The Continuing Journey Towards Hope

We have found the journey towards the start of our family so far to frame itself in a cyclical pattern.  Hope, anxiety, grief, processing.  Much like the cycles of nature, this seems to have repeated itself many times, and an aware person of our story and our documentation of it, will find that we rarely know what to say during the times of anxiety and grief.

But today, it is time to write again.

Our last update here had us anticipating and hoping the arrival of a daughter in the beginning of December.  Anxiety came roughly a month before that. In fact, in the span of a couple weeks, we felt the whole cycle as that adoption went from expected to lost. In the beginning of November we got a call from our social worker that birth mom was moving in a different direction. We were heartbroken. And then, a week or so later we got another message…there was potential again.  Guarding ourselves and our own emotions, we weren’t as quick to update during that time, but instead chose to wait until things were a bit more concrete. But we again found ourselves both hopeful and anxious.

We were able to be at the hospital during birth.  That weekend was a feeling extreme anxiety.  We heard baby’s first cry and spent time holding her.  We did the hospital experience for the first day with no understanding of if we were holding a child, or if we were holding our child.  And we slept in a hotel that night, anxious.

The next morning we found out that birth mom had decided to parent.  We spoke with her briefly before heading home—and we grieved.  I always have to make sure to remind people, that a birth mother deciding to parent is a beautiful choice, and while we want a child of our own, we do authentically want what is best for each child.  We hope this decision proves to be best for that child and would ask people to refrain from making this birth mother out to be a villain.  We can’t imagine the emotions and decisions she had to make, and never felt like we were being disregarded, misunderstood, or undervalued.

The grieving process is an interesting one.  It functions very different for the two of us at almost every point.  Verbal processing at times, and silent processing at others.  Blunt and public on occasion, while reserved and withdrawn at others.  Felt at times by one and not the other, and emotions triggered by the silliest, smallest, or strangest things.  The grief of a certain hope lost will never disappear completely, and random things bring it back as felt emotion, but as a standard, we’ve moved to processing again.

What have we learned?  What comes next?  How attached are we to what kind of process?  How may God be leading us?  Questions that guide us through processing with the aim of returning us to a hope filled season of life.

We still believe strongly that adoption is the route for us, and as we’ve processed it, we’ll be continuing to move forward with that in January.  As best as we can tell right now, we’ll be doing so by re-engaging in the Columbian international adoption program.

For many people, conversing with us about the start of our family can be awkward.  It can be hard to read which stage of a cycle we are in, how emotional we might be, or what particular help or encouragement you can be to us.  I understand that.  I wouldn’t know how to talk to us either.  What I do know is most of you have been doing a great job.  You refrain from questions when you don’t know how comfortably they may be received.  You support any good news you hear and offer hugs and condolences in times of our anxiety and grief.  Many of you anticipate hearing the results of our processing, but often do so without pressuring us or nagging us through that time.  In short, you take what could be awkward for all of us and try to make it as natural as possible.  Thank you.

There is a story that travels around about Ernest Hemingway, that one day he won an awkward bet.  Write a short story in under 10 words.  The rumor goes that he considers it one of his finest works, and while the bet can never be proven, there is a 6 word story accredited to his name:  “For sale: Baby shoes, never used!”

Because of my (Nate’s) love for baby shoes (my first purchase and a symbol to us of a hope filled future) a few different people have told me of this story.  They’ve used it very appropriately to express their condolences as I grieved.  And I get the sentiment.  I imagine many can only imagine, but do so sympathetically, with the story of baby shoes bought but never used.

But that was for grief, and grief is only part of our story.  And in our journey so far, hope has always come after and trumped the grief.  So, weirdly, I don’t look at our baby shoes with grief.  I look at them with hope.  Our child is coming.  Our family is growing.  Somewhere, in the “secret” place that God alone knows, our child is being drawn to us.  This process is “fearful and wonderful” and we’ll continue walking through it with hope.

From Flags to Shoes - The Current Story of Our Little One

For those of you who prefer short stories (especially those which re-hash some parts of our story you may already know), here is the awesomeness contained within this story:  

We are expecting Baby Girl Kemper to join our family 

shortly after Thanksgiving! 

Yes, we're aware how soon that is. But we can’t just skip to that part of the story and not tell you how we got there, so if you’ll bear with us, you’ll see how we’ve gotten to this point.

A Recap of What’s Been Public So Far:

It’s been a few years now that we’ve felt ready to expand our family.  The “easy” or “traditional” path to parenting doesn’t appear to have been God’s plan for us.  Infertility was followed and confirmed by testing, which was followed by medical pursuits of pregnancy.  And so again we discovered God had a different plan.We know that confidently now, but it took some discovery along the way.  

This is a better story. A beautiful story.

We’ve seen that beauty unfold as as we’ve turned it over to God, who has had greater plans all along of growing our family.  We decided on adoption and began sharing  this publicly and enthusiastically.

You can read the past blogs to see again that excitement and read the awesome journey we’ve been on.  If you looked at the dates of those entries however, you’ll notice a large gap where the posting seemed to have vanished as if there wasn’t anything to say.  That was far from the truth, we just didn’t know what to make public.

All the Balls Back in The Air:

For a while the thoughts and conversations were simple.  Our hearts had been (and still are) filled with desire and love to adopt an infant from Columbia.  And so we progressed.  Fundraising, praying, sharing conversations and updating our friends and family.  It was a waiting game filled with paperwork, education, and patience.  But we knew what to do, move forward in that process with eyes set firmly on a little child from Columbia.

Our focus and resolve made small talk easy.  As people would tell of us possible adoption avenues, we were resolved to the plan we had…Columbia it is. Our hearts are with Columbia and the child that waits for us there.  The Columbian flags we have purchased and that sit in our office (soon to be nursery) show this part of the story well.

But then God stirred our hearts and emotions again, 

in an unexpected way that would forever change us. 

Earlier this summer, Nate was approached between church services on a Sunday morning.  Someone knew (not indirectly, but directly) of a possible domestic adoption opportunity and felt specifically that we needed to be part of it.  The details were explained in brief and Nate promised that we’d pray over them.  And so he told Jenny, still between services, where he found her getting ready to serve in the nursery at church. 

This wasn’t the first time that someone had mentioned they knew of an expectant mother looking into adoption. But it was the first time that it stirred something in us. Something that begged us to at least asked the question, "Should we consider this?"

Emotions came.

Talk of a baby started.  

Talk of a waiting game pushed forward.  

Talk of an addition to our family seemed more real.  

Emotions came, but that is all that we knew.  

We still needed to decipher those emotions and plan to move forward, longing to be led by God and not emotions.It felt like all the balls were in the air again.  And it was both scary and exciting at the same time.

From Then to Now:

We’ve had many of conversations.  We’ve prayed.  We've found our hearts changed as we are now tied and committed to the process of this domestic adoption.  God has shown Himself faithful to us the entire time.

We moved forward not just in thought but in action.  We decided to put the Columbian process on hold temporarily and moved forward with the meeting of this potential birth mother.  We saw positive signs, we saw uncertain signs, we saw signs we didn’t know how to interpret, and we took steps forward.  

We decided things were too unsettled to be sharing a lot at that point.  And so many of you got silence. 

But silence isn’t fun.  And not knowing isn’t fun.  And so we waited and prayed for confidence, for assurance, and for resolution to this opportunity—longing to know if we should take the leap to the domestic path or return solely to the Columbian one.

And the answers have come.  We are as confident as we can be that we are adopting domestically.  That as we become the best parents the world has ever seen,  that it will start with a baby girl.  That she is due shortly after Thanksgiving.  And that she will change our lives forever.  

We are also confident that when time permits, we will again re-enter the Columbian process to see our family grow again.  This is what we know now.

What We are Up To:

We haven’t been confident of this change for very long.  And so we find ourselves with a two and a half month 'pregnancy.'  Ready for the whirlwind of legal process, home changes, and general giddiness that we’ve dreamed of for so long.  We’ve been working with birth mom, working with agencies, starting to share our news with friends and family and excitedly preparing ourselves for this next chapter of life.

We are excited as we look back and see the incredible journey God has brought us on.  We also recognize that there is still risk and we may find ourselves yet again back at the square one with all the balls in the air.  Trust us, we have enough anxiety for everyone.  

Please pray with us, for ourselves, for birth mom, and for baby.  We know God has a plan for us as parents.  As best as we can tell right now, this is the plan.  I’ll consider this the worry disclaimer paragraph.  There is and will be risk through this story for quite a while.  We are aware and willing to take this risk.  We’ve been thankful to those sharing this burden with us.

But there is also pure enjoyment with this part of the process.  Nate always knew that newborn shoes would be the first thing he would buy when we found out we would be having a child.  So that has been done.  (They can be seen in the picture above.)  We’ve had people excitedly talking about throwing baby showers, people who have already purchased outfits, and people who have graciously donated money for this process. 

Our heads are filled with dreams of our nursery, our conversations full of baby-names and what to register for, and our house has an awkward amount of baby girl’s clothes (not pink one’s though) for a family with no baby.

We have a lot we want to accomplish and even more that we need to accomplish in this short two month period, but we are energized (even in the midst of the stress and chaos) to cross things off the list.

We know so far that the story is bigger than the two of us, is written already better than we could have penned ourselves, and will end up displaying “family” in a beautiful way for the whole world to see. 

Anything But Desperate

Throughout our summer, much of our adoption focus has been on the financial side.  While paperwork needed so far is completed, surprise speed bumps and unique decision points have slowed the legal side of our process, financial progress has remained a focus.

Turns out, adoptions are pretty expensive. Whether domestic or international, the price tag for an adoption climbs pretty high pretty quick.  The numbers can even make one feel desperate.  But through numerous events, we have found ourselves feeling anything but desperate.

We’ve seen friends volunteer their commission to us as we host a product party.  A time where generosity trumped desperation.

We’ve seen family and friends of family (some with no connections to us) plan, organize, and work a garage sale.  A time where hard work trumped desperation.  We even watched as those unsold items were taken to another garage sale, kept separate, and sold again for our financial gain.  A time again, where desperation felt like the last emotion we could feel as we were overwhelmed with the gratitude of so many others.

And we’ve seen most recently money arrive in our mailbox.  People moved by their faith in God, and their understanding of how they may be a part of our adoption story to show that faith trumps our desperation.

We’ve responded with thank you cards, with hugs, with words of gratitude, and often with private tears.  We can’t adequately express the gratitude we feel to those who have helped.  We haven’t been able to yet, and will likely never be able to, but we will try.

But what we can confirm is true is that while the numbers of dollars associated with our adoption process can lead towards desperation, we have instead found the generosity and faithfulness of others. Some who we have extreme bond and connection with and some who are distant acquaintances.  We are filled with faith that we are walking through a journey designed by God for us.  We feel strengthened when we should feel desperate, and confident while we should feel confused.  We feel anything but desperate.

Hurry Up and Wait...and, Exciting Realizations

Please don't mistake the recent lack of posts to mean that nothing much is happening for us with the adoption process. We have been very busy lately with hurry up and wait.

In the beginning of March we were doing a lot of waiting. Now we are back to hurry up.

Last time I posted, we had a number of forms to complete and submit. Well, the story has not changed, they are just a new set of forms. About a month ago we attended an adoption issues education day with the adoption agency, and from this event we were given a lot more paperwork...something I am unfortunately getting used to.

And so begins our home study process.

The home study is one of the things that I have been most anxious about. It has been good to hear from a lot of different people that it is not something to worry about, that it's more of a conversation than an interview. That put me at ease a little bit more. For now, we have pages of autobiographical questions to answer about ourselves, cultural worksheets and medical questionnaires. I have to admit that this part has been a little more difficult than I was expecting. (I am going to use the excuse that with Easter in there and Nate being a pastor, and both of us volunteering for stuff, we have just been so busy. That's valid, right?)

But, we're making headway.

We're also multi-tasking. While getting all our paperwork done is important, it doesn't make much difference if we are not able to make all the financial milestones along the way as well. We have been very fortunate, beyond blessed (if that's possible), to have friends and family willing to help with some fundraisers towards our adoption fund. I am so grateful for this and cannot express enough how much we appreciate it.

And...

Exciting Realizations

I was reading through some of our past posts and re-read this one. I don't think that this kind of pain will ever go away, it will forever be part of my story. But, just a few weeks after this, I/we came to a couple new realizations.

1. I think that if we were to become pregnant now, we would feel a little disappointed. Don't get me wrong, of course we would be excited. But getting pregnant would mean that we would have to put our adoption process on hold for at least a few years. And now that we're in it, we're so excited to adopt that I would be disappointed to have to stop this process.

2. I have heard people talk about how if they could go back and change a painful experience, they wouldn't. I would always hear this and think, 'oh, you're just saying that because you know you couldn't if you wanted to anyway.' Now I understand. I know that it is only because of that painful experience that we are at this exciting place today. As painful an experience as infertility has been, I know that we would never have seriously considered adoption otherwise. I am (gasp) thankful to not get what I originally wanted.

So, yes, in a way my heart still hurts, in a way. But now my heart longs even more to meet the little boy or girl that will someday come into our family from Colombia.

Check...and Check...

24 pages of detailed information to complete...check!

16 pages to read...check!

26 signatures...check!

4 online adoption education courses including worksheets and evaluations...check!

2 medical exams scheduled to be completed by the end of the month...check!

3 reference letters to be completed by other people...hopefully getting done soon!

1 marriage certificate...check!

2 birth certificates...almost check.

Fingerprinting and background checks...will be done as soon as above paperwork is submitted and complete.

And a partridge in a pear tree.

We received our packet of State of Minnesota Department of Human Services forms on Feb 4. We have been pushing ourselves to get all our paperwork in for this portion of the process by the end of February. If we can meet that deadline then we can do our final on-site education course with the adoption agency in March and be assigned our social worker for our home study. If we can't get it all submitted then we have to wait until April. (Boo)

Needless to say, the last couple weeks I have been pouring over the forms multiple times reading, rereading and re-rereading (and then repeated this process about a hundred times) to make sure that everything was complete and correct. I only had a couple mental and emotional breakdowns as I was convinced that we're not perfect enough to get a child. I know it sounds silly, but man this process really makes you feel self conscious because you know complete strangers are evaluating your life and making a determination on whether or not you can successfully parent a child. Then after sleeping on it you realize that every parent screws up their child, so we'll be fine. =)

Last thoughts: In an adoption process, if you have trouble keeping a sense of humor during the transition process of when an adopted child first comes home, here is what one of our required courses suggested, "sign up for a joke of the day email service." (no joke)

It Comes With a Cost

The adoption process doesn't come without its costs.

We've already been doling out the worry and the stress as even just the first few forms have to be tracked down.  Needing the cooperation of agencies that we no longer deal with, and haven't for many months, to do work that isn't a normal task for them, nor something that is a requirement in their job descriptions has quickly welcomed us into some of the "costs" attached with this process.

Jenny has paid those primary costs (she's been great with the paperwork thus far) while I've just been informed of them, and stressed by them in kind.

The "cost" of vulnerability has been apparent as well.  This process, each of our decisions, and when and how to share it have come with their own sets of sacrifice.  It hasn't always been comfortable or easy, but bringing others along in the process is a valuable part of the journey to us...but it costs something.  Much like "naturally" pregnant women must feel judged by people who are just watching their actions and commenting on even miniscule tasks and decisions, we have to navigate the comments of others to find their helpful purpose and not just what we initially perceive from people's "feedback."

And least surprising, but quite the mountain to overcome, is the financial cost.  In the most blunt way it can be stated...Adoption is NOT cheap!  Now to be sure, there are various different ways that the financial cost gets accounted for by different couples (grants, government rebates, fundraising, differing costs by programs) but no adoption is cheap.  Someone pays a substantial financial cost.

We feel the burden to do the same.  The burden of figuring out where approximately $35,000 dollars will come from has fallen to us.  We've got some ideas, have started some research, and have even had people tell us they want to bear some of that burden for us, all of which is encouraging.  And trust us, we'll have multiple ways with which to invite you (and/or for you to invite those you know) to help us with this burden as well.

I want to tell you one of those ways now.  It's the beginning of an invitation.

I feel an immense peace with the financial burden of this adoption.  I'm fortunate to have that peace and don't take it lightly.  But I feel the need to balance that peace with a very real cost burden, and have figured out one way to do that.

I'm taking on a second job.  I don't know exactly who is employing me yet, though I'm hoping it will be many of you.  On my end of the contract, I'm committing to work.  Specifically to work on an assigned project.

I'm going to write a book.

It feels nerve-wracking to see that sentence written.  But it is my new job.  Over the next months I'll spend many of my hours writing something I believe to be of value.  And hope someone will buy it.  I don't know exactly what that means yet, but am sure as I research self-publishing and e-publishing and all that I'll be able to figure out a way to make money (hopefully) by convincing (or arm twisting) many of you into buying copies of my book.

This is one of the ways I can think of to putting in work on our end, taking the burden seriously, and also inviting many of you to carry it with us.

I'm committed to it.  This process will come with a cost, but that cost will be worth it.