Our Referral Story

Alright, I need to get this all down before I forget it all...

On Monday, July 14 around 3:15 pm, my cell phone rang. I was at work and didn't recognize the number (why I didn't have HIH's number saved to my phone is beyond me. Anyway...), so I didn't pick it up since I was at work. About 15 minutes later my office phone rings, and when I answered, Dave was on the line. He said, "Rach, are you sitting down? Karin (from our adoption agency) just called me". Okay, two thoughts ran through my head in the split second before he broke the news. The first was, "I know why she called, we are getting our fingerprints renewed soon and we just sent the paperwork in for that". And my second thought was, "If he is calling to say we got our referral, then that is a mean, cruel joke. We have another year of waiting. It's not like Dave to be mean like that". Yep, that was all thought in a split second.

Then he says, "We got our referral. We have a son! His name is Ezekiel!!" I answered by saying, "No... no... no we didn't. No we didn't! What???" When Dave started telling me details about our son I started crying. I just couldn't believe it, and I was in such shock. He asked me to call Karin so that we could conference call all together. I told him I wanted to do it in private, so I was going to go out to my car and call her. I shut the lid on my laptop, left my snack and paperwork sitting on my desk and bolted out of there. As I was running out, I was crying and the receptionist looked at me funny. I just shot her a half smile and kept on going.

I got in my car and called Karin. She answered her phone and said, "Happy Birthday, Mama!!!!" Ah, this is by far the best birthday present I ever could have imagined. We got Dave patched into the phone call and she proceeded to read us the 10-page fax she got with all of Ezekiel's information on it. I tried to write down as much as I could, even though I knew she would send the information to us by fax that day. My mind kept racing. She told us that we would hopefully get a picture the next day (Tuesday).

After Karin finished telling us the info and celebrating with us over the phone, she hung up and Dave and I stayed on together to talk. We were both in complete disbelief, and I kept starting to cry as the impact of what I just found out hit me. Our lives were turning upside down, and it was the best feeling in the world!! It's what we've been wanting for years now. While we were talking, Dave told me the story of how he found out...

(Rewind to 3:16 pm) After Karin tried to call me, she called Dave. He picked up the phone and she said, "Hey Dave! This is Karin." He wondered why she was calling her, and his stomach dropped as he thought maybe it was the referral, but quickly squashed that thought, knowing it was months out from now. She said, "I realized it was Rachel's birthday on Friday and I wanted to wish her a happy birthday!" With that, she started crying, then said, "Okay, I can't hold it in any longer - You guys got a referral!!!! I was trying to get ahold of Rachel and wanted to tell you both together".

While Dave and I were talking, he told me that he (oops) spilled the beans to my dad. I was a little disappointed, but it cracked me up that he couldn't keep his excitement in when he was trying to get ahold of me. We decided that we wanted to drive to each of our family members' houses tonight (except the ones who live far away) to tell them. We met up with each other in the parking lot of the hospital in my parents' town so that we could finally see each other and celebrate with each other in person. As soon as he got out of the car we hugged and grinned at each other. Dave grabbed my hands and we started jumping up and down in a circle (we're dorks, we know :) Then we drove to my parents' house to tell my mom and grandparents.

Karin had faxed us E's information, and the cover page said, "It's a BOY!!!!" So that was what we used to surprise people. My favorite reaction was my younger sister C. She lives in the same town as my parents, so after we told my mom, we drove to where she was. I kept her talking on the phone so that she wouldn't leave before we got there. Thank God my sister is a talker. I just let her talk. I don't think I could have held a conversation since I was so excited about telling her the news!! We pulled up into the driveway and I said, "Hey C, you should come outside right now". She came out and I held up the sign as she walked toward me. She freaked out and started screaming/crying/hip hip hooraying, then hugged me and we started jumping up and down for joy while we were hugging. She was so happy to finally be an auntie and to be getting a nephew, as she has 2 little girls. We called her fiance to tell him the news, and I filled them both in on the story of how we found out. She just kept crying and smiling and exclaiming how excited she was, and how surprised she was as well.

We proceeded to drive all the way over to Dave's parents, who also had a great reaction. I called them on our way up to thank them for my birthday present (and to secretly make sure they were home). They had just finished supper and were relaxing, so I got off the phone with them and we continued on our way. We got there about 45 minutes later and knocked on the door. We heard them say, "Oh! How nice! Dave and Rachel are here! I wonder why?" As they answered the door, we walked in with our sign. Dave shouted, "We got our referral! It's a boy!" They were so surprised, and wanted to get some champagne to celebrate, but we let them know we were trying to get to the rest of Dave's siblings yet that night. We told them a lot of what we knew about Ezekiel's story, and had a great time celebrating with them.

It was great fun telling Dave's family that they were getting a new addition to the family. I only wish we could have told our nephew J - he is on a camping trip for 3 weeks in the mountains. I have to say he is my favorite teenager, such a cool guy. I can't wait to tell him the news when he gets back.

After we got home, we quick went over to our BFF/neighbors' house - Aaron and Nikki. He had gotten a tattoo that weekend, so we wanted to see it, and of course surprise them with the news. We walked in all non-chalant and listened to Aaron tell us about the tattoo. They were about to tell us another story about their weekend when I said, "Wait, before you start your story I have a quick question for you - how tall is Sam?" They told me and then I said, "Oh, well OUR son, Ezekiel? He's 29 inches tall!!" Then we held up our sign and they stared in disbelief for a split second before screaming and hugging us (we woke Sammy up, oops). My favorite part was that while I was hugging Nikki I told her that Ezekiel is almost exactly 2 weeks younger than Sam. She started crying even more then and praising God. We are so amazed at His goodness!!

We got our picture of him on Tuesday, and fell absolutely head over heels in love with the face of this little boy we already loved from his paperwork. I just wish I could post his picture for the world to see, but due to Hague Convention laws, I can't post his picture until we have him home with us forever. But if I see you, I can promise you that I'll have his little picture out of my purse to show you before you can say, "Filipino Bambino".

REFERRAL!!!!

On Monday July 14th, Dave and I received the referral for a healthy 15-month old boy. His name is Ezekiel. We have a son!!!

I'll blog more later, for now I'm savoring this feeling (and frantically writing lists of what needs to get done in the next 4-6 months)!

Oh, I'll do a new poll now. We were all wrong on the last one!! I didn't even make my birthday an option for how soon we would get our referral. So vote on the right-hand side, and let us know when you think we'll bring E home to stay!

Insightful Dave

The other day I was talking with Dave about how hard the wait has been in the past couple of weeks. He had some great insight. At nine months, a normal pregnant woman is either giving birth, or has her bags packed and ready to go to the hospital. Dave told me that my heart has been "pregnant" for 9 months, ever since we got our approval. Now it's trying to figure out why in the heck I don't have a baby yet. I thought that was pretty interesting, and thinking about it more, I think he's probably right. Karin calling us with the news of our approval was like getting a positive pregnancy test for us, and now 9 months later my heart is wondering where my child(ren) are at. I thought that was pretty insightful of Dave.

On a funny note, this weekend Gus followed his big cousin-dog, Roger all weekend long. He only laid down if Roger was laying down, sat if Roger was sitting, etc. We decided to go to breakfast with everyone in my parents' van on Sunday morning, and Gus needed to come along so he wouldn't get into all kinds of trouble at my brother's house. Dave put Gus on his lap since the van was full, and I looked over and saw this at one point:

He opened his eyes when I took the picture, but he was laying his head on Dave's shoulder and sleeping. Totally cracked me up. What a crazy dog :)

I wish I had taken before and after pictures at my brother and sister-in-law's house this weekend. We got soooo much done. I kept leaving my camera in the hotel room, so I didn't get any pictures. You can take my word for it... We cleaned, packed, primed, painted and put studs/walls/doors up like it was going out of style. It was a lot more fun doing all of the work together, and hopefully we gave them some motivation to finish up.

9 months down...

So it is the 30th once again, and we celebrate another month behind us in this crazy little waiting game. Maybe it's just because I am tired from a long weekend of hard work, but the number 9 just looks so tiny, and it makes me feel sad today. When I see numbers like 17 and still no referral, it's hard to imagine that our referral is out there somewhere. Sorry, this is supposed to be a celebratory post, but this week has been a tough week for waiting.

It all started last Saturday (not this past one but the one before). I babysat my nieces, and when I was driving home afterward, I just started feeling down. I got home and was trying to study, but started reading blogs. I clicked on my friend Renee's blog, and heard the most beautiful song. If you click on the link over Renee's name you can hear the song. I had heard it before, but never listened to the words. The song is "Lullaby" by the Dixie Chicks. There is one line that says, "You can close your eyes when you're miles away And hear my voice like a serenade", then the chorus is, "How long do you want to be loved? Is forever enough, is forever enough? How long do you want to be loved? Is forever enough? Cause I'm never, never giving you up". I just sat there and cried and cried. I know our time will come, and it will be even better than I could have imagined, and this wait will be a distant memory. But I just felt sad. All week was kind of up and down. I'd be happy and content, and then something would trigger the sadness I feel about waiting for my children. Today the trigger was seeing how small that number 9 looks. One happy thing is that from here on out we'll have only double digits for our monthiversary of waiting.

Deep Thoughts

Yesterday at church, the prayer warrior woman I mentioned in the post below asked Dave if she and another guy from church could pray with us and anoint us with oil (to do a prayer of healing). He knew she would specifically be praying that God would heal us of our infertility, so Dave said, "We're good. No thanks". I didn't know that she had asked him that, but she did come up during church and ask me if I was okay. When I told her I was great, she looked at me like I was lying. Hmmmm...

When Dave told me about it after we got home, I immediately started feeling guilty. Part of me felt like we should have said yes to being prayed for, even though it's not what we feel God wants for our life right now. I felt guilty for turning down prayer, because I felt like I was picking and choosing, I guess. But then part of me was frustrated because Dave and I dealt with the blow of infertility for years. We even had our pastor and one of our elders anoint me with oil and pray for healing for my body's infertility about two years ago. One night all of the people in our old Bible study gathered around us, and layed hands on us while praying for us. I have stories of people (one very wise father of my friendly friend) who would come up to me at church and tell me that they felt God telling them to pray for me right now, and it was always on days when I was struggling with sadness about infertility. I spent many days/nights praying and being prayed for - that our infertility would go away and God would bless us with a baby. I cried and blubbered gut-wrenching prayers to God for a while, sobbing while others would pray for us as well.

God's been working on our hearts, and I truly feel like He's healed me from that pain, and I am 100% on board with His will for us in adoption. I have a feeling that this woman is just finding out about our infertility, and is feeling sad for us - she's at the same point I was at four or five years ago when I found out about our infertility. She still feels as if God's will for our life is getting pregnant - I thought the same thing all those years ago. What frustrated both Dave and I is that we both have felt - ever since we started the adoption - that we were called to adopt. Our hearts feel peace in knowing that we are following God's will for our lives by adopting. If we end up having a bio baby someday, we will be thrilled. But right now, we are overjoyed when we think of becoming parents through adoption. It isn't a second-best kind of thing for us.

Happy 8 Months To Us!!

Dave and I are so happy to have one more month behind us in this wait. Tonight we may celebrate by going to a movie. We'll see how his landscaping goes today.

I was adding up payroll last night to make it go quicker for processing tomorrow night, and discovered that Dave has worked 120 hours since May 16th. Yikes. Plus, lots of those hours won't get paid out to him since they are not billable to customers (darn it all). I just can't believe how hard he's been working. I'm so proud of him. I never imagined 6 years ago that Dave would be at all interested in gardening, much less starting up a company doing this!! It's incredibly hard work and a little scary owning our own company, but I love seeing Dave in his element. And he's so good at what he does.

He's extremely exhausted right now, but his birthday is coming up (the big 3-0!!!) and we are going to spend the day at Valleyfair (an amusement park kind of like Six Flags for those of you not from Minnesota). I'm so excited!! We've never been there together, so it's been more than 7 years since either of us have been there. We both love all of the rides there, and are excited to go on the new ones! I'm praying for good weather come June 9th!!!

Grocery store encounters

Dave just got back from the grocery store. (I have the best husband ever who takes super good care of me, but that's a different story for a different day.) While he was at the grocery store, he ran into a lady from church. This woman is a prayer WARRIOR at our church. She heads up the prayer team, and has awesome faith in the power of prayer. Even though we may disagree on some things, I have respect for her. She walked up to Dave and said, "Someone who loves you asked me to pray for fertility for you". (My jaw dropped a little when Dave told me this. I have no clue who loves us. Just kidding.) Dave then answered, "Okay, thank you, why don't you also add our adoption to the list". She said, "Oh, alright. But you know... (ugh, here it comes) my second cousin got pregnant shortly after they adopted. It happens all the time".

**sigh**

Just an FYI. Any medical professional will tell you that this actually happens less than 10% of the time. This is the same percentage of people struggling with infertility who get pregnant if they continue on with fertility treatments. If it does happen for us, then we'll hip hip hooray with the rest of you, but this is another one of those "what not to say"s.

Congrats Aaron and Dana!!!!!

Aaron and Dana are over in Russia right now picking up their son, Kaden. They celebrated their Gotcha Day today (or whatever you want to call it - I know some people dislike that term), and I'm so excited for them!!! Kaden is adorable, and things are going well for them. Please pray for safe (and sane) travels for them as they make their way back to the U.S. this weekend. Yay!! Congratulations, Aaron and Dana!

Realization

Today I logged onto the Ya.hoo Philippines Adoption group that I belong to and saw that a woman posted news of her referral. I was so excited to see it that I called Dave right away to tell him about it. He said, "That's great news! Isn't it great and kind of weird to feel excited for someone rather than jealous that they just got what you've been wanting for months and years now?" I had to agree with him!

As I did a little self-assessment of my feelings, I realized I didn't feel jealous at all. Instead I felt happy for her, excited that it was one more name off of the list ahead of Dave and I, nervous for the day that I get the call, excited for the day that I get the call, and just good in general. I realized that this woman had only waited 11 months for her referral, and though she does have some distant Philippine heritage in her family (through her grandfather), which may have helped her referral go a little quicker, it just made me realize that Dave's and my day isn't really that far away! Even if we have to wait 9-18 more months for our referral, that is next February-November. The way that days fly by for us, it doesn't feel that far away!!

I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. This wait has not been excruciating for me (not like the approval wait - now THAT was excruciating for me). Instead, I've been in a great mood most days. When I think of the wait (at least once per day), I'm amazed at how quickly it is going. People hear me reciting exactly how long we've been waiting (thanks to my little tracker at the top of the blog!), and I think they misinterpret that as an obsession and sadness about how long the wait is taking. They look at me with sympathy when I tell them how long it's been, and I have to say, "No!! It's not a bad thing! Dave and I are enjoying our time together". I keep waiting for the day that I fall into a panicked depression because we still haven't received our referral. God has been working wonders on my heart during this wait, which I feel is the number one best part about this wait.

Garage sale-ing and parties

I'm not a huge fan of shopping, this includes garage sale-ing. I'm not a "clothes digger" as my sister and I nicknamed some of the ladies and men out garage sale-ing yesterday. These people find AWESOME deals because they are patient, and will keep digging and digging until they find treasures. For me, if it doesn't jump out and bite me, I won't notice it.

Yesterday, my sister Carissa and I hit the city-wide garage sale in the town my parents and Carissa live in. I found some great kids' books at the first sale we went to, and we got 10 books for a quarter!! What a steal of a deal. Then later I found some squooshy balls for Gus, and some binders to organize my stuff a little better (and haggled on the price - woot). At the last sale we went to, I was walking around not really seeing anything I liked when suddenly a box fell onto my foot and stubbed my toe. I looked down and saw that it was a box that contained a practically brand-new Snugli. We had gotten some tips from a family who already went to the Philippines that it's not as practical to bring a stroller, we should bring some kind of carrier. I couldn't believe that I literally tripped over this!! I just had to chuckle at God, b/c I felt like he was saying, "Come on, Rach, use your eyes. You can save some money for the stuff you need if you just look!" Now I just need to find a little bigger one, just in case we get an older child and want a backpack-type carrier while we are there!

We got back to my parents' house, and I asked my sister how big Grace is. The carrier says it will hold up to 26 lbs, and Grace is about 26 pounds (she's a peanut). So we decided to try it out, and take some pics so you all could see for yourselves (please ignore my nastified hair)...

Later that evening, we went to a party that our friends, Jon and Suze had invited us to. We missed the Govenaires playing by about 5 minutes which bummed us out!! Otherwise we had tons of fun at the party, and of course I got some pictures too...

Jonny whipped out his hackey sack, and the boys had a good time "hacking it up". Suze and I joined in later in the night. You can see the hackey sack in front of Jon the Pro (with the white shirt). I felt like I was back in junior high/high school with Jon (only Luukey was missing).

This is the truck that Suze's brother, Rick has been working on the the past year or so. Suze and I spent a lot of our evening swinging our legs off the back of it chatting and people-watching. It was so fun!

And this is the car that Suze's dad fixed up. It's so darn pretty! If you can believe it, he hauled a garden tiller in this car one day. That cracks me up :)

Here's Dave posing in back of the car so you can see just how tiny it is (and Jon looking cool next to the truck). We sat down in it, and I seriously felt like I was sitting on the ground!

Thanks for another fun evening, Jon and Suze (and Rick)!!

Why the Philippines?

This is one of Dave's and my least favorite questions that people ask us when we tell them we are adopting from the Philippines. I'll rephrase that. It's when people who have adopted ask us that question in a challenging manner, making us feel as though we need to justify why we are adopting from the Philippines that we dislike that question. I feel like I have to say how much we love that the Philippine culture is all about family and so are we, that we have loved everything we've learned about Philippine culture. Or that we had family and friends who have served over there in mission work or training to be community developers. While those are true, the only answer I need to give is, "Because that's where our babies are".

I figured I would write a post though explaining why I am so grateful that we are adopting from the Philippines. These are reasons that apply to Dave and I only. I admire the people who can adopt from countries like Russia, b/c you will see with my reasons below that I don't think I could do it. So without further ado, the reasons we are grateful we are adopting from the Philippines:

-We only have to travel there once to do the government-required paperwork and pick up the child. I think that I would completely breakdown if I had to go for one (or more) visit(s), and then leave the child there until the next trip. I was just reading a blog about a family in Haiti who is struggling with coming home from their first visit with their adopted children living in an orphanage there. My heart hurts for this mother who has already held her children, then had to leave them while the governments finish up all the necessary paperwork for their children to finally be home with them. Every time I read one of these blogs, I wonder how these strong women are able to do it. I don't think I could do it.

-We only need to stay in the Philippines for about 1 week to get everything done. Although we will probably want to stay there a lot longer, it's nice knowing that we don't have to stay there long before coming home to start our new lives together!

-We don't have to carry any cash with us, or bribe any officials to get things done the right way. In fact all of our money is handled for us through our agency, and all we have to worry about is spending money/hotel/travel money. I hear stories about people having to carry thousands of dollars with them on their adoption trips b/c the officials will only accept cash, and bribes. That would scare the bejeesums out of me.

-The Philippine government agency that handles the adoptions (ICAB) takes the referral process very seriously. They want to ensure that they are choosing the right family for each child. I feel that they have a high success rate in adoptions because of this. This is also one of the reasons that we haven't tried finding and adopting a waiting child. We have full faith that ICAB (and God) has the right child/ren in mind for us, and we can't wait to meet them!!

-The Philippines is WARM, hot even!! I love warm weather, and am really praying that our trip falls in February, March or April. Why not December or January you may ask? Well it's so that we can get a nice reprieve from that time in Minnesota when it's insanely cold, and you don't even have Christmas or the Super Bowl to look forward to.

-We hear that the people in the Philippines are more than nice. Everyone is accommodating and kind. I can't wait to meet people over there and just smile and smile (I like to smile).

-The people in the Philippines are BEAUTIFUL. Ramiele from Am.erican Idol is from the Philippines, and what a gorgeous girl she is, right? I can't wait to gaze into the beautiful brown eyes of my babies, brush their smooth black hair, and admire how beautifully different their skin is next to mine.

-The food is AWESOME. And I know we haven't even experienced the best of what we'll get to eat over there. I'm excited for real Chicken Adobo, Adobo Peanuts, Pancit, REAL fresh mangoes, and other new things that I can't try over here. When Dave and I travel our rule is that we can't eat anywhere that we could go to when we are back home. It should be lots of fun in the Philippines!!

Happy Mother's Day!

Last year I hated Mother's Day. We went to church where there was a Mother's Day sermon, along with a baby dedication for two different families. We went to Dave's family's celebration and I snapped at his sister when she told me I wouldn't have to worry about cooking and cleaning on this day in the future because I would be a mom by next year. I knew I wouldn't be, and started crying and walked off when she said that. I was in a very different place last year than I am this year.

This year I am excited to celebrate the awesome women who are mothers in my life. And, as I discovered yesterday, at least two of the women in my life were excited to celebrate the fact that I am a mother (in my heart). My older sister called and wished me a Happy Mother's Day, which made me happy. My younger sister brought in a gift yesterday afternoon and announced that it was for me. Just that action alone was extremely touching, and made me so happy. I opened the card, and she pointed out that there was a poem on the inside of the card. I copied the poem at the end of this post. She told me that it had made her cry as she read it, and sure enough I started crying as I started reading through it. I love the part where it says that I would dig through the Earth to get to where they are. So true. The gift from her, Rich and her girls was Apples to Apples (the game), I'm so excited to play it!!

My dad mentioned that he was going to be doing a Mother's Day prayer at their church this year. He said that he wanted to include waiting mothers in his prayer, and asked if I had a good poem. I think he is going to read the poem that my sister gave me. I'm so glad that other women may feel a little better than they thought they would on Mother's Day by having someone acknowledge them as well, whether they are going through infertility or adoption.

Update: My mom and dad also celebrated the fact that I am a waiting mom with a Mother's Day present, and a very cool surprise announcement for Dave and I. Yesterday was a surreal, yet very much appreciated Mother's Day celebration with my family. Thanks guys!!!

I wanted this post to say an extra special Happy Mother's Day to my fellow waiting first time moms - Renee, Emilie, Joanne, Dana, Robin, and Jessica. Happy Mother's Day, ladies!!!

Your heart is aching for someone to hold you.

My heart is aching for someone to hold.

My empty arms are here to embrace you,

Soon we'll be together, Mother and child.

I hear your cries when you are hungry,

I hear you whimper when you are alone,

I hear you giggle when the nanny makes faces,

Soon we'll be together, Mother and child.

Hold on to your dreams of a family, of love

And I'll hold onto the hope of bringing you home.

Hold on to your dreams, we are coming to get you

And you'll be filling my arms, my heart, our home.

Give me your hand, I'll be there to protect you,

Give me your heart, and I'll cherish our love.

The love between Mother and child is precious,

Soon we'll be together, Mother and child.

I'll fly over an ocean to see and to meet you,

I'd dig straight through the earth to be where you are.

I'm waiting my turn; time is all that's between us.

Soon we'll be together, Mother and child.

-Julie A. Rocheleau

Nana and Bampa

3 posts in one day. My goodness. I was home sick today, so that might explain it...
Here is the next page that I tried. Hope you like it, Mom and Dad!! I also made a Gus page that I will attach one of these days.

Now that I'm looking at it, I guess I needed to center the picture on the page better! Oops, I'll try harder next time :)