Pictures and much much more!!!

I love Wednesdays. Me and the kids have a good reason to get out of the house and so we quite enjoy the day. I live in a 1100 square foot apartment so it can get quite boring sometimes. I hate being inside all the time. So on Wednesdays Chelsea goes to counseling and then I take her back to school. Today, after I dropped her off we ran over, or I should say we drove over, to Chick-Fil-A and let them play on the indoor play land. They love it. By that time it is nearly twelve o'clock so I run home and put everyone down for a nap. AHHHHHH!!! Then I get to sit and have some quiet time. Fun Fun!

So, today at Chelsea's counseling I had a very good conversation with Linda (the counselor)before Chelsea came in. We were talking about the kids and just how to approach disrespect and other fun parenting things when the adoption came up. Now, I totally respect this lady, she has done so much for me and my kids so anything that comes out of her mouth is like gold to me. So anyway, she said to me "I would HIGHLY suggest that you let the adoptive parents hold and touch the baby as soon as possible and as much as possible." We were not talking about that in particular, we were talking about how Victoria doesn't want to go to Arizona, but instead stay here to see the baby born. So that comment threw me off, but ironically I have thought about that subject on many many occasions. I truly want B and R to have as many firsts as possible. It is there baby so they should be handed the baby first off but on a selfish note, I want to be the one to hand them the baby. We will see how it plays out in the end. But I feel very strong about letting them have all the first hugs and kisses, I figure I can get all mine later after the fact.

So, I wanted to post some pictures. First, I must tell you about my dog. Her name is Maggie. She is a full bread Pekingese and she is just over a year old. Because of the bread of dog she is, she requires hair cuts many times a year. I have called many places to check on the price of grooming, and I can never get myself to pay the super high prices that they charge. So, to get around spending so much money, I have always cut her hair myself, except this time, it went very wrong. I wish I had a before picture but I just don't.....so here is an after picture. In my defence, my clippers broke before I could get her finished....so that is why she looks the way she does.

You can see how long her hair used to be down by her rump. LOL

Here is Matthew right before the bus came in his very dirty coat. I can not keep that thing clean...he is such a boy.
Victoria would not let me take her picture, so I only have this distance shot of her walking to the bus.
Here is Chelsea on a good day :)

And of course, Skyler.

Ron

When I started this blog, I vowed to myself that I would be open and honest even if it meant showing all the icky stuff about myself, and in showing the icky stuff about myself, hopefully finding healing and strength through it.

So tonight, I decided to post about Ron. Who is Ron? Well, he is the bio dad of the sweet baby heart in my belly. The true reason I want to post about Ron is because I think it will show how much of a miracle this baby truly is. So, here goes.

I met Ron last year in the parking lot of my apartment complex. He worked for a tow company and was hired by my apartments to tow away cars that were parked illegally or who's tags were expired. Anyway, it was the 4th of July (I'm pretty sure) and I had just got back from a wonderful fire works show and was getting out of the car when he pulled up and we started talking. I had seen him before and had spoke to him briefly before so it wasn't a complete stranger. On this night, he asked for my number. I was completely speechless, but managed to give it to him. Well of course from there we started talking more and more and then seeing each other. There is so much more but I don't want to go into that.

Needless to say, our relationship went to far and I ended up getting pregnant. I didn't want another baby. I already had four kids. I was raising them alone, and it was already quite challenging, but I thought that if he was as sweet and wonderful as he seemed to be then we could do it together. We planned to get married and even picked out rings. Things seemed to be going smoothly until......I had a miscarriage. I was six weeks pregnant. Now, this is very very strange for me. I have always had regular periods and have never lost a baby. This was in August, early September of last year. I just thought it was so bizzar for my body to fail me like that, but at the same time I was so relieved. I had many red flags about Ron but I just wasn't willing to recognize them. So, the miscarriage went as I guess it should and time went on. Around the start of October I was made aware that Ron was (putting it politely) not being faithful to me. Through a series of very dramatic events, I threw him out of my life. Now, I still had not had a period since the miscarriage and so I waited for it to come and it never did. I began to get a little worried that something else was going on. After all, I never miss a period unless I am pregnant. But I thought "I cant be pregnant because I didn't have a period. DEAR GOD please help me not to be pregnant. You got me out of this mess once, please not again." This was my cry to God. So, just to be sure, I took a home pregnancy test. Sure enough I was getting a faint positive. I called the doctor and told her what was going on and she had me go get some blood work done. The blood work did confirm that I was indeed pregnant. Oh Lord, help me. Just thinking about it makes me break out in tears. This was the most horrible time in my life. I couldn't believe what I had gotten myself into. I couldn't even blame Ron, because I made the choice. I remembered, that we were together right before I found out about his cheating. I cried, and cried. What was I going to do and how could I possibly be pregnant? I asked the doctor about this, and she said that you are most fertile after a miscarriage. WHAT?

So, I decided to start this blog. I started it because I had so much anger and bitterness towards myself and Ron. How could someone be so mean and hate full and so selfish? How could I be so irresponsible? I thought it would help....little did I know how much it would help and what road I would be going down.

I have said all of that to say... that this baby is a miracle. God knew before I conceived this baby what its future was. He knew what choices I would make, and so he set up a plan for the baby, a plan that not I nor anyone else could have guessed or planned. The miracle for me is that I really didn't think it was possible for me to get pregnant after one night of irrational behavior. One night that seemed harmless. One night that for me set a darkness over my way of thinking, now God has brought light upon. Isn't that amazing? Its wonderful how God can make such a hopeless situation good. He truly is amazing.

How did I start down the adoption road? That question has a very ironic answer. The answer is Ron. I called him when I found out I was pregnant. On my first call to him about this subject he did not believe me and wanted me to go to HIS doctor and get a pregnancy test. LOL That never happened. On the second call to him about this, he suggested to me that I should get an abortion. I told him I didn't believe in abortion, then he said "Well, there is always adoption." I thought he was crazy. But after we hung up, I began to think about it more and more. After a while, it just seemed like the best choice, and when I decided to do it I felt so at peace about it and I felt like a weight was lifted off my chest. I was literally so excited about it that I noticed my depression lifting. This was my answer. That's where it began.

So, tonight is extra exciting for me because R and B have made there first post in R's blog about me and the baby. This is a HUGE step for all involved because it means that they feel comfortable about the situation. I cant tell you how I really thought they wouldn't pick me. I need them, they don't know how much I need them but I do. I need them to have my baby because I just cant keep it.

So the count down begins. This Thursday will be the big ultrasound. I am not only anxious to find out the sex of the baby but to make sure everything is as it should be. I pray for a healthy little baby heart, who cares if its a boy or girl....just healthy.

Feeling so good!!

I think that today is honestly the first day in the past nineteen weeks that I have actually felt good. I have so much energy, I feel like I am back to my old self. That's how I usually am, busy all the time even if I am home. I like TV but I cant stand sitting in front of it all the time. I can hardly (usually) sit for an hour without getting up at least five times. I am just a busy body. So for me, the past nineteen weeks has been very very depressing.

Well its Friday, so tonight the kids stay up for movies. I don't particularly like stay up nights because I usually have one or two kids that don't mind the rules of quiet time and I usually woken up around midnight and I have to get the mean mommy pants out and put them to bed. You would think they would learn. Victoria is usually making ten cups of hot tea (she is addicted), which means to much sugar for her, Matthew is usually flipping over the couch or looking for more and more snacks. My kids are not allowed to just get food out of the fridge. They have to ask for snacks, and I do that because otherwise I would have really really overweight kids and no food in the kitchen. I have learned my lesson.

As far as the adoption goes. Me and R and B are still communicating through email. I am really enjoying it. We find more and more in common every day. I did send in all the paperwork required. I don't know what the next step is. I know R and B have an appointment with the worker next week so after that we will see. And of course, the very anticipated 20 week ultrasound. I am so excited. My kids found out about it by hearing me on the phone and a few want to go. I am not sure about this. Ill talk about this in the next paragraph.

I tend to not focus attention or talk about the baby very much. I don't know if this is right or not. I know I cant hide it from them because they already know, but I guess I am trying to protect them from more emotional pain. In my mind I think that if they are not to attached then it wont hurt them so much. This is probably backwards and wrong but that is just what I am doing. Ill need to talk to the girls counselor about that and see if I should change my thinking. Does any of that reasoning make sense? Of course Ive never done this before so its all new to me.

Anyway, man vs wild is on tonight so I am excited. I believe it is a new episode. I think I will get these six loads of laundry folded before it comes on. (sigh)

Oh, here is a picture of Chelsea before school yesterday. OK here is the scoop with her. She is only twelve years old, but her body looks like a sixteen year old. She wants to grow up so fast. Its frustrating. Anyway, I had to take makeup away from her because she was putting it on to heavy and I just didn't think it was appropriate for a twelve year old. So for Christmas she got some "bare minerals" from Grandma. For those who don't know, it is a powder foundation. Anyway, its to dark. My daughter is generally a very white girl like her mom, but with the foundation on, she is tan. Oh my, and I don't have the heart to tell her its to dark. Also, she has MAJOR curly hair but when she was with Grandma (in another state mind you) she had it permanently straightened. So some days it looks OK and then there are days like in the picture. I love my daughter, but she is really in an awkward stage.

Differences!!

I have been reading a few birth moms blogs and I have noticed some things while reading them. I have noticed that these ladies are still very sad (not all of them that I read just a few of them). I noticed that these sweet ladies are still deeply emotional and deeply hurt by there choice to give up there baby. Even years later after they have had children that they have kept they still grieve over the loss of there baby. One big thing that stood out for me was that at some point they had an open adoption, but the adoptive parents decided to sort of close it and request no more calls. I have seen this happen in more then one situation. It makes me wonder what kind of relationship that the birth mom was able to have with the adoptive mom and dad?

I know that I am the same as these ladies in that we are both going to be "birth moms" but I don't feel the same. I can completely understand how much more painful it would be if this was my first child. I don't think I could bare that. I have HUGE respect for ladies that are able to give there first babies up for adoption. And I can understand the pain that they go through even twenty years later. That would be my Chelsea. (ugggg) But as painful as I know this will be, it is different for me. I have already experienced all the wonderful "firsts" that come with having babies. My feelings are much different I think then people would expect. In fact, people have said to me "I don't know how you are going to give your child up." I just don't see it that way. I have chosen parents for my baby that are so amazing that they wish to include me in there life. Now, here are my thoughts on that...new paragraph.

I do not wish to medal in there lives. I want them to have there privacy and I will not be interfering in that. However, I want to know that we will always be friends and that one day if I chose to pick up the phone or if they chose to pick up the phone and call each other, then it will be as if I was calling a girlfriend or my sister in law and we can chat comfortably without any threat. I pray that during these next few months our relationship grows strong and healthy. I hope that they know that since I trust them enough to have my baby, then I trust them with everything, and so I would just want to share in the joy they have as new parents.

I am sad that other birth moms can not have this relationship with the adoptive moms. I think it would ease there pain. Do the adoptive parents feel threatened, or are they scared? I wish I knew. Regardless, I am excited to see what God is doing. I am so thankful for where he has brought me and I LOVE R and B. They are amazing.

18 weeks and 3 days!!

I have no idea but I am watching a show about a colossal squid. LOL Weird Hugh.

American Idol was pretty good tonight, but I really liked "17 kids and counting."

So I'm almost nineteen weeks today. I am defiantly feeling better but I feel like I am showing very soon this pregnancy. Its not that other people can tell, but I just can tell. I have really big boobs, (sorry TMI) so it hides my belly better then it would most people.

I can feel the baby move here and there but not like I would like to to keep me from worrying. I know in just a few short weeks and I will feel the baby all the time.

This week has been pretty uneventful. I have so much to do around the house. This Friday is my big grocery day. More and more I am going to have to depend on the kids to help me with the heavy work. I'm so glad that Chelsea has taken to doing the laundry because my laundry facilities are upstairs. So this means dragging all the heavy laundry up one and a half flights of stairs several times. I do about nine to ten loads of laundry a week so this is a lot of work. She doesn't mind doing it and so I have been letting her and in return I will do some of her house chores.

I can tell that physically this pregnancy is going to be hard for me. Defiantly a challenge. I will get through it just like all the other pregnancies.

I'm so tired, and I think I'm going to go lay down and enjoy the squid show. :)

Im so frusterated!!

Ive sat down twice today in my free time to somehow try and find some blogs or something from other birth moms. I thought it would be wonderful (thanks R for the suggestion) to hook up with some ladies that are going through the same thing I am. What I found was very negative stuff. I found a few birth mom web rings (whatever that is) and it would take me to a line of different journals or blogs but they were all so negative. They were basically horror stories of people that gave there baby up for adoption. One lady never even got to see or hold her baby. They just whisked them off out of the room and she never met the baby again. Most ladies have HUGE regrets, but these are people who are NOTHING like me. I don't want to look anymore because Its really a downer and frustrating.

They talk a lot about how adoption agencies are in it just for the money and the babies go to the highest bidder. MY ADOPTION is not going to be like that. I trust the agency that B and R have chosen, and I know that they are not doing it for the money. They truly want to build families. I feel bad for the ladies that I read about. I feel like they were forced into a decision that they didn't really believe in and they were not well informed. So so sad, so yes there are horror stories out there, but mine wont be one of them.

Here is what I know. I have four wonderful children. I have been so blessed with four healthy kids who are still very young and I understand that I have a lot of years ahead of me with them. I know that I am on welfare. I receive food stamps and we are on Medicaid. I do hold a job but did not finish college and so I have no job skills except that I can type really fast. I know I don't want to be on welfare forever. I know that if I keep this baby, the prospect of me going to school or getting another job really would be unreachable. I realize that I didn't have any of my kids to be a single mom. I conceived all of them in wedlock (well except the very very first one at nineteen, oh and I guess the one in my belly...oops). But the point is, I didn't plan to do this alone but this is what I am doing. A person has got to know there limits. How much attention can I possibly give five kids on my own? I have trouble giving my attention to the four I have. Someone is always needing something from me and someone is always in line behind them. How unfair to the kids I have now and certainly for the baby in my belly to even consider keeping this baby.

I have no problem with adoption. I am seriously thinking lately about why this is so easy for me. Is it because I am just very very sure of myself, or because I'm not really letting myself feel those really big feelings I need to feel? I'm not sure but I have been thinking a lot about that. (I'm pretty sure the baby just moved :) I really want to prepare for the emotions I am going to feel, and I dint want there to be any surprises. Right now I am just excited, because it is exciting....but at the same time, what happens when the excitement is gone and R and B go home with there baby, and the excitement is gone. I need to prepare for that, and reading all these negative blogs isn't going to help. LOL HELP!!!!!! I'm done surfing. :)

On another note, I had my pregnancy verification faxed over to the agency today. YIPPEEE!!

I wasn't going to blog today, but thought that these thoughts were important to share.

Fireproof

I finally sat down this evening and watched the Kirk Cameron movie "Fireproof." What an amazing movie. I was so honored to watch it. It brought up a whole lot of memories for me though. I was married to my first husband for six years. We had three children together, but I was never his priority. I could go on and on about the things that happened, but beyond being unfaithful to me, he took me down so low that I just couldn't get up. After six years of it I left him. He worked for an airline and so we could fly any ware we wanted for ten dollars. I took my three very young children, a car seat and stroller, a box full of clothes and flew to Colorado while my husband was at work. He didn't even know I was gone until he came home that morning. That was the hardest thing I ever had to do because I loved him. He was my first love. I gave him parts of me that I could never give any other man and so to let go of that was so hard.

After watching that movie, it makes me wonder where my life would be right now if I had stayed with him. I was loosing more of myself each day when I was with him. My children were being effected, but where would they be, and where would I be if I had stayed? There is no way to know. They have suffered so much from it all. I can tell that they really lack many things emotionally because they have not had a father figure. (they see him for about a month of the summer but that is it) I blame myself. If only I was stronger, If only I would have prayed more. When we were still together I would go to church as often as I could and literally weep and sob and beg God to save my marriage. I did that for about a year. But still, it turned out this way.

After watching that movie, I longed to be in her shoes....to have my husband fight for me. To have my husband want me back like that. Amazing!!! I know my kids blame me some for not being with there dad. They don't know everything. I couldn't possibly tell them everything, but me and there dad have been open with them about his affair. Still, my oldest holds a LOT of anger towards me. Sometimes I just want to curl in a ball and cry, and sometimes I do. But I have to remember that I have to move on. Life does go on. Ive been divorced from him since 2001. Its been awhile but I still think about it often. I don't think you ever stop loving your first love.

I wish things were different.