Just now I found an amazing blog written by a new adoptive mother. What an inspiration! It's amazing how many people go through the same things we are going through. I know that we are not alone.
Reading through her blog was such an encouragement and at the same time it made me realize that it is time for me to buckle down and get some business done.
I have not read a single baby book, simply because I never got pregnant. Well, obviously I won't be, so I better start reading! I also have fundraising ideas nicely in my head, but it's time to get started. And while we emptied the future nursery out for the most part during fall break, today I took a nap instead of working some more on it.
We've been waiting so long that I feel that I've got so much time - but what if I don't?
In the blog I read the new parents got a hospital call. Translated into language that people who don't know anything about adoption this means that the baby is already born when the mother chooses the adoptive parents. They found out the day before they took their son home, that they'll be parents. Thank goodness they were prepared!
I'm asking for your prayerful support, to get me ready to be a mom. It still seems so unreal, even though our paperwork is done and we are down to only a few interviews.
I've also been struggling in writing our match letter. I want it to be absolutely perfect, which of course is a very unrealistic goal.
So thank you for all your thoughts, prayers, and encouragement. It means the world to us!!!!
Bartlett Family
Summer 2014
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Thank you all
I knew in my heart that writing this blog was the right thing to do. Yet, I cannot even describe in words the ways that your comments, thoughts, and responses have impacted me, as well as Michael. The different responses we received, made it crystal clear, that this was the right thing to do. Not only have so many of you impacted our lives, but it's been amazing to see how my words impact others. I feel so humbled and grateful.
As I am listening to the rain pound on the window it reminds me of my childhood, when oftentimes I would sit in my room , listen to the rain, and write in my journal. I used to love writing my thoughts down! And then life got busy, and I stopped. This is another reason why I love this blog. It feels great to just let my thoughts flow. The only thing that changed is the language in which I am writing. When I was a teenager, I would have never dreamed that one day I would be able to write in English, without much effort.
Life is a complete mystery, and I am glad that God doesn't share his plan with me. Truthfully, I never thought I would say that either! Today I am simply grateful for every day that I get to spend with my wonderful husband and knowing God.
As I am listening to the rain pound on the window it reminds me of my childhood, when oftentimes I would sit in my room , listen to the rain, and write in my journal. I used to love writing my thoughts down! And then life got busy, and I stopped. This is another reason why I love this blog. It feels great to just let my thoughts flow. The only thing that changed is the language in which I am writing. When I was a teenager, I would have never dreamed that one day I would be able to write in English, without much effort.
Life is a complete mystery, and I am glad that God doesn't share his plan with me. Truthfully, I never thought I would say that either! Today I am simply grateful for every day that I get to spend with my wonderful husband and knowing God.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Sometimes it's hard to be patient
Going through the adoption process is certainly working on me in regards on patience. I am so anxious about getting the home study process done, and it seems that God just isn't quite ready yet.
Today we had another setback. Our case worker had to postpone our next meeting until November. I was ready to cry when I saw her e-mail. But then I tried to remind myself that there is a plan to all of this, and God knows what he is doing. (It's still hard though.)
I guess we have more time to get prepared, right?
Thank you all for your wonderful comments to my blog. Please know we pray for all of you and your families and appreciate all your thoughts and prayers.
Today we had another setback. Our case worker had to postpone our next meeting until November. I was ready to cry when I saw her e-mail. But then I tried to remind myself that there is a plan to all of this, and God knows what he is doing. (It's still hard though.)
I guess we have more time to get prepared, right?
Thank you all for your wonderful comments to my blog. Please know we pray for all of you and your families and appreciate all your thoughts and prayers.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
The short version about our last 4 years
The last 4 years have been nothing like we ever thought having children would be like.
Everything was planned out and then God taught us that we don't get to control our lives.
We'd been trying to have a baby for a year, when Michael's mom unexpectedly died from a heart attack. Shortly thereafter we had Dr. appointments that confirmed we were diagnosed with infertility. It wasn't a simple diagnosis and we figured out that both of us were part of the problem. In the mean time all our close friends either became pregnant or had kids already. It is so hard to be happy for your friends, when you are so incredibly sad and hurt. Not being able to have children is like loosing a basic right that one has earned simply by being human. As a young girl you pretend with pillows to be pregnant and then birth your baby dolls. Little did I know that this would be the closest I would ever be to giving birth. (quoted from: Secret thoughts of and adoptive mother.) But this quote couldn't be more true for me.
Well after our diagnosis we obviously believed, we can FIX this. So being the kind of couple we are, we began to try everything we could think of to fix our situation. From Chinese herbs, to acupuncture, to tons of vitamins, relaxation techniques, surgeries, and infertility treatments. Talking about taking the fun out of having a baby!
Especially fertility treatments turn the most intimate experience of a couple into a semi-public science experiment. I really don't want to go into detail here, but I pray for all of you that you will never be in this spot.
I also want to tell those of you who are in the same spot as we are that saying enough is enough is ok. God has a plan for all of us, and unfortunately that plan doesn't always align with ours. All you can do is to trust and pray. Believe me I know how hard that can be!
I am so thankful for all our friends and family who have walked this hard walk alongside with us those last few years. There was a lot of encouragement, a lot of tears, and mostly prayers. We are so thankful for all your prayers!
Last fall we were determined to try 3 more IUIs and that would be it. I was amazed how I was able to handle all those failures. I expected to completely fall apart, but it didn't happen. Yes we were devastated, but we had been praying for so long that God would provide us with strength, wisdom and courage, and that is what he did.
After our last IUI in March I prayed for a sign of where our journey to parenthood should go. We had been to information meetings about adoption before, but I had not been ready. On a wonderful Saturday afternoon in April at CCV (Christ Church of the Valley) I got the sign I had been praying for. And that was when our journey changed.
I am so thankful for all of Michael's patience. He told me a long time ago, that he would be happy to adopt, but he understood my desire to carry our child. What an amazing man God gave me. I know you will get sick of hearing this, but that's just the way it is.
Over the summer we picked out an adoption agency we felt would work well for us. In September we took our classes to be certified to adopt - yes you do have to take classes! At the same time we completed our homestudy paperwork. We had done paperwork before, but nothing like this! Our case worker knows pretty much everything there is to know about our family life, marriage, childhood, our parents, our siblings, our plans, dreams, fears, and worries. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that it took days to fill in all this paperwork.
Now we were on to the waiting game. Refer to my introduction post about today's meeting.
We are very anxious for our next one.
Our tasks now are to safe a very large amount of money, and write our match letter.
There are many friends, family members, and others who have asked how they can support us in this journey. What we appreciate most are your prayers! Please pray for our child, that he or she may be protected from any harm and kept safe. We also ask you to pray for our birth mother, her courage to choose life for our child, her safety, and for wisdom in her decision making.
Everything was planned out and then God taught us that we don't get to control our lives.
We'd been trying to have a baby for a year, when Michael's mom unexpectedly died from a heart attack. Shortly thereafter we had Dr. appointments that confirmed we were diagnosed with infertility. It wasn't a simple diagnosis and we figured out that both of us were part of the problem. In the mean time all our close friends either became pregnant or had kids already. It is so hard to be happy for your friends, when you are so incredibly sad and hurt. Not being able to have children is like loosing a basic right that one has earned simply by being human. As a young girl you pretend with pillows to be pregnant and then birth your baby dolls. Little did I know that this would be the closest I would ever be to giving birth. (quoted from: Secret thoughts of and adoptive mother.) But this quote couldn't be more true for me.
Well after our diagnosis we obviously believed, we can FIX this. So being the kind of couple we are, we began to try everything we could think of to fix our situation. From Chinese herbs, to acupuncture, to tons of vitamins, relaxation techniques, surgeries, and infertility treatments. Talking about taking the fun out of having a baby!
Especially fertility treatments turn the most intimate experience of a couple into a semi-public science experiment. I really don't want to go into detail here, but I pray for all of you that you will never be in this spot.
I also want to tell those of you who are in the same spot as we are that saying enough is enough is ok. God has a plan for all of us, and unfortunately that plan doesn't always align with ours. All you can do is to trust and pray. Believe me I know how hard that can be!
I am so thankful for all our friends and family who have walked this hard walk alongside with us those last few years. There was a lot of encouragement, a lot of tears, and mostly prayers. We are so thankful for all your prayers!
Last fall we were determined to try 3 more IUIs and that would be it. I was amazed how I was able to handle all those failures. I expected to completely fall apart, but it didn't happen. Yes we were devastated, but we had been praying for so long that God would provide us with strength, wisdom and courage, and that is what he did.
After our last IUI in March I prayed for a sign of where our journey to parenthood should go. We had been to information meetings about adoption before, but I had not been ready. On a wonderful Saturday afternoon in April at CCV (Christ Church of the Valley) I got the sign I had been praying for. And that was when our journey changed.
I am so thankful for all of Michael's patience. He told me a long time ago, that he would be happy to adopt, but he understood my desire to carry our child. What an amazing man God gave me. I know you will get sick of hearing this, but that's just the way it is.
Over the summer we picked out an adoption agency we felt would work well for us. In September we took our classes to be certified to adopt - yes you do have to take classes! At the same time we completed our homestudy paperwork. We had done paperwork before, but nothing like this! Our case worker knows pretty much everything there is to know about our family life, marriage, childhood, our parents, our siblings, our plans, dreams, fears, and worries. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that it took days to fill in all this paperwork.
Now we were on to the waiting game. Refer to my introduction post about today's meeting.
We are very anxious for our next one.
Our tasks now are to safe a very large amount of money, and write our match letter.
There are many friends, family members, and others who have asked how they can support us in this journey. What we appreciate most are your prayers! Please pray for our child, that he or she may be protected from any harm and kept safe. We also ask you to pray for our birth mother, her courage to choose life for our child, her safety, and for wisdom in her decision making.
Welcome to our Blog
Well in our family and home I'm more the writer than Michael, so while this is our blog, I guess I'll do most of the writing. I'm not even sure anyone will ever read this, but it's been on my mind a lot to write many of our ups and downs to parenthood down and maybe provide encouragement for others who are going through similar hard times.
I've read several blogs during our journey, and many times they have encouraged or also challenged me. I pray that I could do the same for others.
Today we had our first adoption home study interview meeting. We drew our genograms for our case worker and then got to talk about our families, relationships, childhood, and family traditions. It again became apparent to me that I'm the more dysfunctional one in your marriage. I am so thankful God picked such an amazing husband for me, who was raised by wonderful parents.
I'm in no way saying that my parents are not wonderful, they are in their own ways. I love them so very much and miss them every day. Their relationship is very different and much more complicated though than Michael's parents ever was.
Anyways, it was interesting to compare our families, our childhood, experiences, and weird at the same time to have a case worker write all of this down.
I am so anxious for our next meeting and I pray every day for our birthmother and our child, which I know God has designed or is designing in his perfect image. I can't wait to be surprised by him or her.
I am so thankful to be a Christian woman! Without my loving and gracious father in heaven I would not be where I am today.
I've read several blogs during our journey, and many times they have encouraged or also challenged me. I pray that I could do the same for others.
Today we had our first adoption home study interview meeting. We drew our genograms for our case worker and then got to talk about our families, relationships, childhood, and family traditions. It again became apparent to me that I'm the more dysfunctional one in your marriage. I am so thankful God picked such an amazing husband for me, who was raised by wonderful parents.
I'm in no way saying that my parents are not wonderful, they are in their own ways. I love them so very much and miss them every day. Their relationship is very different and much more complicated though than Michael's parents ever was.
Anyways, it was interesting to compare our families, our childhood, experiences, and weird at the same time to have a case worker write all of this down.
I am so anxious for our next meeting and I pray every day for our birthmother and our child, which I know God has designed or is designing in his perfect image. I can't wait to be surprised by him or her.
I am so thankful to be a Christian woman! Without my loving and gracious father in heaven I would not be where I am today.
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