Enjoying the Ride

I have almost completed 7 months of pregnancy and at this point I have been on strict bed rest for 14 weeks now. This means I have not fixed my breakfast, lunch or dinner, not looked in my fridge, not gone to the grocery store, church, BBQ's, or birthday party's. This is not something I usually like to talk about because even though it has been hard I like to stay more on the positive side of things, but to not acknowledge or talk about it would not show just how wonderfully The Lord has walked me through it all.

When I use to dream of getting pregnant I use to dream of people seeing my belly and smiling. I use to dream of getting my baby's room ready. I use to dream of going and registering for what I thought my baby might "need" (we all know a baby doesn't "need" a swing, bouncer, changing table, or jumper), but it sure helps to have them. I use to dream of making things for my baby. I even use to dream of taking one last trip a "babymoon" sometime in the last trimester. I had lots of dreams and bed rest of any sort was not one of them. However, I did expect some bed rest since my last pregnancy ended at 22 weeks you can read about that one Here.

I have been to the doctor so much and have had so many ultrasounds that our son has a book of pictures before he is even born. Not all these doctor appointments have been wonderful. I have had to see a high risk doctor that started at 8 weeks. I saw her again at 11 weeks to make sure that at 13 weeks I could have a cerclage placed. I have had to see her every week or every 2 weeks depending on what my cervix was looking like. If it looked like it had opened more I saw her once a week. She has had me on a medicine and has had to increase it. After reaching 20 weeks of all this, doubt and fear of having a full term baby was really setting in and I had been living stressed out all the time and I couldn't do anything about it. I was already laying flat and was on as much medicine I could be on. I was doing everything I could possibly do. It's stinks when your best isn't good enough.


This is when I decided to dive head first into The Lord. I began praying every single morning with my SIL for like an hour and half to two hours. She has been praying for me for a year for us to get pregnant and now she has been praying for a healthy pregnancy. We decided we would fast and pray together for 40 days. Of course I would not fast from food, but we both found something we felt The Lord was telling us to fast from and we began. After a couple days fear left! God has shown me soooooo much during this time. He has shifted my imagination from thinking I could loose yet another child to imagining a perfectly healthy baby in my arms in July. We have seen great improvements in my cervix closing and I have felt tons of peace while going to my appointments. I truly believe that this pregnancy and birth will be so redeeming. The Lord has shown me that if you draw near to him, He will draw near to you.

I can say that it has truly been AMAZING  to see our community of friends step up to the plate and  come a bring me lunch almost daily. I have seen God use them in huge ways to minister to me. They have brought dinners, sat and visited with me and just loved on me when I felt so secluded.
Sometimes we loose sight of  what being in others company is all about. I cannot imagine choosing to be locked in a house 24/7. No one had to come,  but they have and they continue to come.

I still have moments where I want my independence back and I want a normal pregnancy, but I would not change this time for anything. There are lots of times where I miss people. I miss my friends, I truly miss living in community. I feel like I have been plucked away, but I have learned so much and  grown so much in The Lord that will stay with me for the rest of my life. And I know, when I hold our son all of this bed rest will be forgotten about and all I will think about is him! So for now I will enjoy the ride, cause soon this one will end and another will begin.

Kick back and ENJOY the Ride

It's been six months since our dossier was sent off to Ethiopia and there really is not a whole lot to share.  This part of the adoption journey is probably the hardest because the only thing you can do is wait and then wait some more.  Currently we are expecting it to be another 30-36 months before we would get a referral.  Which sounds like a pretty long time but our hope and prayer has been that the time would pass quickly. 

But, how will we pass the time without growing impatient?



I guess we will use the time to prepare for Baby Rich.  We found out the Saturday before Thanksgiving that Ana is pregnant!!

It probably goes without saying that we were both pretty shocked.  You have to love how God works, sometimes when you least expect it he shows up and rocks your world. 

Ana is now 13 weeks pregnant and everything is looking great.  She had a cerclage done yesterday to make sure Baby Rich stays put until its time to meet the world.

A recent ultrasound showed the baby kicked back with his/her arms behind his/her head.

So I guess like Baby Rich we will just kick back and enjoy the ride!!





waiting 4 months

On 11/12/13 we finally remembered to celebrate our DTE (Dossier to Ethiopia). We usually remember a few days before or the day after, but this time we remembered on the day of. Finally! I guess all the traveling and business has had something to do with it. We do think about our children and pray for them daily. So do not go thinking we are bad people, just crazy, busy people!

I am sure you are wondering what did they do to celebrate? Well, we went to one of our favorite Mexican restaurants and ordered a margarita and said, Cheers! Here's to waiting 4 months for our children to come home." Now for another 34-44 months of waiting. Yes, we are expecting to wait that long. Are we fervently praying that it is sooner? Absolutely! 
  

DELICIOUS!

 Our Agency, America World has done a fantastic job with keeping us in the loop on what is going on with US government process as well as Ethiopia's government. One thing that is slowing us way down is the government's on both side. The US government just added this new thing called the PAIR, Pre Adoption Immigration Review. It basically means that once we are submitted for court in Ethiopia to bring our children home, we have to be submitted once again to the USCIS and they have to write us a letter saying that we are approved to bring our children home. They state that............

The PAIR Process Will Protect Prospective Adoptive Parents & Promote the Best Interests of Children

And so we wait!

Our Dossier is Complete!

Our Dossier is complete!

I (Ana) cannot even begin to describe just how happy I am to be done with this step. This has been at times very frustrating and it has been my life for the past 3 months.  Part of me misses being in control and having something to do, but a HUGE part of me is extremely excited that it is shipped off and safely in the hands of our family coordinator (Kelsey) at America World. We received an email from Kelsey on Friday and if all goes well our DTE (Dossier to Ethiopia) date will be 7/12/13. This is the date we will be put on the waiting list for a referral!!

Now all we can do it wait. Right now our wait time is approximately 3 years. It is so hard to think we have to wait 3 years to bring home our child/children. I have waited for 10 years now to be able to bring our children home. I have prayed for our house to be filled with laughter and cries and happiness and full out temper tantrums. I/we are ready for it all. It is exciting to know that at the end of this wait the end result is a baby in our arms!

So what will we do to celebrate while we wait? This seems to be a reoccurring question between Shawn and I.  We do want to celebrate our DTE date every month, but we're not quite sure how yet. At least then we will have something small to kind of look forward to every month. We are not sure yet but we do have a month to figure that out.

One thing that we are doing is making bracelets, necklaces, & key chains that say 'One Less' on them. They are made with round copper blanks and all but the key chains have silk ribbon strung through them so you can attach it to your wrist or neck. The reason we, (I say we but Shawn is really the one making them) are making these is so that we could spread the word about orphans.  There are so many orphans in the world and it is so sad. So we are trying to decrease that number by one or maybe two and if the word spreads my hope is that more people would consider adopting.

If you would like to purchase a bracelet, necklace, or key chain you can visit our store at www.richlifeadoption.storenvy.com.
Thanks again for visiting our page.
Shawn and Ana Rich

Almost There.....Sorta

Well we are starting month three of the “paper chase” and we are almost there.  Our home study is complete and all of our documents but one is ready to be sent.  We have one final document that we need from USCIS in order to be able to send our dossier off and go DTE (Dossier to Ethiopia).  Honestly, I am pretty amazed that we are this close.  Our hope was to be ready to send our dossier off sometime in June and it looks like that will happen.

Even though this was our goal there was a part of me that thought we would be lucky if everything was ready by September.  I know not very positive!!  I guess the 11 years of waiting has me being cautious……ok negative.

Early on when we started this journey we decided that Ana would be the one to lead the charge on building our dossier and because of her we will be ready to send it off in June!!!

I am excited about this next step but nervous about the waiting. 

I wonder what we will do to celebrate our DTE?

How should we prepare?

What books should we read?

 Is there more training we should do?

Will we save enough money?

Are we crazy for doing this?

As I am sitting here writing this and wondering what to type next I glanced over at a book sitting on my desk.  It is actually the team devotional from our most recent mission’s trip. 

The page it is open to says this,

“But, this also means you are free from carrying the big load.  You don’t have to do it all yourself!

You don’t have to save the world.  Jesus took care of that.  You don’t have to convict people.  The Holy Spirit does that.  You don’t have to know all the answers; God is taking care of that.  All you have to do is be a branch that stays tight with the vine, and God’s fruit will be produced through you.” 

I guess I will take that as a reminder that God is in control!!!

Peace,

Shawn

Paper Chasing

Once we applied for the adoption and were accepted we then entered into the "paper chase" phase of the adoption process.  This process includes getting our home study done and compiling our dossier. So it may not be as bad as the picture above would imply but it is a lot and it is overwhelming at times, but oh so worth it! 

Our hope is to have our dossier completed and mailed off some time in June.  I (Shawn) actually like this part of the adoption, as this is the only part that we really have control over.  We decide how fast or how slow we go, when we have appointments and when we mail the final packet.  After that we enter a time of waiting were we have no control.  For a control freak this will be hard!

 I (Shawn) feel like we are pretty good at waiting but it is getting old!  Tomorrow Ana and I celebrate our 11th wedding anniversary (Yeah, its hard to believe she has stuck with me that long.)  and for the last 10 years of our marriage we have desired and tried to have kids.  So for us there is a practical side for this adoption.  Yes, we want so badly to enlarge our family of two, but more than that, deep in our hearts we want to aid in caring for and loving a child, well 2 in our case.  We desire to see them grow up in a happy and healthy home. We want to love on our children and nurture them to the very best of our ability, but first that means we have to paper chase and then wait.

So while the chase is on, we hope you will join us in praying for the process to go smooth.  That our home study and dossier would be completed with no hiccups.  Pray for us to have continued peace as we navigate this new journey towards having a family and that we would stay committed to our plan of saving to fund our adoption and that the finances would be there as we need them.

Shawn and Ana

Stay the Course

You may recognize the title as a line from the movie "The Patriot".  This phrase is often used in battle or war meaning to continue pursuing your goal regardless of obstacles or criticism.  Ana and I are not in a physical battle but most days it does feel like an emotional and spiritual battle, but one thing we have always felt over the last 10 years was that we should "stay the course"!  We have certainly had our share of obstacles and disappointment but God has stayed faithful and has given us the grace we have needed each day to continue to walk this journey towards parenthood.

We started this blog as an online journal just for the two of us to share our feelings and wisdom to our baby while Ana was pregnant.  We thought it would be fun to print them one day and let her read them when she was older.

Today we will use this blog to share our journey towards adoption.  So feel free to read along and leave a comment or two!

Shawn