Long Time No Blog

Wow! Things have been a little busy around here. I guess having 4 children home from school can do that to a person. Add working extra hours & Brian being gone & things have hit a whole new point of busy. I could tell things needed to slow down for me yesterday when Emma & Wyatt were on a mission to make the other miserable & take their momma down with them! I know I've been told it's normal for them to bicker but good grief! So the sitting on the couch & holding hands will be enforced from here on out! They've been warned.

Another snow storm is coming. Ugh! I don't mind snow but I'm much more of the pretty snow falling gently to the ground with no wind. But we live in Iowa & I swear we should be called the windy state & not just the windy city(Chicago). There is nothing enjoyable about cold temps, snow & wind mixed together. Makes me want to head south in a real hurry!

Tomorrow marks the end of 2010. It's been an interesting year for our family. Not bad, not good, just interesting. We feel remarkably blessed for what God has provided us with but yet we look forward to the new year to see what it holds for us. Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!!!

This song was sung at our church last week & I have fallen in love with it!
Merry Christmas!

Multiple Emotions Syndrome

Anyone who has been through the adoption process can attest to the fact that waiting can bring out some pretty weird emotions. 1 moment you can feel completely fine with the wait & the next moment you are in full blown tears. You can feel completely fine & the next wanting to pitch an absolute fit. I have felt like I have completely lost my mind in 1 moment & had a total sense of calm in another. Yeah, I've wondered several times about the stability of my mental state, until I read THIS blog post. Even though this family is going through international adoption, I can relate to many of the things she wrote about! Phew! I feel much better!

I've Got a Plan

With all the busy-ness of this season, I really don't have much to blog about. I know! It's sad but I'm sure you all will survive. After the 1st of the year, I'm hoping to do a couple of fun things that I've seen other bloggers do & I'm hoping it will help pass the time. The one I'm most excited about is a Recipe Day! I will pick a day a week to share a certain recipe that we love around here. I love trying new things & love to share some really good food ideas. Since we have made a conscious effort to not go out to eat, we've  been trying to make some really good meals at home to save money. Not complaining here! The best thing I love about cooking is that you can adapt recipes to fit what your family like & will eat. We also like to be a little adventurous in what we try & I can't tell you how many times I end up loving it! But who doesn't have those moments when you realize you have a total flop on your hands?? So that's the plan. Oh, and I will be looking to hear from some of you on some of your favorites too! Of course, I secretly hope that we will be too busy with our new little one to follow through on this but for now, I'll be planning on this!

I'm Not in Control

I'm not in control. That is brand new information! Well, not really but I think that realization had slipped my mind completely in the week following our failed adoption. I was obsessed with moving on quickly to the next situation & I thought that nothing could ease the disappointment until we had our little one in our arms. I wanted to make sense of going through 2 months of being matched & then have it all come crashing down on us. I wanted to know how we could work so hard to raise money & have some of it gone in the blink of an eye. I wanted, I wanted, I wanted. Then I heard a little voice of reason through a woman at our agency after some emails that stressing & pushing was only going to make me miserable & it wouldn't change the outcome at all. Boy, did I need to hear that! My faith had never wavered but my reliance on God was replaced by my own selfish wants. Hearing that I wasn't letting God be in control helped me let go & gave me a peace with where we are in this adoption process. No matter whether I trust in Him or not, the end result will be the same. So why not give Him all this crap that I've been feeling & let Him lead me? Why is that so hard to grasp sometimes? The blanket answer is sin can blind us sometimes. So after realizing that I was trying to shove God out of the drivers seat because I didn't like how He was running things, I am now in the back seat, all buckled in & ready for Him to take me to where I'm going. I feel so much more refreshed now & even though the waiting is hard, my trust in God is stronger than ever! I know there will be hard days ahead yet but I hope that I can keep reminding myself that God has got this one for me & I can let those hard days be just that, hard days.

Wyatt's Surgery

Yesterday Wyatt finally had surgery to remove his tonsils & adnoids & had tubes put in. He's been struggling this year with several strep & ear infections. He's failed several hearing tests & back in August, he was on several rounds of antibiotics that couldn't kick his ear infection. After visiting the specialist, we found out just how bad it was. His adnoids were 50% larger than what they should have been & the pressure in his ears were similar to the feeling on an airplane right before they pop. They left it up to us whether or not to take out his tonsils but we just figured that while they were doing surgery that we should just do it. Boy am I glad we did! His tonsils were full of infection yesterday! I'm so proud of him on how he handled everything! He probably has a higher pain tolerance than I do & he has been handling so well. They gave him a medication right before he went in that made him pretty out of it & it was cute to see the perma-smile on his face! We hope that the next week or so continues to go well & that he heals quickly from this. I'm mostly praying for a big improvement in his hearing too! Here are  few pics from the day!

"Patience is bitter but....

....it's fruit is sweet."

I know the main theme in adoption is patience. Why in the world would a control freak with no patience think embarking on this journey would be a good idea is beyond me!! I don't like myself when I'm at this point & as hard as I try to just "shake it off", I just can't. I can't just not think about it & I haven't found a good distraction but my kids are the best thing I've got right now.

I've been down this road before of having to figure what to do with myself after thinking things would be so differently with a baby around. Back then my main focus was on getting pregnant again knowing nothing else could even dull the ache. I thought those days of waiting would literally kill me. I'm there again. Now I know that waiting & patience can't actually kill me but they can mess with  me, especially if I start letting the doubts & fears scream at me. They are loud & they are furious! There have been times I've wanted to mutter "Be Quiet Satan! I'm not gonna listen!" Why does he have to be so good at picking at our fears? Ugh! I've been frustrated to tears & have had many heated "conversations" with God.  My faith has never waivered but I'm really a "I want to know a purpose in all this" kinda gal. I think we all can be that way. I want to know why He wanted us to go through this adoption process after all that we've been through in the past. I want to know how I could convince myself that our adoption process was going to be this lovely beautiful thing(which I know it will be someday) without having to live through what we are. I don't want to wait anymore. Who are we kidding? Who likes to wait? Especially when we live in the "instant gratification" time period. Everything at our fingertips, right?

Don't get me wrong in any of this. Our faith in God & His plans have never wavered! Not once. We know He is pouring His grace on us & we are being sustained. Just working through all these emotions can be tough & as the quote says, "Patience is bitter but its fruit is sweet."

I want to also ask for an unspoken prayer request totally unrelated to the adoption. I really don't want to go into detail because it's very personal & God already knows what it is. Thank you!

Clearing Things Up

We've had a few people ask if we thought we were scammed. Absolutely NOT! We fully believe that Miss A intended on placing right up until the end. Contrary to some belief, even though we are out some money, most of the money lost was on legal expenses to get us to the point that we were in the adoption. There are papers to be hunted down & counseling that had to be done. There was very minimal that went toward her expenses. We have absolutely NO hard feelings toward Miss A as making the decision to place is 1 of the most difficult things she would have had to do.

We also hold no hard feelings toward our agencies that we dealt with. They were very kind & were very honest with us right from the beginning. We look forward to working with them in our next placement.

3 Days Later

So how are we doing 3 days later? Well, we are still disappointed & wish things would be different but we have an amazing God who is with us. I have to be honest that I really didn't want to go to church this morning. It's just part of getting back into normal life & facing the fact that we really would rather still be in Chicago with our baby.

But God knew that we would be back home & needing to hear the sermon that was preached this morning. Pastor John preached on Hope this morning. We read the passage from Genesis 18, where the 3 men visited Abraham & Sarah & told them that Sarah would give birth to a son. I think Sarah did what we all probably would have done in her position & she laughed. Not funny, haha, but the laughter of pain. These past 3 days I have been Sarah. Wanting to have hope in God's promise but not really believing that it will come true & almost laughing in the midst of pain. We've said things like "We are trying to do a good thing. Why does this have to be so hard? Why did we have to be brought down this path?" But God's promise of hope is renewed in us as we remember the story of Abraham & Sarah this morning. I can about imagine Sarah's joy at holding Isaac for the first time & how sweet it was! I can imagine how she thought back to the "laugh" she made at God's promise & then realizing that our God is capable of anything!

So, as this week begins, we are ready to move forward on the journey to the child that God has picked out for us all along. Our Hope remains in God's promises for us!

Romans 12:12-"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer."

We Have an Idea

After looking at our options for raising more money, we have come up with an idea that might be a little unconventional but we think might work. We decided to go through our jewelry & bring our gold in to sell. We only had 3 items(2 rings & a necklace) but we were given $142 for them. We starting thinking of how many people must have old jewelry sitting in their jewelry boxes! So we are wondering if anyone would want to donate their old gold jewelry that they don't use anymore. We will take it in to be sold & put that money in our adoption fund. If 10 people give jewelry equaling the amount we had, we will be right back to where we need to be to start having our profile shown again. You can mail it to us if you know our address or I can get you our address via email. Our email address is bgulker@mtcnet.net. Just look through what you might have! You might be pleasantly suprised to see what you will find!

Home

We are home & hugging our kids a little tighter tonight. I don't even know if I can put into words the roller coaster of emotions that we've felt in the last few days. We have gone from being completely hopeful to totally disappointed in a matter of minutes. But we are doing fine. The emotions are still raw but we fully plan on continuing this journey that God has called us on.

A question that we've gotten asked is if we lost money. We did lose some. There are just fees that need to paid to get an adoption this far. Everything else will be rolled over into a new situation. The problem is that we will need to come up with more money to do another adoption. We have already been in contact with our agency about any new situations. Again, we are the only family with them right now willing to accept full african american so we know this could fast but we really have no idea how long to expect it to take.We literally heard from the last grant application the day we left & were not awarded anything so those are out. So our only option is to do fundraisers. To be honest, we are exhausted with fundraising. We have done everything that we know to do within our power & our creativity is running out. We haven't booked any suppers in a long time b/c we just had no idea on when this baby was going to come. Suppers are our best way to continue raising money to make up what was lost. We really only need to do about 3-4 suppers & we will be right back to where were when we left for Chicago. We will host in our home or cater at a location of your choice & we have numerous menu options. We absolutely love to do them! We ask you to give this prayerful consideration.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your prayers! I'm so amazed by the prayer support & we can feel them. We also know God is sitting right in the thick of our grief with us. He has never left our side for a moment & we know He will be with us as we continue on.

His Grace is Still Sufficient

Well, our worst fears came true this morning. Miss A has changed her mind & we are ready to go home. We are sad but not broken. Your prayers were felt & even though we didn't get the outcome we were hoping for, we know God's grace is sufficient to carry us through!

Little Update

Sorry for the lack of update but it's been quite a roller coaster the last 36 hours.  At this time, we know Miss A has given birth to a healthy baby girl! We praise God for that! We have not yet been given the okay by her or the caseworkers to come see her. Miss A has still stated a committment to the adoption plan but this has been a emotionally draining time for her. She is very concerned with her privacy & she is currently in a shared room so she has requested that neither the caseworkers nor us come to visit until she has her own room. We are hoping & praying for that to happen tonight. So we really are in limbo right now not knowing whether or not we will be placed with this baby girl. We covet your prayers in the next little while because tomorrow is a big day. We pray for even more patience for us & we especially pray for peace for Miss A with her decision. Our hearts ache for what she is going through right now & we wish that we could make the painful part of her decision go away but we can't. We know God hears the prayers of His people so we ask you to flood the gates of heaven for His will to be done. We will update as soon as we can!