A tribute to Tummy Mommy

 

Due to the craziness of life I’ve been pretty terrible at keeping this blog updated. It isn’t for lack of timely topics about which I could wax eloquent: the Susan G. Komen/Planned Parenthood debacle, the Obamacare birth control mandate, and the reported demise of Khloe and Lamar’s marriage partly due to their struggles with infertility – if you think that’s the only thing driving them apart, apparently you don’t keep up with his insanely annoying in-laws.

What finally motivated me to get off my literary butt and write something was the celebration of a special day that for a few years brought me sadness and heartache. I thought about sharing a very Emo poem I wrote one Mother’s Day awhile back, but decided to save that for another time when I was feeling more pensive and melancholy. Instead of singing that same old song about my pain and suffering, I wanted to talk a little about an important person who has significantly shaped my life and blessed me with one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever been given.

Since adopting Calvin, I’ve fortunately not received many comments or questions about me being his “real” mother. This has always struck me as a silly thing to say, when you think about what “real” means. And I’m not talking about a full-blown Matrix-style ontological discussion; I just think it should be obvious in many cases that the adoptive mother is a real mother, and not some random woman posing as the child’s maternal caregiver. Of course, what people are really asking is if the adoptive mom is the biological mother, and for lack of understanding about the appropriate terminology, refer to the latter as the “real” mother.

Calvin is very blessed to have two women who love him extravagantly. As his adoptive mom, I get the incredible joy of caring for and nurturing him every day, fulfilling the traditional role of being a mother. His birthmother, or Tummy Mommy as we call her when with Calvin, does not get the opportunity to see him or take care of him on a daily basis, but her love for him is no less real or important. She carried Calvin for nine months and made a difficult decision to place him with an adoptive family because she loved him and thought that was the best plan to give him a full and happy life. And because of her decision, she gave me and Colin a much fuller and happier life.

Many people ask me what it’s like when we go visit our birthmother and her family, which we try to do 3-4 times a year. In all honesty, I kinda freaked out the first few times, but always before we saw her. In anticipation of our visits, I would worry that she would be jealous of me getting to take care of Calvin, or I would be jealous of her having a biological connection with him, which I believe is important even if the birthmother is living a terrible lifestyle and/or making poor choices (totally not the case with ours). And, because our adoption situation entailed a waiting period before parental rights were terminated, I was afraid that she might change her mind, even though she gave no indication of doing so.

However, by the grace of God, my fears were relieved every time we met up with her and her family, so much so that I was able to truly enjoy spending time with them and seeing them interact with Calvin. And now that we’ve hung out together several times, I look forward to seeing her and her family, and want them to hold Calvin and play with him as much as possible to make the most of our visits. Seeing the joy on her face as Calvin smiles and laughs with her makes me so happy, because I know what a wonderful little guy he is and how being with him makes my heart full, and I’m glad she gets to experience that, too.

This sharing of joy can be difficult to understand for those who have not adopted, or who do not have open, healthy relationships with their birthmothers, and frankly I didn’t get it either until we adopted Calvin. I have to give his birthmother much credit for being so mature about our interactions and for showing us a great deal of respect. The first day we met her, before we even got to see Calvin at the hospital, she referred to us as Mommy and Daddy. She clearly expressed her desires to have an open relationship with us and Calvin, and completely accepted the level of openness and communication guidelines we stated at our initial meeting. That first meeting at the adoption agency with her and her mom was quite incredible, because although everyone was understandably nervous at first, we hit it off right away, and it soon felt like we were old friends hanging out, shooting the breeze talking about sports. Colin joked that her family of Saints fans must’ve really liked us, as they picked our profile – which proudly displayed a picture of us in Seahawks gear – right after the Hawks beat the Saints in the playoffs.

And since then, we’ve felt more and more comfortable spending time with our birthmother and her family. We ask how they’re doing; they ask what’s going on in our lives. It’s cheesy to say, but it does feel like we’re one big extended family. They give Calvin toys and clothes, and she often gives me or Colin a special little gift that she knows we’ll like – for example, she knows I love frogs and did a frog-themed nursery for Calvin, so she got me some frog-shaped soap bars along with antibac lotion from Bath & Body Works, one of my favorite shops.

I know this friendly, close relationship is not the case in other adoptions. Sometimes the birthmother and/or father cannot and/or should not have an open relationship with their children, and that’s OK. I’m a proponent of open adoption but don’t think it should be a requirement, and also understand that there are infinite shades of openness depending on the comfort level of the individuals involved. I’m thankful that we do have a good relationship with Calvin’s birthmother and her family, and that he will grow up knowing that many people love him.

Beyond our mutual love for Calvin, I admire and appreciate his birthmother for modeling God’s love in an amazing way. Most people, when talking about adoption and Christianity, emphasize the adoptive family’s role and the way they demonstrate how God adopted us sinners into His family of redeemed saints. This is true, and one of the reasons why I think adoption is so beautiful. However, people don’t often acknowledge the role of the birthmother, and how her sacrificial love for her child mirrors the Father’s love in sending His Son to die for us, and Christ’s love in willingly choosing to suffer death in order to give us life. Calvin’s biological mother, the one who brought him into existence and sustained him for nine months of growth and development, chose to give her son to someone else because she loved him and wanted to protect him more than she loved and wanted to protect herself. It is such a stunning picture of our Savior’s sacrifice that it brings to mind a refrain from an oldie but a goodie, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross: “love so amazing, so divine.”

I have many, many women to be thankful for on Mother’s Day: my own mom, who never tires of caring for and faithfully serving others; my grandmothers, who lived full lives honoring Christ and are now home with Him; my mother-in-law, who provides continual encouragement; and my grandma-in-law, who makes me feel like an important part of the Hesse family and tells great stories that I get to hear more than a few times. :) And I am forever grateful for the mother who made it possible for me to be a mother. I thank her for the gift of our son.

The meaning of 'worth the wait'

I suck at waiting. Stoplights, checkout lines, doctor’s offices – all annoy me to no end. Whether it’s a minor inconvenience or a major impediment, any circumstance that places me in a state of suspense throws my contrived sense of order and stability into a maelstrom of anxiety-addled emotions. Put me on call hold, I’ll immediately start nervous toe-tapping or earring-tugging until I can find some way to multitask and make efficient use of the time. If you’re telling a joke and it takes longer than a minute to get to the punch line, save your breath; I may give a courtesy laugh, but really, I checked out 30 seconds ago.

This tendency of mine can partly be attributed to the influence of our cultural-driven conviction that we’re entitled to immediate gratification, which sounds like and is in fact a cop-out. More so than this, I think the reason I detest having to wait for just about anything is because it defies my plans. I’ve got a schedule that in my ever-discerning mind I approved to be good and wise and darn-near infallible. Thus, any disruption to this schedule wreaks havoc in the Universe According to Jennifer.

Once after venting to Colin about something or other, he remarked on how my complaints about my busted plans reminded him of the hospital scene in The Dark Knight, wherein Heath Ledger’s Joker persuades Harvey Dent (Two-Face) over to the dark side: “The mob has plans. The cops have plans. Gordon’s got plans. They’re schemers, schemers trying to control their little worlds. I’m not a schemer. I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are.”

My pathetic attempt to control our family called for baby-making to begin four years ago. Once we decided to start trying, I wanted to get pregnant right away. Heck, I didn’t even want to wait for nine months of gestation; I was ready to have a baby from the word(s) go (procreate). In the big picture, I had been waiting all my life for the opportunity to be a mom, ever since I was little and bossed my siblings around while dressing my dolls and pretending to nurse my stuffed animals, which my siblings now tease me about as payback for the bossiness. Waiting to have kids until a few years after getting married was a sensible part of my master plan; having to wait a few years after deciding to actively pursue parenthood was not.

As Colin and I started trying to conceive, confusion about why things weren’t working right led to disappointment; disappointment over unsuccessful fertility treatments led to sorrow; sorrow over failed IVF and its implications for never getting pregnant led to despair. The waiting weighed down on me, stifling my hope to become a mom. Friends tried to offer encouragement through truthful yet irritating statements like “God has a plan” and “God causes all things to work together for your good” á la Romans 8:28. Thanks, but seriously people, I wasn’t born again yesterday. I knew God had a plan; I just preferred my own and could not understand why His caused me so much heartache.

And then, about a year ago, at one of the darkest points in my life, the Lord lifted a corner of the veil and revealed at least one purpose for the grief I had experienced. We got an e-mail from the adoption agency about a baby boy whose biological mother wanted to make an adoption plan, submitted our profile for consideration, and a few days later, exactly a year ago today, brought our son home. In all my visions of how I would have a child, I had never imagined it would happen that way.

After the initial shock wore off and the haze of newborn caregiving dissipated, I reflected on the road that led me to Calvin and realized that God had answered my impertinent, oft-repeated question over the past three years: “Why aren’t You giving me a baby?” As I looked into Calvin’s beautiful brown eyes and snuggled with him wrapped in the crook of my arm, I knew the answer was because He wanted me to have this baby. An adoptive mother from my church described a similar revelation she experienced the day she brought her son home: “All the years of infertility finally made sense.” The Lord turned my sorrow into joy by giving me the sweetest, most adorable little boy in the world. (Colin and I feel like we’re allowed to brag a bit about his cuteness because it’s not our genes that made him so stinkin’ cute.)

Of course, it’s not like my life suddenly became perfect after adopting Calvin, or that the sadness of infertility was erased, or, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, that my desire to get pregnant went away. Rather, all of the physical and emotional pain of fruitless medical procedures, feelings of failure and isolation and discouragement, and grief over the loss of a dream were worth it for this: to be Calvin’s mommy.

There are many, many things that happen in this life that we won’t understand this side of heaven. I’m so very glad that despite my lack of faith, God chose to show me a purpose for my suffering and give me an incredible gift as part of His perfect plan.

My take on the Parapreggers Phenomenon

I was all fired up to write a pseudo-scholarly critique of recent op-ed columns on the so-called “controversial” themes in Breaking Dawn when I got hit with some news that derailed my social commentary train of thought. You know it’s gotta be important if it trumps Twilight.

The news I’m referring to is a quick succession of pregnancy announcements communicated via a variety of methods, the most recent being the cover of Us Weekly proclaiming that Kourtney Kardashian is expecting baby #2, likely conceived in an attempt to steal the limelight from sister Kim’s botched marriage. This baby boom all but validates my theory about how these things work: Like the celebrity death rule of threes, women tend to get pregnant around the same time – often two, three, or more at once – and in my experience, often at a time when I’m facing a big decision, dealing with disappointment, or just generally having a sh***y day. Maybe this has something to do with how women go to the bathroom together, or how their periods somehow sync up when living in the same place. I call this the Parallel Pregnancy or Parapreggers Phenomenon, also known as There Must Be Something in the Water Effect.

As I digested this news, it occurred to me that I could do the exact opposite of what my internal processor husband would do and blurt out my reaction to the world (wide web). This is not simply motivated by a need to vent my frustrations, although that’s part of it; I want to help others who haven’t been through or known anyone close to them who has experienced infertility understand what someone feels when they hear these announcements. A few recent conversations with some women at an earlier stage in the infertility process than us prompted my desire to continue blogging with the goals of enabling empathy and promoting honest reflection on an emotional issue.

NEON FLASHING DISCLAIMERS
#1: I cannot express how much I love Calvin; how grateful I am for my son and the amazing way God brought him into our family. As I said in my last post, as hard as it has been to go through infertility, I am beyond thankful for the way the Lord orchestrated events so that we could adopt him. Although I haven’t experienced the miracle of pregnancy, I have experienced another miracle through adoption, and my heart is full of joy having the opportunity to love on Calvin as his mommy. That said, there is a definite difference between my reaction to pregnancy announcements and conversations before and after Calvin came into my life, so I will delineate between the two perspectives.

#2: To my friends who are/were pregnant: Please know I don’t hate your guts. Well, maybe just a little, only for a brief period of time. Actually, my beef is usually more with God and (my perception of) His decisions to allow so many others to conceive while putting a deadbolt on my uterus. It’s certainly not that I don’t want you to be happy, or for your family to grow, or for a new life to be created; I just want to experience all of that, too. Which leads me to …

#3: The Bible clearly doesn’t condone envy, and neither do I. Just because what I want is a good thing doesn’t mean I get a pass for coveting others’ happiness and harboring discontentment with what God hasn’t given me. Considering that envy is a “pet” sin worthy of a whole other post, and that I’m already six paragraphs into this one and haven’t yet gotten to the main point, I’ll set that topic aside for now and focus on the raw emotions of what it’s like for a woman who can’t get pregnant when she hears that someone else is.

Pre-Calvin reaction
Earlier on in our journey down infertility lane, a friend of mine who had also experienced struggles but then was able to get pregnant told me she was sad to give me the news because she knew how it felt like a knife in the heart. At the time, I thought this was somewhat of an exaggerated statement intended to express sympathy. I mean, it was hard to hear since it reminded me of what I didn’t yet have, but it didn’t upset me a great deal because I was hopeful that I could personally share the experience with my friend.

As the months dragged on, and tests upon tests were ordered, and fertility treatments were attempted, I began to understand what she meant. Friend after friend after friend got pregnant, and I had to endure countless happy announcements while never getting to make my own. Some of them had difficulties, while others seemingly snapped their fingers and conceived. Whatever the circumstances were, their prayers were answered with a child, and mine weren’t.

To reiterate Disclaimer #2 again, I was usually happy for each friend who got to have a baby, and rejoiced in the new life God created. But sometimes it’s a heckuva lot harder to rejoice with those who rejoice than it is to weep with those who weep.

Hearing announcement after announcement wore me down emotionally. It deepened my grief over the loss of being able to conceive and what often seemed like the loss of friendship, as I began to feel alienated from my friends since I couldn’t relate to their experiences of pregnancy. Sometimes, when I was caught off guard, it felt like a two-by-four to the gut. Other times, when all it took was someone looking at her husband to get knocked up, it irritated me more than my dog’s nose-licking fetish. Each time, I felt a stab of sorrow over not having the gift of life from the Creator of life. In particular, seeing ultrasound pictures on Facebook completely rocked me, and still does hurt a bit, because that’s exactly what I may never have – the opportunity to see a tiny person growing inside me.

Trying to muster the expected enthusiastic response to every announcement required extreme effort, and I’m not proud to say that my congrats were often begrudging. It’s not easy fabricating happiness when you feel like crap. But then you feel guilty knowing that you’re basically lying as you say “I’m so happy for you” when in reality you want to cry your eyes out, or punch something/someone, or cry your eyes out while punching something/one.

Over time, pregnancy announcements became a surefire tear trigger for me. I simply could not hold in the sadness or temper the frustration. My heart’s desire was to be a mommy, and it hurt to watch others be given that joy while I was left out.

Post-Calvin reaction
Now that I’m a mommy, these announcements aren’t nearly as heart shattering as they were before. In fact, I’ve been relieved to be able to talk about baby stuff with friends without having it send me into fits of sobbing. Plus, I’ve been having so much fun with Calvin, watching him learn and grow as I learn the ups and downs of being a parent, I haven’t been obsessing over my cycles as much or paying a ton of attention to others’ reproductive exploits.

But truthfully, it still stings a little. Like a fingerpick blood test, the news that someone else is pregnant can inflict a sharp moment of pain, as I’m reminded of my infertility and loss of something special. Through the years, I’ve realized that I need to give myself a short time to process my reactions and then move on with life. Any attempts to get over it right away or act like it’s NBD are pretty worthless. That’s why I appreciate it when close friends show sensitivity and call or e-mail as opposed to making a big public proclamation without any advanced notice. I don’t expect everyone to do this – it’s not like I’m pissed at Kourtney K. for dishing her news to the tabloids instead of texting me personally – but I’m definitely grateful to those who make that extra effort.

Faithful as ever, the Lord recently introduced a new viewpoint on the issue of handling the news about friends getting pregnant in light of my ongoing desire to someday get pregnant as well. If it ever happens, I’m sure I’ll be excited, but I was also excited to adopt Calvin. God performed a miracle and brought me my son not through my womb, but through another’s, a woman who chose to experience an emotional loss so that her child could have a wonderful life. How amazing is that! (Note: I do not use exclamation marks lightly.)

I am so humbled and overjoyed to be blessed with a child through adoption. Thus, when I think about all the fun experiences I’ve missed out on and may never undergo, I can remember the thrill of getting that phone call when we were chosen to be Calvin’s parents, and the ensuing jubilant craziness of bringing him home without any prior preparation, and be thankful for my own happy announcement I got to share with others.

This day in history

Welcome back to the fertility-fail-turned-yay-adoption blog! As you can tell, I’ve done a bang-up job of updating the site since bringing Calvin home in January. And that’s not the only thing that has fallen by the wayside – I’m ashamed to admit that the baseboards have only been dusted a mere three times, and the Wii Fit keeps chastising me for not working out in double-digit days.

Although slacking off in those and other areas goes against my perfectionist nature, I haven’t minded it much because I’ve been having the time of my life being a mom. Every day I am amazed and humbled by God’s grace in giving me my precious son. Funny how you can be convinced that you deserve something, and act like a whiny brat if you don’t have it; then when you get it, you realize just how much you truly don’t deserve it. Therein lies the beauty/scandal of the gospel: God gave us whiny brats the gift of salvation at the price of sacrificing His precious Son.

Calvin has made the adjustment to parenthood fairly easy on us, for which we are very thankful, especially considering how the transition literally happened overnight. Though for all the comments we’ve received about how hard it must’ve been to drop everything and take home a baby without any preparation, I’ve thought about our experiences and concluded that aside from the adoption proceedings, we haven’t really had to deal with anything outside the ordinary challenges of being a new parent. Operating on minimal sleep, distinguishing types of cries, getting peed on – these are all things we would’ve faced had we known about the adoption in advance, things that both adoptive and biological parents confront. And of course, we have and will continue to make mistakes – for example, just the other day we realized we’d been using newborn-style nipples instead of swapping in the faster-flow nipples as Calvin has gotten older. This whole time we figured he was a super-slow feeder, when really we were impeding his bottle-consumption ability. Oh well, the kid has been in the 80th and 90th percentiles – even though he had to work for it, he’s obviously been getting enough to eat.

Taking care of such a happy little boy has been a blast, and getting to see Colin embrace the role of Daddy – cheering Calvin on when he accomplishes something, roughhousing with him after a meal and then handing him over to me right before he spits up – has been a great blessing for me to observe. Being a mom has been so wonderful that at times I feel like my heart is going to burst with joy. Interesting how that is my experience now, when a year ago, as I cried in anguish to the Lord for giving me the longing to be a mom and cruelly refusing to fulfill it, I felt like He was ripping my heart out, piece by piece, leaving me raw, exposed, bleeding.

I titled this post “This day in history” because it was on this date last year that we started our second IVF cycle (the first was postponed due to unresponsiveness to meds). Remembering all the pain – physical and emotional – associated with the dreadful procedure and the subsequent devastation when we found out none of the eggs fertilized makes me sad. It is a difficult sentiment for me to describe because I am sad that we had to go through such a costly, exhausting process and even sad that it didn’t work; yet I am happy that it didn’t work because we wouldn’t have Calvin as our son if it had. If someone had told me last November that in a year, we’d be parents of a beautiful, bright 10-month-old boy, I’d have responded, to modify a phrase from the mid-’90s, “You smokin’ crack, weed, and meth?!?” Never would I have imagined that shortly after our debacle of an IVF cycle we’d be bringing home a baby, that we’d go from one of the darkest times in my life to one of the most joyous (and surprising!) moments I’ll ever experience in less than three months’ time.

Without a doubt, I am glad and grateful for the ultimate outcome of our failed fertility procedure, but it was still a difficult trial to undergo, and a path that I wish we hadn’t had to take. And it wasn’t just the procedure itself that was discouraging, but also what it meant for our future, casting doubt on our ability to ever have biological children. However, I can recognize how enduring an unsuccessful IVF cycle has given me the opportunity to share my experience with others who may be facing similar circumstances, and perhaps help them honestly express their feelings while still clinging to the truth of God’s goodness.

So it is with a strange mixture of emotions that I thank the Lord IVF didn’t work. As with many things in life, it sucked to go through, but turned out to be beneficial in the end. You know, that whole blessings-in-disguise malarkey that people say to placate you when you’re in the middle of a trial. Irritating, but true.

A year later, we’re starting to get the question only those brave enough asked us after IVF bombed: “Now what are you going to do?” This time, people are wondering how we’ll go about having little Hesse #2. My answer at present is the same as it was back then: I don’t know. This time, I’m more OK with not knowing because of Calvin; however, as more of our friends are having their second, third, fourth, or even fifth (!) child, the pressure to add to our family is beginning to increase. We have a few options; we just haven’t yet decided what road to take.

More important than our decisions or feelings, we know that God is good. He is good now that we have Calvin and are parents; He was good then when we were crushed with disappointment over IVF not getting us pregnant; He would still be good had He not chosen to bring Calvin into our lives (though I now can’t picture life without him). I know that to be true; I just don’t always feel that it is true. Good thing the Truth doesn’t depend on my feelings – a recurring theme in my prayer journal.

From here out, I’m aiming to update the blog more frequently and share some of my experiences as an adoptive mom. I’m also aiming to loosen up my task-oriented tendencies and make the most of naptimes. We’ll see which of these potentially competing goals prevails, or if I dink around on Facebook too much and just plumb forget about it.

A New Year

The year 2011 has gotten off to a crazy start. First, the Seahawks upset the Saints in the NFC wild card game. Then, we got a call informing us that a birthmother who had already delivered her baby had selected us as her adoptive family, and we became parents overnight.

Before I launch into the story about how our son, Calvin, joined our family, I want to provide the backdrop for the amazing sequence of events that the Lord orchestrated in a way and at a time I would have never anticipated. I should also forewarn you that this post will be quite lengthy, so unless you have mad speed-reading skills like Colin and Gavin, don't expect to pound this out in five minutes or less.

In my last post I wrote on Christmas Eve, I stated that my hope in Christ as my loving Savior remained firm, which was and is absolutely true. However, my hope for becoming a mom was pretty much toast. The trials of the past year – all the failed fertility treatments, unanswered prayers, and physical and emotional struggles, in addition to the accumulated disappointments over the course of the past three years of trying to conceive – weighed down on me during the holidays, and I felt totally defeated. Being around my pregnant sister-in-law, Kim, who treated me with utmost sensitivity and respect, for which I will forever be grateful, made my heart ache simply because I didn't know if I'd ever be able to become a mom; I didn't know if I'd have a little one to hold and care for next Christmas or any thereafter.

Many times throughout this whole process of trying to expand our family, I've felt that I've reached the end of the line, that God had dealt me more hardships than I could handle. Last month was one of the lowest of those lows, as I had reached the point that I didn't want to pursue any more fertility treatments. We had a consultation with a specialist at Seattle Reproductive Medicine, and though it did provide some useful information, which I won't go into detail about now, it didn't make me much more inclined to keep trying the fruitless, expensive medical route. And while we knew there were several options still available to us, including embryo adoption and traditional adoption, I didn't really want to think about any of them. Stick a fork in me, I was done. Done with the disappointment, done with the uncertainty, done with thinking about ever having a baby.

Interestingly, during a conversation with my mother- and sister-in-law over the holidays, I told them about how some adoptive families get matched with a birthmother immediately after she gives birth, that they get a call and have to drop everything to pick up their child at the hospital, going from a childless couple one minute to parents the next. I asserted that that was something I couldn't ever imagine doing since I'm such a planner and would not feel capable of making that drastic life change in such a short amount of time.

(Insert "never say never" and other applicable cliches here.)

This feeling of hopelessness pervaded my thoughts at the start of the New Year. I even began writing a blog post about the aftermath of IVF and how we'd decided to take a break from fertility treatments. But before I got a chance to finish that post, we got a few e-mails from our adoption agency. Apparently they were having a busy start to the New Year, as they had three birthmothers contact them about wanting to make adoption plans, including one who had already given birth. Colin and I read the e-mails explaining each situation and decided to show our profile to two bmoms, the first time we had elected to do so. With one of those e-mails, I broke my own rule about not looking at baby pictures the adoption agency sent for fear they would make me cry, and I did almost break down when I saw the photo of a sweet, cherub-faced baby boy sound asleep in his hospital bed. There were some health concerns about this baby, but his MRI results came back normal, so we told the adoption agency we still wanted our profile shown to his bmom.

That was Friday, Jan. 7. We spent the weekend praying about the two bmoms, trying not to get too worked up about the possibility of adopting one of their babies. At church that Sunday, Pastor Dave gave a sermon about how Abraham and the rest of the individuals in Genesis who made it into the Faithful Hall of Fame in Hebrews were pretty much all screw-ups. They lied, cheated, stole, murdered, committed adultery, rejected God's sovereignty, etc., and yet God still remained faithful to them. The sermon really spoke to me, as I've felt like a total failure in terms of trusting the Lord throughout these struggles with infertility, and yet He has provided for me and comforted me despite all my shortcomings. So that was encouraging, but I still felt nervous about the bmoms looking at our profiles, and had a hard time getting to sleep that night. I didn't know it was the beginning of the end for me as far as sleeplessness goes.

On Monday, the day the bmoms were going to look at the profiles, I tried to get some work done, and to distract myself, thought about what we should do with the new hutch we bought on Saturday (only $160 on craiglist!). I carried my phone around with me to the bathroom and everywhere else, and checked my e-mail every two minutes. I repeated Proverbs 3:5 – "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding" – to myself over and over and over again. Colin went into work briefly in the morning, then came home and started to freak out, which is a rarity for him. The impact of becoming a parent instantaneously hit him before it hit me, but after some time to think about it and talk to his bro, he calmed down, thankfully just in time for my freak-out.

In the late morning, I got an e-mail from our caseworker, who said we were a finalist for the bmom of the baby boy whose picture had melted my heart. I gotta say, that was a weird message, knowing that we were finalists for the bmom, as if this was American Adoptive Idol or something. She wanted to verify that we were OK with an open adoption, to which we replied yes, as long as we started out slowly and used the adoption agency for facilitation. We waited for a few agonizing hours after that until 5 p.m., then I resigned myself to the probable fact that we wouldn't hear anything until Tuesday. We made dinner, started watching the BCS championship game, and tried to relax. Then around 7:30, I got a call from an unknown phone number. It was another caseworker who told me that the bmom had looked at all the profiles and had made her decision. She had picked us.

It's difficult for me to describe my feelings at that very moment because I was absolutely shocked. My mind couldn't process what the caseworker was telling me, and I could barely say anything to her other than "That's great." What a lame response to the news that you're going to be a parent! She mentioned a few things about the baby boy, like how there were a few minor medical issues and tests to be run, but overall he was healthy and quite alert, already interacting with the nurses and others who came to visit him. She told us we needed to drive out the next day to meet the bmom and our son. Then she asked if I had any questions, and for the life of me I couldn't think of anything, other than "What the freakin' heck is going on?!?" (which I refrained from saying aloud).

At some point during this conversation, I looked at Colin and mouthed the words "I can't do this." When I got off the phone, my hands were shaking, and the floodgates opened wide. The emotions of that moment – joy, relief, fear, and surprise – totally overwhelmed me, and my stalwart husband hugged me tightly and whispered soothing reassurances until I calmed down. Honestly I don't remember much else about that particular moment due to the shock. As you may remember, the last time I was in shock was after I got the call from the doctor that we didn't get any embryos from IVF. So in the span of a little more than 50 days, I went from one state of shock to another, each under very, very different circumstances.

Once I had regained a semblance of composure, we began calling various family members and friends and telling them the news. I e-mailed my boss and sent her all my work in progress, apologizing for ditching work so suddenly. Then I did what any sane person would do and started furiously cleaning the house, which is one of my foremost coping mechanisms. Colin resorted to his: playing Call of Duty.

As you can expect, I didn't get much sleep that night. I got up early on Tuesday and shoveled the driveway (it had snowed several inches over the past 24 hours) to help prevent Colin from wrecking his back before our drive and to help us get on the road as soon as possible. We dropped Kaffy off at the kennel and headed out in a snowstorm. En route, Colin downloaded a baby name app on his iPhone, and we started discussing possible names for our baby boy, an experience that was and still is hard to believe that we were undertaking. We narrowed it down to our top three: Calvin, Caleb, and Caden.

Immediately upon arriving at the adoption agency office, we were told that the birthmother and her mom were there waiting to meet us. We walked in and said hello to our son's biological mother and grandmother, which was a strange and wonderful experience. I won't go into much detail about our bmom to protect her privacy, but I will say that she is a friendly, sweet young woman who impressed us with her maturity and strength. The grace with which she was handling the whole situation was amazing to me, and I am so, so very thankful for her and for how much love she demonstrated toward our son.

As weird as the scenario was, we actually had a great time chatting with her and her mom, and to me it felt very comfortable and natural. She told us she picked us because of our personalities as illustrated in our family profile, and especially liked how important our family was to us, because her family is so important to her, and they're all supportive of her adoption decision. Apparently, they had all looked at the family profiles separately, and each of them had picked the "Seahawks couple" for the adoptive family (we had a photo of us in our jerseys in the profile book), which to me is another example of God's hand at work in this story.

After socializing for a while and discussing our preferences for an open adoption – starting out slowly with pictures and e-mails and occasional visits at the adoption agency – we said goodbye to our bmom and her mom and headed to our next meeting with the attorney. Fortunately that meeting was pretty quick, and our attorney laid the groundwork for the necessary legal steps. As part of the conversation, he had to start a document for the new birth certificate the baby would be given when the adoption was finalized, and he asked us what name we wanted to give him. So right there on the spot, we decided to name him Calvin, representing Calvin and Hobbes, Colin's favorite comic strip; giving him the same first and last initials as Colin; and providing him with an easy nickname I love, Cal. My bro-in-law John later pointed out that Calvin is a combination of Colin and Gavin – how cool is that!

Finally after all these meetings, we got to go to the hospital and see our son for the first time. Walking into the hospital, I was so nervous I thought I would pass out. I'm not sure why I was so nervous then, maybe for some ridiculous fear that he wouldn't like us. But in any case, after sterilizing my hands before entering the NICU, I walked into my baby boy's room as if in a dream. I saw him in his little plastic hospital cradle, hooked up to a ton of monitors, and watched him breathe peacefully in his sleep. Then the nurse asked me if I wanted to hold him, and she handed him over to me, a moment I will remember forever. My first thought when I held him was "This is the most beautiful baby I have ever seen." My second thought: "This is not my baby." Not in the sense that I didn't feel a connection with him, but more in the sense of incredulity. I was completely astonished that this amazing blessing was happening to me, and try as I might, I could not hold back a few tears of joy and wonder. We took several pictures, and then Colin held him for the first time, and I cried again. It was unbelievably precious for me to see my beloved husband being a loving father and cradling our son in his arms.

The next several hours were a blur (well, the whole trip was a blur, but this timeframe wasn't all that exciting, and thus can be summarized without going into too much detail). We had a quick dinner, went on a shopping spree at Target to get a few essentials like a car seat, and headed back to the hospital to see Calvin. His birthmother was there with her father, and she gave us a gift for Calvin – a little teething toy and a froggie rattle, which she had bought because I'd mentioned that I'd like to do a frog theme in his nursery. They took off, and we got to spend more time watching Calvin sleep. The nurses used this time to inundate us with instructions about how to care for a newborn. They were all so kind and nurturing, and apologetically commented on how "This is probably a lot of info to take in." It was, and by the end of the evening, my brain was ready to explode. It was exhausting staying there so long, but definitely worth it, as we got to see Calvin open his eyes and watch us intently as he ate, which we've now discovered is his absolutely favorite thing to do. Needless to say, it was a long day. We got to our hotel, exhausted from all the day's emotional activities, and tried to sleep (unsuccessfully).

The next day was no less busy, involving another meeting with the attorney and a long time of kickin' it at the hospital, waiting for the doctors to finish their business with Calvin. They ordered some tests but didn't seem concerned about much other than his tiny extremities, which were tightly clenched and lacked flexibility. The working theory is that he was pretty squished in utero, and all the doctors thought he would improve with some physical therapy. They also had him wear some splints that looked really uncomfortable, and after getting home, we ditched them since they were too big and he obviously hated wearing them.

We waited and waited and waited, all the while having nurses coming in and out overwhelming us with more info about what and what not to do. Our caseworker came in and had us sign a ton of paperwork, then finally, the doctor gave the OK to release him. That was around 5 p.m., just in time for us to hit rush hour. Calvin did great on the way back and slept the whole way, even though I kept checking on him every three seconds to see if he was still breathing.

When we arrived home, our friends Chris and Elizabeth were there to greet us with dinner. They said "Welcome home, Mommy and Daddy!" and I wondered who they were talking about. On our doorstep was a pizza and bag of baby gifts from Colin's colleagues, the first of many gifts and care packages given to us from our wonderful friends. Calvin started to wake up, so we picked him up and took him into his room. That is another moment I will always remember, as we walked into the room that our friends from church had completely furnished, with a crib and diapers and blankets and everything we could possibly need plus more. They answered our desperate call when we let them know we were leaving to pick up our son, and they outfitted Calvin's nursery in a room that had not been prepared at all, save for the paint on the walls.

On the wall, they posted signs of encouragement, including one with 1 Samuel 1:27 on it – "I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of Him." I am still amazed to think that this has happened, that God has answered my prayer. And though there are many issues still unresolved, especially concerning the legal process, and I'm pretty tired, after several sleepless nights even before we brought Calvin home, I am overjoyed to be a mommy to the most precious baby boy.

Our main prayer request right now is for the remaining legal issues. To try to summarize them, the birthmother has signed consents, but the birthfather is undisclosed. According to state law, a notification must be printed in a legal journal as a formality to allow the birthfather to acknowledge paternity. From the date of publication, which will be in a few weeks, he has 45 days to step forward and try to claim parental rights before they are automatically terminated. It is highly unlikely that this will happen, and according to the lawyer, no one ever reads the legal journal. However, there's still that scary possibility that he could find out, so we're praying that that doesn't happen, and that parental rights will be completely terminated so that we can proceed with our petition for custody. Of course, we could also use prayer for us learning how to be parents, and for Calvin's legs and arms to continue improving in flexibility.

There's much more I can talk about Calvin and his fun personality, our experiences during our first week of having him, how Kaffy is adjusting to having a little person in our home, and our first court hearing, but Colin and my mom are telling me to go to sleep since Calvin is currently asleep, and from what I hear, all moms know they should sleep whenever their child is sleeping.

So I'll wrap up this story by emphasizing God's amazing timing in bringing Calvin into our lives. He planned for Calvin to be born at a time when Colin was still on break from school, when we somehow miraculously had enough money in the bank for the hefty adoption fees, and after we had tried an unsuccessful attempt at IVF. Had we not tried IVF yet, or if IVF had worked, we would not have elected to show our profile to any birthmothers. We would not have taken home our beloved son.

In my post-IVF entry, I spurned any forthcoming Christian-ese comments about how God didn't want IVF to work because He had something better planned for us. I should've known He would prove me wrong, giving me a gift that is far, far better than what I had asked for in a way that I had never, ever expected could happen.

Hope for the holidays

This isn't the Christmas I'd hoped for.

Actually, this is the third Christmas in a row that isn't turning out the way I'd wanted. For three years now, my vision of a perfect Christmas involved me being pregnant or being a mom. But apparently, my vision isn't God's will for my life, at least not this year, yet again.

This disappointment is made even more hurtful by the fact that God has answered others' prayers for pregnancy and a child, but not mine. They get to celebrate Christmas with their children and/or anticipate their children being born at some point in the future, but I don't know if I'll have children at any point in the future. For them, this is the most wonderful time of the year; for me, it's the crap, crappiest season of all.

For the past few weeks leading up to Christmas, I've pouted and pitied myself and gotten irritated with people asking me for gift ideas since I won't be getting the main gift I want. But then, I had a revelation, something that may come as a shock to you, as it did to me:

Christmas isn't about me.

This idea and its implications about the sinfulness of my sullen attitude have been validated through several experiences in recent weeks: reading the story of Jesus' birth at our small group Christmas party, listening to a sermon on God's promises represented by the post-Flood rainbow, and hanging out with friends who have kids but are going through other hardships that can make the holidays difficult to endure. All of this helped me remember that although I don't have a "perfect life" in the sense that I don't have a baby, my life is perfect in the sense that I have a Saviour. And more than that, this life isn't about pining away for the good things I don't have; it's about giving praise and glory to the Giver of all good things.

So, this isn't the Christmas I'd hoped for, but I do have hope in my Redeemer who gave me the greatest gift of all.

Remembering Emily

Lately I've lacked the time and motivation to do much blogging, but today I wanted to write a quick post in remembrance of my first sister-in-law, Emily Soule Hesse, who died in a car accident six years ago on this day.

My sister-in-law Emily reminded me of my own sister Emily in several ways: she was smart, beautiful, funny, and a stylish dresser. She was an extremely passionate person, always eager to talk about her interest in psychology or desire to help those struggling with eating disorders. Most of all, she was passionate about her faith, family, and friends, and when you talked with her over coffee, you could tell she was really listening and truly cared.

Emily also reminded me of myself in a few ways: she was sensitive and wore her heart on her sleeve, she hated to lose at putt-putt golf, and she loved a pretty sarcastic guy who enjoyed teasing his wife. She was my ally and friend, and I was sad when she left this home for her eternal one.

We will always remember Emily and look forward to seeing her along with other loved ones in heaven someday.

Today I have a new sister-in-law, another ally and friend, and I am grateful to have her join our family, to have another woman to talk to and hang out with when the guys are playing Call of Duty or lamenting the latest Seahawks' loss. I'm also thankful for Emily's sisters, Beckah and Jess, and my parents-in-law, and on some days, my brother-in-law Gavin. And of course I'm blessed with the greatest parents and siblings and other bro-in-law ever.

It's good to be part of the Hesse/Brandler family.