Footprints in the Sand

During a recent trip to the beach, I wanted to get a picture of my boys' feet in the sand. This would be the first time I had actually put the baby's feet in the sand because it was just too windy the last time we were at the beach. I was so excited to see how he would respond to the wet, gritty shifting substance under his feet. As I was taking the pictures, the poem Footprints in the Sand came to mind. It was then that I realized that that poem describes our journey with this little guy. Several of you have asked me to update the blog with news of where we are in the foster to adopt process. Taking this picture and thinking of that poem has given me the inspiration I needed to post this update.

For a while it appeared that the baby's mom was not going to do the things she needed to do to be reunited with him. There have been several hearings and at the last hearing a relative came forward and wanted the baby. This crushed us. We thought we would lose him that very day. However, in order for that relative to take custody of the baby, they must complete a home study and be approved by the court. So, our concerns over this diminished.

We became comfortable with where we stood in this process. Until recently that is. For the past month or so, the baby's mom has been doing everything she is supposed to be doing. During the baby's visitations with her, I have been reminded by my God that I need to pray for her heart and her success. As much as it hurts to imagine losing him at this point, I have to be obedient and pray for her. If trying to get her baby back leads her to Jesus, then I need to be her biggest cheerleader. We love this little guy as if he is our own so if he is going to be going back to his mom, we want her to know Jesus and be the best mom possible, so please help us to pray for her to fall so in love with Jesus that she will be forever changed by His grace.

As for us and our pain...we are confident that we will look back one day and see only one set of footprints in the sand.

Nine Months Cancer Free

It was exactly a year ago this week that Billy underwent his first week of chemo. It is with enormous gratefulness that we learned last week that he is still cancer free! At his check up in May, the CT scan showed that his adrenal glands were swollen so we were anxious to see if this had resolved itself. Thankfully, everything looked good! We are thanking our Great Physician for taking care of all the details!

A Dilemma

I decided to pack up the boys last week and meet my mother-in-law at her beach condo for a few days. My plan was to go to Billy's appointment at Duke with him and then the boys and I would continue on to the beach. This seemed like an ideal plan because Duke is about an hour and a half away so that would give us a good "rest" point and then the drive from Duke to the beach is only two and a half hours. This would make it possible to do our bathroom breaks and feed the baby at Duke and then not have to stop again until we got to the beach. This plan was working well until I took an exit to run through a drive thru to grab lunch for Little Man and me. It was then that I realized that I did not have any hand sanitizer. (Now, those of you who know me know that that is a dilemma in and of itself!) So I decided my plan to keep the kids strapped in would have to go by the wayside and we would have to go into a store to get some handsanitizer. I took a quick peek in my mirror to make sure the baby was still awake as he had been the entire trip only to see that he had finally fallen asleep. There was no way I was going to wake him up! This is where the real dilemma arose. Did I leave both kids in the car with the A/C running and the doors locked and risk jail time or do I send my 8 year old into Food Lion BY HIMSELF?? (Those of you who know my little man, know what a dilemma this was for him!) I had no real choice. A few moments later, armed with a $5 bill and strict intructions to go straight to the cashier and ask where to find the handsanitizer, my 8 year old cautiously walked into Food Lion BY HIMSELF! Thankfully, the entire front of the store was windows so I could see him and he could see me. I watched him stand in line to speak to the cashier and then he made his way to the aisle to which she had directed. I was thanking God that this aisle was in my view! He slowly made his way down the aisle looking carefully for the ever so important handsanitizer. Then it happened. He went beyond my range of vision. This may seem trivial to some of you, but I immediately started praying in earnest, "Lord, please don't let anyone snatch my baby. And please help him find the handsanitizer by himslef so he'll feel good about himself." After what seemed like forever but was really only a matter of minutes, my little boy reappered. Bounding back up that aisle looking in my direction with a look of sheer joy on his face, he waved the bottle of handsanitizer in the air from side to side. I came out of my skin with joy for him! He was so proud of himself and it shined from every pore! He has a new sense of confidence and I could not be happier for my little man! As you can see, we celebrate every victory!

Summer Sessions

I have not been able to do as many sessions as I would like due to having a little one again, but here are a few of my favorites from the sessions I did this summer.

Plans for a Hope and a Future

Wow, it has been a looong time since I posted anything on here. We have been just a tad busy since my last post. Since we skipped a few weeks of homeschooling while Billy and I were at Duke for his chemo treatments, I spent the later part of the fall playing catch-up. Then came Christmas and the New Year and well, time just got away from me. We have had quite an exciting Spring so far and many friends have asked me and encouraged me to tell this story so here it goes...

As most of you know, we have been going through the adoption process for almost three years. We took all our classes in the fall of 2006, and were set to start our home study in November of that year. There were several major events in our life that caused us to postpone our home study for about a year. Once we felt we were at a place where we could move forward we called our case worker. We finished our home study visits and requirements mid-July 2008 and were officially playing the waiting game. If you have read our posts from last year, you know what happened next. We were thrown into the world of cancer and chemotherapy. We were called about a baby in between Billy's first and second rounds of chemo. As it turned out, the baby's case worker was concerned about Billy having cancer so she chose another couple. This was for the best, as it would have been so incredibly stressful to take care of a new baby and go through the next few months of chemo treatments. Once Billy was finished with his treatments, we were told he would have to have follow-up appointments every three months to make sure he was still cancer-free. He had his first follow-up appointment in February, which showed that he was indeed still cancer-free...Praise God! When we returned home that afternoon, there was a call from our case worker...about a baby! Talk about coming full-circle. Before I go on about what happened next, I want to take you through the journey we have gone through since first entertaining the idea of adoption...

Five years ago, we started thinking about adoption. I was still holding out for what I knew God was capable of...giving us another biological baby. The idea of adoption is something I had always thought would be a part of my life as a parent from the time I was a young teenager because the church I attended as a young teen in Alabama had a missionary family visit once and they spoke about their adoptions. I can remember thinking then that I would have a few biological kids and adopt a few. Although this was in the back of my mind, I was not ready to give up on having the "few biological kids" just yet. (As I type this I am struck by my audacity to even try to call the shots...oh, what I could have avoided had I just surrendered to God's prompting five years ago!) After the miscarriage of our second pregnancy, we felt God pulling us more and more toward adoption. It was in our face at every turn. We hem-hawed around for another year before we started seriously considering it. At that point, we agreed that we would in no uncertain terms adopt domestically. It HAD to be international because we just could not stand the thought of the birthmother tracking us down and taking our baby from us. Nope, no way, we would only do international adoption. Wellll, we didn't (and still don't) have $30,000-$40,000 to adopt internationally. We checked all kinds of countries and thought we had found the most affordable in Korea ($15,000) when we heard that they had closed the doors to US adoptions. I'm not sure if this was accurate information or not but it was enough to make us step back and listen to what God was saying to us. International adoption was not for us. Now, it was about this time that we changed churches. God led us to the most incredible church at just the right time. We began to really feel God's presence and direct, intimate involvement in our daily life. I can remember the first time I heard my pastor pray for God to do WHATEVER He needed to do IN us to make us more like Christ. As he was praying that, I was thinking, Wow, really? ANYTHING? OK.... God, do WHATEVER you need to do. I am so thankful for that prayer for SO MANY reasons. Sure, at first, I was scared what He might do, but I came to understand that WHATEVER God does in us is His plan, and therefore, is for our good. And we can trust Him with EVERYTHING!! It was shortly after that that we felt a peace about domestic adoption. However, we still thought we knew what the plan was! We would adopt from somewhere across the country...harder to be located, right? We started taking our classes through Social Services (because this kind of adoption is the most needed and the most affordable...FREE) but we would only be an adoptive family. There was no way we could do foster-to-adopt. That would rip us apart as well as our son. We soon found out that we would have to look in our state for the first year and then we would be able to search the country. Huh??? God, you are asking us to do something we know we can't do. And He said to me through His Word... My ways are not your ways... Ok, our state is a pretty big state. We just thought we'd request a child from the far western part of the state or the far eastern part of the state. Once our home study was finished we quickly found out that the calls would not be pouring in about infants because of the system. There has to be a series of hearings to determine the birthmother's ability to raise the baby. Sooo, by the time all this is done and the parental rights are terminated, the child would likely be a year old or older. (Except in some unusual circumstances where the parents give up their rights.) One day, out of the blue I felt God telling me that if we wanted a baby, we were going to have to do it His way...foster-to-adopt. Gulp! Really, Lord, we cannot go through losing one after having it in our home and loving it as our own. And over and over again, I know the plans I have for you is what came up in my devotionals and my thoughts. So, we called our case worker and changed our status. We were officially a foster-to-adopt family. Two weeks later, we received the call. There was a baby, a newborn that we would be bringing home from the hospital. Thank you Jesus, we finally have our baby!!! We knew we were in for a long process but were committed to riding it out. You would think that was the end and God was finished with this particular work in us. I did. As I started praying for this baby, and praying that it would be ours forever, it was heavy on my heart that if the baby was ours forever, then there was a mother out there that would be losing her baby. I didn't see that coming. And it was then that God gently whispered to me that this mother's soul is more important to Him than whether or not I have another baby and He wants me to pray for her. Lord, please I don't think I can do this. For a few days, I danced around the big elephant that was in my prayer room. I knew I needed to pray for her, but could not bring myself to. But at the same time, I was having a hard time praying for us to be able to keep this precious baby. My heart would not let me pray for her to fail her drug tests, and fail to comply to all the requirements, and ultimately lose her baby forever. And then my God reached me. He reminded me that my most earnest prayer for my son and for this new baby was for them to bring souls back to Him. I don't care what they are as far as occupations, just help me to teach them to love as You love and may they reach lost souls for You. And at that reminder, I realized that this baby may fulfill that purpose in the birth mother's life. If losing her baby, makes her run to God for help, then that is bigger than me having a baby. So, that is where I am now. I am praying for this woman to find Jesus so He can help her get straight. My prayer for whether or not we get to keep this baby is now a prayer for the baby to be with the family God wants because He knows the plans He has for this baby...plans for a hope and a future.

Early Morning Photo Shoot

When Aspen arrives on Thursdays and Fridays, she usually has a cute little ponytail on the top of her head. Sometimes, however, she arrives with her beautiful hair falling all around her pretty little face. Each morning that she has come to me like this, I think, "Oh, I need to get a picture of you with your hair down like that." Well, this morning, I finally did! Here are a few of our hurried shots...

Happy Birthday Mason!

Last year when I first started blogging I posted some pics of a friend's baby. They were of his tiny hands and feet. Well, that tiny baby will be turning one soon so we did some pics this week. Here are a few shots. The one of AJ is one of the many I took before Amy arrived so I could get my lighting and exposure correct. Bless his heart, he is going to get tired of always having a camera in his face!