She's Moving!

Pi is mobile! She is crawling like a champ (when I let her on the floor). I am currently preparing for a garage sale, and our floor has many items on it that it normally would not. Thankfully, she is content in the exersaucer for a little while, so that is helpful. Just 10 days ago she was not moving at all, and now she is crawling properly, even on our hardwood floor. Way to go, Pi!

Our meeting in January went well. I think there is always a little apprehension when you meet for the first time, but it went well, and I can see it going well for a lifetime. Our phone contact has not been the greatest lately because she uses a prepay phone. I never know when she will have minutes and when she won't. God has seen fit to involve a mutual 3rd party in our relationship. A friend we have had for many years just befriended Matrices in about November of 2009, without knowing her connection to us. Amazing! So, even in those months that I cannot make a phone call, I can still make sure Matrices is okay and let her know of milestones Pi has met.

We have another meeting this month. Wanna know why? Because Pi is turning 1 this month!!! Can you believe it? So, Matrices will be at Pi's first birthday party. I've always been one who thinks big events for the 1st birthday are kinda pointless, since the guest of honor will not remember it, but I am eating my words this year. We are inviting everybody to Pi's birthday party as we celebrate not just her 1st birthday, but her life and her presence in our family. I had hoped she would be walking by then, but she just started crawling last week, so I'm pretty sure she won't be walking.

Hopefully I can remember to come to this blog more regularly in order to update. I find some blogs so useful and touching, and I had always hoped that would be me someday. Can't really hope for that when I don't even update it!

Happy New Year!

I don't even know if anybody still follows this blog. Leave me a comment if you do :)

Happy New Year! Our little Pi is 8 months old and we are meeting with her birthmother, Matrices, this coming Friday. This will be our first meeting with Matrices since Pi's birth. We have had monthly phone calls and I have sent her pictures, but this is our first post-placement visit. We are all excited! Factor keeps asking in depth adoption questions. I wonder what will come out of his mouth at our meeting.

4 Months Ago

A little baby was born 4 months ago. She is our Pi. I call her birthmother once a month to chat. I send pictures every other month. She is adorable! Factors LOVES her to pieces and she loves him. She has filled an empty spot in our family and we are blessed to be her parents :)

WE'VE BEEN CHOSEN!!!

The title says it all! Baby is due May 22, by c-section. Not many days to prepare the house, to say the least ;-)

We have a yard sale the next couple of days, but I will be back to update in a little more detail in a few days.

Long time

It's been a long time since I last wrote anything here. I get so tired of writing the same old updates..."no news"... I apologize for not keeping this up as regularly as some of you may have hoped (and as I intended). When a blog becomes 2 years old and most of the posts are about not being chosen or no news, it is difficult to get motivated to write anything in it.

I'll try to write a more extensive update sometime this coming week or so.

Dr. Moz

Check out Dr. Moz's giveaways!! They are AWESOME!

Broken Record

Nice title. Not to sound like a broken record, but we found out today that we were not chosen. (I didn't mean the title to sound like we have broken a record, but I'm sure there has to be at least one that we have broken by now.)

We also found out why we weren't chosen. It was over the wording of something in our homestudy.

Beyond bummed.

I'm going to Disney World.

Aaaah! Narrowed Down.

I hardly ever hear from our caseworker anymore. Of course, that is per my request. Yet, everytime the phone rings, I am anxious to see if the caller id says the name of our agency. Today it did. My struggle between excitement and caution begins.

We were called today because we are being considered by somebody who has narrowed her selection down to two families. Ugh! There are so many emotions that come to my heart and mind, I can't even verbalize them all.

Last night, I was at Babies 'r Us and I cried. I cried because Factor is too big for the clothes there, and I really have no reason to go back to that store. I was sad. I have no baby for whom to shop. We have waited for almost 2 years now, and random things just strike me as sad. That was one of them.

Today, we are a family being considered. I feel like I have to be ultra guarded, but really want to dance and sing.

A Time of Plenty

Some of you may know that I am a coupon clipper. I am involved in "SavingsAngel". This is a program that collects all of the store ads/sales, and matches them with coupons to show you what deals are available. Well, there have been many times that I have gotten food items or health and beauty items for free or near free because of this.

Realizing that I feel much better without high fructose corn syrup in my diet, I have made an effort to cleanse the house of the foods that contain this ingredient. Enter "freecycle". I am new to the "freecycle" world. My first 'offer' listing was for two boxes of rice krispies. The responses! The stories of people who need food for their family because of job cuts, job loss, or cut in hours. It is remarkable! And sad.

I am one who likes to tell people about things I think are great. In fact, many people have heard about savingsangel.com from me. Looking through my emails, I can say with even more certainty that I am very thankful for SavingsAngel and for the amount of food and other items I have been able to stock up on for little money. God has truly blessed us. Just a year and a half ago, we were in need of help from a food pantry through Degree's work. Now, I hope to pass on at least a portion of our current blessings to other people who continue to write about their food needs, even though the listing has been modified to say "taken".

Happy New Year!

A HUGE "thank you" to all who participated in and donated to our adoption fundraiser. We raised about $600! Only $6,400 to go ;-)

We have no news on the adoption front. I guess I am fine with that, currently, because we (Factors, me, and Grandma) are going to Disney World on Jan 19th! I am sooooo excited! I have already started packing. To think, a possibility of wearing shorts?! Wow! Thanks Grandma!!

Factors continues to grow and amaze me everyday. On Saturday, he consumed a full 6 inch sub 'cold cut combo' sandwich. WHAT?! That's right. The whole thing. He's not even 4! And, I had him trying on shoes this week, to see if we needed new ones before our trip (we don't wear tennis shoes much up here in the winter), and he needs size 11 shoes. double shock. ELEVEN! He has a wide toe spread, too, so if the shoes are too small (or right at his supposed measured size), he will get blisters on his pinky toe. His big toe came up to about 1/2 inch below the tip of the shoe. Who knows what size he will be when he is a teen!

YIKES!!

Wow! Somebody totally mean-spirited decided to hack into my other blog hoster. What is that, 2 or 3 years of special times and updates of our family's goings-on? GONE!!! Ugh! I'm disgusted!!!
So, I bring to you, over on our adoption blog, a little update on us. We are currently hosting an Adoption Fundraiser. We are hoping to build our adoption fund for when Pi does come home. No, we do not know anything about Pi yet, but we do still want to be prepared.

If you are interested in donating to our adoption fund, you may click on the "donate" button provided. These donations go directly to our adoption fund.

We are also hosting a --- tastefully simple fundraiser over.


We need about $7000 or so for adoption placement fees, when placement comes about. We appreciate any and all donations/purchases. Thank you all for your help and your prayers!

Sad Reminders

I haven't updated anything since July. I guess this blog has become somewhat of a sad reminder of the fact that we still haven't been chosen. I'm sure there is hardly anybody reading it due to how much time has gone by since my last post. I keep hoping that the next time I update, I'll be able to say something like, "We have been chosen!" That has not been the case. We haven't been chosen. I am actually at the point where I am selling things. I am getting rid of baby things. Why? Don't we still plan on being chosen someday? Well, our house is small. We've had a cradle in our bedroom for over a year. It was meant to be a temporary arrangement. I've held onto totes and totes of baby boy clothes for the "what if" days. I even had a stash of newborn baby girl clothes, just in case. I gave those girl clothes away last week. The first step in decluttering my head. I am planning a purge of baby stuff. I'll be a little wise. I plan on keeping the crib and pack-n-play. I'm sure, if something happened suddenly, some friend would step up and help us out if we lacked something.

Here's to purging the house of baby things (while trying not to go overboard).

Monthly Post

Our (seemingly) forever long wait to adopt Pi continues. Our profile is stationed in 4 or 5 diffferent offices and we haven't heard any news about any expectant mothers looking at it. Discouraged, but pressing on. Factors is enjoying being 3 and all the things that may entail. His 2005 friends (those born in 2005) either have brand new baby brothers/sisters, or will have one within a few months. Yet, we wait and pray as we have been for a year and a half, or so. I must admit that this waiting game is very difficult. I find myself cheering for expectant mothers to parent, yet longing to have another baby as part of our family. Surprisingly, to me anyway, I am still running into people who are ignorant on the finer points of adoption. I've seen looks of shock and dismay when I admit that I wish we had a lasting relationship with Factors' birthmother. I am still asked if we are on "a list" for adopting. Really...there haven't been "lists" like they are referring to in 20+ years. And, finally, I get a wide variety of looks when I admit that I am torn because I truly do wish for all mothers to be able to raise their biological children, regardless of how much I want to add another member to our family.

I will update, should anything change in our current adoption status.

Changes

We had a couple of new things go on here in regards to our adoption journey. We were notified by cw last Thursday that he was no longer going to be working at the agency. Though I don't fully know, I imagine working in a social work field does take a lot out of you and demands many more hours than a normal full time job. I can understand the need for change. What I did not fully understand was finding out 2 days before he was no longer going to be there. This is the same cw that worked with us when we adopted Factors, so we have had a relationship with him for essentially 4 years. FOUR YEARS! We got 2 days notice. Since his departure, we now have a new caseworker. I will be referring to him as ncw.

Hopefully this summer will be an eventful one in regards to adoption, but I'm not holding my breath. I know it is going to be an eventful one as a family as we have many things planned for the summer, including maintaining a vegetable garden, strawberry picking, two nights of camping with friends, and much more.

Side note: Factors was near tears the other day when we dropped off more profiles at the agency. I was trying to explain to him that we weren't going to see cw there, but ncw, instead. (We have spent many evenings praying for cw and a new baby brother or baby sister for Factors.) In my efforts to explain the departure of cw and the replacement by ncw, Factors somehow got it into his head that we were going to see his new baby brother or baby sister (don't think I didn't try to tell him otherwise!). We were not able to meet ncw at that time, so Factors asked the receptionist if she had his baby brother or sister. When she responded negatively, he was saying things like, "but I wanted to hold my baby" and "I wanted to take my baby brother or baby sister for a walk." **insert sad eyes** What do you say to that? So, apparently a year of waiting for his new baby brother or baby sister has become more difficult for him to understand.

All this to say, friends, family, please continue to pray for all three of us and our journey.

May Update

The only thing we have heard is, "You have not been chosen." We have heard this phrase several (okay, probably about 20) times. We just completed our physicals and recently did our fingerprinting. I don't know what else needs to be renewed or redone, but I think we have done everything we need to in order to update our homestudy. June marks 1 full year of "officially" waiting for Pi to join our family. Please continue to pray for us, as the wait is not easy.

We Haven't Heard Anything

Wow! 2 months have gone by since the last post! Sorry, if you are a faithful reader, keeping a close eye on things here. We haven't heard anything. Well, we haven't heard anything other than, "You haven't been chosen yet." We did get to take a little trip down to Kentucky for a few days, though. Watch Factor's blog for vacation pictures to come :-)

Random Ramblings

No news on the adoption front.

I have been contemplating what to write about next, other than the normal "we have no news" stuff. I don't think I really decided on anything in particular. Instead, I plan on using this precious web space to pose a few questions and ponderings. Here it goes...

If I had known we were going to live in the snow for five plus years, I would have started donating plasma a long time ago to purchase a snowblower.

Why are potholes called potholes? That seems so innocent compared to what they really are. Wouldn't something like carswallower, tarditch, or tireripper be more appropriate?

I know how they get milk from cows and goats, but what about rice? How does that happen?

Is anybody ever caught up on laundry, dishes, and vacuuming for more than one day?

If manufacturers made eyeglasses slightly crooked, maybe more people would think they had evenly alligned faces.

What does size "0" actually mean? Is the person non-existent? What happens if they are smaller than a "0"? Do they become negative in size?

What does the saying "Red is the new pink" mean? Can we use the same logic and say "Size 16 is the new size 10"?

Something I hoped would never happen has happened. Factor recognizes several fast food restaurants and will tell me how hungry he is and what food items he needs from them. Of course, he also tells me what stores we need to stop at, and what toys or activities he wants from each (go play with trains, see the fish, choose one car, etc).

New Profile

I just completed our new profile. I am very excited because I have been wanting to do this for months, but haven't been able to get a good family picture. Well, we got a pretty adequate picture and I was able to redo our whole profile. Besides, I needed to take out the parts about the cat, since we are trying to find her a new home. In my humble opinion, it looks really nice. Factor and I just went out to get color copies made so we can bring the updated profile to cw on Monday. Unfortunately, unlike postal workers, people making copies for you can read your stuff while they make the copies. Did I say she could just read through it like that? Oh well.

Other than that, we have no new information.

Here's to 2008!

Obviously, 2007 was not our year to become a family of four. Well, raise your glasses, friends. Here's to 2008!

Let's start off the year fervently praying for Pi and Pi's biological mother and father. They have some pretty important and life changing decisions to make in the coming year, and they may need our prayers for God's comfort and strength.

Thank you to all of you faithful readers who have been wondering about our progress, praying for us through 2007, and/or keeping up just because you care about our family. Happy New Year, all!

All I Want For Christmas...

I've been thinking about how AWESOME it would be if Pi could come home around Christmas. I've also been thinking of how horrible that would be for Pi's birthmother. How horrible to celebrate Christmas having given birth, but not bringing the baby to your own home. So, this Christmas season, I am praying for all the birthmothers who have to go through the holidays without their children. I know how difficult it is to go through the many holidays knowing I will never be pregnant nor give birth. I can't imagine how difficult it would be to go through the holidays knowing you handed your own flesh and blood to another family. What a lonely place.

Birthmothers, first mothers, natural mothers, biological mothers (whatever your term of choice is), you are in my thoughts and prayers this season.