Unanswered prayers

You ever heard that song?  It's an oldie sung by Garth Brooks.  He sings about how he & his wife went to a hometown football game.  While they were there they ran into his old girlfriend and he remembers how he used to pray every night that "God would make her mine".   But as she walked away he looked at his wife and "then and there thanked the good Lord, for the gifts" in his life.  He then says that one of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers. 

A year ago this week we had to endure the heartbreak of two failed adoptions.  A year ago we sat in the Savannah Airport as our hearts ached with the loss of a baby who had almost been ours...the second baby we'd lost that week.  A year ago I was sitting on a plane, from Salt Lake to Nashville and then Nashville to Charlotte and then Charlotte to Savannah...praying with all my might that this adoption would work out and we'd finally be parents.  A year ago we got off the plane and learned that we would be going home empty handed and our hearts broke into a million little pieces and spilled all over the concourse of the airport terminal.  

It wasn't the first time prayers of that kind had been left unanswered.  Fertility treatments for four years had always been accompanied by heartfelt prayers.  The first positive pregnancy test I looked at was followed by tearful pleading that everything would be ok.  The twin adoption situation was filled with long chats with the man upstairs.  And all of those prayers went unanswered.  Pregnancies were lost and adoptions fell apart.

Now, a year later, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for those unanswered prayers.  Yesterday I stood in the pouring rain and watched Nathan gently guide or sweet little boy across a field sprinkled with Easter candy.  I was grateful for the rain, it masked my tears.  Although they were happy tears I didn't want to have to explain to someone why the sight of this rain drenched crowd picking through soaked candy scattered in the grass had reduced me to tears.  If my body hadn't rejected those pregnancies or if any one of our four failed adoptions had gone through I wouldn't have been standing in the rain, on a Navy base in Italy, watching my husband play daddy for our baby boy's first Easter.  We wouldn't have our precious little Miles and I KNOW he is the baby that was meant for our family.  

 

I believe everything happens for a reason...sometimes good things fall apart so better things can come together.
~Marilyn Monroe

To my dear friends who are currently dealing with unanswered prayers.  I love you.  I'm sorry your hearts ache.  I remember all too well those helpless, heavy feelings...the long prayer filled nights with tear stained pillows.  My heart aches with you.  I truly hope that you will soon have the desires of your heart granted to you, but in the meantime take heart...just because God doesn't answer a prayer doesn't mean he doesn't hear it and doesn't mean he doesn't love you.  Keep up hope...although your good things are falling apart keep an eye on the horizon for your better things.      

Feet

I have a thing for feet.  Nothing creepy or inappropriate, but I like taking pictures of our feet at all the places we go.  It's weird I know...oh well, I'm weird. 

Here's our Southern "vacation" ...feet style.

Bewildered, hurt, angry feet on River Street in Savannah, GA

Sad, grieving, healing feet in the Atlantic Ocean on Hilton Head Island, SC

Sunburned, swollen, ready-for-home feet in Charleston, SC

Be sure you put your feet in the right place, 

then stand firm. 

-Abraham Lincoln

Not shatterproof

I feel like I'm barely keeping it together.  I try to act tough and strong...but I'm not.  I try and smile and repeat positive mantras to myself...as if that will keep the rising tide of sadness at bay.  

I don't know why this one has hit me so much harder than the others.  Maybe because we actually got on a plane this time.  That simple act let my heart believe that it was real; that I was finally going to be called Mother.  Maybe it's because of my ever growing fear that with this failure the scales were tipped to the hopeless side of things.  

I'm trying to keep hope alive, but it's getting almost too much for me to bear.

Over the edge...over again

In February we got an email about some adoption situations.  This is nothing new, I get them about once a week.  Most of the time they are WAY out of our budget so I day-dream for a minute what it would be like to pursue them, and then I come back to reality.  One of the situations in this particular email was twins.  For some reason I am obsessed with wanting twins so of course we threw our hat in the ring.  I spoke with the caseworker (her name is Amy) at the agency (which was not LDSFS, the agency we're currently going through) and found out that there was only one other couple interested and that there was a second set of twins coming a month later.  She (half) jokingly said "Let's just give one to you and one to the other couple!"  Sounded good to me.  A week later the woman stopped returning calls to the agency so that situation never panned out.  The other set of twins never materialized either.  (Come to find out women pregnant with twins are less likely to place their babies than a woman with a single baby.  The novelt of twins adds significant pressure to the woman) But our name was now with this new agency so we would get calls/emails every once-in-a-while about situations that needed adoptive families.  

That brings us to two weeks ago.  I got an email from Amy, it listed a bunch of situations but she said she thought one situation would be perfect for us.  A baby boy due in Ohio on April 12th.  I was sick at the time and so it took a couple days for me to get to the email.  I responded back with a "Sure, throw our hats in the ring".  We were the only family that had expressed interest and so ours was the only profile being shown to her.  Our profile was printed and overnighted to the woman.  She got it Friday (April 1st), on Monday she called her caseworker and said she had a few questions for us.  She said she was going to the doctor the following morning and would call when she got home.  We anxiously waited for that call...wondering what questions she might have.  Amy called us in late afternoon with some shocking news...the woman was being induced in the morning!  She asked if we were still interested (for sure!) if we were ready (absolutely!) and wondered how soon we could be to Ohio (just a 6 hour drive!).  There was still information that had to be sorted out so she said she'd call us back.   Nathan was the one that talked to her and he got a very positive vibe from the conversation so we hoped the news would be good.  Feeling celebratory, we ran to Target, TJ Maxx & Carter's and picked up some baby boy stuff.  We didn't hear anything that night until late.  Amy said she was sensing some hesitation from the woman's caseworker...she didn't know if it was about adoption in general or us in specific.  She said she'd keep us posted.  A phone call Wednesday morning confirmed that the baby was born and the mother had decided not to place.  Although we had some idea that this would be the outcome (after the previous night's call) we were still heartbroken.  We cried together.  I told Nathan I couldn't do one more...I was done.  He felt the same way (you may have seen this post on Facebook).  We decided to not make a decision in our hurt, but wait a few days and see how we felt.  That was Wednesday.  

Thursday started out normal.  Nathan got up, went to work and I went about my business being a house wife.  He got home shortly after three and as we were talking about his upcoming work weekend my phone rang.  It was Amy.  I will remember her words forever:  "Hi!  You guys still want a baby?"  My first thought was that the Ohio woman had changed her mind and decided to place.  She told me that a baby girl had been born the night before in Savannah, Georgia and they needed a family ASAP.  She said "she's yours if you want her."  I told her Nathan had just walked in the door...let me run it by him and I'd call her right back.  I gave Nathan the details and we called Amy back to tell her we wanted her.  She said she'd get to work on their end...we immediately started preparations on ours.  I called my mom to have her check on flights and hotels.  We called friends to set up care for Winston.  Nathan called his boss to set up his leave.  Amidst all this we started furiously packing (which was easy because I had created detailed packing lists for the Ohio trip I thought we'd be taking earlier that week), doing laundry and picking up the house (I didn't want to come home with a new baby to a filthy house...although the house wasn't too dirty because we'd cleaned it a few days earlier, once again in our preparations for Ohio).  I stopped the mail, talked to our neighbors, arranged a ride to the airport, packed all three of our suitcases (the small pink suitcase filled with tiny pink clothes was just too adorable for words) and Nathan and I quickly went back to Target, TJ Maxx & Carters to exchange all that blue stuff for pink stuff.   While we were out we announced our news on Facebook and started receiving a HUGE amount of well wishes (seriously...HUGE amount...the notifications crashed my BlackBerry three times that night).  We got home, pulled out the boxes of baby/nursery stuff, pulled the tags off all the pink stuff and threw it in the wash.  We finally got to bed at 3am. Friday morning at four the alarm went off, we got ready and headed to the airport.  Our first stop was in Nashville, we snapped a pic, excited to be one step closer to our baby girl.  Next up was Charlotte, NC.  I texted the caseworker who had already arrived in Savannah, asking her what the plan would be once we landed...she was still working out the details with the lawyers.  She said to call her when we landed in Georgia.  I called my mom who was figuring out where in Savannah we could get the carseat and stroller we wanted, she said she'd figure it out and have the info when we landed.  

As the plane took off I once again couldn't hold back the tears.  We were only a short 35 minutes from our little girl.  When we touched down in Savannah and the captain said "Welcome to Savannah" the tears came in full force.  This of course brought the attention of the flight attendant and the people nearby.  "We're here to pick up our baby daughter" we told her...and she started tearing up as well as several of the passengers near us.  They wished us good luck and we got off the plane.  Nathan turned his phone on and noticed a voicemail, which he quickly checked.  It was Amy.  She told us not to transfer the money (to pay the agency), that there was a change of plans.  I knew.  I hoped with every fiber of my being that I was wrong...but in that instant I knew.  My heart sunk.  Nathan called her back and found out the woman had decided not to place the baby.  It was over.  Another dream shattered.  I texted my mom "Don't buy the stroller", then crumpled into a chair and sobbed.  I didn't care what I looked like or how much noise I made....I couldn't control it.  Right there in the concourse of the Savannah airport my heart broke wide open.  Nathan held me tight and let me cry, while shedding tears of his own.  After a few minutes he gently got me up, said we should go get our bags and then we could decide what to do.  We posted on Facebook that it had fallen through and immediately started getting kind words from those we love.  

As we made our way to the baggage claim it felt like we were in a dream...a horrible dream.   We got to baggage claim only to find out that the airline had lost our luggage...except for the little pink suitcase, full of baby clothes that we would no longer need.  (Now THAT is what you call irony).  At the baggage claim desk I lost it again.  The sweet woman who was helping me, upon hearing what had just happened, came around the desk and hugged me tight.  She told me how sorry she was, and that she would be praying for us.  The guy at the car rental place was not to nice.  He was actually kind of a jerk...ok, not kind of...he was a JERK.  When we stepped outside to pick up the car, the unknowing attendant asked "Will it be just the two of you?"  More tears.  We drove to the hotel in near silence, the only sounds were my quiet sobbing and Garmin barking directions to us.  

We got checked in and to the room and we called our parents.  More tears...and anger.  I had a horrible headache from the tears and all I wanted to do was to take a nice, long hot shower and cry some more.  But we had no luggage...except for all the tiny pink clothes.  Which meant no brush, no comb, no clean underwear, no PJ's.  During this time I was still getting 'Congratulations' notifications on my phone...each one stung more than the previous one had.  Night came and our luggage still hadn't so we tried to sleep.  Saturday came and we found out our luggage had been located...it had gone to another city on another airline.  They said their delivery service would run it to us, we'd have it in an hour.  Two hours passed and still no luggage.  I got a call from the same kind baggage claim agent from the day before.  She told me the delivery truck's brakes had gone out so they couldn't deliver it until later...did we want to come get it? Seriously...now all these mishaps were ALMOST comical. (Some day they will be...but not yet)

During the time we waited for our luggage we had decided to stay a few days to rest and recuperate...but I couldn't stay in Savannah.  It was just too raw, too real, too painful.  We looked on a map and saw that Hilton Head, SC was close so we (once again) enlisted the help of my mom to get everything switched.  So we went to the airport, picked up the bags and changed the rental car reservation.  Luckily it was a new guy who seemed quite a bit nicer than the first...in fact when I explained why we needed to change the reservation, he teared up with me. We took the afternoon and saw downtown Savannah.  It was beautiful, but the pit in my stomach I got every time I thought about why we were there was not. 

Sunday morning we got up and made the drive up to Hilton Head, where we stayed until Tuesday afternoon.  From there we drove to Charleston, SC & caught the flight home.  We got home LATE last night and walking back in our front door empty handed was harder than I thought it was going to be.   I took that little pink suitcase full of baby girl clothes and put it in the spare room and shut the door.  I can't deal with that today. 

It is amazing to us the caliber of friends and family we are blessed to have in our lives.  The outpouring of love and support has lifted us up and carried us when we couldn't go any further.   We are very blessed. 

Over the last week Nathan and I have asked ourselves multiple times why we have been asked to travel this road.  Adoption is tough, but it seems that we have experienced an exceptionally rocky road.  Four failed adoptions in nine months...with two of those coming in one week.  We don't know why this is our path, but we know we're supposed to be on it.  Someday it will all work out.  I wish I knew when....oh how I wish I knew.  We hope that this will be the end of our heartache, but if it isn't we accept that. 

I am a lucky woman.  I married a wonderfully supportive husband.  He is my rock.  I have a kind, generous mother & father who would do anything to help us in our hours of need.  I have grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins & siblings who give us love & support.  I have beautiful friendships that buoy me up when the waves crash around me and I can't stay afloat.  And I have a loving Father in Heaven that wraps His arms around us when we're all alone and feeling broken.   And while my heart and empty arms ache for a child, I am grateful for the things I do have that help us get through horrible things. 

August

The last couple days the weather here in the Chi has been PERFECT.  We slept with the windows open last night and a couple times during the night I was tempted to get up and throw a second quilt on the bed.  I love chilly nights.  Today the windows have stayed open and the breeze blowing the city sounds through the house has been so calming.  (Have I mentioned that I love Chicago??)

I'm grateful for the change...in weather and in months.  August (and the last couple days of July) can suck it.  It was wicked, miserable, suffocatingly hot.  Work was less than pleasant.  Losing two babies was no picnic.  Feeling like our hearts were lied to, ripped out, torn into bits and peed on and then burned sucked pretty bad. Winston was cranky, Besta was a menace.

August marked the six year point of us trying to add children to our family.  Six. Freaking. Years.  It is so amazingly frustrating to want something for six years.  Do everything in your power to get it.  Dream, think, pray, stress, cry, rejoice, ache over it...and STILL, after six LONG years...still NOT have it.  I am seriously considering changing my middle name to patience. 

I'm glad that milestone is passed...and I don't have to deal with it again for another year.

Bring on September!  May it be fabulous!

Sad face

I wake up everyday and put one foot in front of the other...and every day it seems to get easier. 

Then there are days like today.  Days that seem to start ok and then come up from behind and bite you in the ass.  Days that even outlet shopping and Diet Coke and chocolate and kitty snuggles can't fix.  

(This isn't our kitty...but I wish he was...isn't he beautiful?  Winnie would love him)

Our week

Will be spent here:

(picture borrowed from here)

There will be camping, picture taking, cycling, reading, campfire building, hiking, canoeing, s'more-ing, hammock napping...but hopefully, and most importantly...some healing.

I can't wait.

The need to heal

I don't think the finality of all this has really hit us.  At least it hasn't really hit me.  There is this tiny piece of me that hopes this is just a (freaking huge) bump in the road and everything will work out.  The rational side of my brain is trying to talk some sense into that tiny piece of me...but it doesn't want to listen.
I get up every morning and try not to think about it all.  If I do, then it starts to get ugly...and the hour drive to work where I carry on a full-on monologues with myself does little to bring my level of insanity down.  By the time I get to work I am wound up so tight...it's only a matter of time until the stress of work pushes me over the edge.  I have wound up crying at work more than a few times over the last two weeks...most the time over something insignificant, like the printer being out of paper. 
I haven't been back in the nursery since I piled everything in and shut the door.  I know I have to deal with it, but I feel like opening that door would open the floodgates and I'm not in the mood to dig myself out of that pit. 
Nathan and I are taking next week off and going away together.  We're going somewhere away from phones and internet and TV and twin parenting books and quilts and a rooms full of matching twin stuff.  I am hoping we can use the trip to let our hurts hurt and begin to heal. 

Cruel

Laying in bed in the darkness the phone ringing wakes me from my slumber.  I stumble in the darkness, wondering who could possibly be calling at this hour.  The words on the other side come quickly..."babies born...I've made a mistake...all consents have been signed...hurry."  I quickly wake Nathan and we pack in a fury.  We set out in the darkness, full of excitement.  All the pain of the previous week melts away.  With each state border we cross our anticipation grows.  We make the 23 hour drive to my parent's place in Utah with no overnight stops.  We sleep for a few hours, drop off the dog, gas up the car and we're off again.  Eleven hours later we're at the hospital in California.  We see our babies for the first time through the glass.  The nurses realize who we are and let us back to hold them.  Tears are shed, prayers are said.  Later in the day they are released and we make our way back to our hotel.  Their cries do nothing to deflate our swollen hearts.  Sometime in the darkness of night, when both the babies are fed, changed and asleep we drift to sleep as well.  This morning when I see the first morning light creep in the room I am confused.  "Where am I?"  as the room comes into focus I realize I am not in a hotel in California.  I am in my bed.  In my apartment.  In Chicago.  The tears sting as I realize we are alone in our apartment.  There are no babies.  There was no phone call, no 23 hour drive, no hospital.  I feel my heart sink lower in my chest and I feel powerless against the oppressive darkness I know is coming.

Salt on the wounds

In the past I haven't always been the best at dealing with the trials of infertility.  When I got hurt I pulled away from family, friends, church and God.  Deep inside I knew it was wrong, but it is the natural reaction to pain - to pull away.  So when the light crept into my bedroom this morning signaling time to get up and get ready for church I had an internal discussion.  Go to church or not??  I wanted so much to stay home, burrow deeper within the covers and sleep off this pain.  But I knew I needed to go...if I didn't it would make next week that much harder.  I needed to face the questions that were sure to come.

We entered the building and quickly found a seat.  The opening hymn was good...a nice up-beat tune to distract me.  Then the person conducting the meeting announced that there would be three baby blessings today.  I felt my skin prickle.  I felt Nathan's arm around my shoulder tighten.  Baby blessings have always been hard and today it was just something I so. did. not. need to endure.  The first baby was blessed and my tears were already falling.  Then the second baby was announced to be the twin of the first baby.  Seriously.  Nathan's grip tightened even more and I did everything I could to stifle my sobs.

I didn't make it through the entire day of church...but I'm proud of us for making the effort.  I'm not looking forward to work tomorrow and all the questions and unknown that will come (because I was hired just as a temp until the babies were born)...but at least I know there won't be any baby blessings.

Little Chalk Numbers

We found out late Thursday night through a phone call that the adoption wasn't going to happen.  At first I didn't understand what he (ours and C's mutual friend...the one who introduced us) was trying to tell me.  It didn't even fully hit me until I hung up, went to bed and told Nathan.  As I heard the words come out of my mouth it was as if I was hearing them for the first time.  I crawled in bed and as the silence of night crept up around me, my heart broke.  I felt the tears begin to well as I lay on my back staring into the darkness.  Images begin to flash across my mind...all the ultrasound pictures we'd been given, the drawers full of tiny matching pink and blue outfits, the quilt I had finished just hours before that we planned on giving C.

Two days later it is still hard to believe.  Tonight I gathered up the quilt I'd made, the twins parenting book and a box of formula samples that had come in the mail and put them in the nursery.  I shut the door, walked out and left all that emotionally heavy stuff behind...at least for now.  I know I will have to deal with all of it, but I just can't.  Not yet.

Nathan is taking this pretty hard.  This is the first time I think he's ever gotten his hopes up.  He went shopping with me to pick out clothes and bottles.  He listened intently as I passed on what I'd read in the twin parenting books.  He was so excited that the closer it got the harder it was for him to keep it a secret.  I can't blame him for getting his hopes up...mine were up too.  Afterall, we'd been planning on this since April.  C visited us in April and we really hit it off.  Nathan and I both felt like this adoption was meant to be...there were just too many little coincidences that we took as divine intervention.  When C told me she was choosing adoption I created a countdown on the chalkboard in our entryway.  The first number was in the 130's and everyday on my way to work I'd erase the number and lower it by one...it only got into the 20's.  I went to leave for work this morning and the sight of that countdown stopped me in my tracks.  I stared tearfully at the chalk numbers that had once held so much hope and excitement.  I debated erasing them, and then decided it was best. 

It was frustrating today to think of the small..and large...ways we changed (or planned to change) our lives in preparation for (and after the arrival of) these two small miracles.  Some of these changes cannot be undone...and some of the changes that were planned but never made will haunt us everyday.  They will stand as painful reminders of what didn't happen.

Through the course of our fertility treatments I had three miscarriages.  Those losses were so painful, but this hurts just as bad.  This time we got to see their sweet faces...we were close enough to the end to think "any day now"...we had even picked out names.


Thank you for all your prayers, I know we would not be getting through this if it weren't for them.  I also know the hurt will lessen and things will work out...eventually.  I just wish I could hibernate until the pain is gone.

What becomes of the broken hearted

It looks as though this adoption is not going to happen. Our hearts are broken. Our hopes of being parents have yet again been shattered.
We know everything happens for a reason...it would be nice if we knew what that reason was, but for now we'll just trust the promise that all will be well...eventually.