Okay...I'm Ready Now (Chapter 1: Our Adoption Story)

I haven't blogged in a while. I'm sure that all my readers are long gone, but, I'm ready to go back and sift through the last 6 months, if only for myself, and record what has been one of the hardest, strangest,  loneliest, most beautiful, seasons of my whole life. I'm ready to write this little chapter down, and begin celebrating, here, online what God is doing in me and in my family.

I wasn't ready before now.  My heart was hard. I was hurt. And while I wasn't angry at God, distrust had crept in and I was keeping Him at an ever growing distance. So, I did not want to write in my sorrow and dishonor God, nor did I want to pretend I was resting in the goodness of God when in fact I was toiling in self-preservation and isolation and numbness.

But...I'm ready now. The Creator of all things has been knitting back together the torn pieces of my heart.  He has been patient with my grief.  He has haunted me with His presence despite my rejection, and as if He wasn't offering me everything already...well, let's just say...He gives joy in excess and I can only imagine that He laughs at my disbelief, as a father laughs at his children on Christmas morning when, with eyes like saucers they behold the great absurdity of their father's generosity.  The Lord is getting a good chuckle out of me, I assure you.

I'm gonna post our story in chapter chunks.  It's too overwhelming to get it all in one post. So...here we go...

Chapter One:  February & March 2, 2012
You may remember that we, like headless chickens, frantically got our adoption stuff in order back in December. (To jog your memory go here.) After the dust settled from all that, January and February were fairly normal (I think), and we were just waiting for our profile to be seen by birth-moms.  Well, sure enough, towards the end of February our profile was given to a birth-mom and to our great delight and amazement she chose us to be the parents of her baby.  It was crazy! It was happening SO much faster that I imagined it would. Suddenly, this nice idea that had been all theory and rosy expectation was real and had a due date and a mom and a family attached that will hurt because of this decision. And while I couldn't help but feel excited that my prayers were being answered, a healthy dose of fear came with it.  Here I got my first real taste of the seriousness of our decision and that my joy would come at someone else's cost.

So March 2, 2012...without a doubt THE SINGLE MOST CRAZY DAY OF MY WHOLE LIFE.  Casey and I woke up that morning to some very unfortunate news, which I cannot share here, but it was a big blow on a day that was supposed to be a great one...it was the day we were to meet our birth-mom.  After picking our jaws up off the floor at the unfortunate news, we put that momentarily aside, got ready for the day and prepared to meet the girl who would change our lives forever.  Around 2pm, with wild, rabid butterflies in our stomachs we went to New Life Adoption Agency and met our birth-mom.

She, we'll call her Tina, was a delightful girl. Very young. Very pretty. Very pregnant.  Her family was there with her, which I was happy to see...they were very supportive of her.  (After walking through the adoption journey, Lord help the girls who walk that road alone! Seriously.  It is unimaginable.) Anyways, our meeting went well.  It seemed that Tina felt more confident in choosing us as her baby's adoptive family, and we couldn't help but adopt her into our hearts as well.  She was a real person...that matters to God...not just a means to an end.  Honestly, I wasn't really prepared to care about her so much, and thus, the emotional tug-of-war that is adoption grew significantly more violent. And there's not just 2 ends on this rope...this rope has an end in every direction.  On one end there's the hope and excitement of a new baby. On another the hurt of not being able to enjoy the baby kicks and the ultrasounds and baby showers and all of that. On another end there's the fear of raising a baby that you didn't give birth to and doesn't look like you. On another there's the fear that the birth-mom will change her mind.  And on yet another end...not wanting this baby to suffer any hurt over being adopted.  I left that meeting, thrilled that it could not have gone better, but also a quite stunned at the difficult journey that the Lord had laid before us. But I believed that Lord had indeed brought us to adoption, to New Life, to Tina...so on we went...in faith.  

But it was still March 2, 2012. The day wasn't over yet.  We went home from our meeting and told friends and family that it couldn't have gone better and that things were looking good for us to have a new baby at the end of the month.  Well, later that evening as Casey and I were on the couch, letting our reality soak in, Casey picked up on some suspicious symptoms...mainly that I was "late".  But, I was thinking nothing of it. You see, every month for 4 1/2 years I'm either "late" or there's some other suspicious symptom that leads me to believe that I'm pregnant. And, without fail these "suspicious symptoms" always end up playing me for the fool, as I'm never actually pregnant, and I begin the whole fiasco again the next month.  This particular month, I noticed them of course, but I refused to give into the dirty tricks my body plays on me..."I'm moving on! I said...putting all that behind me...focusing on adoption.  The end.  Well, my resolve weakened and curiosity got the best of us...as it always does, and in the wee hours of the morning, Casey ran to Walmart. He bought a test. I took the test. Positive. 

Holy Bologna! (That's not what I said.  I said something worse than that, but I'm keeping it clean here at The Beautiful Meantime.) I'm gonna save the emotional meltdown that proceeded this revelation for another post.  But, let me just say...it wasn't pretty. There was snot and ugly crying...the kind where Casey says I look like Julia Roberts (which he doesn't mean as a compliment), and there was hyperventilating and panic and then maybe a little she-had-done-lost-her-mind-for-real crazy laughing. And there were multiple rounds of all of that. And at who-knows-what-o'clock I fell asleep.

March 2, 2012. I will never forget that day as long as I live.  

My Love Affair with Teen Fiction Continues

First it was Harry Potter. Then The Twilight Saga. And yes, now I am not ashamed to say that I have followed the herd straight into the Hunger Games. I. LOVE. IT. I just finished book 1 yesterday.

It was a pretty busy weekend. Prepared for a baby shower Friday. Gave a baby shower Saturday and went out with friends that night. Woke up and went to church on Sunday, followed by a C3 luncheon. By the time I got home Sunday afternoon, I was a bit cranky and a lot a bit tired. Without really thinking, I grabbed my book that I was about 170 pages into...and then, well took most of the evening and knocked that baby out. OMG! I could not put it down!

I hadn't seen much about the movie. Just the trailer where all you see is someone running through the woods...you don't even really see her face. Well, I just watched the real trailer...where you see Katniss, Gale, Prim, Peeta and it builds and builds until right when the games begin. GASP! Amazing! I started tearing up cause the excitement is just so overwhelming. Is anyone with me on this, or is this just me? Cause if it's just me, I am TOTALLY kidding. I hate the book really. If it's not just me then I am TOTALLY serious. ;)

I am anxiously waiting to start the next one, but I really need to do some adoption reading first. Casey will be out of town some this week...never a bad time to start a new book. ;) I do have a little premature anxiety that the series is only a trilogy, however. That means I only have 2 more books (that I will, no doubt fly through) with my new friends from Panem. I'm not alone here too, am I? Right, there's others out there preparing themselves for the I-don't-want-my-book-to-be-over grieving process?

Sigh::::

That's it. I'm a nerd. There's no escaping it. I'll probably go to the movie with my hair braided down my back, smeared with mud, dressed in my tunic with my bow and arrow...like the crazies with the Lord of the Rings.

Awesome.

Well, just wanted to connect with my bloggin' buddies a bit. Also...I've gotten a few questions regarding homeschool and Classical Conversations, specifically. So I'm gonna do a post about our journey with all of that ASAP. Try to this week while the hubs is gone. I will probably have to write that before I start Catching Fire or it's likely that that post will go unwritten. :/

Love,

At This Rate I'll Be Reading Board Books By 40

I Forgot To Do This In August...First Day of School Pics

First Day of School - 2009 (3 Years Old):

First Day of School - 2010 (4 Years Old):

First Day of School - 2011 (5 Years Old)
B's first day of CC. (Classical Conversations is our homeschool group. We do school together every Tuesday.)

Here, we're about to leave for school. I got to be in the-first-day-of-school-picture too cause, well, I go to school right along with her. :)

Sigh:::

Just look how fast she's growing up!

Alright, I'm gonna go cry myself to sleep now.

G'Night.

2011 Book List

Well, I didn't get to do as much reading as I would have liked, but what do ya do?

Here's what I managed to finish...

* Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
* Praise Her in the Gates - Nancy Wilson (favorite)
* The Fruit of Her Hands - Nancy Wilson

* Sons and Lovers - D.H. Lawrence
* The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
* The Praying Life - Paul Miller (the other favorite)

* Because He Loves Me - Elyse Fitzpatrick

* Real Life Discipleship - Jim Putman

Some Quick Casita Pics

My favorite room...the kitchen.

Living Room. Not completely finished but, we're getting there.

The floating shelves were my Christmas present. I love them! Especially my little work nook. Can't wait to finish working on this space. For starters, I'm about to paint the "C" a pretty aqua/robin's egg blue color. I'll keep ya posted on our projects.

More pics to come as we get rooms looking more like rooms...and not big blank spaces. But it's gonna take a little time. And money. You know how it is. ;)

My Life is Significantly Different Since the Last Time I Posted

Well, it's December 31st...last day of 2011...so, I though I'd get one last post in before 2012, because well, A LOT has happened here at the end of the year. Why have I not posted before now?...I've been an absolute crazy woman from October to December 25th, during which I had not a single clear thought and any spare time (there wasn't any, but if there was...) I spent it breathing into a paper sack.

So here's a quickish summary of what we've been up to...

Sometime in September we turned in our initial paper work to New Life Adoption Agency to begin the process of adoption.

Sometime in October we turned in our official application to New Life which included medical history, statement of faith, how we became Christians, why we want to adopt and lots of other essays and papers to fill out.

Then we had to wait over a month to hear if we were accepted as New Life family.

The weekend before Thanksgiving we moved into our house! I had forgotten how much I LOVE LIVING IN A HOUSE!!!!!

Home Sweet Home...my little casita!

I'll post some more pictures tomorrow. The outside looks a little different from when I took this picture and I'll take some pictures of the inside, but I have to clean first! ;)

Okay, so at this point, we were getting moved in, finally feeling at home, but I couldn't relax too much cause Christmas was right around the corner and I hadn't begun any of my shopping or decorating.

Just as the stockings were being hung, we got an email from New Life saying that we had been accepted as a New Life family but we needed to come in for an initial meeting after the New Year to make sure we were all on the same page regarding open adoption. (New Life requires that the families commit to maintain communication with the birth mom with pictures and letters.) Well, as you can imagine, we were tickled to pieces to be that much closer to adopting, and taking the next step in January sounded perfect, because, as I said, Christmas was pounding on my wreathless front door.

About a week later, we got a call from one of the ladies at New Life. She wanted to go ahead and meet with us before the New Year. Well, of course we would meet!...it would be nice to meet face-to-face finally and talk about what January would look like. So we went to the meeting. We confirmed our desire to have an open adoption and everything was going great. And then...just as I was about to wish her a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, she explained to us that she wanted us to get all of our home study completed in December.

After I quit choking, I blinked away my panicked eyes, smiled and said, "Um...Of Course! So you think maybe, that week after Christmas?" Surely she means the week after Christmas!

"No, no,"she says, "I can't that week. How about the week before?"

This time the panic could not be blinked away, and it's possible a mild swear fell out of my mouth, but because we are anxious to adopt our sweet baby and because we don't really know who we are unless things are completely insane, we agreed to complete all of our paperwork, inspections, photographs, video and home visit the Thursday before Christmas.

So...two weeks before Christmas:

- we had to finish MOVING IN!

- get ready for Christmas and Christmas events that I had already planned

- and complete a 26 item checklist of things to do before our home study on the 22nd

Long story short (too late)...we did it! I mean...there were lots of tears, some spells with irritable bowel syndrom, and I consumed about 15 gallons of Starbucks Iced Black tea, but we did it! We got the house ready, the nursery (sort of) set up, Christmas presents under the tree, dinner parties hosted and attended and every item on our adoption checklist done...minus our infant CPR and reading requirements.

We finished our home study Thursday.

Had a Christmas Eve Eve Service on Friday.

Went to Sugar Land to be with my family on Christmas Eve.

Spent Christmas Day with Casey's family.

Came home on Monday.

Been pretty much a recluse ever since. Seriously. I've slept a lot. Cleaned a lot. Cooked a lot (which didn't really happen the other 3 weeks of December). Played Wii a lot. Vegged a lot.

Lord, how I needed it. In fact, we may make that a Cease family tradition...to spend the week between Christmas and New Years at home...resting and recovering and rejuvenating, preparing for the next year. Now, I feel ready for 2012 and the idea of going out into the world and seeing other people doesn't make me want to cry.

So there you have it, friends. We moved from our apartment to our beautiful new house and we could be adopting any time now. Or it could be a year from now. Who knows? We're back to waiting. But, I will say, even though those two weeks were some of the craziest weeks of my life, I am so thankful that the Lord has moved us through the process so quickly. Our part is (mostly) done. Now it's just up to Him to bring our profile to the the right birth mom. Then this family of three will finally be four! I can't wait!

Happy New Year everyone!

(And by everyone I mean, mom...since you're probably the only one still checking my blog. ;)

Braelyn is Blogging Again!

I have much to report on regarding our new adventures in homeschooling. Unfortunately, today is not the day for that. BUT! I do want to send you over to Braelyn's Blog! It's been quite a while since she has posted, but hopefully you'll start to see her work a little more regularly.

For the last three weeks we have been reading teddy bear stories in our read-aloud time, and to close out the unit Braelyn has written a delightful teddy bear story of her own. She has also picked out 3 of her favorite titles from the teddy bear books that we read.

Enjoy! And...I'm sure she'd appreciate your feedback. ;)

braelynnicole.blogspot.com