wonderful and true

.........THOUGHTS ON BECOMING A MOTHER......There are women that become mothers without effort, without thought, without patience or loss and though they are good mothers and love their children, I know that I will be better. I will be better not because of genetics, or money or that I have read more books but because I have struggled and toiled for this child. I have longed and waited. I have cried and prayed. I have endured and planned over and over again. Like most things in life, the people who truly have appreciation are those who have struggled to attain their dreams. I will notice everything about my child. I will take time to watch my child sleep, explore and discover. I will marvel at this miracle everyday for the rest of my life. I will be happy when I wake in the middle of the night to the sound of my child, knowing that I can comfort, hold and feed him and that I am not waking to take another temperature, pop another pill, take another shot or cry tears of a broken dream. My dream will be crying for me. I count myself lucky in this sense; that God has given me this insight, this special vision with which I will look upon my child that my friends will not see. Whether I parent a child I actually give birth to or a child that God leads me to, I will not be careless with my love. I will be a better mother for all that I have endured. I am a better wife, a better aunt, a better daughter, neighbor, friend and sister because I have known pain. I know disillusionment as I have been betrayed by my own body. I have been tried by fire and hell many never face, yet given time, I stood tall. I have prevailed. I have succeeded. I have won. So now, when others hurt around me, I do not run from their pain in order to save myself discomfort. I see it, mourn it, and join them in theirs. I listen. And even though I cannot make it better, I can make it less lonely. I have learned the immense power of another hand holding tight to mine, of other eyes that moisten as they learn to accept the harsh truth and when life is beyond hard, I have learned a compassion that only comes with walking in those shoes. I have learned to appreciate life. Yes I will be a better mother.
AUTHOR UNKNOWN

Happy New Year!

The votes are in and it looks like Burt won. Thank you all for voting.


We made it through to the New Year with me only getting a cold, nothing more. Woo hoo! This is going to be a very good year for us..... hopefully. We are still waiting for one letter to come in for the home study to be complete, then it all goes to Korea. As far as I know we don't have much else to do other than wait. We do have to send in the I-600A form to get fingerprinted and will be getting our passports in the next couple of months. Bethany offers monthly seminars about adoption that we are going to be attending, the first one is at the end of the month. I'm hoping that will help pass the time and put us in contact with other couples in the area.


Christmas was good for Burt, Santa brought a few goodies. The nursery is starting to look like it will be a nursery soon with the piggy & puppy banks, books, silver pacifier and Ethan's wooden train that was his as a kid. I can start looking forward to this now, cautiously...

Merry Christmas!

Wishing a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of our loved ones!



Love-

Ethan & Jami

Unofficially....Officially waiting

We finished (and passed) the required online training, passed to meeting at the house, and now are waiting....

We have a few loose ends to tie up with getting paper work to Sarah so she can finish her report then it's onto the next step! The next thing will be filling out the I-600A form and sending it to immigration. We should be getting the packet of information on all of it any day now; hopefully we will have it done right after the first of the year. After filing the I-600A with immigration, they will contact us with an appointment to get fingerprinted! Just what I always wanted. ;) Then we wait......

So we are officially with the December group, which I am very happy about. We do have some seminars to attend starting in January, which I'm hoping will help pass the time. The approximate waiting time right now for a referral is 9 months, which brings to next fall. Then it will be about 4 months after that for us to bring home the baby! Of course this can all change, but we're not going to think about that, unless it's sooner.

For now I'm starting to look at furniture for the nursery, and going to start dragging Ethan with me.