The Chosen Heart

**Our newest family member!! I can't wait to meet him and smother him with kisses.
You may recall the 10-week mandatory pre-adoption course Grant & I attended in the spring called PRIDE...we've kept in touch with one of the other couples from PRIDE and they are now expecting - CONGRATULATIONS Marycon & Trevor!!! Marycon shared this poem with me today...

The Chosen Heart by Teri Harrison

Longing for a child to love,
I'd wish upon the stars above.
In my heart I always knew,
A part of me was meant for you.

I think how happy we will be,
Once I adopt you, & you adopt me.

I dream of all the joy you'll bring,
Imagining even the littlest things.
The way it will feel to hold you tight
& tuck you in every night.

The drawings on the refrigerator door
& childhood toys across the floor,
The favorite stories read again & again
& hours of fun with make-believe friends.

The day you took my outstretched hand
A journey ended but our love began.
Still mesmerized by your sweet face
Still warmed inside by our first embrace.

I promised to give you a happy home
& a loving family all your own.
A house you've now made complete
with laughter, smiles & tiny feet.

A parent is one who guides the way
Know I will be there every day
Rest easy as each night you sleep
A lifetime of love is yours to keep

Longing for a child to love
I'd wish upon the stars above.
In my heart I always knew
A part of me belonged to you.

**Our nephew and godson at 4 days old - he's grown quite a bit from when this picture was taken

Where do we fit in?

I have a fantastic husband who is patient with me and my many baby obsessions. I'll admit I have a slight stroller obsession (or maybe I secretly want to be an ADP authorizer for seating and mobility, nah, my unused writing aids ADP IA is enough for right now!) and I wrote last week about a new stroller I found - UPPAbaby Vista. I tracked down the most convenient retailer and convinced Grant to stop at Kiddies World in Etobicoke on our way home from church on Sunday. We had fun looking around at all the furniture, toys, accessories and of course strollers. However, our service was horrible! I had to seek out an associate and drag her to the UPPAbaby Vista to ask how to collapse it. She was having difficulty and asked another associate to demonstrate and as soon as he showed us how to collapse it he was off helping another couple - the female associate I first asked was long gone by this point. I could sense Grant's mood change and mine did too - we went from having fun & daydreaming to wanting to get out of the store as fast as we could. Something just didn't feel right about our shopping experience and Grant nailed it on the head - we didn't really fit in with the whole baby-shopping crowd, at least the associates didn't treat us like viable customers. Grant & I are still expecting a baby, I just won't be sporting a baby bump for the whole world to see as evidence that we are serious shoppers for baby gear!!

Now, to my stroller review :)

The UPPAbaby Vista looked great online and it had raving reviews...but, yes, there is a but...it was a lot bulkier than I expected and the bassinet was ridiculously heavy. I walked out of the store feeling like there was no way I would be able to manage that stroller on my own - it was too heavy to easily lift when collapsed and I felt so tiny handling it. On my drive home I was seriously reconsidering what I really want and need in a stroller for our baby and what, when & where we would use our stroller the most. Grant & I hope to be baby-carriers more than baby-pushers, so we don't really need a bassinet for the early months (although one would be nice so we could have our baby sleep in our room for the first few months) and we enjoy going to different outdoor events, so we need something that can handle a multitude of terrains...which brought me back to the BUMBLERIDE Indie. With the foot-muff and ability to recline completely flat, it has a bassinet-like feature (see image below) to use when needed and the price point is more reasonable. I just wish that our baby would arrive soon so I could stop my stroller researching addiction and finally buy one!!!

It's a small cyber-world

When Grant & I first discussed blogging our adoption journey, we never imagined how wide our story would spread. We are greatly appreciative and grateful for all comments left on our blog by people we have never met before offering their support, prayers and sharing their own experiences with us. Just the other day I stopped off at Angel Worn where I am consigning my maternity clothes to pick up a few baby & maternity gifts (btw I found fantastic diapers bags with a very reasonable price range!) and provided the sales associate with my full name to check if any of my clothes sold. She paused after typing in my name and asked if I had a blog - I guess Janet Carioni is pretty unique!! I prefer shopping at stores like Angel Worn for gifts because they tend to carry unique products chain retail stores don't carry and products from local Canadian companies.

Grant & I are also very grateful for the friends in our lives that continue to offer their support and prayers as we continue to wait for our homestudy to be conducted. On Tuesday FACS did a presentation at my work, mainly to let us know when we should be reporting incidents to FACS. The social worker who made the presentation shared some horrific stories and I could feel the anger bubble up inside of me - How could a woman who leaves her baby alone in a crib for an entire weekend while she flies down to California be a mom? How could parents be so physical with their infant that he has 19 broken ribs and 2 skull fractures and while that child is in court to determine crown wardship the parents become pregnant again? As the anger in my heart deepened the social worker spoke about the adoptive families for these children and my friend Heather placed her hand gently on my shoulder and said "like you" and I had to fight back some serious tears, just as I am right now trying to type this (it's difficult to see the screen through tears). Somewhere in all of this there is a light at the end and Grant & I will hold our child in our arms for the first time and all of the waiting will finally be over.

I'm not sure what I was looking for on the net, but I came across another stroller, new for 2007, that is a very strong contender for baby Carioni... the UPPAbaby VistaI I think the UPPAbaby Vista might take the lead over the Stroll-Air NV2. The consumer reviews are better (haven't found a negative one yet) and the one feature I wasn't loving on the NV2 seems to be better on the Vista, but until I get to play with one I won't know for sure.

I should get going as I need to start making Thanksgiving dinner. Grant & I are hosting 4 international exchange students attending UW - I hope they like turkey and pumpkin pie!

Until next time...Janet

It was one of those days

Most days I am able to think rationally and my emotions are in-check. I can say that I have completely accepted my own infertility and am very excited about being able to adopt our precious child soon....but, then there are days like yesterday. At first I couldn't figure out why I was not motivated to help Grant in the kitchen as he tackled making a roasted pepper soup and roasted tomato soup and I remained curled up on the couch under some blankets for most of the evening. It eventually dawned on me why I was feeling so down and I was able to peel myself off the couch and help Grant finish making the soups after a little pep-talk from my wonderful husband. Earlier in the day a co-worker was "showing off" her non-existent pregnancy bump. She's due in January, which would make her about 5 months pregnant and my non-pregnant belly is rounder than hers. There's suspicion amongst my co-workers that this colleague struggles with an eating disorder. When she first told me she was expecting, she spoke proudly that she never had to wear maternity clothes with her last pregnancy and is pretty sure this pregnancy would be the same. I realized why I was curled up on the couch last night, not motivated to do anything...I was angry. How can someone who doesn't taken care of her body be able to get pregnant twice and I am infertile. I did everything right, from taking prenatal vitamins and making sure I ate well to buying maternity clothes when I found them on sale - where is the fairness in all of this??? I am normally very excited for friends and people in my life who are pregnant, but for this colleague it's difficult for me to be happy....it's just not fair.

your AMAZING NEWBORN...but you'll have to wait

I finished reading "Your Amazing Newborn" by Marshal Klaus & Phyllis Klaus and I learned so much about newborns and their amazing capabilities. Did you know that if you place a newborn (dried but not washed) directly onto her mother's bare chest following birth, within an hour the baby will make her own way to her mother's breast by pushing up with her arms & hands and kicking with her feet and begin to suckle and feed for the first time all on her own!!! I also really appreciated chapter 9 "The Newly Adopted Baby" - When I turned the page I was surprised to see that the authors dedicated an entire chapter to bonding, connecting, nurturing, feeding, cuddling, and loving an adopted baby. The authors described a technique to enable an adoptive mother to breastfeed that doesn't include the use of drugs - An adoptive mother can place a small bag of formula on her shoulder with a fine tube leading to her nipple, and as the baby sucks every two and a half to four hours her breast is stimulated by the infant's suckling, via her pituitary gland, to produce an increasing amount of milk. The supply of milk typically increases in three or four days, but it takes up to two weeks to obtain a satisfactory output. I'm going to ask my ND about this technique as I would much rather use an approach that requires the least amount of drugs to achieve breastfeeding success!

On another note, I know many of you are wondering if we've heard anything about our homestudy and here's the manager's response to the email I sent her earlier this month:

Yes, I do have your file; waiting amongst others for homestudy. All your documents are on file as well, so you are right, the next step is to be assigned a worker to complete your homestudy.

It is quite hard to estimate when this will be, but rest assured, I will assign someone as soon as I can. Please don't lose hope during this waiting period - we DO need adoptive families! My challenge is not having the staffing resources needed to process applications in a timely manner.

BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.............

A Mother's Adoption Journey....

by Darlene Ryan. I finished reading Darlene's book last week and I'm glad I picked it up from the library. A Mother's Adoption Journey is a collection of journal entries that chronicles Darlene's journey with her husband with an introduction to each section (I wish I still had the book to outline the sections - it went something like "making the decision" to "bringing her home"). The book begins when Darlene first feels the twinges of motherhood in her late 30's (I think, or maybe it was her early 40's) and takes the reader through making the decision to pursue adoption and surviving the stage Grant & I are going through right now and finally bringing their baby girl home. I really enjoyed reading Darlene's experiences, she was very refreshingly Canadian (all the books I have read so far were American) and you can ask Grant, I often laughed out loud while reading the book. In her journal entries Darlene was very honest and held nothing back. She said a few things I never really thought about out-loud or in my conscious state, but reading it on paper, her thoughts and emotions really connected with how I am feeling. The only discouraging part of her book was the time line...from beginning to end it was approximately 2 years...hmmmm...

What to ask for...

Last night I asked Grant if we're praying for the wrong thing....let me explain. Yesterday's message at church was about - Prayer...Can You Hear me Now?? based on James 5:13-18 and Ken left us with the "challenge" to pray for three things this week and make one of them a huge, big request where the answer would be an obvious God-thing. Fast forward a few hours....we had friends over and they shared with us that their pregnancy is a miracle as they had surgery planned for September to enable them to be able to conceive. For the rest of the day, I wondered, am I praying for the 'right' thing? For 3 and a half years I prayed that I would become pregnant. Now I pray that I will be able to hold my baby in my arms soon - but should I be praying that God will heal both Grant & I so that we will be able to conceive. As Grant pointed out to me last night, we have been praying for our baby this whole time and it's ultimately up to God how our baby joins our family, whether it be through conception or adoption. I do, very much believe that God is a healing God, so should I shift my prayers asking God to physically heal Grant & I or will that lead me back into the vicious monthly cycle of timing and planning and wasting too much money on pregnancy tests??? I will continue to pray for our future baby...but how specific should I be...heal me God so that I can conceive? or, prepare my heart God, to love and welcome your child into my home and please, please, please speed up this adoption process and do not bring a strike to the Waterloo Children's Aid Society b/c York region's just went on strike!!!