Letting Go and A Close Call...

I remember when I was a kid and we had to give our dog up because where we were moving did not allow dogs. I was about 10 or 11 yrs. old and we had the dog ever since I was 3 or 4 so to me I had known the dog my whole life. I was sad but I knew we couldn't take her, I was actually angry at first because my mom was choosing for us to move even though we didn't have to. I can recall crying the day we had to take her to the humane society and my brother and I consoling each other over losing "Baby". Yes our dog's name was "Baby", how ironic huh?!   It was actually a good thing that we moved because my brother and I got to go to a better high school than we would have gone to and we were moving to a safer neighborhood. Though all this good came from an unfortunate circumstance I had a hard time letting go of our dog. I thought I saw her on the street a couple of times and I missed having to feed her as she was jumping all over me. I even missed when she snapped at me because she was PMSing, yup our dog had PMS and was a feisty one! I remember feeling really alone because I would talk to "Baby" and cuddle her when I was scared. My brother and I took on an us against mom stance that helped me to feel not so alone like we were in this together. Sorry mom! That was short lived as I could imagine myself being rebellious and hurting my mom, I cried anytime I broke a dish as a kid because I didn't want to disappoint her. We eventually moved on and understood why we could not have Baby in our lives anymore. It took awhile to let go of that old life and embrace a different life. 

Lately I have had a hard time letting go with regards to our decision to stop pursuing biological parenthood* through medical treatment. It's not that I don't feel our decision was right because I still have peace about it. There are times when I think "well maybe one cycle of clom.id" or "maybe another cycle of fem.ara" but then I remember all the crazy it brings for me and know that God is guiding us a different way right now. I want to know what God is going to do just like I wanted to know what the future held for me as a child when we moved and had to give up our dog. I am a melancholic it is hard for me to adapt to change most of the time so adapting to not having cycle reviews and taking so much supplements and meds is difficult because it switches up the routine. Don't get me wrong it is awesome to not have to be so scheduled with regards to my cycles days! Hopefully there will be a day when I don't have to chart at all and not have to take progesterone, hopefully. There is a supplement my NaPro Dr. started me on to see if it helps me with PCOS in general and if my body responds to it I may not need to take post peak progesterone anymore which would eliminate the need for charting! That is the main thing we are working with from our NaPro Dr., overall long term management for PCOS. 

 The difficulty has been in the letting go of a dream that you held so dear to your heart for so long in exchange for another but you have no idea what that other dream is yet. It is the saying goodbye to one way of becoming a parent and not knowing if God is calling you to become a parent through adoption or foster care. Yup, the difficulty is in the unknowing. I wish I could fast forward 10yrs. from now and see where we are at with all of this, have we gotten past this child business or are we at the same place. Realistically I know we will not be at the same place exactly but will we still be childless? No one can answer that but only time will tell...oh time, that wretched beautiful thing. 

I have been hiding in the cloister of my heart lately and not really blogging or reading blogs too much as I am processing our decision. I am hopefully going to see a priest for some spiritual direction in the coming weeks because I need it. I have been so lost in my prayer time and my discernment feels stuck and stagnant with regards to the pursuit of adoption or foster care. I have been working on living in and enjoying the present moment with JJ (Side note: He went back to work for the same company he left in the summer to try and find work but it just so happens that when his number was called at the union hall it was for that company because they are now having some steady work. I pray it stays steady!) I want to be an amazing wife, daughter, godmother, sister, friend, practitioner and woman! If physical motherhood happens to be a part of that then so be it if not I resign myself to the will of God.

 I emailed a friend, well more like a sister, that I feel that the world needs love and not just any love but the love that only God can give through us. In order to give this love we must allow the transformative love of God to work in us which is not always easy, it hurts and it's humbling but it has this mysterious beauty that literally warms our heart. There are times where I really feel like my heart is overflowing with this powerful and overwhelming Love and all I can do is allow this Love to change me. I fail miserably at this on a daily basis but the awesome thing about this Love is that it pushes you to do better and you realize that this Love can only come from God because of our fallen humanity. 

There are so many people and children who do not experience this Love and those of us who have must share it. This is why I thought we would be called to adoption or foster care. Then I found us further away from adoption because of costs and we are still hesitant toward foster care but open to looking into it. So I started to resolve myself to our life as just the two of us, then some exciting events happened last week! Ok y'all, we could've brought home a baby girl last week! What you say, how'd this happen?! Well let me explain...

A woman who I met at our support group awhile back shared her story with us of IF and adoption, she has four beautiful adopted children. She sent me a message on the book of faces last week saying her agency had called her to see if she knew of a couple willing to adopt a baby girl who was born that morning. I learned that if we were interested we could be doing our home study while having custody of the baby as the birth parents wanted to sign over their custody as soon as possible. JJ and I decided to go for it, so I called the mediators/agency founders. Well it turns out I called the wrong number on accident which is why I didn't hear back from anyone, so I called later that day and found out it was the wrong number. The baby was matched with a couple from Georgia who took a red eye flight that very evening, praise God. They said if anything falls through with them we would be next in line. It was such a crazy day and half! Clearly this child was not meant for us but it got us thinking that may be we are not as through with considering adoption as we thought we were. I was not to disappointed because I was happy this sweet baby girl had a place to go. 

This situation excited something in us that we haven't felt in a long time! I have no idea what this all means but I want to find out, hence the need for spiritual direction. Our lives could've changed in an instant, I kept thinking "we don't have a crib, diapers or any baby essentials! Are we ready for this? Am I ready to be a mother?" With biological parenthood you have that time of pregnancy to prepare, with adoption you don't know how long you have. Are we ready for the ride that adoption can take us on? I don't know. I got to talk to the friend who sent us the message about the baby and I got more excited about the prospect of adoption. She said the founders of the agency want to talk to us because now we are "on their radar" and they may have another birth mother situation we may be interested in. I have not called them yet because I am approaching with caution. I think I may call them today or tomorrow just to get to know them and their agency. 

Please pray for us in this discernment! I know parenthood is not easy whether biological or adoptive and I am not walking into this blindly. A reason why I feel like we are called to adoption is because I feel that I could love and nurture a child whether they are biological or not. I get an excitement in my heart about adoption that I just don't get when I talk to my NaPro Dr. about treatments we could try for biological parenthood. I am not closing the door on biological parenthood because God can always perform miracles I am just trying to move on from the fact that it may be highly unlikely for us. Some people think this is a giving up of hope but it's not, because in reality not everyone gets to be parents biologically. I have even questioned whether or not I really want to pursue parenthood at all and just give of myself to being a practitioner and maybe midwifery, again hence the need for spiritual direction. 

So that's all that's going on around here just a lot of discernment, unknowing and little bit of excitement, ok a lot of excitement :) 

*When I speak of being a parent or a mother, I know I already am because of Cecilia. I am speaking more of the practical day in and day outs of parenthood/motherhood. Don't worry, I remember the dignity of the life of our sweet little one we lost.