Friday, January 25, 2013

Stephanie and Ben's Story~Part 2


Waiting…

While my story isn’t over by any means, a new chapter has been added.  The next chapter of my life started shortly after my second miscarriage. (Read about it here:
http://waitingforbabystoriesblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/stephanie-and-bens-story.html)  I was left with this feeling of hope and being completely scared out of my mind to get pregnant again.  Hope in the fact that I was now on thyroid medicine that has been shown to lessen the chances of miscarriages by 50 percent but it wasn’t a for sure thing.  My husband kept saying to me, “don’t give up hope, I don’t want you to give up hope”.  While I was struggling with the fact that it was my fault these babies kept dying.  It was my body that was rejecting them not his.   I had a lot of reservation about getting pregnant again because I didn’t want to go through that again.  I remember praying all the time, God if you want me to get pregnant again you are going to have to get me out of my own head. 

Well last summer my husband and I had a trip planned to travel across the state of Nebraska.  The night before we left my husband and I got into a huge “discussion” about me not getting pregnant.  I had a major melt down that night and remember just praying please God please let this happen or show me another path to take.  The next day I was packing and getting ready for the trip when I realized that I was really late.  I waited all day before taking the test.  Finally my husband called and said he was on his way home from work.  So I took the test and eagerly waited for the results.  Pregnant. 

I was so happy and so scared at the same time.  I had been down this road before.  Only this time I felt different.  This time I was getting sick, smells were bothering me, and things I once loved, like coffee, made me sick thinking about it.  The time leading up to that first appointment seemed to take forever.  I was so scared that they were going to give me the same news I had received twice before.  As I laid there having my ultrasound done I remember seeing the little heart beating.  Something I had never gotten the chance to see before.  I asked the tech if I could hear the heartbeat and I remember the tears rolling down my face listening to that sweet sound. 

Each time I go to my appointments I still get a little scared that something is going to go wrong.  This time I was a little more apprehensive about buying anything for him or getting myself too excited about having him here with us.  It got a little better once I could start to feel him move.  It was so much fun the first time my husband could feel him as well.  We finally were starting to feel like he was here to stay, our little fighter.    

Oh yeah I forgot to mention we found out we are having a little boy.  I am so happy now and feel like we are in the home stretch.  I am 31 weeks along.  I love being pregnant.  It still makes me smile whenever I feel him kick or listening to his heart beat in the doctor’s office.  There is no feeling better than it. 

During this pregnancy the song I Will Wait by Mumford and Sons came out.  One day I was actually listening to the lyrics and was bawling because it felt like that song was about our whole journey.  

But I'll kneel down, wait for now
I'll kneel down know my ground

Raise my hands, paint my spirit gold
Bow my head, keep my heart slow

'Cause I will wait, I will wait for you
And I will wait, I will wait for you
And I will wait, I will wait for you
And I will wait, I will wait for you
        
Just like so many times in my life I had to Let Go and Let God because faith is all we have.  I had to wait for God and now we are anxiously waiting for our little boy.  So please don’t give up hope, have faith and know that there are many people out there who are struggling with the same fertility issues.  Let Go and Let God!  He will guide you on your path, even if it is not the one you thought you wanted or when you wanted it. 

*We will keep you posted on his arrival in March.      

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Stephanie and Ben's Story


My Unfinished Story

My childhood dream growing up was just like every other girl it seems. I wanted to get married by my early 20’s, have 4 children (2 biological and 2 adopted), and to finish college but be a stay at home mom. Well like my parents always told me, you don’t always get everything you want when you want it and sometimes you have to be patient. It took me a long time to find the right guy. I wanted to wait to find the person that God wanted me to be with forever. Well I did finally find that guy, and I thank God for him everyday. 

We got married in January of 2010, when I was 31, and I got pregnant the following November. All my dreams were coming true. I was so excited. We told our families by giving them a little Jesus figurine that said Love. I dreamed of holding my little one and what the nursery would look like. That Christmas my family all gave me gifts for the little one: a star that played Twinkle, Twinkle to hang on the door, booties, books, and a little picture frame for the ultrasound picture. I had scheduled an appointment for the first doctor visit and first ultrasound. 

Well I never made it to that appointment, because a couple of weeks before that appointment I came home from work and had started to spot. I knew right then and there that something was wrong. I called my mom crying and she told me not to get worried about it just yet some women do spot while pregnant. She told me to call the doctor and see what they said. The doctor told me that if it was spotting it should stop soon, well the next morning it hadn’t stopped. I went in for an ultrasound that afternoon only for them to tell me what I had already known. The whole time I was praying for a miracle “Please let my baby live, Please let it be okay”. I was completely heartbroken and crushed when I got the news. I went to mass that evening and my whole family came to be with my husband and I. I am very blessed to have such a wonderful and supportive family. 

I was also blessed to be working for a wonderful school and with a wonderful teacher who let me have some time off to grieve. And grieve I did. I grieved very much for my Isabella Elizabeth. I like to tell people that it is a very lonely grief that follows a miscarriage. At first people are very supportive and sympathetic but as time goes on I was still grieving while the world went on. It’s not like a loving grandparent that passes away where your family and friends are all grieving with you. It’s your baby and no one has seen it or held it, and while my husband grieved for his lost child even he never really got to bond it that child like I did. No one talks about it after a while and all you want to do is scream “Have you all forgotten about MY Child!” 

Following my first miscarriage it took my a little while to get over the fear of trying again. I didn’t want to go through that again. After hearing many people tell me that they had a miscarriage the first time I finally Let go and let God. We got pregnant again in October of 2011. I was sure this time was going to be it. I was even more excited the second time around to start planning the nursery and looking at baby clothes. I felt really good the whole time I was pregnant beside the pure exhaustion. I made my doctors appointment and first ultrasound just like I had the first time. I kept watching the calendar and counting the day for that first appointment. I was so excited for it. I just wanted to go in there and have them tell me everything looks great. 

That day finally arrived and I was so excited I had made it to the appointment date with no spotting. I was in complete shock when the ultra sound tech told me for the second time that my baby was probably going to die. Probably. I left that day with the thought that my baby was probably going to die. Again my world came crashing down. Again I went to mass with my family. Again I was praying for a miracle. 

Those next few days where the hardest. I hadn’t started bleeding yet so I was trying to not give up hope but I did miscarry later that week. After I had miscarried, Chester John, I kept asking God “Why? Why would you do this to us again”. I got an answer from the scripture that was read that day at mass on the day of my miscarriage that gave me a lot of comfort. 

Reading 1 Wis 2:23:3:9

God formed man to be imperishable;
the image of his own nature he made them.
But by the envy of the Devil, death entered the world,
and they who are in his possession experience it.

But the souls of the just are in the hand of God,
and no torment shall touch them.
They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead;
and their passing away was thought an affliction
and their going forth from us, utter destruction.
But they are in peace.
For if before men, indeed, they be punished,
yet is their hope full of immortality;
Chastised a little, they shall be greatly blessed,
because God tried them
and found them worthy of himself.
As gold in the furnace, he proved them,
and as sacrificial offerings he took them to himself.
In the time of their visitation they shall shine,
and shall dart about as sparks through stubble;
They shall judge nations and rule over peoples,
and the Lord shall be their King forever.
Those who trust in him shall understand truth,
and the faithful shall abide with him in love:
Because grace and mercy are with his holy ones,
and his care is with his elect.

We did receive a little good news when we went back for our follow up appointment to the miscarriage. We think we might have found a reason why I keep miscarrying. I have a lot of antibodies toward my thyroid so they have me on a medicine now for my thyroid. My doctor said a lot of research shows that being on this medicine can decrease the chance of miscarriage by 50% so our hopes are high but we haven’t gotten pregnant again.

Faith is a very big part of my life and it is my faith that has brought me this far and I know that it is my faith that keeps me going. I feel God has chosen my little ones because they were worthy to be with him and in the end isn’t it every parents job to get their children to heaven. While I still love them, miss them and I still grieve for them and what we lost, I know they are at peace and that God has a plan for me and my family. I had to be patient for a long time before I found my loving husband so now I have to be patient for this gift as well. I have been blessed to be working with such a caring and loving coworkers. Some that have experienced the same as me and others that have a little different story to tell, but we all support each other and pray for each other. That is all we can do, have faith. 

So you see, my story is an unfinished one, but one day it will have a happy ending.  Just like all fairy tales.  Maybe we were meant to adopt a child(ren) that need a loving family, or maybe one day I will be able to carry a child full term.  All we can do it 
wait, and Let Go and Let God!

*We are so happy to announce that at the time of this posting, Stephanie and Ben are expecting a healthy baby boy in March!

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Adoption: A Calling or a Command?

A reader sent this article our way.  It's an interesting opinion and I wonder what others think about it. Please read and discuss!~Kassie

Adoption: A calling or command?PrintE-mail
Published: December 11, 2008
Pastor W.C. Martin heard God’s commandment loud and clear. If God had adopted us into his heavenly family, why shouldn’t we emulate him through adoption on earth?
“God is the one who started adoptions,” he said. “Jesus went out of his way to save us. We’ve got empty bedrooms and empty homes. It’s time for us to reach out and save others.”
And that’s exactly what he did. He and his wife, Donna, adopted two children through Child Protective Services. Then they reached out to their church, Bennett Chapel Missionary Baptist in Possum Trot, a tiny East Texas community near Lufkin, to do the same.

Melissa Adkins and her husband, Mike, from North Texas adopted their youngest daughter, LiLi, from China through Buckner International in 2007.
“I looked up every Scripture I could find and pleaded the case,” he said. Within a few weeks, there were 23 families ready to commit. And in the end, 72 children were adopted. The church’s membership is only 200.
“What we’ve done in Possum Trot should not be a secret,” Martin said. “There are over half a million children in care in the United States that need a family. What we did can be done around the country.”
According to the U.S. State Department, there are an estimated 120,000 children available for adoption in the United States. And there are an estimated 143 million orphans around the world.
With more than two billion Christians living today, the feat of eliminating the world’s orphan crisis seems realistic. The church is being challenged with questions of duty when it comes to orphan care and adoption. Do Christians have a responsibility to adopt?
For Kris Faasse, the director of adoptions at Bethany Christian Services, based in Grand Rapids, Mich., the answer is both yes and no.
“Yes, Christians have a responsibility,” she said. “They have a responsibility to respond. But not every Christian should adopt. We’re not all called to do so. But we are all called to do something.”
No child should be adopted out of a sense of duty, she added. But the church should support adoption through giving financially, providing respite care for parents or mentoring children.
“There are a lot of ways churches can step up,” she said.
First Baptist Church in Mansfield plans to begin an adoption ministry in their church in January. Worship Pastor David Peyton, an adoptive parent in the process of bringing home two children from Haiti, said his own family’s experience inspired his vision “to get more orphan children into Christian homes.”
He plans to do so through raising awareness, providing support groups for adopted children and families, and through partnering with the nonprofit organization Lifesong for Orphans to provide matching grants for families looking to adopt.

Mark and Jacquie Craggett of Rowlett fostered children for years before adopting brothers Nathan and William, who were both placed with their family shortly after they were born. ”Fostering has really knitted our family together,” Jacquie Craggett said. They have four older daughters, as well.
“The biggest barrier for a lot of families is cost,” he said. “So, I think that’s one area that churches should really step in.”
He also sees a direct relationship between his church’s missions efforts and adoption. They plan to take yearly orphan care mission trips.
“When people go and experience orphans and spend time with them, their eyes are opened. If it doesn’t move them toward adoption, it will move them toward ministry,” he said.
“Scripture commands us to help orphans. ... If God identifies this as pure religion, then I think it’s pretty important. It really is the local church’s responsibility.”
In Colorado, churches have chosen to work directly with the government to find families for state-placed children by joining with the Department of Human Services and Project 127.
The project—whose motto is “no waiting children in Colorado”—has successfully placed 143 children into Christian families representing more than 115 churches statewide.
Faasse noted there has been a “paradigm shift” in the way Americans view adoption.
Old attitudes have lifted as more parents adopt older children living in state custody and children of different ethnic backgrounds, she said. There also are more open adoptions where parents maintain an open relationship with the child’s birth family.
In November, the U.S. State Department released a report showing a 12 percent decrease in the number of international adoptions in 2008. As accreditation for adoption becomes stricter in many foreign countries, experts believe the number of American adoption agencies providing international services may decline.
Buckner, a Baptist social services ministry based in Dallas, recently announced it is affiliating its adoption services with Dillon International in Oklahoma in an effort to serve more families and children through adoption.
“We’re thrilled about the new possibilities this affiliation will bring,” said Deniese Dillon, executive director of Dillon. She and her husband, Jerry, started the adoption agency in 1972 to place Korean children into Christian homes.
Under the new structure, Buckner and Dillon will continue to offer both domestic and international adoption opportunities to Christian families. And with a strong history in humanitarian aid and missions support, they will be well-suited to support churches in their efforts to care for orphans.
“Christians have always been inclined to adopt,” Dillon said. “But in the last decade, families have become more informed about adoption because of access to information through the Internet and because of an increased emphasis on adoption education. Many churches have become more open to learning and participating in adoption, too.
“I absolutely think Christians have a responsibility to adopt if they feel called by God to do so.”

Friday, January 11, 2013

Blogs, Websites, and Books about Adoption

Here at Waiting for Baby, we get several request for "helpful" information about adoption. So, we scoured the great wide web, begged our friends for the information that best helped them, and compiled the resources here in one friendly post.  Please let us know what your favorite blog/website/or book about adoption. Happy discovering!~Kassie

*Brown Babies Pink Parents-A blog about celebrating the diversity of families created by adoption:
http://brownbabiespinkparents.wordpress.com/

* Chocolate Hair Vanilla Care-A blog about "natural hair care, transracial adoption, and everything in-between": http://www.chocolatehairvanillacare.com/

*Check out Sherrie Eldridge's website for  freebies, teaching, and coaching inspiring hearts touched by adoption:
http://www.sherrieeldridge.com/

*A Beautiful website for unmarried women who adopt and the authors of the book, "I Wish For you A Beautiful Life"-http://www.aeranwon.com/our-books.php

*Check out the book, "Every Year on Your Birthday" by Rose Lewis.  A wonderful children's book about a mother's reflection on her daughter's birthdays that they shared apart from each other and then together.  You can check out her website for more information on books, activity guides, and so much more: http://www.roselewisbooks.com/RoseLewisBooks.com/Welcome.html

*http://littleseouls.com/ Your online resource for Korean baby and Children's projects

*Circle of Mom's provides 25 blogs about adoption on this website: http://www.circleofmoms.com/top25/adoption

*Books for children about adoption:
http://www.amazon.com/Best-Childrens-Books-About-Adoption/lm/2F98ZLQGA80SQ


Friday, January 4, 2013

Happy New Year!

We here at Waiting for Baby Stories, are so excited for 2013!  We know this is going be a year of answered prayers for some and more waiting for others.  That's why we want to make sure this blog is a positive site in the lives of our readers.  We strive to bring you stories that vary from infertility issues to waiting out adoptions to the heartbreak and heart-mend of miscarriages.  Please let us know if there are any particular stories or information you would like to see posted on the blog or our Facebook page.

To start off the New Year, we are hosting a give-a-way!  "Like" our Facebook page- https://www.facebook.com/WaitingForBabyStories  and comment by leaving one inspiring word for 2013 and you'll be entered to win a one of a kind quilted baby blanket!  Our give-a-way lasts until Sunday, January 6th.