We're Expecting!!

Did I fool ya? So okay, we're not expecting in the traditional sense, but our adoption profile is FINALLY approved and so technically we are expecting, we just don't know when our miracle will happen. Sorry I'm so late posting the wonderful news. We were actually approved weeks ago, but I seem to be a blog slacker lately.

You can check out our profile here: https://www.beta.itsaboutlove.org/ial/profiles/20548664/ourMessage.jsf (Yes, I know we need professional family photos done. Yes, I know the best one we have my hair is tangled up around my neck and Isaac is not looking at the camera-what can you do? We'll get a professional family photo done when we get our baby:)

So I can't tell you how wonderful it feels to have all that paperwork behind us. The process probably could have gone a whole lot faster, but we had lots of hangups with insurance and other things, and then towards the end there I was just worn out and kind of slacked off a little bit, but everyday I felt this nagging in my head, "Holly, get it done, HOLLY, get it done!" It was such a nagging feeling that now its finally done, I feel like the biggest weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Can I just tell you how grateful I am for adoption? What a beautiful way for us to continue our family and I actually feel really lucky that I get to experience it. Lately I've also been having the most overwhelming feelings of love for birthmoms everywhere, that they choose to give their child a better life and future and make that incredible sacrifice. And it really is a sacrifice. I'm sure to so many birthmoms adoption is not their first choice, but they put their baby's needs first and that's completely heroic. They really are heroes...I just can't see it any other way.

Jon and his parents have also given me such good insight into adoption. Jon, being adopted himself, has often expressed to me how grateful he is for the childhood he had. He literally describes his childhood as picture-perfect with a great neighborhood, a mom that got to stay home with him and his siblings, opportunities to play soccer, T-ball, trips to the coast, camping, a great education, the gospel, etc. He knows without a doubt he would have had a completely different life if he had not been adopted. I appreciate Jon's parents and the love and gratitude they express about Jon's birth mom often and without reservation. His mom will often talk to me on Jon's birthday and we'll marvel at how many people out there on this day are thinking of Jon. They're really a good example to me about how this connection we will probably feel toward our own child's birthmom is really an incredibly beautiful thing and we're blessed to experience it.

Anyway...I'll wrap this up, but I just wanted to post this picture.

A few weeks before we officially received word that we were approved, my grandma mailed me this blessing dress that she crocheted. She crochets AMAZING blessing dresses for every single one of her great grandbaby girls and I was so scared I would never get one, but I did and you can bet I bawled like a baby until Isaac told me to quit because it was making him feel uncomfortable. See that pink blanket underneath the blessing dress? She also mailed that to me, but here's the story behind it. My grandma is always crocheting a baby blanket for someone in the family because at least one of her grandkids is usually having a baby. So she started crocheting this pink one this last summer and said that she kept thinking about me. She said every time she worked on that blanket I would come to her mind until finally she said in her grandma way, "That's it! This blanket MUST be for Holly!" (I wish you knew my grandma because I just wrote that exactly how she would have said it-haha) So then she finished it and tucked it away to save for me, but then recently took it out and made this beautiful blessing dress to go with it. I LOVE HER! It was the best feeling to see my surprise blessing dress-and then to imagine our baby in it! It just made everything seem so real and it was the perfect way to celebrate being approved. Now, I don't know if I'm going to have a girl. I'm not claiming that. My grandma seems to think so, but just for the record, I'll take any baby that is meant to be a part of our family...and if it's a boy...well, I'm sure he'll look adorable in that dress too! :)