dreams

I tend to have vivid dreams. Dreams that provoked me to write them down in my journal when I was a teen because I just couldn't believe the details I would remember and that I did dream in color. I have not journaled about my dreams in years, but I wanted to jot this one down. I know I won't give all details, but just wanted to put some of it down on "paper" to one day go back and read.

It all started out with our s/w, myself and our pbirthmother meeting at a local italian restaurant. We were all dressed casually, shorts and loose fitting shirts so it must have been hot outside. We sat at a table that seemed to be the only one in the room, yet there were waiters and other patrons walking around inside. We all had pads of paper to write down details of our "getting to know each other" meet-up. We chatted for a good hour, yet I can't remember what details were mentioned, questions specifically asked, but rather we were all smiling and laughing through our whole conversation. We shared hugs at the end and waved at each other on the way out of the establishment. I remember feeling elation, It was almost like I had a smile physically planted on my face while dreaming.

I do believe this dream was provoked in the good nature that we hope to meet our pbirthmother this coming week or in a few weeks in person. I am saying a prayer each day that we all will meet in a casual setting, have fun and laugh. Again, I will refrain from talking about our pbirhtmother until I know if she is ok with me blogging or not.

Nervous, yet intrigued.

Books and more books

Since the last Harry Potter book does not come out for a few more weeks (I CAN'T WAIT), I ordered two books from Amazon the other day. Two books about open adoption. No, not your typical read, but knowing that we are matched with a birthmother (and yes, that is the correct term I will use until further notice, not expectant mother) I wanted to read up on the different levels of open adoption.

I have read one book about a year back, but these are the two books I bought and should be delivered in the next few days:

The Open Adoption Book by Bruce Rappaport
and
Open Adoption Experience: Complete guide for Adoptive and birthfamilies - For Making the decisionThrough the childs growing years: Roszia & Molina

I have browsed through one of the books at the local IF support group library, but I decided to get one for myself. Then maybe I can pass it onto anyone that might need it at the support group for adoption.

Ok, off to go sleep for another 45 minutes or so. The dogs woke me up to feed them. Arrgghhh.

Highway 40.........

Great blog... check out this post and video. I drive past 40 and I-170 each morning and evening and see nearly the same things happening there as is Tamm ave.

http://tinyurl.com/38e5a2

Music to my ears...............

The word MATCHED sung in a sweet melody lightly, sweetly and welcoming. It was sung last night through the phone from our social worker. We have been blessed by a birthmother and she has told our s/w - agency that she has selected our profile and us as a couple to make an adoption plan with. Sing it, soft and sweetly, into my ears. A melody that will hopefully bring us closer to reality of becoming the parents we have always dreamed of from the day we got married (well even before that, but you know).

I need to ask how comfortable the birthmother is with me blogging before I go into any details small or any size! I do not want to jeopardize our relationship that we are starting to build. And honestly, some details are for just us to share. Sorry, but that is possible in some birthfamily to adoptive family relationships. I have to respect her feelings and wishes with the most respect. So if details may seen sketchy, so be it will.

Meantime We can say we are matched and we can't wait to get to know a little more about her and her baby she is carrying. Due date is late September!

Blessings are to be had and We sure pray and hope that we are blessed with them abundantly soon. The Good Lord above works in mysterious ways and I think he has heard some of the hefty prayers we were saying on the way back from our failed match in CO this past month. I have to give praise to Him and I have to give my thanks to another person "C" (we will call her for now) for even thinking of mentioning our names to the friend of the friend that knows the birthmother situation.

My Irish Blessing is rolling over and over in my head:
May love and laughter light your days,
and warm your heart and home.
May good and faithful friends be yours,
wherever you may roam.
May peace and plenty bless your world
with joy that long endures.
May all life's passing seasons
bring the best to you and yours!


and another classic:
An Old Irish Blessing

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Look who I get to meet today

baby Liam http://adoptbabym.blogspot.com/

YEAH.. This gives me hope to not give up on the adoption wait. 15 months into the wait and I hope we can have a playmate for Liam soon.

Gotta go wrap his present and get dressed. Ahhh, this is an outside reception for the baby so I will be sweating up a storm.

edited to add, this was not an outside reception and it was in a very very nice club house of sorts. It was so fun to see several of our friends from the IF support group days and all of them had either babies from treatments or adoption or one on the way! WOOOHOOO! We are almost there, by gosh we are next. We gotta be!

angels from heaven

Two years ago today is the sad anniversary of our miscarriage of our last ever pregnancy. We had done a fresh IVF cycle with SIRM St. Louis and we transferred back 3 nice embryo's and after the 2 week wait we had a + beta hcg pregnancy test. We made it to 6 weeks 1 day in the pregnancy and sadly while at dinner at TGIF in S. County, I started bleeding. We went home and within 4 hours I labored and delivered the fetal sac in tact. I tried to save the tissue for chromosomal testing, but the sac had ruptured by time I took it to the doc's office that Monday(I mc'd at home on a saturday night about 1 am. ). The lab tried to do testing on the tissue, but to no avail. We were ok with that knowing it was 99% my body that just could not handle being pregnant. My uterus was infected with adenomyosis so badly that any fetal tissue that implanted in my uterus was expelled through a miscarriage. And NO, I WON'T call it a missed ab*rtion. I REFUSE to use that 'Effing term.

That night of the miscarriage I told DH that I was done. Physically and emotionally done with ever trying to do IVF again and carry a baby. We would either need to consider surrogacy with our one frozen embryo or start our plans to adopt. We knew in our hearts that we wanted to be parents all along no matter how we achieve that goal and at that time and now we know adoption is our dream to become a reality. Sure, I still have that ache in my heart when I see a pregnant women. No, I am not mad at her, but just sad at the fact that my body could not carry a baby to viability. After 9 Angels in heaven we were sure we knew what path we would become parents through.

Fingers crossed our profile sent out to the agency yesterday brings us an adoption match soon. :)

10 copies out

Mailed off 10 portfolios/profiles today to agency #3. This is 1/2 of them that we have.

We now cross all fingers and toes to hope that we have a call soon saying we are matched. I know the wait can seem like an eternity, but overall we have been very calm with waiting. Going into the waiting period last year after our homestudy was done for domestic adoption, we were told to be prepared to wait between 18-24 months for a match and placement. So this month we are 15 months into the wait from our first homestudy approval. We remain calm. We have had 2 matches and both of those have failed to move forward to a placement, but we are calm knowing that eventually we will have a match that flurishes into a placement and that will fill our hearts with love and our baby in arms forever. Or at least until they are 18 and rebel against us and move out (this was most of my family when growing up.). LOL

I am on the hunt for a new book to read. I am going to go to tapestry books and look over the list of books there for adoption. I want to read into open adoption again. I also want to read more into biracial and trans-racial so I will get my paypal account ready and hit that shopping cart checkout with a few good reads.

DH comes through again

You know, when friend owe friend favors? Well, Dh collected on a favor. He was able to get our profile copied and turned into 20 portfolios. They are not a spiral bound, but the next most popular binding... you see it often in presentations at offices. I can't think of the name of the binding, but it looks really nice. A clear report type cover with our 10 pages of our profile and then a harder black back page all bound in this black binding. Oh heck, what is that binding style called? http://www.coastalbusiness.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=393
Yeah.. those things. LOL

Now tomorrow I will mail out 10 of them for now to the agency. Maybe, just maybe we won't need to send more. :)

Ahhhh, it feels good to be done with this. Thanks goes to DH for all his hard work.

EMAIL ME if you want to see the copy of the profile cover page ... I can't put them up here.

Looking past the nervousness

For some odd reason when we were only one hour away from meeting the birthmother & birthfather in CO, I was not nervous externally. I was focused on what we looked like and how we would present ourselves and not so much the aspect of what it would feel like to shake their hands and sit down and talk with them. I would not allow myself to think of questions before we were in the room. I kept being thankful that DH was with me and was being that rock I needed him to be through ever step of the way, yet I knew he was in some way or another nervous too about meeting the birth parents also in his own way, but yet as my rock he did not show it externally to me that he was nervous in an sort of the way. He stood up and was right there by my side. I focused on what he was possibly thinking and was it something about the social worker , to ask her questions, or was he thinking about what questions we would ask the bp's, I don't know. I do know he hugged me tight when we got out of the hospital door and held me up from falling to the ground wretched in sobbing cries. He is my Rock. I need to tell him that more often.

Hug your husband today. Although he might not express it in the best way verbally, he is expressing it physially or some way or another internally.

I can't wait to see him hold our first child in his arms and see him physially sob with joy.
I know I will be. I will most likely get blurry camera pictures because of my sobs, but hey, it will be a picture perfect moment.

Getting ready to find a printer service to print

this new adoption portfolio that DH worked so hard on this past weekend. Poor thing, I think I broke his back doing it too. I cracked my whip over his back so much that he was hurting bad. hehe. He is ok and did such a great job on the 11 pages that agency #3 AGOHA likes it. Thanks to the s/w, we were able to make some edits and we feel we have a final product ready now. Kinko's could not print our page 10 last night for some reason. I went there to do a basic pilot print run to make sure the colors printed the way we wanted them to. So DH is going to try and stop after work and do this test print also. Then we are going to find a printing service to laminate and spiral bound the pages together in 10 different portfolios. I really hope this brings us one step closer to getting that match and placement.

Wanna see the cover?

gotta figure out this ping thing

I wanted to ping for my twgoots blogspot blog, but that did not work. oops. So go check out my twogoots ebay sales blog (under my profile).

LOL Cross selling again. Oh Yeah.

what a kawinkidink

oh. here are a few pictures from the Race Day events. The first picture is of my friend Kathy, myself in the bunny ears and hat, Susan, and the guest of Honor In Celebration, NatalieT
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/nataliet

This is the team picture for Trottiers Trotters!

What a great Walk it was. Here is another that shows the sea of shirt heading downhill going West on Olive. Amazing to see so many shirts. I missed seeing the funny hats this year though. But we did see many Pink shirts for survivors and many signs in memory of others that lost their battles. Bless them, one and all.

a friend, Kathy from the old IF support group days, went walking with myself and another friend at the Komen Race on Saturday for Trottiers Trotters Team. We were talking on the drive downtown and she was laughing that her jury service had been postponed. I said, "No way, Federal Jury Service?". She said, "Yes!".....Me, "OMG, I was summonsed and also got a deferred date!". OMG.. We were Laughing our arses off. We were both summonsed for Federal Jury service on the same day, same courts, etc... How crazy is that? We chat by email all the time and we never mentioned to each other that we had Federal Jury Service coming up . We discussed our "deferment" by the courts this Monday (as you call in the Friday b4 to confirm your service) and found out that I am deferred to the 25th, but she was deferred to the 21st. So she has to call in the night of the 20th to find out if they are calling her in or if they are again deferring her service. I get to call in after 5 pm on the 22nd to find out if I will have to report in on the 25th or am deferred again or not.

How funny it was to know I chat with Kathy everyday and we never mentioned this to each other. She lives way west.. I mean vineyard country west. LOL It would be so cool if we both get called in on the 25th and serve on the same jury. We will see. I'll keep you posted.

Ebay sales went ok today. Only 5 of my 21 items sold, but I did have a few "off ebay" sales that actually made more money. I am glad I linked my attached (see my profile) blog on blogger to promote. I am going to add a bunch more pictures of patterns of bottle holders I have yet listed on Ebay. Maybe I can gain sales off ebay and start to gain lots more through the blog sales site. hehe. I need to learn some more html for my ebay sales for better linkage to show other patterns without having my fees eaten up by seller listing fees, sold fees and then paypal fees. Sure, I know it is a service they offer and they should make money off me, but I don't sell a high priced item so it is hard to be able to make a profit to help pay for our adoption costs like that.
Ok, off my soapbox now.

Please do go check out my other sales blog.

DH worked so hard on creating our newest agency's picture profile for us. He finished it up today. It is 11 pages long from cover to back. Now we have sent it off the the agency for their viewing and suggestions of changes if any are needed. I am proud of DH, he went full head into the project and worked on it Friday Saturday and Sunday long. Sure, there were a few words we exchanged on thing we might not have agreed on with style or color, but it quickly worked itself out without much kink in the rolling out of each page. Now we just need to find out what we should change per the agency's suggestions and then find out how we can laminate or sheet protect them with a spiral bound setting so the pages lay flat for when the pbm looks at the profile and the pages are not all turning over on themselves while she is trying to read it. Great suggestions Elizabeth!

ok, off to bed to go to work since I don't have jury service just yet.

Ahhhh, spells relief

Did I mention to you that our newest agency's social worker(s/w) was wonderful? She came in, greeted the barking doggies (I bet her doggie thinks she cheated by meeting our doggies), then sat down with us for a good while to go over what they would like to see in our profile. Or at least suggested a few things. DH and I have our work cut out for us, but we plan on finishing this profile in a few days time. I was told by the s/w to email her the pages as we get them done so she can help us if we need to define anything or change settings, etc.... FUN. I think DH might like this scrapbooking program as much as I will.

I just wish it would rain already. My bones ache. I had the youngest dog ran into my side knee the other day on her way out of the house to go into the backyard and that hit made my knee cap pop out of place and then it popped back in, but I am hurting big time now in my knee. I think she might have strained something in there or pulled a ligament. If it does not get better by early next week, I will call the doc to get in. I have never been to a specialist about my knees (sounds like rocks jiggling behind my knee caps), but this has provoked me to pay closer attention and call for help soon. Heck, what good would I be if I have a bad bum knee when holding a baby? :)

Ok, Jury service has been deferred(as they put it). I had to call tonight to a special 866 toll free number to put in my juror number and it would tell me if I would have to report downtown to the Federal courts building this coming Monday or later. I called and it said "Your jury service has been deferred to 6/25/07 at 8:15 am. BUT I have to call on 6/22/07 to confirm that I still have to report. I also have to call them to see if this changes my reporting dates from 6/18/07 - 6/29/07 to 6/25/07-7/6/07?!? It is for a two week on call term on the original letter, but I am not sure if this drags it out one more week. Hummmm. Good question. I guess Monday I will call the local courts number and ask them if it will be a full 2 weeks on call again.

Ok, back to working on the profile.

Page one has a background. DH is working on scanning some items for a theme.

butterflies turning huge flips

yes, I am dealing with a butterfly stomach right now. The social worker is on her way and I am so nervous for some reason. We are going to go over what they recommend our our picture profile and dbm letter. I can't wait to get busy on this.

I wonder if I can take my laptop to the jury service on Monday. If I need to work on our picture profile, I can do that from my laptop. Hummmm, I will call down to the info line tomorrow and ask if I can bring it. I don't mind carrying the bag around with it as it is not too heavy.

Ok. dog barking.. looks like the sw is here

thanks!

wow! thanks for the sales!

ebay listings again

Yes, my self-promotion is on. I have to make up some of the over 1400.00 in costs we lost on this last failed match.

Check out my twogoots blog for ebay... click in that blog to get to ebay!

Thanks!

Hey, I just looked and I already have one sale. YEAH!

Cheers to a great, busy week for us all.

Scrapbooking software is installed on the pc and now I need to work on building our new picture profile for the #3 agency. (#1 - Adoption Haven, #2 - Action4adoptions, #3 - A Gift of Hope Adoptions).

failed matches suck a big donkey kong.

DH and I just spent the last 4 days packing then traveling with our 3 doggies (yes they go everywhere with us on the road) and our camper to Colorado Springs CO for a match with a pbm that was being induced on Tuesday.

Needless to say, without going to much detail, we got up there and met the pbm and pbf(father) of the baby that had just been born Tuesday around 5:30 pm, but found out yesterday that the pbm did go home with the baby instead of making an adoption plan with DH and I.

Our hearts are broken, but we will not stop our dreams of becoming mom and dad!

I will grieve this loss and failed match, but I will keep my hopes up that our new agency will be able to match us quickly with a less risky situation.

What a whirlwind trip, nearly 1900 miles, nearly 2000 in travel expenses and nearly broken hearts is what it was all about.

One good thing that came out of this is that we never did meet the baby boy. Thank goodness because I know my heart would have been broken into pieces even more had we met him.

Ok, off to sleep so we can drive the rest of the way home from Lawrenece KS tonight (staying at a KOA).

We will become parents, I have faith in this.

Let the War begin

Jokesters that we are, DH and I, today he was teasing me about something as he got into the shower. So I preceeded to go potty and got up and he did it again so I politely as I could FLUSHED THE TOILET. My friends WAR HAS BEEN DECLARED. He said, "Oh paybacks are fun you just wait".

Baahahahahaha! Bring it on baby.

baby oh baby. yes. bring it on.


On a more serious note.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=demRHgul2Zk


I gotta figure out how to post a YouTube video directly here. But for now, go to that link above.

clean clean clean

ahhh, a clean house is rewarding.

The newest adoption agency we are with is having the social worker come over Tuesday evening to go over our profile to revamp our dbm letter and our picture profile. I hope the house is presentable and smelling oh so good with my favorite candles!

html and school

Man, I bought an html book recently(whopping .25 cents!) and wish I had time to read it so I could figure out how to do my own web page programming/building. I will work on it one day. I like this blog, but maybe one day I can start my own after I buy a domain. hmmm. Meantime I will let blogger host me! No offense blogger, but I need a peppy web page!

This puts a bug in me to sign up this fall for my html class I need to take. No tuition reimbursement from work, but I need to do this for me. I need to keep my classes up. I want to strive for myself!

DH is taking a class this summer and then another one this fall so this puts the bug in me to keep my schooling up also.

This keeps me busy. I need to research to see if there is a second 1 credit hour course I can take that will help further my credits towards my associates.

I can tell you that I still regret not going to college right after high school or even a few years after that when I could have afforded it, but I am glad I have the bug these past few years to keep going with my education. I have much better study habits now and I love seeing how I can conquer a challenge in class.