Inspiration

Day 8 approved and waiting for our baby through the miracle of adoption

Today I happened upon a scripture that is really a direct answer to many heartfelt prayers.

“Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power, then, may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for His arm to be revealed.” ( D&C123:17)

I have been feeling such an anxiousness with all of the adoption "advertising" stuff that needs to be done. I can think of a million things I need to do, and it can be quite overwhelming. Plus, most of you know how good I am at being patient and letting go of control. Yeah right! But this scripture helps bring peace to my heart. All I can do is try my best. Malone and I are doing everything we can think of to help us find our child. Now it's in God's hands.

Don't worry, be happy...

Day 7 approved and waiting for our baby through the miracle of adoption

Don't worry guys! I'm feeling better today. After a bit of drenching rain this morning the sun decided to listen to my demands for once. It came out, banished the clouds, and welcomed in a bright blue sky. It even got up to about 40 degrees or so! (Hallelujah!) Now, if the weather doesn't digress back to it's miserable wintery state I will be much more content. I am SO ready for shorts, swimming, camping, gardening, hiking, barbecuing, and all the other FUN stuff of spring and summer! Can you tell I have a "touch" of cabin fever? Okay, okay, so the touch of fever has progressed into a stage four disease, I'll admit it! I can't help it! But the sunshine today was definitely an evidence of one of God's tender mercies. He knew I needed it.

I feel BLAH... and DISCOURAGED...

Day 6 approved and waiting for our baby through the miracle of adoption

A while ago I read someone's blog post about how nobody gives an honest picture of themselves on their blogs. People write about how everything in their lives is perfect, their house is perfect, their family is perfect, they are perfect at practicing their respective religion, etc... You know you've all seen a blog like that! Lets face it, said blogs have an amazing ability to simultaneously awaken the ugly green monster of jealousy and make you want to throw up in sickeningly sweet disgust.

I'm using that as my excuse to be real in this post. Feel free to skip this if you wish to preserve the notion that I am, as you may have previously believed, one of those "perfect" people.

First of all, let me just put out there that this post is not meant to be a fishing expedition. I do not expect you to give me a million compliments, I just need to get some things off my chest. Commence with the whining.

I want to be a mom so bad it hurts. Those of you out there with infertility know what I'm talking about. It's the kind of pain that is so real it's physical. I feel that I've spent the past 3-ish years in constant prayer just begging God to give me the one blessing He won't give me. I thought it was all over when I found out I was pregnant with my son. Then at 24 weeks into my pregnancy, I received a crushing blow. It wasn't over. The pain was really just beginning. A week after my son was born, I experienced what no mother should ever experience. I held my son as he passed away. It's been almost two years since that day. We have been trying for children the entire time. Infertility treatments got us nowhere. We are hoping to adopt but it's easy to get discouraged thinking that nobody will ever want to pick us.

A lot of confusion comes with this. What am I doing wrong? Does God hate me? Why does He allow others to parent, but not me? Should I even keep trying to have children? Why can't it just be easy? If it can't be easy, why can't it just be sort-of hard instead of back-breaking hard? Haven't I suffered enough? Is there any end to this? Do I deserve to be a mother? Is this because I would be a horrible parent? The list goes on... and on... and on...

Most days, I don't feel this way. Most days I'm actually content with things. I can recognize my blessings. I have the best husband, a comfortable home, sufficient income, a good job, family and friends who love me, etc... This is another list that goes on... and on... and on... :)

However, on days like today, I just wish I could escape to somewhere like Hawaii. (Maybe that has something to do with our dreary below freezing weather.) But I know that so long as I make it through this day, tomorrow will be better.

With Paper In Hand

Day 5 approved and waiting for our baby through the miracle of adoption

We were so excited to get our approval letter! Here we are showing it proudly. Now with paper in hand we are ready to be very proactive in our "finding" process.

May I Have Your Attention Please!!!

Day 1 approved and waiting for our baby through the miracle of adoption

MALONE AND I ARE APPROVED TO ADOPT!!! We heard from our caseworker today and we are now official! Check out our profile at:

https://beta.itsaboutlove.org/ial/profiles/22213586/ourMessage.jsf

We are so excited to be in the "finding" phase. That means the real work begins and we need all of your help. We would love to send you our pass-along cards and fliers so that if you come upon any potential birth mother you can share our information with her. You can also just give them out to all of your friends and family so that if they hear about a potential birth mother they can share our information. Anyhow, that's kind of just the short version, and I'd love to share more information with you. Just email me your mailing address to our adoption email which is: maloneandbrittanyadopt@gmail.com. Be sure to also include how many pass along cards and fliers you want me to send!

We have lots of other ways you can help us, more information will be coming about that. Most importantly, we want to ask all of you to pray with us that we will be connected with our birth mother quickly, whether you are a member of our religion or not. If you are a member of our religion, we would love it if you would also consider adding our names to your temple prayer roll and fasting with us the first Sunday in March.

No news...

Several people have asked if we've heard anything yet. Unfortunately the answer to that question is a BIG FAT NO. Sorry guys, I know you're all waiting on pins and needles like we are, but unfortunately we just can't force a brick wall to move. BUT, our case worker does go into the office tomorrow and so we're hoping tomorrow will be the day we get officially approved and put on the website. So here's crossing my fingers (and toes) that things work out the way I want them to. Check back tomorrow and see if we have any more info, and cross some of those fingers (and toes) for us!

I HATE red tape

So all yesterday I was anxiously waiting to hear from our case worker because I know she goes in on Wednesdays. She said that she was going to try and get all the required signatures at their staff meeting. So I probably checked the email ten THOUSAND times waiting to see if I would hear from her. At 5:30 I still hadn't heard from her and I had to go pick hubby up from work. I was irritable and ornery and when Malone asked why I said, "Because I really wanted to hear from Charity today and I didn't." What was his response? HmmmmmMMMMM????? He said, "Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you that Charity called me."

You have to be FREAKIN' kidding me! Charity had called him and he forgot to call me and let me know. Man I could have avoided a whole day of anxiety. She just called to ask him a couple of questions about our file. Apparently the director wouldn't sign off on things until she cleared things up. (Double checking on our insurance and Doctor's reports.) Malone answered her questions and then hung up with her. Did he BOTHER to ask her if she knew when we could expect our approval notice? Of course not! Seriously... sometimes I wonder about that boy. (Don't worry, I still love him. :) But I think we're going to change our primary contact number from his cell to mine. )

So this morning Malone called the office. Of course, Charity wasn't in but the secretary was able to deliver the irritating news. Because the director didn't want to sign off on things until those questions were cleared up we are now going to have to wait ANOTHER WEEK! Mr. Director won't come in to the office again until next week at which point I am desperately hoping things will be perfectly clear for him to sign off on. Don't get me wrong, I'm really glad they're thorough when it comes to approving adoptive couples. And I understand they are super busy especially Mr. Director because he supervises two agencies. But this is just so important to me it's easy to forget it's not life and death to everybody else as well.

So... if we do get approved in a week, it will have been almost 8 months just to get approved to adopt. Does that seem like a little ridiculous to anyone else? Here's hoping we get chosen MUCH quicker than that.

Birthdays and More Waiting

Malone and I recently celebrated our birthdays. I'm 23 and hubs is 26. We're feeling old! Malone made me dinner, and gave me my favorite candy and Wii Fit! He spoils me. I'm so loving the game! Even if it tells me I'm old and "unbalanced." (This is referring to my coordination, not my mental stability! :P) I treated Malone to dinner at A&W and gave him Ticket to Ride Europe, Madagascar 2, new shoes, and his favorite candy. We also threw ourselves a big birthday bash and a bunch of our family and friends showed up! Thanks guys, it was crazy but fun!

On the adoption front, we are still waiting... and waiting... and waiting... Seriously, we haven't really had a problem with impatience through this whole process. But this is the most frustrated we've been. All that's holding our approval back is waiting on a signature. This is three weeks of waiting that we haven't been shown to potential birth mothers because of a little signature. Argh... I know we can't force things to go any faster, but now that we're so close we're just wanting it to happen NOW! I almost feel an urgency in the pit of my stomach. I'm really trying to be patient. But it is super hard. Our caseworker said she's hoping to have it done by the end of this week. Hopefully she pulls through for us! She's been really great so far, so we can only hope this trend will continue. Then we'll be off like a shot getting the word out! Do any of you have suggestions for how to endure this?

Superbowl PARTY!!!

My nephew was having his own Superbowl Party while us big kids watched the game. He was watching Veggie Tales on that laptop! I have to say, he's pretty freakin' adorable.
Check out our cute football shaped homemade oreos! My sister made them, but I gave her the idea for the shape. I'm the QB in our kitchen!
Just us. Like Malone's goatee? I think it's hot.
Check out our spread!!!
All of us... we were just a bit anxious to dig in to the food. This was about 15 min. before go time!

No, we are not football freaks. But, we do enjoy the occasional game here and there. Same goes for baseball, hockey, basketball, etc... Really the only sports events we get too crazy about are the Olympics and WORLD CUP SOCCER! (I can't wait!)

Anyhow, every year we throw a Superbowl Party. This year we kept it fairly quiet without a ton of people. We just had a couple of my brothers, their families, my little sister, and her man. No biggie. But we did have a TON of food. Seriously, I swear we could have fed all the Cards players as well as the Steelers. To say we overdid it a little is an understatement. But I guess that's kind of mandatory for the Superbowl. After all, we're Americans! ;) Anyhow, here are some pics.

P.S. I was sad that the Cards lost.

It's official now...

Today Malone and I were released from the nursery. (For those of you who aren't members of our church, we voluntarily serve in different aspects such as taking care of the very young children. AKA nursery.) It sucks because last week was the first week we had almost ALL of our kids at church and NONE of them cried. And let me tell you, that is a major accomplishment for six kids under the age of 2. The kids are all really getting to know us and feel excited about nursery. Of course, right when you really start to get comfortable and love the job you're doing, that's the time the Bishop (our church leader) asks us to do something different. Anyhow, I'm really going to miss spending Sunday with all of those kids. We've really fallen in love with all of them.

But now I get to try something different. The Bishop asked me to be the Literacy Specialist. Of course, I said yes and I'm excited for something new. I'm ready to get started, but I'm missing one important piece of the puzzle. What in the heck is a Literacy Specialist?