ADOPT-A-BLOGGER!!!

This month, MAY 2013 we pray for
Rebecca @ The Road Home!!


How it works:


ALL bloggers, readers, commenters, lurkers, lurchers, creepers, crazies, borings, snorings, dazed, confused, and willing - i.e., ALL OF US - will be uniting our prayers for the entire month for the blogger mentioned above. At the same time, across the country, across the Americas, heck, even across the world, our prayers will all be directed in the same place, at the same time. FOR A WHOLE MONTH! Get ready for some SERIOUS fruits, people!

Click on the blog link above to visit the Blogger of the Month's post in which they will give you a brief history of their journey with infertility/adoption/childlessness. Then, continue to follow up and check in on that blogger throughout the month, to become more familiar with them and better align your prayers with their intentions.


Why?:


The idea is to pray a Childless Blogger, one of our own, to a Childless-No-More status. To bridge that final gap, to knock down that final wall, to make them MOMMIES against all odds!! Above all else, our prayers will be for peace and joy in their hearts as only God holds the answer to these prayers.


When?:


All month long! A new Blogger will be announced at the beginning of each new month. This post will be updated on the 1st of every month, so be sure to check back!


So,... How, again??


Pray whatever prayers you'd like. Do a Novena. Say a rosary. Meditate. Say a litany. The Memorare. Whatever your heart desires, whenever it desires it. You may also choose (and this is HIGHLY ENCOURAGED!) to offer up your suffering, any suffering at all, for the Adopted Blogger. Your offering can be as small as your patience with an overtired, sugar-high toddler, or it can be as large as offering your cycle (if you are going through infertility) in the hopes that your cycle will be instead the cycle in which their child is conceived. Singles? You, too have an excellent opportunity to offer your daily wait for a spouse. Not trying to conceive? That's okay- hey, trust me, I'm sure we ALLLLLLL can find some form of suffering in our daily lives to offer up!



So, join in, one and all, and please feel free to STEAL this lovely Bloggy Button below created by our own Rebecca @ The Road Home.

The button should link back to this post on your page (steal the URL from above), so that all blog readers can learn how to join in, and WHO to pray for!
(Remember, the post will be updated on the 1st of each month, but the link will remain the same.)


Thank you for participating in the Adopt-A-Blogger Prayer Campaign!!! Your prayers are powerful, and so very much appreciated!

5th Blogoversary

A day late, and a dollar short...


April 25th, 2008 - This Cross I Embrace began a blog, and a journey ensued that could never have been scripted.

In the Beginning... I was just getting started, with my first blog post.  A new career, a new web domain, a Facebook page, 189 subscribers and 5 years later, here we are.

The journey continues.  Right now, bumpier than ever before, as a new road must be paved and followed.  To this end, I hope to continue sharing my thoughts and feelings on a smaller scale, and I ask for your prayers as I step away from infertility/inadoption for awhile.

But I do owe proper recognition to this blog where so much growth took place, so much healing received, and so much strength acquired.

Thank you, blog.  Thank you for serving as a vehicle for me at such a crucial part of my life, and beyond.  Thank you, too, to all of you who have been reading along the way, and for being true friends and sisters.

Happy 5th Blogoversary  :)

I Humbly Ask

I humbly ask for your prayers, dear friends and sisters in Christ.

I cannot elaborate.  But the time has come to begin embracing a different cross, and suffice to say, infertility and inadoption are distant pains right now.

I may not be posting as regularly for a while.  Thank you so much for your understanding.

And know I am praying for all of you.

Divine Mercy- Part III

Read Part I here
and Part II here

Our lawyer discussed different types of domestic adoption options, and said she was thinking that a private adoption may be our route of choice, rather than waiting for an agency placement.

Her next question made us chuckle a bit (I'm pretty sure we chuckled about it well after the fact, because at this point, we were still in a daze... the best analogy I can think of, which will surely be appreciated in this circle, is that I felt like I was staring at my very first POSITIVE home pregnancy test.  It was shocking, yes, but the happiness was beginning to bubble over into a stupor of giddiness, balanced by a deep and underlying fear of "this can't be real, it must be wrong, the labs haven't confirmed it," and "it may not last...")

With all of these emotions coursing through my veins, I was somehow still able to process her question when she asked,

"You both seem pretty involved in your community.  Tell me, ... do you have lots of... connections?"

Again Mr TCIE took the reigns on this one,

"Well, Amy has a really popular {he said it, not me!} blog that she's had for years!  She knows people all over the country."

"Really?  Oh, that's wonderful - what is your blog about?"

Without even thinking, I reached into my wallet and took out one of my blog cards and handed it over...

"Oh, how exciting, thank you for sharing this with me, I look forward to checking it out!"

(While I quickly tried to remember if I needed to rush home and edit any older posts... Have I mentioned our lawyer is young and beautiful, and one of the sweetest people I've met?  ;)  ;)  )

We continued to discuss the steps involved in a) obtaining the home study, and b) identifying potential situations, and she just sounded so positive and fully convinced that it was hard to not "go there" right along with her.  But, part of me held back.  OK, a lot of me held back.  I just couldn't fully embrace this new hope she was laying down in front of us.  (I wasn't able to identify it at the time, but a few days later, it began to make sense.)

We finished the meeting with her promising to reach out to a local home study agency to present our case and see if they would be willing to work with us.

When we left the office, we were floating.  Not on cloud 9... if cloud 9 is euphoria, we were on cloud 6, disbelief of good fortune.  We drove silently to dinner, began to talk a little over dinner, and then headed to a Beach Boys' concert (my in-laws had invited us a while ago).  In retrospect, we laughed about the timing of the concert and how it was a good thing we got positive news, since we couldn't imagine how awful it would be to hear we could not adopt and then sit through 2 hours of falsetto singing about cars and girls and surfing.  But actually, it turned out to be a great day!

All weekend, despite our most valiant efforts, our hopes began to climb.  But at the same time, we also felt... like this:

(I love that stove.  So not the point here, but anyway.)

On Monday, we heard back.  The agency was willing to work with us... but would like to wait until the probation is complete.

Okay, so I know this isn't the end of the world... but hearing this made me feel like this little girl.  Or maybe like her mother.  Yeah, definitely like her mother, bracing herself and her loved one for a plunge she's taken too many times before.  She can't even bring herself to open her eyes... yeah.  I definitely felt like the mother.

The lawyer sensed it in my voice.  She continued to assure me that this was all good news, and that while she had hoped we could start sooner, she still thought this was a positive thing and that we could begin working on x, y, and z until then.  It wasn't hearing about the wait until October that upset me, though.  It was the sign of impending doom.  Yes, that sounds dramatic, but have you not been reading this blog through the years?  That's how we roll over in the TCIE house.  All drama.  All the time.  It's better than Lifetime.

She told me that the counselors at the infertility and adoption center had told her that many couples going through infertility and adoption problems have a kind of post-traumatic stress, and that it is very difficult for them to believe good news when they hear it because of their histories.  Bingo.  That made complete and utter sense to me.  Trauma?  Check.  Stress?  Check.  The post- part... I hope to God so.

Since that time, Mr TCIE and I have encountered a few more snafus (I'm sorry this story isn't ending with us skipping out of the lawyer's office holding the baby from the safe in the back), which have once again threatened our future with adoption, and this week has been all over the place in terms of my emotional status.  But late last night, while crying and praying myself to sleep, Mr TCIE said, "You know what?  I'm taking the bull by the horns, now.  It's time we make our own happiness."  

I'm not quite sure what that means.  But it certainly sounds better than more suffering.  I'm so done with the suffering.  Have I not mastered it, yet???

So the plan now is to continue moving forward, getting a plan in place for a checklist of things to complete from month to month... and in the meantime, keeping eyes and ears out for any potential situations that arise. One thing I did take away was that we could "make it work" if a situation arose between now and October... of course, that's not gonna happen, but it's good to know it's a possibility, at least.

I ask for your prayers moving forward, friends.  Our road to adoption has not been easy, but we are more determined than ever.  I will not mourn the loss of adoption... no way.  We're gonna make it happen.