Good News....What am I talking about? It's better than good, it's the bestest of the best!

Wednesday Shalum and I got a phone call from our caseworker. And guess what? A birth mother has chosen us to adopt her little baby! I am so excited! It took a while to get over the shock. Part of me was thinking it was never going to happen. But along with the excitement, I'm also a nervous wreck. What if she changes her mind? What if she doesn't like us when we meet? What if, what if, what if. A million thoughts have been going through my head, and I haven't gotten much sleep, because my mind can't shut off at night. We're meeting her June 13th, tentatively. We're waiting to hear back if that day works for her. And to be honest, I'm terrified to meet her. I'm afraid she's not going to like us, or that I'll be so nervous I won't be able to be myself and she'll think I'm most lame. Hopefully all will go well. She's due July 21st, just two months away. We don't know the sex yet, not that it matters to us, we would love to have either. I can't even begin to express my gratitude for being chosen and having this opportunity. And I'm so thankful for this birth mother for giving us this chance. I know it isn't easy for her. She already has other children and loves them, and she's having a hard time imagining not keeping the one she carries now. But she doesn't feel as if she can raise this child right now because she has a lot on her plate. My heart goes out to her, for what she's going through and for this difficult decision she's making. But I'm also most grateful for this chance we have of raising a child. This is our dream come true, what we have been wanting and waiting for for almost 8 years. And perhaps the shock hasn't completely worn off because I still can't believe this is happening!

Broken Dreams

Here I am waiting to start work and I have slept very little. One hour of sleep is barely sufficient for me to function when I am emotionally well, but, well I am not. I just pray that work will be ok, and I will be given strength on all levels to be able to handle what today offers. I lied awake for hours upon hours last night thinking about what I thought I had successfully buried deep within myself, never really allowing myself the time and opporunity to work through my emotions and experience true healing. The last couple of weeks I have had a similar experience that Candice had expressed earlier. I too thought I was pregnant. I had some of the signs, and I guess I wanted it so bad and felt I needed it (in a sense) to be able to heal from our recent loss, that for sure this time was it. Isn't it?? Surely Heavenly Father was finally going to bless us after feeling so much pain and loss over the last month.Well, I really felt like it was, and I prayed,  pleaded and basically begged my Heavenly Father to please let it be. Please! Please! More than anything else, p.l.e.a.s.e!
But, alas, no is the answer I have come to know well. Or possibly not yet, but it is seemingly the same hopeless answer that I have come to resent. Why?! Why do I have to wait, when others don't?! Why??!!! I think angrily. Why not me? Am I not good enough? Am I not faithful enough? Would I be a terrible mom and therefore God is protecting His children from me? Why? Why can't I get answers that I need so desperately bad? Will I ever be a mom? Will I ever know why I have been denied this most holiest of callings? Will I ever be able to open my heart enough again to give it the opportunity to be made whole and allow my dreams to come true? Will I ever be able to look back over the years and not feel such a sense of loss and pain? Will I ever be able to attend a baby shower or blessing and truly feel joy for another without feeling pain, and ultimately feeling myself close up and lock out the world yet again?
    So, here I go over the feelings and ultimately unanswered questions that have been floating continually through my mind throughout the night just waiting for the sweet release of sleep. Unfortunate for me, sleep is not coming. I don't even have the sweet release of sleep now! Is absolutely everything of value to be taken from me? Well, as I lied awake I came to a very stark realization of myself. I have come to know that I have not so much been healing the past month and a half, but have only buried my feelings for fear of what they might bring, and masking my emotions with food. Then I have been telling myself that indeed, I feel better, so I must be healing and getting better, only not. Not coming to terms with it, and learning to cope with my emotions is a time bomb waiting to happen, but I do it so completely without realizing it. I have felt so much pain over the years, that I guess I am trying to save myself from more unwanted pain by just the act of not allowing myself to feel. I have put up a barricade, and not allowing myself to feel has also kept the promptings, and ispiration as naught. So, a sleepless night is what it takes to finally be able to get through this thick head and stone covered heart of mine. Not my ideal time, which is probably why I am most likely to listen. Listen carefully to what my body is telling me it needs to heal, but also listening carefully for spiritual guidance and promptings.  
   This quiet time of listening has lead me to the realization that I am not doing any good by burying my feelings and emotion. Yes, I seem to more easily be able to handle each day:  to cope, go on living, and muster up enough joy in life to make me feel semi-normal again, but I am not giving myself the time and the opportunity to sort through all my feelings to be able to cope and move on a healthier and happier person.  Because I have focused my time and energy on burying unwanted feelings, I have told myself and really sincerely felt like I have been getting better. Better, but feeling not really better at the same time. People ask how I am, and I honestly say I am getting better, and the days are seeming easier, and its true. I am, and they are, however it is not because I am healing. I know now why I feel better temporarily, but it doesn't stay for very long. Am I getting better? yes, I am GETTING better. Close to being myself and feeling whole again? No, but I am determined to get there! Hopefully a little faster and more steadily now that I have realized I've been keeping myself from healing. I need to sort through my feelings and be able to cope healthily with them in order to heal.
   I guess in a way I don't want my heart to be healed. Now, before you go securing me a place in the nut house, let me explain:
 I have never felt so much pain and heartbreak in my life. My feelings were so raw, and not easily pushed aside, that it scared me. I have been treading on new ground on a painful and heart wrenching level, and I don't feel ready. Ready or not though, its been thrown at me, and I have to learn to cope. I am treading carefully so as to not have to stay here any longer than is needful. So many prayers have been offered by me and other loved ones in my behalf. I know that my savior Jesus Christ knows the pain my heart is feeling. He knows, because He experienced it. He knows the condition my heart is in, and the condition it needs to be in. I know that with my faith in Him, my heart can be healed. But, I also know that with a healed heart, it can also be broken again. There will be steps that I need to take after the healing that can and likely will cause more break, and pain, which then requires more faith and more healing. Am I willing to do that? Do I even have enough faith to be healed? Do I trust my Heavenly Father and in His plan for me? I so badly want to keep the stone I have placed in and around my heart as I have tried to piece it back together the best I know how, rather then pulling out the stone (ultimately allowing myself to feel pain and cope with it) and then allowing God to properly heal it. A poem I have run across a hundred times finally takes on new meaning:

BROKEN DREAMS
As children bring
their broken toys
with tears
for us to mend,
I brought my broken
dreams to God
because He was
my friend.

But instead of
leaving Him in peace
to work alone,
I hung around and
tried to help with ways
that were my own.

At last I snatched them back and cried,
"How can you
be so slow?"
"My child", He said,
"What could I do?
You never let them go."

~Keira

CRAP

That's what the last few weeks have been. Crap. A few weeks ago I thought I was pregnant. I was convinced I was. And I was ecstatic. For five days I thought this. Turns out, I wasn't. So you might be able to imagine how devastated I was. I fell hard. And then, I guess because I didn't fall hard enough or something, 3 days after realizing I wasn't pregnant, I found out my niece is and then the following day I found out my nephew's wife is. And then a few days after that was Mother's Day (need I say more?). And then to top it all off, I found out yesterday that another sister-in-law is expecting. It's all hitting me all at once, and I am near my breaking point. No kidding. My faith is being tested. And I believe I'm falling short, because I'm finding that at the moment I don't care about...anything. I don't care to see anyone. I don't care to go anywhere. I don't care to go to church anymore (granted I'm not going to stop going. I'm struggling more than I ever have before, but my testimony is still here. It's more I just don't want to see anyone or hear about how important families are. Not to mention I'm actually feeling pretty angry at God right now.) I don't care to do anything. I don't care if I hurt anyone's feelings by anything I might say. I. Just. Don't. Care. I know that might sound awful, but let me repeat myself, I don't care. So all I've pretty much got to say at the moment is...crap.

Candice

It has been a long, very hard week. I have really struggled a lot, and been mad and frustrated with myself that I am not happy and over this whole failed adoption thing yet. I want to just move on and be happy like I was before, but the healing process is very s.l.o.w. I have had a lot of thoughts constantly swirling around my head, and making any sense out of them takes a lot of work. My emotions are all over the place.
      My first big wake up call was when I was basically told about two weeks after the failed adoption that I should be feeling better and be ready to try agagin, and that because I am still struggling and feeling really sad that maybe I need to go talk to my dr. about depression. That was maybe two weeks after the ball came crashing down. Two weeks for crying out loud! Really? So, I feel like I have lost a child, and I should be feeling better within two weeks, and because I am not yet, I seriously need to go see my dr?  I felt like it was totally insensitive, and I felt after that point that something was wrong with me. I guess I thought that any "normal" person would have been over this and lining back up at the agency for another chance at adoption. I am just not ready for that yet. Is that ok? Not for some people, I guess. I need to speed up my healing process so that I can please everyone, meanwhile not pleasing myself. It is killing me with all the pressure, and the ideas that everyone has that will help me, or blah blah blah! I know that the only people who knows and understands me and how I feel and what I need is Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Yes, there are others who have gone though a failed adoption, however everyone handles it differently, and uniqely as we are all different and unique. So, I am turning to Him for comfort and healing. Unfortunately, just like physical healing, emotional healing takes time. I wish it was all over by now, but I know that I need more time. I am better than I was, and as I look back and see that, I am eternally grateful for the healing that is taking place, no matter how slow. I know that I am being strengthened and lifted to be able to handle this, and on my darkest and hardest days, I am literally being carried.
    I am so grateful for a few close friends of Mike and I that have really been sensitive to our needs, and been so thoughtful. It is such a gift that these people don't know exactly how we feel, or what we are going through because they have not been there, but yet they are kind, thoughtful, and sensitive. What a huge blessing! Thank you! Mike works with a very nice guy who we had informed about the adoption when we were trying to get everything ready and prepared. Well, he asked Mike yesterday how it was all going, and Mike told him what happened. He was so sorry. Oh, you could tell that he really felt some of the pain that we felt, and he felt that for us! He came up and said how sorry he was for me, and even that small gesture, was huge. Then, he went home that night and called his brother who works for lds family services in Texas, and told him what had happened, to kind of see what we were having to deal with. His brother told him that it is very traumatic and hard for most couples to deal with. It is losing a child, or like having one of your children die. Would you be able to get over that in a couple weeks?  He told Lyle of a lady that had the same senario happen, and a year later the lady went back to get therapy, because she could not get over the grief. She was still struggling so bad even a year later.
  Does that give ya'll a wake up call? This is not easy. It is not something that you can just "get over" in a few short weeks. It takes time. I need time. I know that I will overcome this and try again, but not before I am ready.  I need the healing power of the spirit, and I am getting little glimmers of hope and light as the days go by. It doesn't mean I am over it, or even close to being over it, but I am moving forward. I have turned my burden over to my Savior, and since I did that through prayer and have relied on Him, I felt the burden being literally lifted. I have felt better, and been able to see many blessings that have come through this experience.
~Keira