Mother's Day, and reminders.

One of the main reasons it was important to me to say yes to the awesome and new experience of being a runway model (haha!) was that the show was the day before Mother's Day.  That is not always the easiest day for me, and I wasn't sure what this one would be like.  I figured the fashion show would be a fun confidence booster, and it was!  It reminded me of how full my life is and how much I enjoy and am thankful for that.

When Sunday came I was feeling hopeful and good, better than I have in years on this day...and I wanted to stay that way!  I decided to sleep in and play hooky from church, then filled my day with visiting my parents, browsing the aisles at Whole Foods and having an outdoor lunch with Brad.  I finished out the day relaxing and catching up on some favorite shows.

  I feel like I've handled the public waiting for a child reasonably gracefully (I hope..!) over the past several years, but I am really glad I gave myself the room to not have to do that for a day.  To let this Sunday be just another day.  And a really good one, at that!

And I'm glad that this weekend provided a reminder that my life is not defined by the waiting, nor will it be defined only by motherhood when the time comes.  Parenting will be a welcome, exciting, challenging and humongous part of my life, but God has blessed me with ideas, dreams, abilities, relationships and experiences that form my multi-faceted world. I am thankful for the things I get to do and be a part of.  I don't believe he wants all of that to disappear when I become a mother, even if it looks different than it does now.  And for that I am grateful!

I was also reminded that I have a husband, friends, and family that love me and have walked with me through many seasons before this, and we will continue to share our lives together. Giving and receiving care, support, and encouragement and learning to love each other well.

Thanks for the lunch date, honey :)

Adios, Frida & Diego!

This weekend I had the opportunity to participate in a fashion show at the High Museum of Art.  They had a huge event to usher out the Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera exhibit, and the night included Lucha Libre wrestling, live salsa music, photobooths where you could sport your very own unibrow, and lots of other fun activities, including the Frida-inspired fashion show.  My friends Sarah and Michelle of SarahLou were asked to design some looks for the show, and they asked me to model one of them.

I met up with Sarah and Michelle and one of the other models and we made our way downtown.  My dress was gorgeous but not completely done; Sarah finished hemming it in the car!! :)

Stitching the finishing touches!

 We met one more of the models and loaded up on snacks and caffeine at Starbucks.  Our time slot for hair and makeup was one of the first, so we had to be to the museum pretty early.  Once we got there, the real fun started!  We started with makeup.

I went from this:

squeaky clean!

 to this in just a few minutes!

Next up was hair.  Our designers wanted us to have messy braided updos with plenty of fresh flowers tucked into the hair.  The stylists did a great job!

In retrospect, I probably should have waited to put the dress on.  Sitting = wrinkles, so it's a good thing I generally prefer to stand!

I LOVED the dress.  Sarah did such a great job designing it and the color is amazing!  She was even sweet enough to give it to me after the show!

Sarah and me.  My makeup makes me look sick here but it didn't look that way in real life! ;)  It looked fun and festive!

I loved getting to see the creativity of all the designers.  Some of the outfits were very heavily influenced by Frida's paintings, some were more modern, and some were super detailed costumes.  All were amazing and I loved getting to see so much creativity!

We waited around for the next couple hours, practicing our walks while all the other models finished with hair and makeup.  The energy in the room was exciting and you could feel the anticipation build as we all got closer to being ready.  Then finally it was showtime!  

Now this is not false humility, or even plain old modesty, this is honesty- I am pretty sure I was the worst model that night!  I suppose for a first timer it wasn't awful (I mean, I didn't fall!  That is a success, right??), but I felt a little stiff.  Brad said I looked scared. I haven't been able to bring myself to watch the video he shot.  We joked that Frida was supposedly very awkward, so this was the right show to do that!  I was just playing the part. ;) It was amazing that even with around 20 models, the whole thing was over and done in 10 minutes at the most!

Brad and a friend from the tea parties were the only people able to make it to see me, but there were TONS of people there!  It was so fun, but weird and surreal to look around and see a zillion cameras and phones pointed at you.  Definitely a new experience!

Fresh off the runway ;)

When Sarah asked me to model in this show, my first thought was "There is no way I can do that!!". But I decided that if I said no just because I was scared, I would really regret it.  So I said yes and then immediately starting panicking about it!  Haha.  But I am really glad they asked, and really glad I did it.  I feel proud that I took the challenge.  Even if I wasn't the best runway model, hopefully some of the pictures the High's photographer took will turn out! :)

I had a great time with those girls and it was fun to make friends with some of the other models.  What a fun end to a great exhibit!

Silliness after the show

I love Michelle's invisible heels! ;)

My sweet, super supportive husband.  He hung around for hours just to see me and cheer me on.  It was good for me to have him there!

 

If I get more pictures I'll be sure to add them!

Created for Care 2013

This weekend I attended Created for Care for the second time.  When I attended in January of last year Brad and I had not even officially started the adoption process; we had nothing on paper yet and I had no idea what the process would look like for us.  This year, we are neck deep in the process and I was one of over 200 waiting mamas there.  There were 450 women attending - and the January retreat had just as many!!  They sold out in a couple hours when registration opened.  There is just such a need for this kind of equipping and connection!  The location is beautiful and so many of the women there needed rest and refreshing.  Next year I plan to spend more time walking along the lake and exploring.  I was just so busy with the ladies inside this year!  I was especially excited to hang out with Rachel, one of my roommates last year who brought home her three Ethiopian treasures since the last time I saw her!  So good to catch up and hear about her life as a new mom.

This was right outside the sliding glass door in our room!

This year was very different for me than the last.  I loved the retreat last year and I am so glad I went.  But a year makes a big difference!  Last year adoption was so new and unknown to me; this year I felt weary from the journey.  Last year I didn't know what that waiting felt like, though I heard so many women there talk about it; this year it is a familiar part of my daily life and thoughts and sometimes seems indefinite.  Last year I felt a little like an outsider, or a freshman; this year I felt such a very real sense of belonging to this community.  I even got to share some of my experiences with people just starting the process and that felt like a very sweet blessing to me.  I love all the hearts I heard expressing their desire to love their families, their friends, and their God well.  There was a certain relief in being with 449 other women who understood some things in my heart in ways even the most supportive person might not quite understand, if they haven't been through this process.

This year's theme.

 Friday night was the first main session.  It started with a slide show of all the families of the women there.  Each family was just beautiful, and though I don't know all their stories I know each one contains miracles and heartache. That opened up the waterworks for me and I spent a good portion of the weekend with weepy eyes.  I teared up for the families that were complete, for the families that had spots in their photos for the child they are waiting for, for the children who are so wanted and anticipated, and for the ones that aren't.  Basically I teared up at everything!  There was just so much emotion attached to every part for me.  Everything I learned could be applied to me, Brad, and our family and friendships.  I wasn't just gathering information this time; I was being prepared and equipped to love our child or children as wholly and as well as I can.  And this learning is part of loving them already, before we even know anything about them. Whew!  Weepy eyes just thinking of it!  I'm blaming hormones and allergies!

It was overwhelming to be surrounded by 450 women "with the same heartbeat", but each with such different stories.  Amazing.

I traveled and roomed with my friend Katelyn.  It was great to get to know her better, and to be able to trade ideas and discuss things we were learning and experiencing  throughout the weekend.  She is in the process of adopting domestically as well, and she and her husband were so kind and open with us when we first started our journey.  I think we would be friends even without the adoption connection, but sharing that commonality is really awesome! 

On Saturday women involved in domestic adoption met up for lunch and we ended up discussing how we don't feel as connected to each other or the adoption world as we'd like.  It seems like domestic adoption moms have fewer resources with that.  So, we are working to change that and I am SUPER excited!  This is one part of the ideas and dreams I had when I first fell in love with adoption.  Not just for domestic moms, but for adoption and foster moms in general.  I can't wait to get started and share some of the plans here!

Molly is one of the domestic moms I got to meet this weekend!  So glad she recognized me and said hello.  Hi, Molly!! :)

Everyone's name tag had the flag of the country they most recently adopted from (or were in process with) so I was sporting the stars and stripes!

I learned so much and I talked Brad's ear off when I got home yesterday.  I even ordered a couple of CDs of some of the sessions - I have never done that at any conference or retreat I've been to!  I am hoping to start building some resources for us and others in or interested in the adoption process.  

I got to visit with our consultant, Courtney and meet her business partner, Jessica.  It was so good to get to chat and also to hear their encouragement in person.  I think God used her and some other new friends to speak into a lot of my fear.  Brad and I have some things to discuss this week about this but our next steps may require a big dose of faith!

Even though I did not get nearly enough sleep (thanks, Daylight Saving Time!), I feel spiritually and mentally refreshed and like I've been given a new sense of hope.  To be honest, one of several reasons I've been so quiet on the blog for the past few months is because that hope has been low to empty.  For the adoption and for other areas of my life.  But God used the mission for this year's retreat (inspired by I Cor. 13) to encourage me to do just what it says:  

Step out in faith, wait with hope, and love big.

So hooray for friendships, hooray for learning, and hooray for God meeting me where I am and for getting through to me even when I didn't know how to listen.  Looking forward to next year! :)

On our way home, feeling grateful and hopeful.

The latest.

I haven't posted here in quite a while; I didn't have much news to write about, and I wasn't sure what I'd like to focus my posts on in the new year.  I have been mulling over some topics and have some half-written posts here and there, so hopefully I will be able to complete my thoughts and share them soon.

Here are some updates on where we are in the adoption process:

-We almost have our presentation book done!  This is what will be shown to a birth mother as she makes her decisions about what family she would like to place her baby with.

-Good financial news:  Through very generous donations, we have just about enough funding to present to a birth mom.  This is really exciting!  However...

-Not as good financial news:  We received word today that we will not receive the grant we applied for.  They receive over 80 applications each month and can't provide for each applicant.  We were declined both the matching grant and the interest free loan they offer.  The organization has offered to put us in touch with a local organization based in Atlanta that may be able to offer us assistance.  We will see where that leads.

So where does this leave us?  While we could technically present at this point (or, when the book is done), if we were chosen by a birth mom we would need to come up with the rest of the funding almost immediately.  That will be anywhere from an additional $7,000 to $20,000 above what we currently have (I know the numbers are staggering, but I don't think they are as uncalled for as you might initially think...and I have a half-written post about that, ha!).  We plan to apply for an interest-free adoption loan, and the newly-permanent adoption tax credit (which is so great for adoptive families!) will make this much more likely to be approved.

Now that we know we won't be receiving that grant, we have a little more direction on fundraising; if we had received it, our fundraising would have had to be through that organization.  We have some small and one big fundraiser in the works and we will begin working on it more now that we have this answer.  

We are also blessed to have a fund set up through our church where donors can designate their gifts for our adoption; those donations will be tax deductible.  If you'd like more information on that, please let me know and I will be happy to get that to you!

Not everything is numbers and funding worries around here, though!  There are some exciting and encouraging things happening all around us.  

Some good friends of ours are going to meet their birth mom - and BABY!!- next week.  We are thrilled for them!!  

We've had some new people step up to get approved to help our friend who fosters; this is awesome!  If you'd like to help and want more info, let me know!  We are working on figuring out how to set up a network of support for her, and others who will hopefully foster in the future.  

Next week is Brad's birthday and that means a fun time with friends with an epic karaoke party and some Korean barbeque. 

I am training for a half marathon!  I will be walking it with my friend Danielle in March.  We may be the only people you know who have WALKED a half marathon! We wonder if they will still give us 13.1 stickers?? ;)

Our weeks are busy lately and full of people we love.  We are doing well.

I hope you are too.