I Have Nothing New to Add

(Warning: Abundant parentheses in the following post. Take extreme caution.)

At one point I had hopes of becoming one of those really awesome bloggers that everyone reads and talks about at bookclubs or in the blogosphere. Since starting this blog in 2008 I have pretty much given up on that specific dream for two reasons:

1. That takes a lot of time and money and, at least for now, I want to spend my time and money elsewhere.

2. I have nothing new to add.

The latter point is the topic of my post today (hence the title). Please don't get me wrong, I am not saying I don't have a unique perspective or a unique way of expressing it (how many people do you know that have adopted two kids and then began IVF cycles...my guess is less than five.) What I am saying is that as far as revolutionary ideas or insights go, I've got a whole lotta nada.

Did you know (according to Wikipedia) that "it is estimated that there are more than 158 million identified blogs, with more than 1 million new posts being produced by the blogosphere each day" (emphasis added). I mean, come on! How is a girl supposed to compete with that?!

Originally this blog was just that -- a blog. An online space to record our adoption journey. If that was the only purpose, shut this puppy down! We've adopted, we've blogged about it. Done. But just as I, my family, my home, and my life have evolved, so has this blog. And so today, I have a new purpose!

I have no such hopes of becoming a rich, famous, sought-after, respected, trendy, stylish, unique, or any other such word type of blogger. I am sure that I will fail miserably at all of those things without dedicating more of my time and/or money to the cause (see point number one above). Maybe those will be my goals someday, but on this Tuesday morning sitting on my squeaky mattress next to a pile of unfolded laundry, that is not nor can it be the case.

And I am okay with that. 

I'm pretty sure I am okay with sponging-in (that's totally a real thing) all of the cute ideas, life-hacks, party plans, lists of to-dos, lists of not-to-dos, and whatever else that inspires me from other blogs and my genius friends who don't blog (tough loss for those of you who don't have my friends). And while I have nothing new to add to the blogosphering world, I do have something new to add to my own world.
 

In my world, I am the only mom of two beautiful children who are straight-up crazy! I am the only wife to the best husband I have ever had or hope to have that is (as of yesterday) an actual professor (adjunct, but professor is in his title so who cares)! In my world, I am super unique and have a lot to add!

And so, I am going to begin thinking of this blog space as an extension of my home instead of an extension of the blogging world. Because amid 158 million I do not stand out at all...but I am absolutely in my own little time and space for a specific reason, and I enjoy unfolding that reason a little bit each and every day.

(Here's the kicker...) And by recording those revelations and experiences and reflecting on them later, I feel as though I come a little closer to the little miracle that God needs me to be. (Of course, that takes a little time.)

(I absolutely did not disappoint on the parentheses promise, did I?)

Our Third Little Miracle

When Alexa turned 1 we were already in possession of our adoption paperwork for round 2 and had been working on it for a month. We barely had a conversation about how to acquire our next child because adoption was just right.

13 months later James was born. The whole thing happened really fast! Approved in August 2012, contacted by Shilo in December, and a family of 4 in March 2013. Bing-Bang-Bam!

A couple months before James was sealed to our family last October, our lives had significantly changed. We had graduated, moved states, changed jobs, and how to acquire child numero tres was not as clear. In fact, Nick wasn't even sure there was a third child to be acquired. There was a lot of praying, fasting, and discussing to do.

Let me go back in the timeline a bit. In New Mexico where we live, adopting through LDS Family Services is just not an option. They cannot legally do basically anything in this state, which brought us back to the baby acquiring drawing board. We looked into adoption through the state, but when we went to the orientation they needed a longer time commitment than we knew we would even be here since Nick's Post-Doc is a temporary position. We called adoption agencies across the state and some of them seemed like viable options, but we felt no inclination to move forward with any of them. We also looked into fertility treatments again and met with one of the two doctors in Albuquerque about what he would recommend to move our family forward.

And it was a really good meeting.

I want to make this perfectly clear: it is not a life-goal of mine to get pregnant. I have no interest in experiencing the miracle of growing life inside of me or breast-feeding or anything that goes along with biological children. However, I absolutely have a life-goal of getting my children to our family no matter what that path entails.

Frankly I don't want to go into every detail of our decision making process at this time because this blog post would get way too long. That being said, I have had three rounds of bloodwork and taken a total of one pill, all of which to begin fertility treatments again.

Our doctor has recommended we do In-Vitro Fertilization, and so that is what we have decided to do.

I absolutely want to adopt again someday in the future, but our journey to bambino number 3 has begun, and we are so excited to be moving our family forward in this incredible new way!

As I write this news out, I feel like I have so much more to share, but all in good time I suppose. We have seen the Lord's hand evident in the decision-making process and in the providing of means to do this very intense and expensive fertility treatment. Just like adoption was right for us in acquiring our first two children, IVF is right for us right now. This may not result in a child (reasonable risk), but it is how our family is to move forward.

We share this with you, our readers, because this blog was a healing place for me throughout the adoption process, and I will definitely need healing moving forward. Hopefully the little bit of time for our next little miracle will be as transformative as our first two little miracles...and perhaps less paperwork!

 There is a lot I want to share with you, and as always, please ask questions of any kind -- sincere questions are never offensive!

Sometimes. . .

2006 . . . Sometimes you just need a classic throwback picture.

Sometimes blogging about hard things doesn't make them easier or help you vent or releases negative energy.

Sometimes it just perpetuates negative energy and gives focus to things you'd rather not focus on.

I'm not saying that's why I haven't been blogging much, but I am saying that's sometimes why I choose to withhold a post.

Sometimes blogging is for me, sometimes it's for my children, sometimes it's for our family that is so far away...and sometimes not blogging is the best for everyone.

So no more apologies. No more guilt. I am doing the best I can, and tomorrow I'm going to try to do better than I did today. And that may include a post, or five, or it may not.

Sometimes you just have to accept that you can't do everything you want to do, and you have to make a choice as to what you can do.

There is healing in accepting that sometimes you're not all that you want or hope to be, but maybe you will be someday. And I will try to post when I can, but mostly when I feel inspired.

Because when I feel inspired to write to you, my reading public, I feel more hope than guilt and more acceptance than judgement.

So for those times when your nearly tangible, metaphysical presence heals my heart, thank you. And I hope to be able to thank you more adequately in the future . . . sometime.

While We Were Out...

Hi All! You may or may not have noticed I've taken a bit of a hiatus from blogging for a while, but all that's about to change. James is now 9.5 weeks old and I am starting to figure out how to be a mom and wife without sleep and with 2 kids. Every time I've sat down to post recently I just got this nagging feeling that I should focus on my screaming kids instead of the blog.

So, here is my super lame post about things I should have posted more in depth about during the last couple months:

1. Nick fake graduated and got a 3-year post-doctorate position at Los Alamos National Labratory in Los Alamos New Mexico!

2. Nick will really graduate in August and defend his thesis after which we'll be moving to Los Alamos!

3. We planted our garden! This year it's peppers, strawberries, and onions.

4. James turned two months old! HOLY COW! He weighs 9 lbs. 6 oz., and is a happy and healthy little boy.

 
5. Alexa still really loves James, nearly to his death a few times, but it's all good natured and no one has been permanently damaged...we think.

6. I have some catching up to do but I'm sticking with my goal of reading 50 books this year! I'm about 40-60% through about 5 books right now, so it's not over yet!

7. Nick went to France back in April leaving me at home with a 3 week old and a 2-year old for 8 days!

 The obligatory "Just in Case You Die" photo

8. The loneliness wasn't too bad though because my sister, Cindy, came out to visit for a few days. We had such a great time!

9. I finished my recreational women's soccer league last Friday and dominated the game by scoring 2/4 goals for our team. I'm really going to miss those ladies!


I'm really sure there are more posts I meant to do, but please, for now, consider me caught up and I'll fill you in on a need-to-know basis! 

Got a post already for tomorrow, so I'm serious this time that I'm back in the blogging world! Woot woot!

My Adopted Asian Baby

 In this one she's trying to do this pose, all sweet and demure. Not really her thing. (That baby is so cute!)

Oh no wait. That's just Alexa being straight up ca-razy! Love this girl!

Also, FYI, I'm not dead. Sorry posts have been sparse, but I've been re-focusing my life and so I've had to force myself to have less screen time each day, and the blog is suffering a bit. It's all for the better though! A real post tomorrow, I promise!

Music Monday: Featured Family

Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Michael, The Glee Project

Yeah, I watch The Glee Project, and I like it, and I REALLY like this version of this song! So bummed he got eliminated after this performance. Enjoy!

AND...yesterday our family's open adoption was featured on TheRHouse blog. Click here to see the post that shares our experience meeting Alexa's birth-grandma!

Button, Button, We Have a Button!

Actually, we have two! Since we are just about all approved for our second adoption, it's time to get the word out! So go ahead and copy and paste one of the HTML codes below onto your blog or webpage  (use whichever one you like), and help us spread the good news of adoption with the World Wide Web!

<center><a href="http://rachelandnicholas.blogspot.com/p/first-time-here.html" target="_blank" title="It's About Love"><img src="http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u173/nelsonmaam/Button002.png" border="0" alt="Photobucket" /></a></center>

<center><a href="http://rachelandnicholas.blogspot.com/p/first-time-here.html" target="_blank" title="It's about love"><img src="http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u173/nelsonmaam/Button003.png" border="0" alt="Photobucket" /></a></center>

What?! You don't have a blog/website?! That's okay because you can still help by passing around one of these little cards with all of our contact information to anyone you know that maybe considering adoption. Heck, you could pass these out even if you do have a blog/website, if you want to be an over-achiever! Please contact us if you'd like some cards and we will send them your way ASAP!

Mourning My Fertile Life

I think this is the third time I've started this post, because I've had the feelings and thoughts but have been unsure how to form them coherently.

That was until I watched this video (again) and realized that sometimes I, like NieNie, mourn for the loss of the woman I thought I was going to become. By now I thought I was going to be a young mom with 4 kids under the age of 6 with one on the way and planning on having at least 2-3 more. I wanted to have that beautiful family of young children causing raucous during church with my hair frazzled and exhausted at days end because I had worked so hard at being a pregnant mom trying to wrangle my small but growing family. That woman I imagined had been bred for motherhood glory, endowed with child-bearing hips and so many babysitting opportunities in her youth it would make anyone's head spin! She was everything every other mom looked to as a pillar of strength because she fulfilled all her responsibilities with her young family and still served others willingly and faithfully and kept her home cute and beautiful. Her life was far too perfect to be actually real for anyone to be living. It was unrealistic, sure, but in some sense plausible.

Occasionally, more often as we go through adoption paperwork, I mourn over the loss of that once idealistic scenario of mine. That picture in my head of that woman I thought I would become fades with every passing day that I am not pregnant or not adopting another child. I do--I really mourn that woman because I know she will never exist. At least not how I pictured her...not how I pictured myself and my life and my family. Many tears have been shed over her, and many more are still to come, I'm certain of that.

I am already 25, almost 26, and have only one baby and there are currently 4 exposed nails pounded into my walls where frames have been removed and nothing has replaced them. The mother and homemaker at one time I thought I would be at this point is a fantasy, and sometimes when I linger on that fantasy I forget about the fantastical life I do have.

My husband is a wonderful provider, financially, spiritually, emotionally, et cetera-ly for our family. He loves me and we just celebrated a wonderful 6th anniversary together this past Saturday.

My daughter is a miracle in our family placed with us for time and eternity by two wonderfully amazing parents who love her as much as Nick and I do. Not many parents have people in their children's lives that love their children as much as they do, but our children do/will.

I had the opportunity to get an advanced education where learned so many fascinating things, but mostly that I am capable of doing things I never thought I could. In that vision I had of myself in the past, I never ever was doing data analysis and really enjoying my work. That wasn't my "area" of skill or interest.

I think perhaps the thing I am most grateful for that I could not have ever guessed as a younger woman was that I would eventually be so incredibly grateful for the trial of infertility as much I am today. How could I have known that the experiences related to my greatest trial (so far) would shape my faith and the way I serve others and the compassion I have for others and the love I have for my husband and daughter so abundantly that I can't imagine my life without those experiences? And why would I want to?

I  have such a wonderful life and I am blessed everyday to be living in it! Sometimes thoughts of that once-fantasy life creeps in my mind and I once again take a moment to mourn the loss of that young mother who has it all and can grow her family whenever she wants. Sure those thoughts come, and I honestly don't want those thoughts to ever go away completely. While the specifics can't be as I thought they would be, the happy home and family I imagined certainly can be. That vision, while different, is a lot closer and more attainable than I sometimes think it is. And those visions I receive of that version of me who has "it all" keeps me striving for "it all" (as much as I can control) in my current circumstance.

And even if I never have another child, or a dog, or a home that is the envy of the neighborhood, I still have such a beautiful life! And I am grateful for it everyday!

I honestly wouldn't change a thing...except for maybe those exposed nails on the wall. Something must be done there. 

Tuesday Tunes

I know the blog has been neglected recently, but there is a noble art of getting things done, and a nobler art of leaving things undone. Priorities have been made recently, and blogging has just not made the cut. However, in all our activities Christmas music has filled the air! This song is one of my favorites, and I haven't heard it much on Pandora or the radio, so I thought I would share it now. I'm preparing posts for the rest of the week, so be excited!

What Child is This?/The Holly and the Ivy by Bing Crosby

Guest Blogging Today!

I'm a guest blogger today over at the Colorado Families Supporting Adoption blog. I'm talking about unpacking your bags and living life for today while hoping for the blessings of tomorrow. Come check it out and poke around at the other cool events and posts they have up!

I will also be singing at the fireside they are holding on November 7, 2011, so if you have any suggestions for great adoption-esque songs, let's have 'em! 

As a parting gift, here is a picture of Alexa stuck under our bed. 

This whole mobility thing isn't always what it's cracked up to be!

 Happy Tuesday to you!

I Am a Blackened Banana: A Memoir

I read this great blog (my go-to for a lot of fashion tips), and the author began this guest author segment called Beauty-ful Tuesday. I thought just in case I am asked to include my thoughts on beauty, I'd like to be prepared. Here are my thoughts for the day.

I feel like my life has been a lesson on acceptance. Whether that's accepting my body, my face, my circumstances, or just accepting others and everything that goes with them. Some situations and people are easy to accept and love and it's just a natural kind of connection, other things take work. (i.e. Accepting my long, thick, blond hair is fairly easy; accepting my dysfunctional ovaries is a bit more challenging.) Some days I go to sleep at night wishing I'll wake up as a size 6 with clear skin (which explains the inordinate amount of skin remedies I have in the bathroom cabinets). Then I wake up and start my day disappointed with myself. Too often I spend my time trying to figure out how to balance changing the person I am into who I want to be and accepting the person that I am right now and spit in that skinny, clear-skinned girls face (nobody likes skinny, clear-skinned girls anyway).

Surprisingly, I think I've been doing it wrong.

To accept something means you take it as it is, and are happy. But, acceptance is no way to treat something that you interact with everyday, that you can control (to some extent), and that is eternal. My body, my beauty, does not need acceptance from me. It needs to be embraced! When I think of the people that are easiest for me to accept and admire, I realize acceptance is only the beginning of those relationships. I embrace those people. I want them to envelope me with their beauty, excitement, and wonder. I want to be surrounded by each of them so completely because they inspire me to develop qualities that I already have into characteristics of the person I hope to someday become. 

From now on, I think I'll try to first accept my imperfect beauty of today, and embrace my potential beauty of eternity. Accept then embrace, the latter of which means (to me) doing all I can to develop, strengthen, and transform today's imperfect beauty into a perfected beauty that I can truly be proud of.

Isn't that what eternity is for? To improve and perfect what we have been given? And just because my beauty isn't perfected yet does not mean that I don't have all the ingredients inside of me already to get me there.

Giving up on my beauty now would be like throwing out some blackened bananas because their beauty is not obviously there. I am a blackened banana: full of over-ripe potential preparing to make some delicious banana bread!

But not banana nut bread. Nobody likes nuts in their bread; dysfunctional ovaries; or skinny, clear-skinned girls. Okay, I maybe wrong about the girls, but I stand by the nut-thing. And the ovaries.

***Just to be clear, if I ever write an auto-biography, I call dibs on the title 

"I Am a Blackened Banana: A Memoir". Respect the dibs!***

We Are Family, I Got All My In-Laws with Me!

Okay, not ALL my in-laws, but many of them.

Anyway, we're in Arizona this week at a reunion with Nick's family and are so excited to be here! We've got Pinewood Derby races, softball games, dancing, eating, talking, playing, and just generally a good time in store!


Have I mentioned recently how much I love my in-laws? Probably not recently enough, so here it is: I love my in-laws! Such wonderful people, every last one of them!

So, this will be the last post you see from me until Sunday or Monday, depending on my mood and availability. We'll be sure to post plenty of pictures once we get back. As a little taste, I helped make my first Pinewood Derby car, and we named it The Yellow Dart.

An extra 5 points to anyone who knows where we got the idea for the name from.

We will leave you with these happy pictures of Alexa being tickled into delirious happiness by her Daddy. See you soon!

Jewelry Box Magnification

So the lower drawer of my jewelry box looked like this, and my jewelry was on the dresser:

buttons, safety pins, honorary pins I never wear, broken necklaces, and Nick's mission mementos--all things we want to keep but that just take up space.

To solve my cluttered problem I took this idea from my friend Lauren and came up with this:

 

I used these tools to get me there, along with a glue gun, and for some of the more textured pieces, some super-mega glue:

The tools used were wire cutters, a razor blade, pliers, and a file. The plate on the left are the trashed excess from the little trinkets on the right. We also beefed up a couple wimpy magnetic clips.

And now my jewelry box actually has jewelry in it! Novel concept I think.

The magnets I used are here and I have plenty extra for more little trinkets I find and don't want to trash.

Rachel's New Project

You wanna see?

When everything in my life seems to revolve around poopy diapers, feeding, and adoption (this blog included), it will be nice to have a different type of creative outlet.

I know it's just beginning, but check it out and see if maybe it could be something you could get into. No pressure though, so feel free to blow off this post and come back tomorrow for Part 3 of Alexa's adoption story!! 

Need to catch up? Here's Part 1 and Part 2 for your reading pleasure.