She Calls Herself the Rock Star Fairy

She went into her room and came out

Dressed like a Diva with clout

"I'm a rock star fairy," she said

Who knew?  Silly me,  misled.



Really Megan????



OK, that's better!



With the rock star shades.  Now you know why she
calls herself the rock star fairy!!  ???



The Red Tape

As if we don’t have enough work to do at the very beginning of the adoption process, (choosing an agency, deciding on domestic vs. international, choosing the country,  BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, etc, etc, etc) – they have to slap us with a 400 page document to be filled out, requesting  more detail than I even know about myself!  Are you guys serious????  You need to know what?????  And I thought what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!

Here’s  your  warning ladies and gents:  all of the paperwork will seem like a daunting task.   And I, lucky girl that I am, was left on my own (by my hard-working hubby)  to tackle this overwhelming  job!  It’s a good thing I was excited and determined.    All I can say is – YOU CAN DO IT!  If I can do it, you can do it.  Then, once you get all of that paperwork filled out, and you race to the post office to get it mailed out and you’re waiting by the phone for news about your babe to come – Guess what?  Bummer ‘cuz you get to WAIT, WAIT, WAIT and then WAIT some more (Remember, good things come to those who wait)!!!

So, have Faith, roll up your sleeves, and get it done!  It’s the paper trail that will lead you to your new child.  How great is that?

We Can't Get Enough of This!

Olive Garden Salad

Salad

2 bags Dole American Blend Salad

2 roma tomatoes—sliced

1 jar black olives—sliced

1 c. thinly sliced red onion

8 pepperoncini (yellow peppers) mild

1 bag of croutons

Dressing

1 c. low-fat mayo

2 Tbsp. lemon juice

8 Tbsp. parmesan cheese

1/2 tsp. garlic salt

1 tsp. Italian seasoning

2 Tbsp. olive oil

2/3 c. juice from yellow peppers

4 Tbsp. karo syrup

For Dressing, combine all ingredients.  This will make plenty, so don’t feel as though you need to add all of this to the salad.  I usually use about half to three-quarters of it and store the rest in the fridge. 

For Salad, combine all ingredients, excepts for croutons.  Just prior to serving, pour dressing over salad, add croutons and mix. 

We are wild about this salad.  Even my rugrats gobble it up and ask for more!  Nice, huh?

Hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

When Hubby says NO

This can be a little tricky ladies! 

But truly…….you are not alone, in fact, this tends to be the norm.  Of all the adoptive moms that I know, when  asked  if their husbands were on board at first, almost all of them said no.  A few hubbies were a dreamy YES from the start (bless their hearts!),  but most needed some serious convincing,  and plenty of time to get used to the idea.

My hubby did NOT like the idea of adopting at first. 

But I was not about to give up without a fight!  And I was persistent.  I think the turning point for him was when he started talking to other parents who had adopted .  He realized how much this meant to me and that I was very serious about it.  And I reminded him – Happy Wife, Happy Life!  (ok, not really)  Then he started to open his heart and his mind.  He still did not make it easy for me!  If I had a dollar for each time he asked me “Are you sure about this?” I would be a very rich girl!  I’ll never forget  the time when  the social worker was at our house for the home study.  She was hitting us hard over the head with the “We can’t guarantee ……” song & dance and I looked over at my husband.  I remember well the look on his face -  dazed with his eyes  kind of glazed over.  I knew he was in serious doubt mode.  I was thinking, oh crap, here we go again!

Daddy and his girl.

Now today, seeing the two of them together, I am so thankful God gave me the perseverance to fight for what I knew in my heart we were meant to do.  The love and bond that they share is so precious.    They are a tight pair. 

Follow Your Heart.

Ladies, if you have the desire, if you feel like you are being called – pray about it, do the research, ask questions, follow your heart  and most of all – don’t give up on hubby.  He will come around.

Who Would Have Thought..............

That the bath-time blues could become a bath-time HOOT

With something as simple as a brown bathing suit!

Our Story

It seems like an eternity ago when the seed was first planted.   We had been married for several years and decided we were ready to have children.    God had other plans for us though!  We were to wait and walk the long, heart-breaking road of infertility.  During this time, we learned many valuable lessons.   We learned how to freeze sperm. OK, not really!  But we did learn how to drive like race car drivers to get it to the labs on time!   Other more notable lessons included:

• We are not in control of our lives, God is.  
• We agreed that  if we were ever blessed enough to conceive and give birth to a child, that we would forever be thankful  for that  child and never, ever take parenthood for granted. 
• Thirdly,  we (this was mostly me) started  to think about adoption and I told myself that if we were not able to have birth children, we would adopt children.  And so the seed was planted!

Soon after a laparoscopic surgery  to remove scar tissue from endometriosis,  I was pregnant our with first son!   With continued help from an infertility specialist (fortunately just clomid, endless appts. and lots of prayer), and I was able to get pregnant and give birth to two more boys.  I felt like the luckiest girl on the planet!

The three boys and a busy lifestyle kept us both on our toes and feeling like we could barely keep up for many years.  It wasn’t until it came time to take down the crib and move our youngest boy into a “big boy bed” that I began to have any serious thoughts about a fourth child.  It hit me pretty hard.  I started talking to my husband about it and I started to pray about it.  I asked God to tell me what he wanted me to do.  I didn’t think I had the strength or the desire to go down the “infertility road” one more time.  Besides,  I would probably be the one who would get preggers with triplet boys! (LOL –  we would always be thankful for any child  but truly,  that would have been more years of pee on the toilet seat than any woman can handle)  I began going to adoption web-sites and talking to mothers with adopted children.    My husband was not convinced, but I was growing more and more convinced, but was as nervous as a cat about the whole thing.  So my prayers became more frequent.  PLEASE GOD, help me to know what you want me to do, and let it be what is best for my family.  PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE  give me a sign!

The next day a delivery man knocked on the door – “I have a sign for you, ma’am.”

Okay it wasn’t quite so overt. We were in church one sunny Sunday morning and were given a sermon that really struck me.   I don’t remember the Deacon’s exact words but he spoke about having the strength to do what God is asking us to do - moving past our fears, and  trusting Him .  Bam!  I felt like  he was speaking directly to me.  I KNEW without a doubt that this was the sign that I had been praying for, and I felt overjoyed that God had taken the time to communicate with me!  (Stay tuned for another miraculous sign that I received later in the adoption process WOO HOO!)

Now that I knew in my heart that this is what I am meant to do, I was prepared to go to battle.  OK, sort of.  Because there is no way I could have ever have been prepared for what lay ahead of me.  But once I got hubby on board  (keep in mind, hubby  said yes but was constantly questioning me and saying – are you sure about this??? (Sheesh – man up!!!)   I  surrounded myself with a few key family members, friends and adoptive moms who were so helpful  in talking me through many of my tough times.

We finished our frenzied paper work and home study as quickly as we could in the fall of 2006, only to begin the long wait.  As time wore on, so did my worries.  I began to question our chosen country.  I started looking on-line for waiting babies.  It was a very difficult time for me.  I had so much trouble just letting go and trusting that God had it all figured out for me.   Again, my prayers became even more frequent and desperate.   PLEASE, PLEASE , PLEASE God bring us the child that is perfect for our family.  I know she is out there somewhere.   Please bring us together and somehow show us a sign that she is the one!

That afternoon I received a phone call from none other than J.C. himself, who was kind enough to tell me I was on the right track and...Dang, why couldn’t I be more trusting in HIM!  Seriously, I did get a fabulous sign, though, and for as long as I am living I will never forget the day that I received it.

It was July of 2007, and it came in the form of a phone call from our social worker.    I remember feeling very excited when I heard her voice on the phone.  When she said the words  “We have a baby girl for you,” my knees started to feel weak.  She continued to give me details but it as soon as she mentioned the child’s date of birth, chills literally ran up and down the entire length of my body and I did not hear anything else she said to me.  What was this news that nearly brought me to me my knees?  This child was born on my husband’s birthday.  Our new baby girl was born on the same day as her dad’s birthday!   God was telling me that she was the one.  THIS WAS MY SIGN!  To this day, it is still so amazing to me – that I was given that gift.  Because from that moment forward,  I knew with every ounce of my entire being that she was the one meant to be ours forever.

Our social worker phoned again in mid-December of 2007.  We were not expecting the travel call to come for at least several more months so the surprise factor only added to our excitement.  Hearing the news that our baby girl was finally ready to come home, really there are no words to describe it.

She came home to us on New Year’s Eve, December 2007, arriving on a huge jumbo jet that carried her from Seoul, Korea all the way to Detroit.   Our extended family all came to greet her, and I’ll never forget how my niece spotted her first. We were bursting with excitement as she yelled “There she is! There she is!” As my eyes frantically searched and then locked onto my approaching baby girl, I heard my mom’s voice, very thick with emotion, calling out  “Oh, it’s Megan, there she is, it’s Megan!”  I couldn’t get to her fast enough and get her into my arms.  I remember crying tears of pure joy and happiness.  And  I remember feeling that same amazing feeling that I felt when holding my newborn sons for the first time – that “wow, I love you so much, it’s scary!”  And  it was the same for her dad.  She had us right from the start.

The Struggle and Our First Abortion Clinic Vigil

I’ve always considered myself to be pro-life,  however  it has only been within the last several years that I have started to become more passionate about taking a stand against abortion.  Since we struggled to conceive, I have never taken the miracle of new life for granted.  Each time we struggled to have another child, I realized more & more what a miracle it was to conceive, carry, and give birth to a child.  I am so thankful that God gave me the opportunity to bring our three birth children into the world.  So it is that struggle that has truly made me realize what a gift it is to conceive a new life.

The struggle has served me very well in another way.  For in fact, it was also during the struggle that I began to think about adopting.  God planted the seed, and then when it came time to start thinking about a fourth child, I knew God was calling me to adopt.  Even the journey to get our daughter was a struggle.  But now that she is here and has become such an amazing part of our family, I am awestruck again by what a gift it is to be given a new life, a child.

 God brought us all together, and now it is my turn to give back for the gifts that I have been given.  “What can I do?”,  I asked myself.   I received my answer one day in church when the “40 days for Life” campaign was described.  I knew that a peaceful prayer vigil outside an abortion clinic was something our entire family could do.  And should the situation arise, I was convinced that I, being an adoptive mother, could describe with passion the true miracle of adoption to any pregnant woman considering an abortion.  And so we went.  There were a few complaints from the kids, and a worrisome question from hubby that went something like this:  “Don’t  people  get shot at abortion rallies?”  We carried a big, homemade sign that read “Ask us about the miracle of adoption.”  And we said lots of prayers.  Other than a few horns honked and a couple of “thumbs up” for us, the vigil was fairly uneventful.  I am proud to say that we took part in the 2010 “40 days for Life” campaign, and I hope to take my family to more vigils in the years to come!  :)

Don't we look like we're having fun?????  :)