patience is a virtue (that I'm not interested in)

When we were battling to keep our little girl we spent more than two years in court.  It was painful in a way that I cannot describe.  

Since well before we lost Waverley we have been ready to add another child to our family.  It's Springtime in the year 2012.  Waiting? Yeah.  I'm over it.  

Currently there is nothing happening with this adoption.  We are just waiting to be matched.  I heard a man that I think is brilliant say recently that to wait is actually an action step.  Waiting is a verb not a noun.  I thought it sounded good at the time, but in this moment I am ready to start shaking people and scream at anyone who will listen that we are TIRED of waiting.  I want to be a mom to more than one child again.  I am over waking up each morning thinking that today must be the day we will get the phone call we've been longing for.

I know a lot of people that are waiting for the same exact thing.  I know it is hard for all of us.  I know it's hard for people that are waiting each month to find out they're pregnant.  That's just the way it goes.  I understand completely that I don't have a monopoly on waiting.  The thing I am becoming concerned about is that I am going to become jaded, ugly, and bitter in my heart.  I don't want to think I am entitled to something because of our other experiences or that I deserve something good.  Neither of those things are true.  Nothing is owed to me.  Sometimes knowing that and feeling that are two different things.  So this is my confession for today.  I am praying by acknowledging that I will be able to keep my wrong thinking at bay.

I was playing Barbies with Harper yesterday (to assuage my guilt over not playing with her more often) and she had set up a family with a mom and a dad and two kids.  The mom and dad slept in bunk beds she had fashioned for them.  Just like married couples use in real life.  She is so observant.  The dad's brother announced that he wanted to get married that day.  So the mom's best friend came over to the dream house and told this guy that she was available to get married that afternoon.  Then this woman proclaimed her virtues to the bachelor.  "I love God with my whole heart, and I have great manners.  Would you like to marry me?"Of course he was in.  How could he not be?

So on the off chance that a woman who is considering placing her child for adoption is reading this, or if you are a person who knows such a woman, I just want to say, we are a family that loves God with our whole hearts, and we have great manners.  Please consider us.

Much love,

Molly

Whiskers On Kittens

Good Things That I am Enjoying Lately (in no particular order):

Being Friends With Babies -- I am happy to be enjoying a relationship with several babies right now.  There is a young man in my life (8 months old) that is quite agreeable and happy in general.  I like to pretend like he is directing that straight at me.  I just love and adore him.  I get to see quite a bit of him along with the rest of his family.  This pleases me.  I am also spending time Monday through Thursday with a friend of mine who has a two year old and baby twins born 11-11-11.  That means sometimes I hold two babies AT ONCE.  I take Harper with me and she has the sweetest, warmest voice she reserves just for babies.  It is so precious.  She frequently asks me when she gets to have a baby of her own at our house.  I am asking the same question.  We are so ready.  If you are a pray-er please pray that we have such a babe soon.


Cadbury Chocolate Eggs -- once a year a marvelous confection comes to the store and stays until Easter.  I'm talking about candy-coated eggs made of delicious milk chocolate.  They are stupidly expensive but worth the indulgence.  Hold on while I eat a few.  Magic.


My Oily Face -- I have started washing my face with oil.  Castor oil and sunflower seed oil to be specific. You massage it in for a few minutes then steam it off with a warm wash cloth.  Make up is easily removed.  You just do it and night and just use a little water in the morning.  It is a part of my night time ritual that I really look forward to.  I didn't wash my face at night for a couple of years (sorry, Mom) and I feel glad to get back to it.  I am also about to start washing my hair  with a baking powder potion, and I am quite liking the journey towards using some things around the house and in my beauty regimens that are more simple and natural. I'm happy to report these things also end up being super cheap.  Double win.


Downton Abbey -- Well, it's over now.  I am pining for the third season already.  If you haven't watched this show you need to.  Find the first season streaming on Netflix or check it out from the library.  It's not they type of thing I would typically fall for, but I miss the characters like they are my friends.  Which is totally lame; I realize this.


Reading -- Oh the happiness of a good book.  Of late I have enjoyed The Night Circus (I can't remember the author), Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist, and The Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella.  Right now I am tackling The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard which is great but makes my brain hurt.  


Mama-ing Harper -- The word "mothering" sounds so doldrum doesn't it?  I am having a great time watching her mind at work.  She is delightful at every moment.  Except for the moments when she is whining or pouting.  Which thankfully is not too often.  She loves chapter books about fairies, the Wild Kratts on PBS, playing with her Barbies, clothes with a little bit of sparkle, clothes with a lot of sparkle, and crossing things off of her check-lists.  I recently had my wisdom teeth out and she was quite the nurse.  She kept coming into my room asking me what I needed, bringing me things, touching my cheeks, and peering at me with concern.  The first night after the extraction she told me to wake her up in the night if I needed anything.  Then she whispered to Matt and told him not to be grumpy if I woke him up.  This was both kind and astute of her :)  This morning I had a headache and she made certain I would be okay without her before she left for school.  She is such a care taker.  She plays with her "kids" aka dolls and they are forever in trouble.  They can really exasperate her.  They don't have names unless you put her on the spot at which point she will come up with a good name on the fly.  Like Donna.  Or Jasinkaty. You know.  Standard stuff.


Quiet Moments Preparing for Easter -- in this time of Lent I am intentionally taking some down time to focus on the significance of this season.  I am trying to experience the beauty and sweetness of it.  It's a time of pain that ends in joy.  A time of renewal.  A whole season leading up to the exclamation "He is risen indeed!"  I want to engage in the hope and promise found in the story completed.  


Life is full of goodness because He is good.  I hope you are experiencing some of that goodness yourself.


Love,
Molly

I choose joy.

Lately I've been working on a choice I decided to make a long time ago.  That choice is to choose joy.  Sometimes it just feels impossible.  It is easier for me to sit vigil with my grief for losing Waverley and keep vigil with my worries for her than it is for me to feel the joy of the here and now.  Joy really is a decision I have to actively make.  Most good things are.  My marriage and my parenting are full of choosing the right thing even when I don't want to.  Choosing joy for me thus far has been much the same.  I'm so very thankful for the sweetness that comes when I do make the right choice, and for the relief I feel when I surrender all of that pain for as long a stretch as I can manage.

Today I saw a video that really touched me.  Maybe some of you have seen it.   This woman's name is Ashley.  She has cancer.  And a sweet husband and babies.  And she shaves her head with them.  And she chooses joy.


Rite of Passage - Shaving my Head from Ashley Hackshaw on Vimeo.


Her blog is found here.

Thanks for continuing to come around to check my blog.  I know it's been almost a month since we posted. I'll be back around more often now -- if you care to know!

Love,
Molly

Because Around Here We Love to Beat a Dead Horse

That is the grossest expression ever.  Sorry.  Matt was so nice to update last night, and he did a really good job of it.  I thought I would add my two cents worth.  It is the first day of a new month, and I am feeling the promise of a new beginning.  So with somewhat better spirits today I will add a few extra details.  For all of you who want even more details.  It's just you and me now, Mom!


Yesterday I was a MESS.  I could not stop crying.  At one point I even started laughing because I just could not get ahold of myself.  I called my sister crying.  I called my friend crying.  I texted some people crying.  I cried in the shower, in Target, at the gas station.  You get it.  I cried.


So I am on my way to pick Matt up at work so we can ride together to Topeka.  I was crying.  I was also speeding.  A police officer pulled me over.  He asked me where I was going.  I say, while crying HARD, "I'm so sorry I don't even know if I was speeding I'm sure I was if you pulled me over I'm trying to get my husband so we can go to the Supreme Court I mean the Kansas House of Representatives so we can testify about adoption because we lost our daughter and they want to hear from us about maybe changing some laws." All like that in one weepy sentence.  Pause. Pause. "What now, Ma'am?" I repeat most of that.  He looks bewildered and goes back to his motorcycle.  TO WRITE ME A TICKET.  If ever there was a time to let someone off the hook, might this be it?  No.


I'm late.  I get Matt.  There was a shoe issue that I am eliminating for time.  I am now crying and feeling a bit frantic.  Matt gets in the car and smiles his handsome smile at me and says, "don't worry about it, Mol.  Everything's fine." And just like that I stopped crying.  This is the chronicling of a bad day, but I tell you, somehow it is also our love story.  Matt is one good man.


We get there 7 minutes late which seems like a lot when you have less than 30 of them to get briefed by the lawyer in charge.  He then tells us that we should try to be concise so we don't lose the interest of the representatives.  That stings a bit because I would like to think that the story of how we lost our little girl which we have written down in a mere two and a half pages would not be so boring or mundane that people would check out.  None the less, we scratch parts out and make our changes to shave time off.

We were sitting in the audience on these pews white the representatives and their aides were around kind of a U shaped table with a table in the middle.  They heard some zoning deal first.  I was pretty surprised to see the unprofessionalism of some of the reps.  A lot of them were very attentive.  The committee chairman Lance Kinzer did a great job.  However, SO MANY of the representatives got up and left and came back a few minutes later with a bottle of water or a soda.  Several of them kept yawning.  One guy kept closing his eyes.  They were doing things on their phones... It was very odd.  And a bit disgusting.

Then it was our turn.


The lawyer presented the proposed changes.  Then we went up to the podium.  Matt did a fantastic job.  He hardly looked at our notes.  He spoke so articulately on all that had happened.  He was looking people in the eye, making connections.  He was great.  I stood there and bit my lip and sniffled.  Sometimes I nodded.  Really helpful stuff.

Then a couple who lost their two year old daughter in a situation very similar to our own spoke.  They had only lost her two months ago.  It was agonizing to hear the details of their story.  The dad stood there supporting the mom who spoke.  He cried the whole time.  There is something so very sad and tender about watching a man cry -- especially when he is grieving the loss of his little girl.  The two worst moments of the day in my book happened when this poor mama was talking.  First of all she said that they knew their little girl wouldn't stop crying for them and calling for them.  A social worker involved had told them that.  I can't stop picturing that now.  Except I know that it was Waverley, crying for us.  And I kind of want to die.  The second thing she said that broke my spirit was that there wasn't much case law to use to support their daughter being removed from their house until we lost.  That our case paved the way for the courts to take their daughter.  That feels like a huge and heavy burden to me.


The reps asked the lawyer some more questions.  I don't know that it went particularly well or particularly poorly.  It seemed evident that this will not be a smooth or easy process.  I would be shocked if the law was changed at all before the end of this session which was the goal.  I'm not sure when the session ends, but it's soon.  Honestly, it didn't feel super productive.  That might just be the way it works.  Slowly.  Not real efficiently.  Not nearly as effectively as one would hope.  As long as it is even remotely possible that it could be useful we will go to tell our story and ask for changes to be made.  What everyone does from there is out of our control.  That's what happened yesterday.


As for Harper, what she said specifically that made us laugh: "I see cars all of the time that I just think are so awesome.  Usually I see two cars at a time.  One after another that is really cool.  And I think to myself, 'when I grow up, the first one will be mine and the second one will be my husband's.'" Man.  That's good stuff.


Love,
Molly

When we started this journey several years ago we could have never imagined that this is where it would take us. Our hope and our prayers were always that it would be a fairly normal adoption journey. All we were wanting was to be parents to another daughter – Waverley. As you know, though, our journey has been anything but normal. We’ve had to endure more than any adoptive family should have to endure, and that’s how we ended up where we did today – in front of a Kansas House Judiciary Committee – to play whatever part we can to ensure that another family does not have to walk where we have walked. We weren’t the only family there today either. There was another mom and dad that just 2 months ago said goodbye to a daughter they had raised for nearly 2 years. While not exactly like our case, their case was very similar and their family fell victim to the same vague law and same poor judgment of the courts. Like us, they too lost their daughter of nearly 2 years. After hearing their story we are even more convinced that changes need to be made in the Kansas adoption law. Changes that would bring clarity to the adoption statute and prevent cases like ours and this other couples from happening.

Today brought some very unwelcome familiarity into our world. Not only did we have to agonize through our story again for our testimony, but we had to dress in “court clothes” again, make a familiar drive to Topeka, strategize with attorney’s ahead of time about what was coming and what we could expect, and sat in silence again with a familiar nervous feeling. The exact things we did nearly every time we had to go to court for our case. Only this time we actually got to speak. We got to stand before a group of men and women who write the laws in our state and share our story. We got to tell them that her name is Waverley and not Baby Girl P. They had a chance to see how the current law affects adoptive families and specifically how it affects the children involved. They’ve now heard how the courts are interpreting the current adoption law and what that interpretation looks like in the lives of real people. We’re thankful for that and hopeful that our story will stick with this committee as they deliberate this bill and decide what it should look like moving forward. We’re also very thankful that today is over. It was good, but hard and emotional and tiring. It wasn’t without its little graces here and there. As she always does, Harper had some very funny 5 year old things to say as we ended our day. Our day actually ended with laughter and a reminder of how much God has given us in Harper.

We’re also so very thankful for all of your prayers and kind words today. We read your blog comments, texts and facebook comments all the way to Topeka. They were so comforting and encouraging and a wonderful reminder us that we’ve never been in this alone.

Reliving the Past -- Before an Audience

Today we are going to be testifying before a subcommittee of the Kansas House of Representatives.  A group of lawyers is trying to make some changes to adoption law before the current session ends.  We have known this might be coming for awhile but just found out on Thursday that we would be going to Topeka to speak four days later.  Sunday we had to write out our story from beginning to end.  Today we will share that story in a room that we were told would be quite large and full of people.  


This is dredging up all of the emotions I have had each time we've gone to court.  I get that it's a totally different situation -- we are not going to be in a room with anyone who is opposing us.  A judge won't rule.  The stakes are the the law, not our child.  Still though, my palms are already sweaty, I haven't been sleeping, my stomach is in knots, and my body is going, "oh yeah.  I know all about this feeling."


I hope it's worth it.  I hope our being there is helpful.  I'm feeling super freaked out.


The changes being presented are clearer language and more specific expectations when it comes to the support a birth father has to show to maintain his rights and what happens to a birth mother's relinquished rights if an adoption fails -- with the intention that her relinquishment would be nullified if the adoption failed (basically giving her the option to have her rights back at that point if she so desired).  None of these things would prevent a child from being removed from their adoptive family, but it would make the process less muddy.  It would give judges less room for their own interpretation or mood that day (as we felt we experienced).  It would help all parties move more quickly through the decisions instead of living through the agony of such a drawn out process.  


So I am trying to calm my heart.  I am reading Psalm 23 over and over again.  I am also working on incorporating into my testimony a dramatic moment where I can lean forward and yell, "You want the truth?  You can't handle the truth!' Because that seems a more obtainable goal than trying to calmly tell my story to a room of straight-faced strangers.  


Well, I am off to try to find an outfit that communicates that I am a caring and devoted mother who has the credibility and intellectual wherewithal to be an advocate for positive change for adoption.  I'm convinced that with just the right tasteful dress/cardigan combo they'll intuit all of that in just one glance.  


If anyone reads this before 3:30 today I would be so grateful for any prayers at that time.  Or any time really.


I'll let you know how it goes.


Love,
Molly

After A Year

This past year has been so hard. Harder than we could have imagined. I still remember every detail about the day I said goodbye to Waverley (and I know that Molly does as well). What the weather was like, what the last thing I said to her was, how the last hug I gave her felt. I remember walking to the car with Harper, worried how she was doing – how she would do. I remember sitting there - knowing that this was it. Barring some crazy miracle, this would be the last time I would see Waverley. The last image I have of her is her standing at the front door of her birthfather’s house, arms crossed, looking out of the glass storm door. I used to play this game with Waverley right around when she was turning 2 and sassy. She would cross her arms in defiance of whatever we were telling her and I would then immediately reach over and uncross her arms and she would immediately break into her signature chuckle-laugh and then do whatever it was she had been refusing to do.  By the time January 28, 2011 came I had known for awhile that we would have to say goodbye to her, but seeing her at that door with her arms crossed knowing that I’d never get to play that game with her again and hear her laugh…that’s when I think the reality of it finally and completely set in for me.

That vivid moment has been with me constantly this whole year along with many others. But those moments have been especially present lately as we have, in different ways, relived what we lived through a year ago. December 24^th through today have been the most difficult days we’ve seen this year. Molly and I have both felt it and it affects every part of our every day, and while we’ve wanted to update this blog so many different times the last few weeks, we’ve found that neither of us have had the wherewithal to do so. Whenever people talked about the stages of grief I always thought of those stages being linear, that one came after another until you had moved through the grief and found healing. I’m sure healing does come, at least partially, but grief is anything but linear and come more like waves with small peaks and huge valleys. Right now, we’re in a valley. We won’t always be and there is some comfort in that – in knowing that there will be better days ahead – but in the valleys, we just survive. In these times it’s difficult to see that God is at work or that He’s there at all. It seems like just when all I can see is the disappointment of our unanswered prayer - He reveals something. Most of the time it’s something small and it always feels unexpected. There have been a few of those moments the last few months. A few weeks ago I was looking back over some of the posts we wrote at this time last year. I’m not really sure why. Maybe I wanted to remember, maybe I was hoping to see something that would make me think “we’re doing so much better now than we were then”. Who knows. What I did read that ended up resonating with me was a post we wrote on January 12th (my birthday no less – Happy Birthday, me) updating everyone on where we were with transitioning Waverley out of our home and asking for specific prayer requests. Now, I have no idea whether God has answered the prayers we asked people to pray for Waverley or her birthfather. What was abundantly clear, though, is that he’s been answering the prayers we asked people to pray for Molly and I and Harper. As hard as this year has been, Harper has done amazingly well. I’m amazed that her 5 year old mind understands what happened with her sister. She grieves appropriately and she misses her sister, but she feels secure in our family and had grown leaps and bounds in so many areas. You would never know she lost her sister, her best friend, unless she told you. Molly and I, for as hard as this has been have remained close. We have been kind and gracious to each other and have somehow managed to parent Harper well through all of this.

There have been these moments in the valleys. Not as much as we’d like, but enough. These moments don’t alleviate our grief, but what they do is give us hope. It’s a reminder that He is still here, that he still cares, that he is unfailing in his love and that he is a redeemer and a restorer of all things. How will he redeem all of this? How will he restore us individually and as a family? I have no idea. Not a clue. But I know that He will. Somehow. Someday. And I’m thankful that even in the valleys He finds ways to remind us that he hasn’t forgotten.