a baby girl. Congrats Kerri and Ryan! Welcome to this world Chloe!

Dreams do come true!

I'm so excited for a friend I have met through an online forum. She and her husband are going to the hospital today to take home their precious baby girl that they are adopting. I've been following her process from before they were picked to now. It's been a tense couple of days for her from the time the birth mom gave birth on Thursday to today, the anxiety on whether the birth mom would change her mind or not seemed almost unbearable, but she has made it through. They went to see the baby yesterday and made plans to take the baby home today. It is just so exciting to see others go through this and to see that dreams do come true.

Please God, let our dream come true as well!

I'm such a bad blogger!

Okay, so I'm not the best blogger but I promise for the new year I will post more. Its just that things have been super busy at work and with the holidays it was kind of crazy. And then of course I got a really bad cold, still trying to get rid of it.

Here we are, first day of 2007! I just know that this year is going to be memorable. Hopefully our child will find us and the business venture that Dan is involved in will soar!

Well onto the news that this blog was created for. We were contacted by a potential birth mom a couple weeks ago. She found our website and emailed us. We have sent a couple of emails back and forth. We want to respect her privacy so I'm not going to share all the details but will tell you she lives in MN and is due in June. Our next steps I think will be to talk with "N" on the phone and see how that goes. I'm not going to get my hopes up yet but it is rather exciting to have some action on the horizon.

Oh, I almost forgot. We ordered a crib and dresser this weekend, we are excited to get the nursery started. It will be a nice reminder that one day we will be parents.

Happy New Year!

Our Wonderful Family's

Dan and I are so lucky to have such wonderful family on both sides.

Some of Dan's family came down for Thanksgiving weekend (Phoebe, Neil, Molly, Vern, David, Jimmy and Rory). We were so happy that they wanted to make the trip down here. It was a grand time and the house was officially broken in! It was great to see our house full of so much life and gave us a glimpse of the future ahead of us having children. On Thanksgiving day Dan's Aunt Anita and Uncle Rudy were also here as well as my Mom and Dad. It truly was a memorable Thanksgiving.

Another wonderful family moment. Last weekend we went over to my Mom and Dad's for dinner, they gave us a "Congrats on Expecting" card and made a donation towards our adoption. I of course cried when I opened the card, it was so sweet of them! It finally hit home that we are expecting, it's like we are 8 months pregnant but we just don't know when we will hit the 9th month.

Our family's mean the world to us and we cherish every moment we get to spend with them. We are so grateful to have such loving and caring people in our lives. We cannot wait until our baby can experience this as well. Thank you for being our family!

God's Perfect Plan

The angels looking down from heaven saw the woman start to cry,
Saw her heart was breaking once again, saw her husband deeply sigh.

The angels each could feel their pain from way up in the sky.
Must they always have such heartache? The angels wondered why.

So they approached the Heavenly Father and asked him to explain
Why a loving, faithful couple must endure such hurt and pain.

For they only want a child to love, to share their lives and dreams.
The Father gently told them "All is not quite as it seems".

"You see, there is a child for them, I've picked the perfect one,
Their hopes and dreams will be fulfilled one day thru adoption".

"This child will not be born to them, yet together they will be,
Soon joined in love and happiness, finally a family".

Then the angels sang a song of joy for the Father helped them see
God's plans include such special ways to make a family.

Author unknown

Bad News / Good News

I've been so busy at work so haven't had much time to do anything, keeping up on my email and posting here has dropped to the bottom of the list. Sleep is just before and even that is lacking lately with so much on my mind.

We had been waiting to see our profile posted on the agency's site and couldn't understand why it was taking so long when we uploaded it the same day we dropped off the paper profiles. So Dan contacted the agency early last week and found out that there was some accounting error and we were NOT in the book. Let's just say Dan was not a happy Canadian. As for me, I was bummed but too busy to take time to be mad.

We are officially in the book (as of Wednesday) and our profile has been uploaded on the agency's website. Phew! As for the last week or so and not being in the book, I'm sure God has her reasons so I'm going to let it go and look to the future. So now the official wait begins!

I'm going to be one of those!

I went to lunch and shopping with Jill today, had a wonderful time! There were babies and toddlers everywhere and it didn't bother me at all. We went to Applebee's for lunch and there were at least 10 strollers lined up in the lobby and as we were waiting for our table I was thinking "OMG, that is going to be me one day! Parking my baby's stroller in the lobby while we have lunch". I can't wait for that day to come!

I did restrain myself from going into the baby stores, but as we walked by I did peek in and thought about buying something. However I want Dan and I to be together for the first item we buy for the baby. Korny, I know.

Also I noticed there was a play area for the kids at the mall (and it was packed) and all I could think of was "yuck, germs!" I'm totally going to have to buy stock in Purell! And get over some of my issues ;-) It will be so worth it though.

In "the book"

I found out late yesterday afternoon that we are in the book! We are so excited! We wanted to celebrate last night by going out to dinner however work has been super busy for me and I had to work late. UGH!

I know that everytime the phone rings or we have a message I'll be holding my breath in anticipation wondering if it is the agency. I hope it is a short wait cause I don't know if I can handle extended periods of anticipation.

Linda

We are adopting!

Some of you know, and some we have not told. We have struggled with unexplained infertility for almost three years. It has been a very VERY long journey; we have endured endless heartache month after month. Unless you have walked this journey it may be hard to understanding what we have gone through, if you'd like some better understanding click on the link to the right titled Empty Arms.

The time came this summer when we had to say enough to the infertility treatments. It was time to move on and we knew in our hearts we were ready for the gift of adoption. We picked an agency and decided on domestic infant adoption and began the process to get approved. We had been told it could take anywhere from 4 to 6 months just to get approved. To our pleasant surprise it has been a very smooth process for us, from time of registration to being approved to adopt it only took 83 days! We were amazed and it just reaffirmed that this is definitely the right path for us to take. We wanted to wait until we were approved before we shared the news with extended family and friends.

Last week we turned in our parent profile to go in "The Waiting Family" book at the agency, it should be added in the next day or so. We are excited, nervous and scared all at once. We could get picked right away or we could wait months on end. But one day we will realize our dream of becoming parents and we wanted to share this exciting news with everyone. We will also do our own outreach to find a potential birth mom/parents (yes, Dan has already built a website for us; see link to the right Open to Adoption).

I wanted to create this blog to keep friends and family members updated on our progress, to provide a fast and easy way to check on how things are going for us. I hope to continue with this site even after our child is in our arms. I know there are a lot of people out there praying for us, we appreciate all of your prayers, our deepest thanks goes out to you.

Thank you for taking time to read about our journey, we hope you will continue to follow along.

Love,
Linda & Dan