Hello? Anyone here anymore?

I can't believe that I was the last one to post on here. I guess everyone has moved on to greener pastures, eh? Maybe there isn't a real need for this blog anymore, but I wanted to share some feelings to see if anyone out there has experienced anything similar.

So just to catch you up, things between us and our daughter's birth-mom are back to normal. Tender mercies from heaven were involved when we finally met her little boy (our failed placement) and we knew he wasn't meant to be in our family. From there it was a matter of forgiveness... which was easier with her (than with her parents) because we have some understanding of how difficult it was for her to place Mimi with us. The full story has come out over the past year and a half, and even things with her family are getting back to normal. Not that there is complete trust anymore, but it is a relief that we can interact and still love each other.

The past few weeks have been grueling for the hubby and I. We finally decided on one last push to find another baby for our family. We branched out and put our profile up on Parent Profiles, printed up pass-along cards and began handing them out to friends and families, printed up brochures to go along with the pass-along cards and began giving them out to lawyers, have checked into private adoption agencies and tried to sell my hubby's beloved truck to get the money for a private adoption- all in hopes of bringing home the baby boy I keep dreaming about. We decided we'd do all we possibly could for one more year (after our home-study expires this summer) and then...we'll be done. We'll let our home-study expire and take our names out of the "hoping to adopt" pool.

And I have mixed emotions about it.

We were hoping to have another baby before Mimi turned four because we didn't really want to raise our children as singles - too far apart to fight and bicker and someday (hopefully) be good friends when they grew up. The hubby told me the other day that it breaks his heart to walk past Mimi's room and hear her playing all by herself. She doesn't seem to mind too much, but coming from big families where our mothers had all of us fairly close together, this worries us. She will turn six this fall. She will be so much older than any baby we get now that we worry about them bonding and having the kind of relationships that we have with our siblings. We've come to the conclusion that if she is our only child that we are going to try to give her some amazing opportunities and at the same time work at not spoiling her ridiculously. We've already been so blessed to do things together that we never could have done had we gotten another baby, so we know we are incredibly blessed. And if she is our only child I will consider myself lucky to have had a relatively easy baby period of no blown out diapers, rare middle of the night feedings and 6 hours of solid sleep every night until she was about 6 weeks old when it changed to 8. Even now she is an easy-going little girl with such a friendly personality, no fear of riding roller coasters and a helpful disposition. (I know, I'm probably in for it when she hits her teenage years! LOL!)

We've been so lucky and so very blessed.

We just thought there would be at least two children in our family.

But having just turned the corner on 36 and moving fast toward 37 I am seeing wrinkles and fat deposits and health concerns suddenly flying at me at light speed and both the hubby and I are thinking that starting over again at 39-40 isn't a great idea for us. We want to be young enough to enjoy our kids without having them have to push us around in wheelchairs, you know? ;)

Some people have said that we're putting a time limit on Heavenly Father. And I respond with, "How did you know you were done having kids? Don't we deserve the same opportunity to choose when our family will be complete?" Most "fertiles" have no idea what its like in the hellish waiting-for-another-baby limbo and just think we're being selfish.

*sigh*

I guess that along with being branded "Infertile" we'll also take "Misunderstood" and "Judged" from some of our closest friends and family. Sad, but true.

Have any of you been in this position? What did you decide to do?

Adoption, anyone?

My friend contacted me the other day about a private adoption agency here in Utah that is looking for adoptive families.  I called them and spoke to someone named Dave who was super-nice and very helpful.  He mentioned that right now they are looking for adoptive couples because they have several birth-moms who haven't found the right families for their babies yet.  Right now they have 10 african american birth-mothers (one of whom just placed her baby yesterday) two are due in the next two weeks and the remaining 7 are due in the next two months.  The agency itself seems great (I googled them and only found one dispute with them from an out-of-state birth-father who wanted custody.), but since it is a private agency, the costs are significantly higher than LDS Family.  Dave said that they are on par with the national average of between $25K to $40K.  He also mentioned that they have on average about 110 placements a year and right now they only have about 40 couples in their system which means that their wait times tend to be significantly shorter than LDS Family's and range anywhere from around 2 weeks to 2 years.  The name of the agency is The Adoption Center of Choice and can be found here.  The phone number for adoptive parents is 801-224-2440.  I don't know if they will place with adoptive couples outside of Utah, so you might want to check if you decide to call.

As for us, the latest that we hear through the grapevine is that our birthmom will be coming to Utah either right before the baby is born or right afterward so that she can buy all the baby stuff here and haul it back to Illinois with her.  Bless her parents for being perceptive in knowing that she mainly wants to show the baby to her friends back here (her parents are more than ticked off at her), they told her that she could probably order most, if not all of it by mail, and that there was no reason to come.  We, of course, hear nothing about it from her, even though we've talked to her several times.

And yet with loads of prayers and fasting, we've managed to find peace with the situation.  We still hope she decides to place him, but if not, we know that Heavenly Father is in charge and knows what is best for our family...whatever that may be.

Don't know what to think

Well, with the military being so accommodating (not joking), it looks as if she will be keeping the baby.  She's cut off all communication with us, but is still talking to her parents.  They tell us a little, but I know its hard for them to be between their friends and their daughter.

I love her and I understand her desire to keep this baby, but I wish that she hadn't asked us to adopt this one before exploring all of her options.  A part of me is just so down, even though her parents think that there may still be a tiny sliver of a chance that she might place.

We're just continuing to move forward finishing our adoption paperwork and putting faith in the scripture that says that "all things will work together for your good".

Hope all is well with the rest of you!

No news

Nothing really to report.  As per usual, we aren't hearing much from our birthmom, and when we do hear from her, she hasn't mentioned anything about the baby.  We honestly don't know if this is good or bad.

We sent off another email to our caseworker yesterday asking her for some updates, so we'll probably hear back from her in the next week.

We also came across another potential issue: The Sailors and Soldiers Act.  The birthfather is on inactive duty in the military and that requires us to follow some additional rules... Still checking on all of that with LDS Family lawyers.

I'll let you know more when I do.

Thanks for all of the prayers!