The house is quiet, all the kids are either napping or in school and I just feel like writing. I really love writing. Did you know it's my secret dream to someday write a book? Not a novel, I don't have the brain creativity for that, but I would really like to write my life story down. Not that I think it'll get published, because who cares about my boring little corner of the world, but just for me, and my kids, and my grandkids because that feels special, and I love writing and God has done some pretty cool things in my life thus far and I'm fairly certain He's not finished with me yet.
Anywho, in case you do actually like to read about my boring little life, here's a little life update. Maybe I should make this a monthly thing? Contrary to popular opinion, January actually went by super fast for me. For some reason, every year as soon as January is over I think "Phew, the worst is over. Spring is on the horizon." But alas, I always forget about February. Sneaky little February, it sounds so pleasant because it's a short month, and it's Valentine's Day month, yay for love and hearts and kisses, but February is BRUTAL. It always has been. In my memories on Facebook, every February someone is sick in this house. Avi ended up in the hospital with RSV in February 2015. And it's always cold. Like colder then January. And this year especially. I was telling John around Christmas time how this has been such an amazing winter and I could actually like winter if it was like this all the time. The weather was so mild, the kids would go out to play every day and I took the babies for afternoon walks, or I'd go myself in the evening and the hoarfrost was so dreamy and there really is a lot of fun things to do in the snow if it's nice enough. I was loving it! But yeah, reality check, winter sucks. It's been a hard couple of weeks. It's been too cold to go outside and everyone has been sick since literally February 1st. We've all taken turns with colds and then flu. All of us and all of my daycare kids and some of their parents as well have been struck down. I think we're finally (please) on the tail end of it and I'm really hoping for some warm(er) weather soon so they can get outside. Avi has really loved playing outside this winter and she's been super sad that she hasn't been able to go out lately. Her teacher takes them outside every afternoon at school if it's nice enough (what a saint!) and every day lately when I pick Avi up the first thing she says is how sad she is that they couldn't go outside. I find this so funny because last summer she much preferred to stay indoors, and would often play in the house by herself while the rest of us were in the yard. What a weird child! So we'll see how she is this summer. And she's the one that was born in Las Vegas, where it's always warm. I guess she was meant to be a Canadian girl!
Apart from the weather and the sickness, we're doing good! I am loving doing daycare so much! I love that my girls get to meet and make new friends and I hope they look back on these days fondly, remembering all the chaos and love and laughter that filled the house when Mom was doing daycare. I love getting to know all these wonderful little people and to be a happy place for them to learn and play and grow. It was something I never thought I would end up doing, but I can see myself doing it for years to come. I always planned to go back to work once Avi was in school full time but now I think I might just keep doing daycare. It's also neat to see how God has always provided me with a child when I have a spot to fill and I have the most amazing families that I get to work for! They are the best and I feel so blessed. Up until now I've only been able to take as many kids as can fit in my vehicle since I have school drop offs and pick ups to do but next year Avi will be in Kindergarten and will ride the bus with Cassidy, so I won't have the need to drive anywhere so I can expand if I want which is also exciting. Especially in these last few weeks, it's been such a pain to have to bundle everyone up and be in and out the door all day so I'm looking forward to not having to do that next year.
So 2019's been pretty good so far. Nothing too exciting on the horizon that we know about but life is always full of surprises! Right now I'm most looking forward to summer, road trips and not having to wear a jacket.
Tuesday, 12 February 2019
Friday, 28 December 2018
What We've been Up to in 2018
In just a few days we'll be entering a new year once again! I love doing a yearly wrap up blog. I have the worst long term memory so even remembering what happened a few months ago is difficult for me but thanks to the wonder of social media, I was able to scroll back and look over the year 2018. As I was doing this, I kept smiling as I was reminded of things and have come to the conclusion that this really was a great year for our family! Sure we had some tough times, but the good definitely outweighed the bad this year and we made a lot of great memories, and also made some pretty big changes!
2018 began with Cassidy halfway through Grade 1, Aviannah halfway through her first year of Pre-K, I was teaching piano and doing daycare for Levi, Luca and Theda and John was working at Woodstyles. We kind of kicked off 2018 with a bang by announcing that we were working towards another adoption. I'm not going into detail here, since I have gone into great detail in previous blog posts, but that has not panned out thus far. I would say that has definitely been the biggest disappointment of the year in some ways, and also a blessing in disguise in others. John and I have both learned so much through this experience and I truly feel we have become better parents because of it. Also, our marriage has gotten much stronger. I went through so many highs and lows during this process and John was a rock throughout it all. We drew strength from the Lord and from each other and we are better because of it. We've always had to work hard on our marriage, but something has clicked this year and we are finding it easier and easier. I'll touch more on that later, but this adoption experience definitely drew us closer together. Currently, we are waiting on our social worker to let us know what the next steps are, but the journey is far from over and we are still very much hoping that we can add to our family someday.
Other then that, we had a pretty low key winter and spring. Our nephews stayed with us for a week in January and we had a blast with them. Cassidy played soccer again in the spring and did great! She improves every year. This coming year Avi wants to play too so we'll see how that goes! Both girls also did swimming lessons again. Unfortunately neither of them passed, so we'll try again next year.
In March both girls celebrated birthdays. Aviannah turned 4 and Cassidy turned 7. We had fun celebrating with families all month long. Cassidy had a friends party where they baked and decorated cakes, it was so fun! Our rule is that on their 5th birthday they get to start having a friends party so this next year we'll be doing two of those!
Our 2018 summer goes down as one of my favorite summers ever, not because we did anything extra special but we just made the most of every day and had blast! I had my last day with Levi at the end of June. I had been doing daycare for him for 3 and a half years, so it was definitely hard to say goodbye! We still get to see him fairly often and Aviannah prays for him every single night but we sure do miss having him around! I had Luca and Theda full time over the summer, and I made a plan that every day we would try to get out and do something fun and we definitely did! We were blessed with excellent weather and very few rainy days. I think the highlight for all of us was doing a park hop around Warman. Of course I had to pick the hottest day and we were all so sweaty and hot by the end of it but our goal was to hit up every park in Warman and we did all of them but one! I set a timer at each park, they would run and play and when I'd yell "Time's up!" they would all run back to the van, we'd guzzle water and drive off to the next park. It was seriously so much fun! We also went to my parents for a pool party a couple times, visited the spray park, went frog catching, ate ice cream and had lots of picnics. We also tried something new, geocaching! It was so much fun! We had one especially eventful day when we went geocaching down some back roads and I ended up getting us stuck in the ditch. My father in law came to our rescue, but while we waited the kids kept saying "I think we're going to die out here," LOL!
I also took two weeks of holidays during the summer. We drove out to Sylvan Lake for a family reunion with my mom's extended family. We rented a house and all stayed together and spent the day at the beach and played games and had such a great time together. On the way home, John and I took a detour through Calgary and took the girls to Calaway Park. This was my favorite day of the summer by far. It started out scorching hot. The girls were the perfect age for the rides and we spent all morning riding as many as we could. We applied and reapplied sunscreeen, drank our weight in water and kept going. Halfway through the afternoon, as we were just exiting a ride, out of nowhere the wind picked up, dark clouds rolled in and it started pouring rain. As we ran for shelter, the rain turned into hail. Large hail. We made it underneath this tiny awning and we huddled there with about 30 other people as it hailed and hailed and hailed. It just kept coming and we were shivering and barely managing to avoid being hit. Kids were screaming and crying, and adults had their phones out to take videos. I have never seen hail that bad before. I told John it felt like we were in the apocalypse! By the time it finished, the ground was covered and it looked like we had just gotten a dump of snow. We made a dash for the nearest store in the midst of it, which happened to be a candy store. We bought the girls some candy while we waited out the rest of it. Most everybody left but we had some rides we hadn't done yet and were hopeful they would reopen. We wandered around while we waited and we did still get to do a few more rides before closing. It was a very memorable experience! Our girls were such troopers! They didn't cry or get scared, they just took everything in stride. The last time we did a fun family outing in Calgary (the zoo) we got caught in a massive thunderstorm. Apparently we have bad luck in Calgary! It makes for a fun memory!
Other highlights of the summer- Leesa and I went to a Rider game in Regina (they lost, boo), we went camping as a family at Pike Lake, we went to see a friend's band play at Ribfest, the girls went to a day camp at a local seniors home and how could I forget, Cassidy went to her first overnight camp at Redberry Bible Camp! She went for one night and two days and had the best time. This summer she's going to try going for a whole week!
Fall brought quite a few big changes for our family. Cassidy started Grade 2 and Aviannah started her second year of Pre-K. Luca and Theda moved on from my daycare so we had to say goodbye again. Even though I only had them for a year, they are dearly missed and we all grew to love them greatly. I took on two new girls in September, Sloane and Elizabeth. They were both 15 months when they started, only 2 days apart. It was quite an adjustment but everyone has settled in nicely and I am loving the change! It had been awhile since I'd had babies around so it's been a big change. They have become such good little friends and I can't quit squeezing and kissing them! The biggest change of the year, for me, was making the decision to quit teaching piano. It was something I agonized about for a long time, but I'm happy to report that it was the best decision I could've made. I have loved all my students, and I miss them, but it had freed up two evenings a week and I can't even explain how life changing that has been, not just for me but for all of us. John and I are both thriving because of it, both personally and as a couple. We've been able to make so much more time for each other and that's been huge for our marriage. I mentioned above that our marriage has never been better, and I know that me being able to free up these evenings has been a huge part of that. As a mother, I'm also able to spend the evenings with my girls. I've started teaching Cassidy piano, and I get to do her reading with her each night and help put them to bed. It's just been awesome and I have no regrets.
This is getting to be a long post, this is why I need to blog more I guess! But I can't not talk about the H.I.G.H.L.I.G.H.T of the year which was, hands down, going to England! Thanks to John's very generous family for taking our girls, we spent 10 days on the trip of a lifetime! We had just the best time. It was strangely relaxing, even though we were go go go every single day. I kept saying to John it was so weird that I wasn't tired, even though we were so busy, and I realized that my mental energy was completely freed up because I didn't have to think about a single other person other then myself. As a mom, I don't ever get that luxury and man, it was nice to experience that for a short while. Of course I was glad to return home to my girls, and I sure felt the mom guilt hard for leaving them on the days leading up to the trip, but while I was there I was able to not worry about them or think about them (too much) and it was a just a much needed break. What's surprised me is how much we both miss England. I always go through a trip withdrawl when we get back from somewhere. John is not a traveler and if it wasn't for me, he probably wouldn't go anywhere so it more surprised me that he really misses it! Every time we mention England, we both get a little sad and feel the ache. We have both decided that we definitely want to go back to Europe one day. England did not satisfy my desire to see Europe, it intensified it! It was magical and perfect and beautiful and I'm so so so grateful we got to go. We really didn't think it would be an option at first, but when our adoption was put on hold, we looked at each other and said "We're going!" It was really good for me to having something good like that come out of something painful.
In November we celebrated our 8th anniversary and we just spent a wonderful Christmas with both our families. Both Leesa and Eric came home and we had lots of good family time. I don't usually set goals for the new year or have a word or make resolutions other then to keep seeking the Lord, seeking His will for my life and being intentional about going deeper in my relationship with Him. I love the feeling of a fresh start. I'm excited to see what 2019 has in store. I am reminded once again how good God is, and I'm thankful for His ongoing faithfulness to me, even though I don't deserve it.
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and here's to 2019!
2018 began with Cassidy halfway through Grade 1, Aviannah halfway through her first year of Pre-K, I was teaching piano and doing daycare for Levi, Luca and Theda and John was working at Woodstyles. We kind of kicked off 2018 with a bang by announcing that we were working towards another adoption. I'm not going into detail here, since I have gone into great detail in previous blog posts, but that has not panned out thus far. I would say that has definitely been the biggest disappointment of the year in some ways, and also a blessing in disguise in others. John and I have both learned so much through this experience and I truly feel we have become better parents because of it. Also, our marriage has gotten much stronger. I went through so many highs and lows during this process and John was a rock throughout it all. We drew strength from the Lord and from each other and we are better because of it. We've always had to work hard on our marriage, but something has clicked this year and we are finding it easier and easier. I'll touch more on that later, but this adoption experience definitely drew us closer together. Currently, we are waiting on our social worker to let us know what the next steps are, but the journey is far from over and we are still very much hoping that we can add to our family someday.
Other then that, we had a pretty low key winter and spring. Our nephews stayed with us for a week in January and we had a blast with them. Cassidy played soccer again in the spring and did great! She improves every year. This coming year Avi wants to play too so we'll see how that goes! Both girls also did swimming lessons again. Unfortunately neither of them passed, so we'll try again next year.
In March both girls celebrated birthdays. Aviannah turned 4 and Cassidy turned 7. We had fun celebrating with families all month long. Cassidy had a friends party where they baked and decorated cakes, it was so fun! Our rule is that on their 5th birthday they get to start having a friends party so this next year we'll be doing two of those!
Our 2018 summer goes down as one of my favorite summers ever, not because we did anything extra special but we just made the most of every day and had blast! I had my last day with Levi at the end of June. I had been doing daycare for him for 3 and a half years, so it was definitely hard to say goodbye! We still get to see him fairly often and Aviannah prays for him every single night but we sure do miss having him around! I had Luca and Theda full time over the summer, and I made a plan that every day we would try to get out and do something fun and we definitely did! We were blessed with excellent weather and very few rainy days. I think the highlight for all of us was doing a park hop around Warman. Of course I had to pick the hottest day and we were all so sweaty and hot by the end of it but our goal was to hit up every park in Warman and we did all of them but one! I set a timer at each park, they would run and play and when I'd yell "Time's up!" they would all run back to the van, we'd guzzle water and drive off to the next park. It was seriously so much fun! We also went to my parents for a pool party a couple times, visited the spray park, went frog catching, ate ice cream and had lots of picnics. We also tried something new, geocaching! It was so much fun! We had one especially eventful day when we went geocaching down some back roads and I ended up getting us stuck in the ditch. My father in law came to our rescue, but while we waited the kids kept saying "I think we're going to die out here," LOL!
I also took two weeks of holidays during the summer. We drove out to Sylvan Lake for a family reunion with my mom's extended family. We rented a house and all stayed together and spent the day at the beach and played games and had such a great time together. On the way home, John and I took a detour through Calgary and took the girls to Calaway Park. This was my favorite day of the summer by far. It started out scorching hot. The girls were the perfect age for the rides and we spent all morning riding as many as we could. We applied and reapplied sunscreeen, drank our weight in water and kept going. Halfway through the afternoon, as we were just exiting a ride, out of nowhere the wind picked up, dark clouds rolled in and it started pouring rain. As we ran for shelter, the rain turned into hail. Large hail. We made it underneath this tiny awning and we huddled there with about 30 other people as it hailed and hailed and hailed. It just kept coming and we were shivering and barely managing to avoid being hit. Kids were screaming and crying, and adults had their phones out to take videos. I have never seen hail that bad before. I told John it felt like we were in the apocalypse! By the time it finished, the ground was covered and it looked like we had just gotten a dump of snow. We made a dash for the nearest store in the midst of it, which happened to be a candy store. We bought the girls some candy while we waited out the rest of it. Most everybody left but we had some rides we hadn't done yet and were hopeful they would reopen. We wandered around while we waited and we did still get to do a few more rides before closing. It was a very memorable experience! Our girls were such troopers! They didn't cry or get scared, they just took everything in stride. The last time we did a fun family outing in Calgary (the zoo) we got caught in a massive thunderstorm. Apparently we have bad luck in Calgary! It makes for a fun memory!
Other highlights of the summer- Leesa and I went to a Rider game in Regina (they lost, boo), we went camping as a family at Pike Lake, we went to see a friend's band play at Ribfest, the girls went to a day camp at a local seniors home and how could I forget, Cassidy went to her first overnight camp at Redberry Bible Camp! She went for one night and two days and had the best time. This summer she's going to try going for a whole week!
Fall brought quite a few big changes for our family. Cassidy started Grade 2 and Aviannah started her second year of Pre-K. Luca and Theda moved on from my daycare so we had to say goodbye again. Even though I only had them for a year, they are dearly missed and we all grew to love them greatly. I took on two new girls in September, Sloane and Elizabeth. They were both 15 months when they started, only 2 days apart. It was quite an adjustment but everyone has settled in nicely and I am loving the change! It had been awhile since I'd had babies around so it's been a big change. They have become such good little friends and I can't quit squeezing and kissing them! The biggest change of the year, for me, was making the decision to quit teaching piano. It was something I agonized about for a long time, but I'm happy to report that it was the best decision I could've made. I have loved all my students, and I miss them, but it had freed up two evenings a week and I can't even explain how life changing that has been, not just for me but for all of us. John and I are both thriving because of it, both personally and as a couple. We've been able to make so much more time for each other and that's been huge for our marriage. I mentioned above that our marriage has never been better, and I know that me being able to free up these evenings has been a huge part of that. As a mother, I'm also able to spend the evenings with my girls. I've started teaching Cassidy piano, and I get to do her reading with her each night and help put them to bed. It's just been awesome and I have no regrets.
This is getting to be a long post, this is why I need to blog more I guess! But I can't not talk about the H.I.G.H.L.I.G.H.T of the year which was, hands down, going to England! Thanks to John's very generous family for taking our girls, we spent 10 days on the trip of a lifetime! We had just the best time. It was strangely relaxing, even though we were go go go every single day. I kept saying to John it was so weird that I wasn't tired, even though we were so busy, and I realized that my mental energy was completely freed up because I didn't have to think about a single other person other then myself. As a mom, I don't ever get that luxury and man, it was nice to experience that for a short while. Of course I was glad to return home to my girls, and I sure felt the mom guilt hard for leaving them on the days leading up to the trip, but while I was there I was able to not worry about them or think about them (too much) and it was a just a much needed break. What's surprised me is how much we both miss England. I always go through a trip withdrawl when we get back from somewhere. John is not a traveler and if it wasn't for me, he probably wouldn't go anywhere so it more surprised me that he really misses it! Every time we mention England, we both get a little sad and feel the ache. We have both decided that we definitely want to go back to Europe one day. England did not satisfy my desire to see Europe, it intensified it! It was magical and perfect and beautiful and I'm so so so grateful we got to go. We really didn't think it would be an option at first, but when our adoption was put on hold, we looked at each other and said "We're going!" It was really good for me to having something good like that come out of something painful.
In November we celebrated our 8th anniversary and we just spent a wonderful Christmas with both our families. Both Leesa and Eric came home and we had lots of good family time. I don't usually set goals for the new year or have a word or make resolutions other then to keep seeking the Lord, seeking His will for my life and being intentional about going deeper in my relationship with Him. I love the feeling of a fresh start. I'm excited to see what 2019 has in store. I am reminded once again how good God is, and I'm thankful for His ongoing faithfulness to me, even though I don't deserve it.
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and here's to 2019!
Thursday, 23 August 2018
Sending out an SOS
This might be as vulnerable as I've ever gotten on this blog, hang on...
I really actually do not want to be writing this. The last I posted on here was that our adoption has been put on hold and that we were going to enjoy the summer and take a break. Well, we have enjoyed our summer, it's been wonderful and gone by much too fast. I was expecting to feel ready to jump back in to working towards the adoption with renewed energy and determination after a month or so, and for sure by the time summer was over. And I just don't. Not even close. Truthfully, I feel even more defeated then I did when we were told our file was being put on hold.
I have no idea why I'm struggling so much with this. I have felt confused and conflicted. I was so excited at the start, but I think with our file being put on hold I was faced with the reality that there is a good chance this may not happen for us, and I feel like investing all this time and energy into something that might not happen is pointless. We've felt like the reason we have been put on hold is unfair and I've lost a lot of faith in the system all together. Yesterday I cried into John's shoulder and told him that I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to adopt again. It has been so hard. I know that we had such good experiences the first two times around and I know very well how hard adoption can be, and yet now that we are experiencing it for ourselves, it's harder then I ever imagined. The thing is, I know deep down in my heart that we are still supposed to do this. Even amidst the confusion and the struggle, to actually say no and move on feels wrong. So many people, family included, have said how perfect our family is the way it is, and I agree. I have struggled so much with my selfish desires of not wanting to grow our family because right now the girls are at wonderful stages that make everything easier. The world seems designed for a family of four. They are both potty trained, sleep through the night, don't need naps. They are both healthy. All of these seem like selfish reasons for not wanting to add to our family but I keep fixating on them.
John has also been struggling with the desire to keep going, but he actually feels more convinced then me that we need to do this. With our other adoptions we were both on the same page, yet I was always more excited then he was (that's just our personalities showing) so the fact that this is the other way around is different too. I trust him and I trust his instincts about it and I feel right now that that is the only thing keeping me from throwing in the towel all together. He has been so amazing through all this. I feel like I can't even put into words how confusing this is for me. John strongly believes that the devil is attacking us and I agree. Last night he made a very good point, which has prompted me to write this post. He said that maybe the reason we've been struggling so much is because we haven't let other people in and asked them to pray for us. I've asked you to pray in the past but in these past few months is when we've been struggling the most and we have not asked for help- at all. So, here I am, asking for help. Please pray for us. I don't even know how to ask you to pray, just pray. If you see me in person, don't bring it up unless I do. I don't really want to talk about it. I didn't even want to write about it. But I'm swallowing my pride because we need people alongside us to pray. We are exhausted and weary. I'm so very grateful for you all who love us and who pray for us, more then I can say.
I really actually do not want to be writing this. The last I posted on here was that our adoption has been put on hold and that we were going to enjoy the summer and take a break. Well, we have enjoyed our summer, it's been wonderful and gone by much too fast. I was expecting to feel ready to jump back in to working towards the adoption with renewed energy and determination after a month or so, and for sure by the time summer was over. And I just don't. Not even close. Truthfully, I feel even more defeated then I did when we were told our file was being put on hold.
I have no idea why I'm struggling so much with this. I have felt confused and conflicted. I was so excited at the start, but I think with our file being put on hold I was faced with the reality that there is a good chance this may not happen for us, and I feel like investing all this time and energy into something that might not happen is pointless. We've felt like the reason we have been put on hold is unfair and I've lost a lot of faith in the system all together. Yesterday I cried into John's shoulder and told him that I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to adopt again. It has been so hard. I know that we had such good experiences the first two times around and I know very well how hard adoption can be, and yet now that we are experiencing it for ourselves, it's harder then I ever imagined. The thing is, I know deep down in my heart that we are still supposed to do this. Even amidst the confusion and the struggle, to actually say no and move on feels wrong. So many people, family included, have said how perfect our family is the way it is, and I agree. I have struggled so much with my selfish desires of not wanting to grow our family because right now the girls are at wonderful stages that make everything easier. The world seems designed for a family of four. They are both potty trained, sleep through the night, don't need naps. They are both healthy. All of these seem like selfish reasons for not wanting to add to our family but I keep fixating on them.
John has also been struggling with the desire to keep going, but he actually feels more convinced then me that we need to do this. With our other adoptions we were both on the same page, yet I was always more excited then he was (that's just our personalities showing) so the fact that this is the other way around is different too. I trust him and I trust his instincts about it and I feel right now that that is the only thing keeping me from throwing in the towel all together. He has been so amazing through all this. I feel like I can't even put into words how confusing this is for me. John strongly believes that the devil is attacking us and I agree. Last night he made a very good point, which has prompted me to write this post. He said that maybe the reason we've been struggling so much is because we haven't let other people in and asked them to pray for us. I've asked you to pray in the past but in these past few months is when we've been struggling the most and we have not asked for help- at all. So, here I am, asking for help. Please pray for us. I don't even know how to ask you to pray, just pray. If you see me in person, don't bring it up unless I do. I don't really want to talk about it. I didn't even want to write about it. But I'm swallowing my pride because we need people alongside us to pray. We are exhausted and weary. I'm so very grateful for you all who love us and who pray for us, more then I can say.
Thursday, 21 June 2018
Adoption Update
I've been avoiding writing this post for a while now. Our adoption has been put on hold, for now. We had another meeting mid-May and our adoption worker and her supervisor had concerns about a specific thing from the past that I don't want to go into details on, so please don't ask, but this had not been an issue in our previous two home studies and for some reason, this time it was. I guess it all depends on who your worker is, but anyway, we were told our file was either going to be closed or put on hold. Despite this issue, our adoption worker thought we were one of the strongest families she's worked with and she told us she was going to advocate that our file be put on hold instead of closed. We waited a couple weeks before we found out that our file is being put on hold for 6 months. In the meantime, we have a few extra assignments to do, then once the 6 months is up, we can pick up from where we left off. That is the long and short of it, and that's all I want to say about it.
We are both feeling completely burnt out and done with it all. We don't feel like we want to continue, but we also know that if we don't, we will regret it in the future. Right now though, we are choosing to leave it be and rest this summer, then we'll get back to work on it. Our adoption worker says that we can take longer then 6 months if we need too as well, so we aren't going to rush things. We will probably start working on the extra stuff in a few months, but for now, a break is what we need. This has not been easy, but we both feel at peace and honestly, a little bit relieved. Our lives in general have just been over the top busy and the adoption process was really weighing on us, so we are choosing to see this as a blessing. We would still appreciate your prayers. I felt like I needed to give this update because you've all been following our journey and we really do need your prayers. Just prayers, not pity :) because it's not over, we've just hit a rather large snag, but we are still excited about the plans God has for our family.
Wednesday, 16 May 2018
Update #4 (Is It Ever Going to Happen?)
I realized it's been a month and a half since I've done an adoption update but...what's to update? Literally nothing has changed since my last update. We had a visit with our worker at the beginning of April and have yet to have another one. This has honestly been super frustrating. We scheduled one tentatively for the end of April, but she had to reschedule. No big deal. We've had to reschedule every other appointment thus far so why should this one be any different? Ha.
So we rescheduled for May 4, a Friday, at 9:15. John decided to take the day off. We wait and wait and she doesn't show up. Again, this isn't unusual that she's late. She's been late to every other meeting we've had. Finally at 10:00 I figure something must be wrong. I try calling her phone at her office, no answer. I try emailing her. I try calling the front desk. Nothing. Finally at 10:30 she calls me back. She had written the wrong day in her planner, she thought our meeting was the next Friday. So we ended up not meeting with her that day. We were so frustrated and so upset, although I was very nice on the phone (I am so non confrontational, I kind of hated that about myself in that moment, but in hindsight, it's probably a good thing I was forgiving in that moment). John felt like he wasted the whole day and we ended up fighting with each other because we were both frustrated. So yeah, not the greatest day, but we apologized to each other and had a wonderful date night that evening :)
So anyway, even though she had written us in for the next Friday, that day didn't work for her either for some reason, so we rescheduled for the 16th, which is today! Yesterday she called and said she had to reschedule again so as of now we are sitting at next Wednesday for our next meeting. I don't even know what to think anymore. I like our worker, she's nice and friendly, but she seems so disorganized. I know she's super busy, and I feel for her, but it's getting a little old to keep being pushed down to the bottom of her priorities. I told John the other day that I just feel like I don't really care anymore. For the first time, I'm wondering if this is even going to happen at all. I feel very meh about the whole thing. I keep telling myself that God has a plan and that His timing is perfect. We weren't ever given a set timeline on how long this process would take and honestly, I'm not even that upset that it's taking so long but it's more like I really just don't care.
I keep thinking about how this is going to change our family. We have a pretty good thing going right now. We've been a family of four longer then we've been a family of three and a family of two. The thought of that dynamic changing was super exciting at first but I think the novelty has worn off and now it just scares me. We really didn't have to uproot our lives too much to make room for our girls. They sort of just fit nicely into our family and of course it changes things, but things didn't change too much, if you know what I mean. I don't think that is going to be the case with this one. This child will most likely have some trauma attached, possible medical needs, might be a different race- all of those things could dramatically change our life! If you had talked to me a couple months ago, I would've said how excited I was for this. I think it's a good thing to be shaken up out of your comfort zone. We want God to stretch us and shake us up a bit. I still want that, but I feel much more frightened of it then I did a couple months ago. I'm not sure why. We've done all the paperwork and are literally just waiting on this last visit to happen, so maybe it's because it's all out of my control that I suddenly feel so apathetic about it.
For anyone else that's adopted, you know this is normal. I've felt this way before. The waiting is draining, and maybe I've just been over analyzing everything too much. We still very much feel like God is leading this whole process. We pray for our future child every night. I'm just finding it so hard to make myself believe that this is really going to happen. Although when I think about it not happening, I get even more scared.
I guess what I really want to say is please keep praying for us. Pray that we will be able to have this last visit. Pray that we will get approved to adopt. Pray for our child that's out there waiting for us. We really want him/her to come home soon. Thank you for reading my blog, even when I write really depressing stuff like this post, haha. I like to keep it real. Hopefully I will have a more optimistic update next time!
So we rescheduled for May 4, a Friday, at 9:15. John decided to take the day off. We wait and wait and she doesn't show up. Again, this isn't unusual that she's late. She's been late to every other meeting we've had. Finally at 10:00 I figure something must be wrong. I try calling her phone at her office, no answer. I try emailing her. I try calling the front desk. Nothing. Finally at 10:30 she calls me back. She had written the wrong day in her planner, she thought our meeting was the next Friday. So we ended up not meeting with her that day. We were so frustrated and so upset, although I was very nice on the phone (I am so non confrontational, I kind of hated that about myself in that moment, but in hindsight, it's probably a good thing I was forgiving in that moment). John felt like he wasted the whole day and we ended up fighting with each other because we were both frustrated. So yeah, not the greatest day, but we apologized to each other and had a wonderful date night that evening :)
So anyway, even though she had written us in for the next Friday, that day didn't work for her either for some reason, so we rescheduled for the 16th, which is today! Yesterday she called and said she had to reschedule again so as of now we are sitting at next Wednesday for our next meeting. I don't even know what to think anymore. I like our worker, she's nice and friendly, but she seems so disorganized. I know she's super busy, and I feel for her, but it's getting a little old to keep being pushed down to the bottom of her priorities. I told John the other day that I just feel like I don't really care anymore. For the first time, I'm wondering if this is even going to happen at all. I feel very meh about the whole thing. I keep telling myself that God has a plan and that His timing is perfect. We weren't ever given a set timeline on how long this process would take and honestly, I'm not even that upset that it's taking so long but it's more like I really just don't care.
I keep thinking about how this is going to change our family. We have a pretty good thing going right now. We've been a family of four longer then we've been a family of three and a family of two. The thought of that dynamic changing was super exciting at first but I think the novelty has worn off and now it just scares me. We really didn't have to uproot our lives too much to make room for our girls. They sort of just fit nicely into our family and of course it changes things, but things didn't change too much, if you know what I mean. I don't think that is going to be the case with this one. This child will most likely have some trauma attached, possible medical needs, might be a different race- all of those things could dramatically change our life! If you had talked to me a couple months ago, I would've said how excited I was for this. I think it's a good thing to be shaken up out of your comfort zone. We want God to stretch us and shake us up a bit. I still want that, but I feel much more frightened of it then I did a couple months ago. I'm not sure why. We've done all the paperwork and are literally just waiting on this last visit to happen, so maybe it's because it's all out of my control that I suddenly feel so apathetic about it.
For anyone else that's adopted, you know this is normal. I've felt this way before. The waiting is draining, and maybe I've just been over analyzing everything too much. We still very much feel like God is leading this whole process. We pray for our future child every night. I'm just finding it so hard to make myself believe that this is really going to happen. Although when I think about it not happening, I get even more scared.
I guess what I really want to say is please keep praying for us. Pray that we will be able to have this last visit. Pray that we will get approved to adopt. Pray for our child that's out there waiting for us. We really want him/her to come home soon. Thank you for reading my blog, even when I write really depressing stuff like this post, haha. I like to keep it real. Hopefully I will have a more optimistic update next time!
Thursday, 29 March 2018
Update #3
How is it the end of March already? Time for another update!
We are still chipping away at our home study. We were supposed to have our 3rd visit yesterday, but our adoption worker called the day before and had to reschedule...again... Another family she is working with got picked for a placement that day and she needed to be there. I totally understand that that is how her job goes and that is definitely a more pressing matter then our current state, but it still was disappointing and I felt pretty bummed the rest of the day. All of our visits so far have had to be rescheduled. I keep reminding myself that God's timing is perfect. He's proven that again and again and I don't have to look very far to see it. With the other adoptions, I can see multiple examples of me wanting something to happen, it not happening, me wondering why, then after everything is said and done I completely understand. I know this is the same in this situation. He already knows our child. He knows when the perfect time will be for them to come home, and as much as I want it to be now, it's not. But that's ok. I am certainly getting more anxious to meet him/her (or them!) as time passes, though!
In other news though, we had an awesome answer to prayer this week! On the paperwork side of things, the only thing we were waiting on was our criminal checks and fingerprints. We got them done in January, then they had to be sent to Ottawa to be approved, then we were told we would receive them by mail and it should take up to 6 weeks. 6 weeks came and went. This week it's been almost 9 weeks. I was getting the mail yesterday, by myself with no kids, when I felt a nudge to go ask at the police station (just down the street) if they knew why the checks were taking so long. I honestly didn't think they'd be able to tell me anything, but I figured it didn't hurt to check, and I never don't have at least 1 child with me so it was the perfect time. I went in and asked. She said there isn't any way to check the status of where they are at once they've been sent off (which I figured) but she did say she'd check to make sure they were actually sent. So I waited a few minutes, she came back and said they had been sent away, and they should've been back by now, then she picked up a folder sitting right beside her, thumbed through it and said "Oh! Here they are!" Our completed criminal record checks were sitting in folder at the Warman RCMP, most likely for a while. She told me they call it the folder of silence because stuff just gets put in there and never seen again. I smiled and said thank you, even though inside I was extremely annoyed. But also I was very glad to have them and even more glad that I listened to that nudge (which of course, was God) and went in and asked.
So, in conclusion, all of our paperwork for the homestudy is done! Our visit was rescheduled for this next Thursday and then we have one more visit after that, then our adoption worker will compile everything together and get us put on the list to wait to be matched! Thank you for your prayers, and a special thanks to those people who I asked specifically to pray for our criminal checks to come. We are one baby step closer to the end!
Saturday, 10 March 2018
Update #2
A few people lately have been asking where we are at in the adoption process and it's been a little over a month since I did a blog update so I figured I'd do another one, although honestly there isn't that much to update on!
We had our second visit with our adoption worker at the end of February. I guess they are under-staffed right now and there isn't money to hire new people so her workload is heavier then usual right now and she has a few urgent cases she is working on so we are a bit lower down on her priority list, which is why there's been so much time between visits. We were talking with another couple and they had weekly visits with their worker. Ours have been monthly. It's ok, it will all happen in time. The good news is that all we are waiting on is our fingerprints and criminal record checks and then we are done with the paperwork for the home study! We have another visit scheduled at the end of March, then we need one more visit and then we should be done our part. Our adoption worker will then compile all the information and make it into a profile for us to send to the Canadian Adoption Registry in Regina. So I really have no idea when that will be!
We also attended another course at the end of February that was all about culture. 80% of the children in foster care are First Nations so it is very likely we will be adopting a First Nations child. This course was so informative on that aspect. We learned all about their history and culture and how we can incorporate their culture into our lives. It was very eye opening and helpful. I'm so grateful for how well we are being trained through this process. The paperwork side of it is easier, but we've had to take way more classes (online and in person) then with either of our other adoptions. It's been so so good.
That's pretty much it for now. Thanks for your prayers and support!
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