Why Lord?

So, they other day I was just wondering to the Lord....why? Why this timing, why have us start our adoption when You knew we would get pregnant.

You see my human brain says, "dang it! we screwed this up, we weren't careful enough and got pregnant...."

My knowledge of God (which sometimes just has to trump the brain, even when it doesn't make complete sense) says that God knows all things, past, present, and future. He knew how this was going to play out.... :)

BTW...No, I wasn't having a melt down. I am LOVING the idea of having a tiny newborn around, even though my heart is still thinking and longing to know my African sweetie.

So anyways, back to my questions, why Lord?

The answer came so quickly and so clear that I want to make sure I don't forget it. I want to make sure I know His answer when I am sleep deprived and haven't had a shower in 3 days and the baby is crying and the kids need someone to teach them their lessons for the day. The answer was so clear that I am writing it here, more for me than you, as a reminder to press into Him and press on.

His answer was this.....

"To make sure you were serious."

Yikes!

That answer is fine till I start thinking about it. Wow! To make sure we are serious when we say, yes Lord, we will rescue one of your orphans.

That answer looks a little more serious post-baby....

Yes Lord.....

Even though we can make pretty, sweet, healthy children the old fashioned way.

Even though we have our hands full with 3 children.

Even though 2 of them need school and the other needs constant attention.

Even though we are older and not as ready to bounce out of the bed at 3 am when we were 22.

So, sometimes along the way I am still sad that we are not waiting anxiously for the call. But I am thankful that around me I have friends that I can celebrate when they get the referral....it's bittersweet though. Not quite as bad as last winter when everyone I knew seemed to be popping up pregnant. I didn't know if I could ever be pregnant then, at least I can celebrate with my friends and know that we will have our time.

Yes, Lord, we are serious, in fact, I would probably be in Africa picking out my child right now if someone would let me ;) Yes, Lord, I am serious...I already have matching cribs so that my South Carolina Princess and her African Warrior brother can share a room while they are little.

Yes, Lord, I am serious...I am dreaming and wondering how the little ones will get along, and how close their birthdays are and how many people will dare to ask if they are twins (I may just tell them yes, lol!) Yes, Lord, I am serious...I am praying for an African mamma who is most likely pregnant across the world with her son...my son...right now...

darn, now I am crying, that means I better stop there and go start my day!

The Joys of Pregnancy

So, I have been enjoying the 2nd trimester of pregnancy as of late. I am 16 weeks and feeling much better than I did for the first 12 weeks or so. I was plagued with lots of nausea and just plain old tired all the time. Maybe I'm just older this time around ;) maybe it's a boy like Kelly is hoping....who knows, I just don't remember feeling quite that bad. The worse part was that I was feeling sick in the afternoons and evenings. :( No easy fix of eating a few crackers before I hopped out of bed.

Anyways, feeling much better now! Moving onto the belly bump and just being hungry :) not too bad!

Oh, I do have another symptom that I don't remember with the girls, I seem to have strange, livid dreams just about every night AND I usually remember them when I wake up. I'm talking weird dreams, like one night Kelly and I were flying, like on a fluffy cloud, but sitting like we are on a horse....I know, weird!

As for my sweet Caleb, I am praying for him and still wondering about him. It's so strange that I will have a newborn in the house around the same time that I expected to have him home. I sort of want this little baby bump to be a girl because, quite frankly, I know how to deal with girls...but, secretly, I think a little boy would be great and Caleb would have a best buddy to grow up with.

Fundraising :) I sent the past 2 months hanging and tagging children's and baby clothes and items for our annual children's consignment sale. Usually I sell my girls clothes that we don't need anymore and then make just about the same amount that I spend on their clothes for the next 2 seasons. This year, I didn't even crack our own clothes out, just not enough time! I had so much stuff left over from the yard sales that I was able to fill 3 Z racks (you know the rolling racks from the department stores) plus I had a ton of baby items like a play kitchen, pack and plays, and toys.

The picture is of all the clothes hanging in my garage on a line Kelly hung up just for this....and I still wasn't finished hanging clothes up! (that's a double car garage!)

In all, I made $338 towards Caleb's adoption AND I still got a Z rack of clothes back that didn't sell! We did spend a little on hangers and safety pins, but in all, it's great!! I still have bags and boxes of summer and spring baby/kid's clothes that I separated out for the sale in March. I already have a ton of hangers and tags to get started since I will be busy being 9 months prego or busy with a newborn when the spring sale rolls around. This way, it can be all ready to go and Kelly can drop them off.

Anyways, that's where we are at, life is moving forward with adoption sadly on hold. I am finding things to take my mind off of the pain. I am seriously considering using cloth diapers with this baby and that would spill over into using cloth diapers for Caleb. I am not so earth conscience that I am trying to save the planet from disposable diapers ;) nope, just want to save money over the long haul. Diapers had it's own line on the budget back when the girls were little and if I can avoid that, all the better! They are so cute and everyone I know that cloth diapers loves it. I might be half and half, like use disposables on outings and during the nighttime. We'll see how it goes!

If you haven't seen my FB post, check out this link below. This adoptive mom is raising money for a very sick, very neglected little girl who is still waiting for her forever family. Her blog is an eye opener, be prepared to have you life changes.

It's not fair!

Wow, I am a terrible blogger! Something seemed to happen to me when I got pregnant and lost ALL of my energy and felt nauseous from about 2pm until I went to bed at night....I lost my desire to be at the computer. I'm not talking just blogging, no, I didn't want to even check my email. If I couldn't do it in under 2 minutes with my iphone, I didn't do it. Maybe God knew I needed an extended break from this time sucker (the computer), who knows?

Now, I'm not saying I am back to my old time commitment of my blog. No, I still don't have any desire to be here long. I'd rather be curled up on the couch with a good book, and I should be cleaning the house for our company tonight, but I thought I'd get some feeling out here so I can process them. (I will still update any adoption news!)

I have spent the past two months focusing on the joy of being pregnant, the necessity of giving birth again, and simply trying to do my best to eat and fix my family meals when food has lost most of it's appeal. (Oh...and scrabbling to find the energy and organization to get school rolling...can I just let you know that the pregnancy brain has already set in!)

With all this at the front of my mind, I thought I had moved past not accepting God's plan and His timing. I thought I had accepted that maybe my Caleb in Africa has not even been born yet. Maybe my Caleb is still with his birth mother while she is struggling with a decision to give him up. I knew we would meet Caleb and have him in our family in God's timing...I was good, pregnant, starting to show, and starting to like food again.

Wrong.

I was not good. And I didn't even know it. :( Oh how I still do not always accept God's timing, I do not accept rules that say we have to put our adoption on hold when there are 143 million orphans in this world, one of whom we want to love, we want to share our home with, one that my arms want to hold. And do you know what sent me into a tailspin? The first day of our celebrating series of I Love My Church. Yep, it's supposed to be a fun, exciting series of all the great things about our church. And there I was, sobbing by the end of it.

It literally hit me out of no where. I never saw it coming.

The 2 families that were featured are living out pure religion. They are following God's calling on their lives to speak out for those who cannot speak out for themselves. One family helped start our new ministry Project 143, a ministry to help and support the orphans around the world and families in our church who may be adopting. The other family is adopting a little girl from China. The call was to ask God, what would you have me to for those in poverty, the widows, the orphans, what will we do about the injustice in this world.

By the time the second family's video was playing, I was already crying. Sad that I have to wait longer than I had expected to meet Caleb.

By the time our pastor was asking our congregation to think about what God would have them do, I was sad, mad, angry, simply overwhelmed and livid all at the same time.

I was mad that there are ridiculous hoops that you have to jump through to rescue a orphan.

I was angry for the family adopting from China that they have had so many set backs, mostly due to red tape or human error that their dossier is still not in China.

I was mad that it is so much money to simply ransom a precious orphan to raise and love in your home.

I was sad that someone decided that we should stop our adoption just because we are have another baby.

I was mad that homestudy agency's out there will give an "unfavorable" homestudy to a loving family that doesn't have the "middle class" house and income.

I was devastated that I had heard and accepting the call from God to no longer live in comfort, to sacrifice, to speak up for the injustice of the orphan by bringing home our sweet boy that God has picked out for us.....and I have to wait. I needed a good cry, one for Caleb that I hadn't had since I found out I was pregnant.

I am so sad. Not sad that I am pregnant. Not sad that I get feel another sweet baby grow inside me, to bring him or her into this world and nurse that baby and be it's mother from the very first breath. No, I am sad that I have to wait longer than I anticipated to be Caleb's mother....to snuggle him, teach him his first English words...to show him that I am his mother and I'm not going anywhere. I have to wait to share those exciting new things with him like snow, ice cream, swimming in a pool, kisses from our dogs.....a family.

It's not fair.

That's a popular phrase around my house with my girls, and I usually just smile and shake my head and say, "No, it's not fair...I'm sorry about that."

I bet that's what God would tell me now.

"No, it's not fair. People added sin into my perfect world, and it's just not fair. I am sorry about that."

I feel much better after my cry. I still don't like the injustice of it all. I still want to hold my little boy. I still want to tell people that they can adopt if God calls them to it. I still want to go to Africa.

But I am waiting. I know God is in control....He has His own ways and His own timing. I'm like the mad toddler who isn't getting her way, I'm not happy about it, but I am waiting.

NEWS!

Unexpected joy.....

and sadness all at the same time.

All around me, prego mommas are poppin up, and I am so excited for them. Truly filled with joy, something that would have been hard in January for me. In January, I could barely contain the tears when I would hear of yet another friend finding out that they were pregnant. I am filled with joy for them, knowing that God has a plan for all of us, my plan includes a sweet brown-eyed little boy from far away. He is born in my heart and I will always love him as much as any of my children.

Unexpected joy.........because our prayers from last December have been answered.......

we are pregnant.

Sadness...........because I will probably have to wait a little longer to hold my sweet boy, who was born in my heart.

A friend said something comforting, that this just means sweet Caleb may not even be born yet. I know God had our days laid out, He has a specific child picked out for our family. My human brain says that's fine that our Caleb hasn't been born yet....don't you know I would take any of those sweet children? I don't want this sweet miracle growing inside me to alter my steps to Africa......

truly, they are not being altered, the time schedule has just changed.

I am glad that God knew all along that this would happen, I just hate when I lose sight of the fact that I'm not in control, I hate when I am surprised when things don't go the way I planned. I'm afraid this will be one of those life-long lessons......

God, "Jessica, I'm in control"

Me, "Yes, Lord, I know"

God, "No, Jessica, really...I'm in control"

and then I fly right for a little while before we repeat said conversation again. :) He created me with my controlling issues, He knows how often I need to be reminded.

These were my thoughts 3 weeks ago, as we waited for our ultrasound to prove that we indeed were pregnant and that baby was fine and healthy, we kept the news to ourselves and friends and family that we spoke to face to face or on the phone.

The biggest thing that I have come to terms with is that God does have a plan for our family. Our adoption plans were placed in our hearts by Him and nothing has changed. I still have a little boy, who God plans for me to raise who was or will be...born in Ethiopia.

My children now simply tell everyone, my mom is "getting" pregnant and we are adopting a little boy named Caleb.....all in the same breath. (Oh! If they only knew how rocked their world will be!)

More to come on all of our news, one thing for us that is clear, we now have more time to raise the funds to ransom our son from Africa. So, even though the paperchase has slowed, we are still "in the process" :)