amazing

Yesterday morning we went to meet the birthmother. As you can imagine, anxiety, nervousness, excitement, anticipation.....so many emotions running HIGH in the Moore house. We have learned so much and our hearts have been changed so much about this person we call a birthmother. What should her role be, she would know her? Will she like us? Will we love and respect her or fear her? After several months of this adoption journey, experiencing God sized things, He is again allowing me to experience things that are from Him, and such a blessing. Thursday night, Eric and I just talked and talked about what we want to know about her, what do we want her to know about us....we debated on not seeming too excited, for her sake, or should we seem excited and not worry about what it looks like. After all, as we have said before, this is a very difficult place to be and thing to have to deal with, and we don't want to make it harder, right??? We finally decided that being ourselves was most important and really focusing on her was important. We ended the evening with a sweet time of prayer together of her, for us and for the baby.

And then, Friday morning came! Of course we got there early and talked with carolyn a while about new info about E (This is what I will refer to her as so I can stop typing 'birthmom.' When E got there, they came in and told us she was "very nervous" but happy to be there. We walked in to find a beautiful African woman sitting in a chair, seeming a little shy and I could feel her nervousness. We introduced ourselves and then a moment of silence.....I asked her how she was feeling, she said very nauseated as she has been the entire time, but all in all pretty good. Leslie (birthmother counselor) asked E to share with us what she liked about our profile and why she chose us. E began to tell us of how important her faith is to her and she loved that it is the number one thing for us, too. She proceeded to tell us of how she came into the situation that she is in, what the circumstances were and why she has chosen adoption. She is from Africa, with the rest of her family still living in Africa. Her English was pretty good, but she had a very thick African accent (is accent the right word to use here??? what i mean is that you could definitely tell she is not american) I am not going to share all the details on this blog about her situation for many reasons, but mainly because I want everyone to know something more about her. This woman is so amazing. Several posts ago, I wrote about what I felt like a birthmother might be going through and how that we want to honor her decision to choose life and to be so selfless that she puts her childs needs and well being before herself. Well, we are getting the opportunity right now to do that for E. She shared with us her belief about abortion and then about what she knows about herself and her limitations. She knows that she cannot possible give this third child (she's a single mom of 2, working full time) the life he/she deserves or will even need. She was just so amazing and beautiful sitting there, with so much humility....really, a ton of humility. It has been a while since I have seen that kind of humility and that amount of it displayed and carried out in a person. While she was humble and seemingly fighting some shame, we still sensed an enormous amount of strength coming out of her. Eric asked her if there was something that she really wanted us to be sure and tell our child about her, here was her response: "first, please teach him/her about God and Jesus and teach how to have relationship with god. But second, please tell him/her that I did not give him/her away because I did not love him/her but because I love him/her so much. I cannot be selfish and want to keep the baby just because it is mine when I know I cannot take care of it and provide for it. Please tell him/her how much I love him/her.....oh, and just love him/her with all you got."
E loves music, she loves to sing and play guitar and she even writes songs! She loves the color purple and lasagna (other than african food) even though it isn't healthy, she says! She comes from large family, she is one of like 9 children, I think. Her father is a pastor in Africa, and her parents have been married for a very long time.

I keep reading over this post, wanting to change things or write different things, because I just am not doing a good job of giving what took place yesterday the justice and weight and beauty that it is deserving of. It was the most amazing, most humbling, most Godly thing I have ever been a part of...ever. She was wonderful and we love her so much. She has been on my mind since we left and I bet this is just the beginning of that.

We've been chosen!!!!

As some of you may already have heard, we were chosen as the prospective adoptive parents of a healthy african american infant who is due to enter this world March 16th,2008!!! Praise be to God! We got a call Monday before last that our profile would be shown to a caucasian woman expecting a healthy caucasian child. We were so excited, but seriously shocked that after only 5 weeks of waiting we were being shown to a white mom. I have so prepared my heart and my mind for my little black or biracial child, since these are so much more commonly shown to families who are open to either race, early on. We agreed to be shown, only to get a call last friday (just 5 days after getting the first call) that we were going to also be shown to another expectant mother who is from Ethiopia. We are now even more in shock that 2 moms are viewing our profile! We were so encouraged and excited just to be shown at this point in our wait! We waited all weekend to hear something on Monday. Monday came and no calls. Tuesday came and the call did come. The white mom had not chosen us. She had decided to go with an independent family (one not with Bethany). Surprisingly we were so let down. I really never had a great feeling about the first situation, but was just chalking it up to being nervous. But somehow, even though we were pretty prepared that it wouldn't happen this time, disappointment was so thick and heavy. We talked a little, sat in silence a little more, and cried some too. I don't think it was about this specific situation that we were sad, it was just about the potential of having a child in our home, finally, and then having that potential stiffled. We really were so sad. Wednesday at work was a half day for me, and I got another call. It was Carolyn. I thought, 'oh, i'll just take the call really quick, I'm sure she is gonna say that we weren't chosen this time, but maybe next time.' After all, it HAS only been 5 weeks....I can find more patience than that! "Mandy...can you talk?" "Yes............" "I'm calling to tell you that you and Eric have been chosen as adoptive parents for an african american baby due on March 16th!!!" "WHAT!!!!!!" I literally screamed in the phone. And then, just 12 short hours later, I am crying tears of joy, at the news of our becoming parents to our much loved, much wanted, much anticipated child!!! I finally was able to get home to tell Eric in person, and guys.... I have never ever seen him so real, so vulnerable, so sweet and tender. He just cried in my arms and we just were literally floating. He kept saying, 'I'm just so happy...so, so happy!' It was an amazing day. I loved Wednesday. Wednesday's used to always be my favorite day, cause we got to go to Wed night church, which I loved. It was again a great day. So there will be much more to come. Please be praying for us on Friday morning. We will be meeting the birth mother. Pray for her and for her unborn child.

While we are ecstatic, please also be praying for a certain amount of God's protection over our hearts. We want to enjoy this time of anticipation and excitement, but also know that all we are doing at this point is giving her a choice in the midst of her unplanned pregnancy. Although she has chosen to make a plan for adoption for her child with us, she is still this baby's momma and will be needing lots of peace and wisdom and clarity for decisions she will be making very soon. Please, please, please, I am pleading with you that if you don't pray another time for us or haven't yet, pray for this special woman who has chosen life for her child. She is in a place that I can not pretend to understand and I do not envy her. Every person is created in God's image and deserves love, respect and dignity. Our hope and desire is that we can be used by God to minister to her in some way through this difficult situation... no matter the outcome. So please.....pray.

names

I walked in to room 9 in the ER on Saturday afternoon to find my patient, a fairly young woman, who was moaning, rolling in bed, and having a petrified look on her face. She appeared to be in a huge amount of pain....but only every few minutes...and here is what followed...
me- "what's hurting you?"
her-"my stomach!"
me-"show me where..." she pulls back her blanket and I find a large belly...
she says- "no one knows, but................I'm pregnant........."
me- "when was your last period?"
her- "i don't know"
me- "2 or 3 months, 6 or 9 months...?"
her- "could've been 9............"
my mouth drops a little, doctor walks in about this time. He checks her and she is dilated to 9 and fully effaced......still hurting every few minutes.... wow, she is about to have a baby.....
her "what's happening, why am I hurting?"
me " you are about to give birth!"
she suddenly looks MORE terrified than she already is....
her"get it out!"
me "baby, I can't, we need to get you to labor and delivery so you can deliver your baby.
can i call anyone for you?"
her- "there is no one to call, and no one knows....when can I leave?"
my mouth drops a little more.
me- "i don't know, probably tomorrow...."
and then the dreaded question... "are you planning to keep the baby?"
and the dreaded answer.... "no"
me "have you made a plan for the baby?"
the even more dreaded answer, "no"
my mouth is now on the floor.
It honestly took all I had in me not to say, 'it's gonna be okay, we'll take it"
I didn't, but wanted to.
I immediately begin to roll her upstairs, fairly quickly, since this baby was coming and we did NOT want to deliver it in the ER. on the way up, her water breaks and and so i begin to run down the hall, her moaning and hurting, and probably holding on for her life. I got her in to L&D, and no sooner than I was walking back down the hall with an empty stretcher, I began to sob. What in the world just happened? Did a girl really just tell me she doesn't have a plan for her baby, but she doesn't want it??? And did I really have to be the one to be her nurse? Why am I crying? Why am I all the sudden so effected by this again? I have been fine for a while about infertility and about letting other people's circumstances and choices have an effect on my emotional state. Here is this girl who has an unplanned pregnancy, so ashamed of it that she's told no one and wanting to get away from there as soon as possible. I say these things only to communicate what MY emotions were. Let me say that I do not know her situation and don't know what circumstances her pregnancy happened under, and frankly I am not willing to pass judgement on her for her situation or decisions for any reason. So that's clear.... It was difficult to be in this place, I kept thinking in my head, "I am right here, with open arms" While I was sad for myself and Eric and for our infertility and desire to be parents, I found myself being more sad for this child. I cannot stop thinking about him/her in the hospital all alone, no mommy, no daddy..... no name. I found out later that the baby came very shortly after she arrived and was healthy as far as they could tell....praise God!!! I don't think mom stayed.

I have hesitated to write about this. I just feel so burdened for that little child. I know that I can trust God in His plans for me and Eric. I know that I can pray for that child and I will continue to. I can pray for that mom, who may or may not know exactly what she has done. I have since then decided that picking a name for our child to be is so important. Not for the meaning, or how it will sound with our last name, or how it will be spelled or any of that. Just that he or she will have a name. More importantly someone to take care of him/her who cares enough to give a name. My previous entries have elluded to the fact that I do not believe that all birth parents do not love their children. I believe they do in many cases. I am only saying that orphans need care, no matter what the circumstances of the adoption are/were. They need love. They need a name, like Adam gave the animals and his wife names in the beginning. And like God has given me a new name in His gift of salvation. So, although you may all be feeling this post is soooo random, and it may very well sound jumbled and unclear. I have experience another of many events that will cause me to think, to hurt, to reflect, to have joy. I am thankful that I can still feel and have not become hardened. I am thankful for adoption and for names and plan to get to work on finding one for our child.

care for the helpless

http://boss.streamos.com/real/familylife/hopefororphans/DRtalkMDSS.rm

I would really love it if everyone who loves me would listen to this little talk above! Let me know what you think.

and we wait.

I went yesterday for a meeting with Carolyn, our original caseworker, to go over our service plan and our preferences about everything and to turn in 4 copies of our profile. I am so tired from working on that thing! I have been working some night shifts which also makes me tired and then working on it at the same time and trying to find the right lettering and the right folders....I am glad it is complete! Eric was reading through it again today and found some places where I left out a word or something...and I really didn't care!!! Hopefully whoever is reading will get the idea. Some of you have been asking about what I mean when I say "preferences" so for anyone else who is wondering.... When a birthparent is in need of an adoptive family, there are many different things to be considered as far as which profiles (families) to show her. For example, if she is wanting to meet with the family and the child monthly or to exchange last names and phone numbers and we are not willing to do these things, then we would not be a match for her and would not be shown to her. This is so that what the birth parent wants is able to happen and the adoptive family is able to be comfortable as well with the arrangements. Keeps it from getting messy, I would think. So we filled out a 3-4 page list of preferences about the situation with birthparents, about her drug or alcohol usage, about her family history, about what we are okay with as far as meeting her before hand and being at the hospital when baby is born, about traveling to other states....etc! At first I felt bad about making preferences. But, Carolyn helped me understand that we are not trying to meet the needs of every birth parent, but only one. And, these decisions will effect us the rest of our lives. So, we have to be honest with ourselves about what we want.

Now that we have done all of this, we will just wait. From now on, we will only hear from Bethany when:

1. A situation with a birthmother closely matches our preferences and they want to show our profile but we had put that we would consider something, but would want more details at that time..... they would call us with those details of her situation and decide whether we wanted to be shown or not.
2. An office from out of state calls and we are a match to be shown. They will not just send our profile to other states without telling us because there are different laws in other states and sometimes even more fees. They will first call us and tell us what the laws and fees are in that particular state and then we will decide if we want to be shown.
3. We are chosen!!!! At this point it would mean that a birthparent has been matched with us, viewed our profile and decided that she wants us to adopt her child. We will then, ideally meet with her sometime prior to the birth. If everything goes well, then we will be her adoptive couple unless she changes her mind during the revocation period (the 10 days after she signs the waiver of her rights, which is signed 72 hrs after the birth)

This is a lot of legal stuff going on, huh?! I know this is long, but I wanted to share something else. I have been experiencing some major negativity in regard to us adopting from people here lately. Just this past weekend, several random people and especially people from work, have been questioning it, giving their unwanted opinions and so on. I have been asked, "why do you want to make your life harder?" and "there is major legal risk when you adopt...have you thought about this?" I have been told, "children ruin your life" and "you don't get to do anything you wanna do...ever" and "being a mother kinda sucks" seriously, this is just a few of the comments, but some good examples. At first, I must admit, I was letting it get me down a little. Then, I started to think about how really selfish we are as humans. These people who are saying these things to me are basically saying that I shouldn't mess up my life while I still have the chance. I could type forever about this, but I guess mainly, I just want to say that I am so thankful first of all for my parents who did not feel this way about children or about me. It is evident that they loved me and wanted me and I am who I am today because of them. It makes me wonder what these people are like as parents and with their kids. Second, I want to say again that I believe God is preparing me to be an adoptive mom. With this preparation, comes persecution, because Lord knows we will experience plenty of this in our lives, whether we adopt or not....just being a christian and striving to live a Godly life is reason enough for persecution in this world. It is kind of disturbing to see such a selfish attitude regarding their own children and it just reminds me how much we ALL are in need of God's forgivness and of the blood of Christ. I know that parenthood is a huge challenge, and that life will not be the same after children. I know that there will be hard times, good times, bad times and happy times. But, as I told many people this past weekend, the alternative to adoption, is that these children are either aborted or they go to orphanages and/or are in and out of foster homes for the rest of their lives. Adopting a child seems small to me when I think of what Christ did on the cross. The Almighty God took a chance on little old me with no gaurantee that I would choose Him, even if He sent His son to die, but He did it anyway to give me a choice of eternal life or death, of slavery or freedom, of love or isolation. These people just don't get it.

still profiling...

We heard from Bethany again and we have an approved homestudy!!! For all you people who don't know about all this stuff, this is a really big deal! From this point on we potentially can adopt at anytime. Really big deal. So, needless to say, we are excited...at the potential and just at being DONE with the homestudy!!! I am going next Wednesday to go over our service plan and give her our profile. The service plan is the necessary tool for our social worker to help know us and know what we want and don't want in a child and in the situation. Eric and I are in agreement on all of the service plan which, if you know us well, you know that that is in and of itself a big deal...we don't always agree :-) Anyways, today I have been working on the profile again and I really just don't like what I have done so far. It is SO difficult to try to communicate on paper who we are as a couple. There are so many things that I would say to her if we were able to sit in front of her, and so many things I want her to know about us. However, there is limited space in this thing and I don't want to be too wordy, like I can tend to be. Everytime I think I am doing good, I think of more things I want to put in there, that are important and then I end up starting over, or rearranging, or something. I did not expect this to be that hard. Also, the page size is 8.5 x 11 instead of the scrapbooking size which is 12x12. There just isn't enough room! I am about to work on my letter to the birthparents right now, but I just wanted to blog real quick. My friend Laurie has agreed to help me narrow done and organize tonight, so I am excited about that. I have one week to finish!

a christmas story

I have been waiting to get a picture of this awesome event that happened on Christmas so that I could share with you all. The entire Christmas holiday was wonderful for us. We got to see ALL of Eric's extended family, which we don't usually get to do, and it was great. I didn't have to work this year, which was also great. This time last year had a very different feel to it. God has really brought us a long way in the past year and it is good to have reminders of where we've been so that we can be thankful and humbled by where we are today. So, when we really didn't think Christmas could be any better, and we were about to go to Amy and Bryan's to celebrate with them and love on Aubrynne :)... my brother asks me to go sit by Eric and everyone got really quiet. I didn't know what was going on. Someone handed me a card and as I began to open it, with my mind flooded with all the possibilities of what could be about to happen, I heard Courtney say something that neither I or Eric ever expected to hear. "We are giving yall a money tree," she says.... I turn around and there she stands with a little baby Christmas tree with baby necessities as ornaments and a baby toy as the star on top. I look closer and realize there are $100 bills stuck down in the ornaments on the tree. I then began to realize what our sweet family had done. They had all given money to go into our adoption fund! The thought of this generosity, as you all can imagine, brought mine and Eric's eyes to tears and truly filled our hearts with humility and love. Then, they gathered around us and prayed. We prayed for our child, for the birthparents, for our hearts as we enter a waiting phase, and for us as parents. They prayed for peace and guidance for us as we make decisions. We thanked God for His faithfulness and love for us. I know I was thanking Him for His care for this child that He will be bringing to us. It was such a sweet time and we are blown away at the thoughtfulness and the generosity and graciousness we have been shown. We want to largely thank everyone, AGAIN, for this Christmas event and then to everyone who has prayed, sent money, loved on us, kept up with this blog, and just for everything. We are SO blessed to have such strong people surrounding us, praying for us and suppporting us. I don't know what we'd do without you all.

I also want to just say that this caused me to think about when we first thought of adopting and began feeling led to it. We were both so overwhelmed by the money that it took and did not know where it would come from. We tried to figure out ways to get all the money and figured out how long it'd take to save it all up, and then I felt sad and uneasy, because I just knew that this was where we were supposed to be and felt that this was the right timing. The more we worried over it and thought about it, the more we wanted to step down and decide maybe we should just wait a few years and then try and adopt. Not to say that it would've been a bad choice, if we had waited, but I definitely see God's faithfulness to the financial side and in our decision to move forward with it regardless of it not making total financial sense. We have been given at least a third of what it will cost and we just feel SOOOO grateful, blessed, extremely humbled and honored. I am praying that I will continue to be this mindful and this intentional with events in my life for all my days on earth, cause it's so much better to know God, to see Him working, to grow in my relationship with Him and to experience His goodness.