More pics...

These pictures are of my OTHER beautiful SIL (joey's twin sister) and her new hubby since October!

More of the photography stuff :-)

Why not share more? I had so much fun this weekend taking pictures of my beautiful SIL (joey's older sister) and her soon to be fiance! (can't wait!) So I of course had to share some of my favorite pics :-) There are of course only 200 more!

IVF here we come!

Yes you read that right... we have decided to move onto IVF. And we're very excited! It's funny how you can change your mind about things! We never wanted to do IVF before adoption... but now things are different. :-/

We are planning on doing the shared risk plan (pray we qualify!) so we'll get 3 fresh tries and 3 FETs.... so it seems like a great option.. and if you don't have a live birth after 3 you get 70% of your money back! So we're really at peace about all of this!

When church goes wrong...

Today was a really hard day. First we went to my sisters church to watch our beautiful 1 1/2 year old nephew get dedicated. Things like this are always somewhat hard for me because had we gotten pregnant on our first cycle (which I actually thought I was ...2 weeks late... long story), our child would be one month older than our nephew. So monumental occasions like this sting my heart. And as much as we LOVE (and I mean LOVE) our nephew, it's just hard to know what could have been for us and how far we are from having that.

Then because it's adoption awareness month (nice month to have our adoption fall through ha?) there were families sharing their beautiful adoption stories. I lost it.. during the prayer I got up and left and didn't return. Joey found me sobbing in a corner where he held me until the service was over. Then my family came to find us and I began sobbing... once again.

Adoption is a beautiful thing? Sure... sometimes. And sometimes it's not. We have unfortunately seen the ugly side of adoption... the side where people are dishonest and are willing to hurt trusting people like us... the part where you lose money and have no child to call your own, and have to start over.

So to us, we have lost our naivety about adoption. It doesn't seem beautiful to us anymore. And for that our hearts hurt.

My sister (and whole family for that matter) was wonderful. She convinced me to come back to her house to celebrate with the rest of the family and it turned into a wonderful afternoon. But my heart still aches. We have lost the sense of naivety in ALL of this baby making stuff.

ps

just because it's one of those days...

My heart is still aching.

What do I do with all this baby stuff? We have been preparing to bring a baby in our home and it shows... and now I can't bear to look at all of this stuff.... I know we should take everything down and box it up for our own sanity.. but I'm not sure I can bear to put everything away. It feels like we've experienced a death and yet I have nothing to hold onto. I never had a pregnancy, I never had a match... we had nothing. Just the hope that a baby was going to come into our home. And now that hope is dead.

I feel so cheated and ripped off... like a very cruel joke has been played on us. As if our hearts are being run over. Like waiting and hoping we'd get pregnant for the last two years wasn't hard enough, now to add a death of an adoption journey to the list. It's so unfair.

I'm just so sad. I don't understand where we're suppose to go from here.. I feel so torn, so limited. WHY IS IT SO HARD?!??????????!?!?!?!?!? It wasn't suppose to be like this.

I am now a Caribou employee .

I got the job... they offered it to me the same day I interviewed. I'm feeling much better about it than when I posed last...

I was honestly surprised they offered me the job! I shouldn't be.. I'm well qualified and I have a lot of good job experience. But with needing the entire month of January off and being honest about the possibility of moving in June, I thought he'd just skip me over! But I guess not.

Anyways, I have some paperwork to fill out tomorrow and then I guess I'll start later in the week.... I should be working less than 20 hours a week.. and the pay is pretty decent for the job, so it'll be nice income.

And now that we don't have a baby on the way, I'm not as worried about finishing my videos quite as fast.. and I only have two left anyways.

So that's my update!

Not to sound bitter but I hate this phrase!

"Everything happens for a reason" I don't know why I dislike it so much because to be 100% honest with you, I believe it! I really do. So why don't I like the phrase? I guess it's because it's just not what I want to hear from people. I believe it and I'm aware of it, but I just want to hear "I'm sorry" not "everything happens for a reason".

It's really silly that I can believe something and still not want to hear it.. I'm not quite sure I comprehend it.

That aside, I had my interview. It went well, as usual I spoke too fast :-P. But I really hope I don't get the job. I'm not kidding. I just don't know that I have the energy for it...so why did I apply for it? Because financially it was the right thing to do :-(

what now?

I know I didn't really blog earlier, I just copy and pasted my mom's email, I blog-cheated... but honestly I'm not sure how to feel. We're thinking we might go back to the idea of adopting from Colombia. The reason we had shyed away from it was because of the wait time.. but now we're feeling like we don't have many other options as far as wait goes, we just might not be parents in the next two years.... as much as that kills me. Seriously why does this have to be so hard?

I'm not sure I can go through a domestic adoption again... I just don't know... so we're praying about it and going to meet with the agency that we thought about using before when we were looking into colombia.

Anyways, I'm fine one minute and a disaster the next. I was so proud of my 3 1/2 month ticker.. we were finally moving along.. and now this. We have to start all over.

I'm off to see martian child with my friend and sister.. I'm excited to have the time out. And my mom took me to dinner today, which was really nice.

Our agency lost it's lisence.

This is the email my mom sent out to friends and family.. it pretty much sums it up:

*****************************************

Dear Family & Friends,

We received some sad news today. The adoption agency Rachel & Joey have been working with in Florida lost their license. Unbeknownst to all the potential adoptive parents – the director of the agency has been under investigation by the government for some time. The allegations are fraud against the government.

Rachel and Joey have a peace that goes beyond human comprehension although their hearts are heavy and they covet your continued prayers. They also ask for your prayers for as the many other couples that were working with this agency, the birth mothers and maybe most importantly those unborn children. “Chosen” couples are now working with an attorney to determine the outcome of those children. Others like Rachel and Joey will be working with the attorney in hopes of recovering the money they have invested in the agency.

A couple diagnosed as infertile is at the mercy of the integrity of all those they need to help them have a child of their own. Rachel and Joey did all the “right” things – they received glowing recommendations from other young couples that had worked with this agency and a background check on the agency however the government does not put out a red flag alerting unsuspecting couples that an agency is under infestation.

I’m sure you have questions but please give Rachel and Joey time and space they need to process this. They will need our love and support more than ever and you can be sure that any question you have they have asked themselves.

We will keep you posted but for now really ask for your prayers.

Sincerely,
Barbara

An interview at Caribou

Well I did it, I finally went and applied for a "winter job". And at my favorite place no less, Caribou Coffee!!! If you live in a land where Caribou doesn't exist, I mourn for you.. you will NEVER find better coffee... not starbucks, not dunn brothers and not seattles best ... it's Caribou all the way! So is it any wonder why I want to work there? :-)

So anyways, I have a job interview on Friday. But here's the problem. I haven't had an interview in over three years!! And when I meet with brides, I do the directing of the meeting and it's at a Caribou none the less!!! So I'm a bit nervous I'll want to run the show! haha.. hopefully I won't!

Anyways, I know with us taking the entire month of January to road trip for residency interviews.. I'm aware I might not get the job.. but I'm leaving it in God's hands!

I'm not up for tag :-(

Sorry everyone who's tagged me! But I've been tagged like five times and I don't have the energy to learn how to play and then play it! ... guess that makes me a party pooper!

And to any of your techies out there (SJ?) how can you see who is viewing your blog?

ANOTHER $1000!!!!!!

Can you believe it? How amazing is that? And do you want to know who it's from? A couple at our church that we barely know! I have shared my heart with both the husband and the wife at different times kind of randomly by email through this process. And I guess a few years ago God really put adoption on their heart so they started saving and felt they should share some of that with us!! I told them when/if they decide to adopt their own someday (they're currently pg with their first child), we'd better be the first to know!! I just am amazed.... I can't even believe it.

Praise God! What a HUGE blessing!

My much need hair therapy

I was due for a haircut anyway and I hated the color my last out of the box dye faded into so I went and got my hair done. :-)

Bad night :-(

Last night was a bad night. It started by my getting my feelings hurt and ended with my sobbing into Joey's arms for over an hour until finally I fell asleep. And now lucky me I have an emotional hangover. :-/

I feel so sad, and there are so many reasons. But as Joey is applying and accepting interviews for residency programs all over the US, I find myself wanting to move. Feeling like if we moved I'd be running away from all our problems, and all my sadness and we could start over somewhere and live happily ever after.

But then I remember if we leave, we leave all the people who love us and support us and DON'T say mean things and hurt our feelings. And we'd leave our church and our baby sitters and the kids in our family.. and then I ache more becaues I can't leave those things!

And now I feel like even a bigger mess because I don't know what I want and I'm tired of not being a mommy.. everyone else gets to be one why can't I!?!?! Lord what on earth could your plan for us be? Because I'm such a disaster and right now, I just want SOME sort of insight into the future!!!! Unless I couldn't handle it, in which case, that makes me want to crawl in a whole and go to sleep... for a long time.

My photography debut!! :-)

So this weekend one of my best friends and her husband came to visit from ND and I spent the afternoon taking pics of them.. I had SO much fun taking them that it makes me wish I did that instead of video!! :-0 But here are some of my favorites out of the 350!!

Adoption blogs are more boring than infertility ones...

Well that's not always the case but it is with mine.. I don't have a lot going on and not a lot of progress.. so I've resigned to the fact that until we're matched my blog might be boring :-( Bear with me.. I'm trying to keep it interesting :-)

3 months today!

That's right, check out my ticker at the bottom. It's been three months since we sent in our application to our agency! So we've been waiting to be placed for a little over 2 months! It's insane how fast time can fly! Honestly I use to look at people's tickers that said three months and mine said 1 days (lol...) and think that felt so far away! But here it is... and we're still doing good :-) But we're anxiously hoping we'll be matched sooner than the next three months! Could be wishful thinking.. who knows.

It could take a year.....

When we first started trying to have a baby I really only told our immediate families. And this is what I'd always say "but I know it could take a year!".

I was so realistic. Honestly! So many people are sooooo disapointed after their first, second, third month of not getting pg. That wasn't me. I fully expected it to take a year. So I thought I was safe by assuming the worst!

Lol... well I never thought that 2+ years later we'd still not be pregnant... and we'd still not have a baby in our home :-( It's just crazy how I thought I was being so careful by assuming it could take a year.

Anyways, that was random. I was just thinking about that this morning. Me with my ever realistic expectations.

But aside from all that, have a great halloween!!

How cute are these?

These are the L.O.V.E.S of our lives!!! Is it any wonder why we want to be parents so bad?


















ps. notice the trend? 1 girl and four boys (and another boy on the way!!?) I guess that means we need a girl :-) Lol!

We're approved!!!!!!

Praise God, our home equity loan was finally approved!! After our problems before I've had a lot of fear about this! So it was a huge relief to know that from this point forward, we have the money we need for our adoption!!!!

Wedding Pictures!!!!

In case any of you want to see pictures from Joey's twin sister's wedding last weekend! We had a fabulous time!!!

Jenny and Danny

How could I be more blessed?

One of my favorite things to do is go to my myspace page and listen to the music I have on there and look at the slideshows of my life. Of my and wonderful husband, my beautiful family, my amazing friends.. and I just sigh. God is good. He has given me SO much more than I could have ever imagined...

Never in a million years did I think I would find someone as amazing as Joey. I guess I always thought I'd settle... but I didn't even know how good it could be: life, marriage, happiness. All of it!

I miss Joey, he's at work till late tonight and I just can't wait for him to be home. We're going on our fourth anniversary (insane!) and I couldn't love him more! I honestly love him more everyday... and I praise God for the man He has given me to spend my life with!

I spend a lot of my days wishing for more, a baby, a family, the life I hope to have some day. But the days like these, where I am just amazed at all I have been given... I must cherish.

Letting go of pride....

This is a hard thing to do…and I no doubt will be dealing with it for a long time. But it's something I know I need to do. Let go of my pride.

I have had a lot of pride involved with infertility. I have found myself thinking about how I tried to have a baby for 2+ years and might never get pregnant… surely I must get a medal or something. And now I have to come up with tens of thousands of dollars to bring a child into our home and know that he/she will still have another mother. After all this don't I get something? An award of some sorts?

I am aware that couldn't be more wrong. And in my spirit, I know it… but in my flesh, I want to hold tight to what is "owed to me"....

And when it comes down to it, all I really want is to be a mother, no matter how that happens, and no cost is too great for that. But most importantly I do believe that this was God's plan for our family to begin... I do believe that we're in HIS path. Therefore, I truly have NO RIGHTS to claim for this battle I've fought...

So I'm letting go of the pride I've held. I don't want to have a beautiful child in my arms and still fight bitterness against those with them in their wombs. So I'm letting go.

Pray for me in this process. It's a necessary but hard thing to do... and I'm praying that God will give me the strength to be freed from this bondage.

More from God!!! Our wonderful agency...

So anyone following our journey knows how much we think of our agency and Debbie (the director) at our agency. Well this is the card we got from her today in the mail! In Joey's words "I kind of feel guiltly for all the time God's spending on us this week!" :-)


Isn't that just wonderful?

Just got $1000 in the mail!

Okay so this is not something I have blogged much about; the financial side of our adoption. We hadn't been very concerned about the actual funding of the adoption, we knew we'd take out the money against our home and we knew we had the equity for what we needed. We have no debt aside from our house (and Joey's deferred student loans), a good income and great credit scores. So we were not concerned.

Well we got a call from our financial institution last week saying we had been denied our loan because of Joey's deferred student loans. Ones we likely won't start paying off until 2011!!! So we were very frustrated as this was a surprise to us (and them!!! It was their underwriting companies new rule that they didn't even know about!) and we were starting to feel trapped.

Well we are still able to move forward with our home equity loan through another financial institution that we're members of, but we can't borrow as much as we'd hoped for... we were going to be a few thousand dollars short.

So we've been weighing taking an additional loan out on our car, or possibly asking for a loan from Joey's dad... and all in all it's been more stressful than I'd like. But all the while we have fully believed that God would provide and take care of our family! We know this and we believe this!

Well today I had a big sob session with my sister, and exchanged some emails with someone at our church about prayer in this dept.. and after a while I was praying and I knew in my heart it would be okay, and my heart started to settle.

About 1/2 hour later I went out to the mailbox and there was a lone card in there (normally tons of junk mail would accompany!) And someone in our family had sent us $1000 for our adoption!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I couldn't believe it.. I just started bawling and praising God for this money. I talked to her about an hour later and I am just so humbled and honored and grateful and excited and all that rolled into one! And God is amazing! He is the one that prompted them to send the money! And He is the one that is in control of all of this!

So after that I talked to my sister and realized that even more money was coming in from the fundraiser, we are up to the EXACT place we need to be for the adoption! The loan that we will qualify for, that was originally a few thousand dollars short, will end up being the perfect amount to finish it up!

I will NEVER cease to be amazed by God's goodness and perfect timing! Today was the day that I needed to get that money, today was the day that I needed to be humbled to my knees in prayer, and today was the day that I needed to be reminded of exactly who was in charge!

PRAISE GOD!

Awesome slideshow from fundraiser :-)

One of my beautiful friends (who I met because she hired me to film her wedding video!) was apart of our fundraiser!! Her picture are up and they are ALL too cute! So I wanted to share :-)

Tony & Leah

No wonder we didn't feel he was our baby!

The first couple chosen decided to go through with the placement! So there is a reason why God steered us elsewhere! There's no doubt that he wasn't meant to be our baby... clearly! He has other parents.

I love how God works. I know it would have been harder if we said yes we feel this is our baby and then the first couple went through with it!

I'm doing fine.

Sorry I haven't updated all weekend, I appreciate all the comments and wonderful words of encouragement. Thank you also for all the prayers!

I had a crazy jammed packed weekend filled with work, and I'm exhausted from it, but it kept my mind off things.

We are doing okay... we were sad, but we know that it is what it is and we're moving forward, still believing God's perfect timing will come forward and He'll take care of us in beautiful ways.

That being said, I still have a crazy week ahead of me and should keep working, but just wanted to update!

****** Oh and here is a slideshow of some quick pictures my sister took of us at the fundraiser before people came!

www.momentsintimemn.com/raeandjoe

We said no. To a baby.

The bmom we've been waiting to hear if we matched with had her baby. We've known about her since the beginning, she wanted a dr for an aparent, we knew we were a potential match and we've been waiting to hear. Well apparently she was off on her due date (by a month!). She had a half white, half Hispanic 6 lb 9 oz baby boy.

After she had the baby she admitted to having been on Methadone, a narcotic that helps drug abusers to work through withdrawals. The baby was born addicted and will be in the hospital for a few weeks.

Well we weren't her chosen couple, but we were #2... so the #1 couple is deciding what they are going to do, but we felt we had to make our decision before we were presented with it, as we knew it would be much harder to make. Plus we'll find out tomorrow and I have
a wedding both tomorrow and Sat and didn't want to be crazy with making this decision.

So after MUCH prayer, we knew that this baby wasn't meant for us. I can't describe how it feels to turn away something that we have wept and prayed and longed for for so long, it's gut wrenching. But it was still the right thing to do. We KNOW in our hearts this baby wasn't
meant for us. And honestly it wasn't just the drugs, every single ounce of this situation felt wrong. And yet we still wanted to say yes.....

Anyways, we're praying that this #1 couple knows with all their heart that he is their son and he will have a beautiful family to take him home.

All that aside, we're eating our sad food tonight, Chinese. We've cried a lot.

Fundraiser yesterday!

We had the first date of the fundraiser yesterday and it was so much fun! Everyone was laughing and just seemed to truly be enjoying their family photo session! And it was so much fun to see good friends and some family too!

There's another date for next week and my SIL is doing 6 sessions, so that'll be great too!

I just can't believe how much work my sister and SIL are doing for us and my other SIL and mom came to help out with signing people in, downloading pictures and my mom video taped! It was just such a beautiful day! (and I don't mean weather wise! lol.. poured all day!)