Just rambling...

I think that no matter what type of adoption you pursue to add a child to your family, you end up with a deep connection to your child's birth parents. I'm guessing that even when you don't know who your child's birthparents are you still feel a connection with them because of the part they played in making your child who they are.

It's pretty obvious with our adoption with Allie, we did meet her birth mom (T). Even though we've only met T twice, we feel a great deal of love and admiration for her. T gave us the most precious gift that a person could give us. She entrusted us with the precious miracle that she carried with her for over 9 months...the child that we dreamt of for so long.

We hope that someday Allie and T are able to have some type of relationship so that Allie can see what an amazing person she is. Until that point, it's hard for Cory and me to know what we should do to keep some type of connection. In most open adoptions, the birthparents and the adoptive parents complete a contact agreement either before or after the baby is born. In this contact agreement, everyone decides on the level of contact that feels comfortable for everyone involved. Unfortunately, one wasn't ever completed in our adoption.

We want, more than anything, for T to be able to see pictures of Allie (and even see her) if she wants, however we also want to give her time to heal. We know that T is going through a great deal of pain and healing that we could never fathom. For the first Birth Mother's Day (the Sunday before Mother's Day) after Allie was born, I started a scrapbook for T of Allie and we sent that to her. Last year at Christmas, we sent her a package with pictures, more scrapbook pages, and a willow tree angel in it. We know (from her social worker at CHS) that she never opened that package because it was too difficult for her. We haven't sent anything since that time. Now we have the rest of her first year scrapbook completed as well as her Christmas present from this year that we have been delaying sending.

It's so hard! How do we send something that I know will cause pain?! How can we not send her pictures as Allie grows up??? We are conflicted...our hope is that even if T doesn't look/open these things we send to her now, that someday she will look at them and cherish the pictures and they might help her and her family find peace in her choices.

Happy Belated Valentine's Day!

14 things we LOVE about you!

1. The way you LOVE up your babies! You are always either rocking, kissing, feeding, bathing, burping, or changing one of your many babies!

2. The way you walk up to us and randomly give us a quick kiss, say "uve you!" and continue on your way numerous times a day.

3. The way you LOVE music. You love to listen to and dance to music as much as possible. You also love to sing "Itsy Bitsy," "Wheels on the Bus," "Patty Cake," and the "ABC's" to us and to your babies!

4. The way you LOVE to talk! You talk to pretty much anyone. In the grocery store this past weekend, you greeted EVERYONE you saw saying "hello" then waving and saying "goodbye!"

5. The way you LOVE to cuddle at night. You beg us to "cuddle mommy/daddy!"

6. The way you LOVE to give hugs to pretty much any other child you see.

7. The way you LOVE to play dress up and the way you can even get daddy to play dress up with you!!!

8. The way you LOVE to help mommy bake and help daddy with the laundry! You even practice folding clothes by going in (when we aren't paying attention) and emptying your dresser drawer and then folding each piece of clothing. When you're done, you're so proud of yourself!

I hope you still LOVE these things in a few years.

9. The way you LOVE to read books. We must have hundreds of books and you are always wanting us to read more books to you. You even have your all time favorites that we can ask you where they are and you'll go get that certain book!

10. The way you LOVE to talk on the phone. You always look like such a big girl chatting with whoever it is on the phone.

11. The way you come into mommy's room on Saturday and Sunday mornings and exclaim, "Good morning mommy! Wake up mommy!" Until I crawl out of bed and kiss you to pieces and LOVE you up.

12. We LOVE that little gut laugh that you have!!! It truly is priceless!

13. We LOVE the way that your language is exploding. Over night, it seems, you have become less of a toddler and more of a little lady. You've started to speak in sentences, can count to 10, know some colors, shapes, and LOVE anything to do with animals.

14. Most of all, we LOVE Allie because we couldn't picture our life without this precious little miracle God placed in our lives!!!

Daddy time...

I stayed later at the school tonight (for a Friday) and Cory picked Allie up from daycare. When I arrived home, this is what I found...

Allie enjoying her first sucker (before supper)! Judging from the drool on her shirt, do you think she liked it?!?

Fun in the snow!

8 months waiting...

When I write that number, it really doesn't look like we've been waiting all that long. 8 months....if I were truly pregnant, I would be weeks away from adding baby #2 to our family. Instead, we are probably more like a year to a year and a half away from our little baby 'E'. For some reason, I thought this wait was going to be easier. So far, I feel as though we've done a good job surviving the wait. We've went on with our daily lives with work, life, and just soaking up every minute possible with Allie. However, it's starting to get more difficult to wait...

Allie would be such a wonderful big sister right now. Whenever there is a baby within a hundred (who's kidding themselves....1,000) feet, she runs up and loves on them (maybe a little too much sometimes). She's constantly feeding, holding, bathing, burping, rocking, dressing up, and singing to her babies. Before we can say our prayers and get ready for bed at night, Allie has to put her baby to sleep in it's bed and kiss her goodnight! I want so badly for Allie and her brother or sister to be close in age, however as the time continues to pass I'm beginning to realize that dream is out of our hands. I have to continue to believe that God has a bigger plan for us than we know and that we just have to be patient and trust in him.