Happy Easter!

Hey everyone, sorry for the lack of posts this week, I've been working a lot this week. I'm pretty exhausted. Today I get to spend some time with my extended family, which will be awesome, although it will be weird not to have my parents there.

We are truly blessed by the people around us, but at the same time some days we continue to hurt. I had a day off this week, and was so busy trying to get stuff done before going back to work the next day, when it was time to go our weekly bible study, I just didn't have the energy and really didn't want to be around people. So Justin went, and I got to hang out with some of my most favourite people, my sister and her two kids.

My niece and nephew are awesome. I love them so much, they bring me a lot of joy. I don't know what it is about my niece, it could be the fact that she looks like I did when I was a child or that she is seemingly having a personality that is just like mine, but on wednesday this past week being with her really hit something in my heart. I know that I still really have that desire to have children that look like me and my husband, and although I am so excited to adopt our baby, I'm not sure if that vision of my kids will disappear or just change as we adopt.

I've learned a lot about God's love during this time. God adopts us as his own. Because of Jesus and what he did for us on the cross (perfect timing as we remember this at Easter), and how he rose again, he covers our sins. Jesus is our mediator, and when we accept Jesus, God no longer looks at us and sees our sins, but rather he sees his son's face. He sees Jesus in us, and we are his. I have been starting to feel like I'm understanding this more as we are moving in the adoption process. I know that this baby will be mine, even though I never carried it. It's going to be mine even though our genetics will not be the same. There will be no differentiation, I will love that child no more or no less than if we have biological children one day. When we reach the pearly gates, God's not going to be differentiating us, as we have been adopted. It's been a really neat lesson to learn, and I also feel like I didn't do a great job articulating it, but maybe one day that will happen.

I just want to say Happy Easter everyone! Enjoy your time with family and little ones today! And rejoice as we celebrate the ultimate sacrifice that was made for us.

Blessings.

Finding a balance.

I have a very outgoing, loving life personality! I love to hang out with friends, I love to be loud, to play games, and one of my all time favourite things to do is dance! No, I don't do any trained dancing of sorts.... I just let music move me, and it could do that for hours. Needless to say, I'm very outgoing. But, I'm also somewhat of a perfectionist in some areas of my life. I expect a lot from myself, and I'm very hard on myself and thus have a hard time forgiving myself. Because I have this type of personality, I'm really prone to swinging from a really high point in my life, to a really low place quite quickly. I want to give you the most recent example.

1st year of nursing school was a joke for me. I had one class that I needed to apply myself in, and the rest I didn't study or do readings and still got at least 80% easy. 2nd year of nursing school= death. First year made me lazy, and then second year you are thrown into school with 6 classes per semester and only one class was an easy, 'useless' class. To go along with this increased workload at school, I had begun changing my lifestyle and had lost nearly 50 pounds, was exercising every single day and never cheated on my diet. I put a lot of pressure on myself. Because of all this, I pushed myself way too hard and at the end of my 2nd year I was diagnosed with depression. I wanted to do stuff, but had absolutely no motivation to do it. I would get on my treadmill and start crying within a minute, when I would manage to force myself to derby practice (I play roller derby, it's awesome and I love it), I would usually end up crying because the person inside my head had nothing positive to say about me. It was a very hard, very low time in my life. I'm very glad it's over.

Needless to say, recovering from my somewhat recent depression hasn't been easy. In that time I gained about 20 lbs, and I have just started working it off. My parents, who we used to see at least 1-2 times a week have moved to Uganda and I have found out I won't be able to have kids the way that I wanted to. I have always feared that the news of our infertility would send me back into another tailspin, but I'm really doing well (especially since beginning my blog, although some days or weeks are horrible). Justin has been amazing, along with our friends and family. We have really been shown a lot of love through this time. But at the same time, I have had to make choices that I wish I didn't have to, but I think were necessary for me to not slip back into depression. In the fall I had committed to being on our roller derby league's board, which I was very excited about. I absolutely love playing derby, and had to make a really tough choice to completely step back from it. My heart is so sad about this, and I often try to convince myself I could do it, but I know it would be too much. I'm now also working full time shift work - 12 hour shifts. I often tell my husband that I must walk at least a marathon everyday, it's very busy, and extremely exhausting. I'm extremely thankful for the people in my life that remind me that I have a lot going on. The stress of dealing with the infertility alone can completely take me out of commission some days, so to be committed to work, derby, losing weight, training for a half marathon, being a wife and trying to organize an international adoption.... that's a little much.

Although I know that I'm trying to find a balance, I really don't know how to do this. I'm an all or nothing person- literally. I feel like I should be able to do everything and anything, but if it's anything less than that, it's not worth doing at all. And when I let other people down, I let myself down more and I am so incredibly hard on myself. How do I convince myself that the choices I have made - to give up things that I love- are for the best? And some days I really think I could do it all.... and today is one of those days. I need to find a balance, and maybe this is what balance is....

For the first time in my life I feel like I'm actually taking steps to take care of myself- to protect myself from some potential burnout. So why doesn't it feel like it? I feel like I'm missing out on fun derby times, I hate missing out on stuff. I want to be where the action is. I just don't know.

I could use prayers to reassure the decisions I've made. I know they are for the best, but somedays they don't feel that way.

Thanks for reading! Please consider coming to our fundraising banquet on April 27th! If you would like to donate something for our silent auction, we would also love that!

We love you guys so much, thanks for walking through this time with us.

First big fundraiser.

Hello Everyone! We are announcing our first big fundraising night for our adoption! It will be a fundraising banquet to take place at Celebration Lutheran Church at 5 PM til about 8 or 9 PM on April 27th. Tickets will be $25 each and will buy you a fully catered roast beef meal by Charlotte's catering! We will also be having many items that will be up for silent auction (we will announce more of what we will have specifically later), and we will also just be accepting donations if you want to do that. If you are on Facebook, expect a facebook invite.

For all my derby girls - I love you and I know that this is on the night of PBDC's first bout, but if you want to support us in another way let me know.... and yes I will more than likely be making an after party appearance after the banquet.... I'm in need of some good dance time.

We really hope that you would consider joining us for this evening and inviting your friends! If you want tickets, you can leave a comment on the blog, connect via Facebook, and I will get back to you and get your tickets to you.

Thanks for all your love and support! Hope to see you all on April 27th!

How we got here.

So since I have started the blog, I know that many people have either made comments on, or had questions about how we came to the decision to adopt, and seeing as this decision has a TON of information behind it (hours and hours spent researching things for ourselves, talking with people we know who have experienced it, etc, etc), I decided to do an entire post on this topic. Here is the short version of our process.... it takes a long time to talk about all the information let alone write it out. But I want to reassure you guys (as many people have asked), that I have researched ALL our options... I'm a hyper researcher, so here's how it went.

When we initially began this whole process, I thought I was going to be all for IVF. This is because I know that I have always wanted to experience a pregnancy as well as the labour, delivery, bonding, etc, etc, to be able to do it 'almost' normally I guess. Once I started looking into IVF, there were many factors to think about....the first one being cost. IVF costs about approx $12,000 per cycle. Yes, this is in theory less than adoption, but IVF isn't a guaranteed thing. I have known of many, young, healthy people who have spent over $50,000 on IVF, not to become pregnant once. There is no reason for the lack of pregnancy, it just didn't happen. Another thing to consider with the cost is that our physician would send us to Calgary for treatment (I think their pregnancy rates are higher than Saskatoon) so I would have to be in Calgary for at least a month to go through the IVF treatment, have to find somewhere to stay during this time and not be working. It is possible that we could figure out a remote set up with the fertility specialist in Calgary, but we never got that far into looking into IVF, so it didn't matter. Secondly, IVF is incredibly invasive and a lot to go through for both Justin and I. For the woman, hormones injections are constant to make the body hyper ovulate so that they can harvest as many eggs as possible, the average is usually about 12.... I'm a ball of hormones on my own, let me tell you.... For Justin, with the condition he has he would actually need to have surgery for them to retrieve sperm cells and we have spoken to family members who have done exactly what we would have to do, and it's not a pleasant experience. Now imagine all that, and not becoming pregnant.... The truth is, I think that would be harder than getting the diagnosis of infertility. You know there is an embryo in there, you know you 'should' get pregnant, that would be so incredibly disappointing. The next big thing to consider with IVF is the fact that Justin's abnormality is congenital and do we want to potentially knowingly pass this same problem onto one of our children? That's a tough pill to swallow. And the last point to take into account is the amount of embryo's that they would create and store for us. If we decided we were finished having kids, what would happen to our embryo's? I believe conception is the beginning of life, so would I essentially be terminating these children's lives? We found we were more uneasy, and didn't feel at peace about the idea of IVF right now. I'm not saying that we won't travel the IVF route later in life, but as of right now we have really been turned off of the idea of IVF, and we may never try it, I have no idea.

We also brought up the thought of using a sperm donor, and again right now, we just didn't feel it was right for us.

We have, all in all just felt a huge calling to adoption. And honestly, that has played the main part in our decision. We are called to adopt. Many people have asked us why we have chosen to adopt from the USA rather than Canada or other more exotic countries. To begin with, we looked at domestic adoption. There are no private adoption agencies in Saskatchewan. There are other ones in pretty much every other province in Canada, just not here; all the adoptions go through the public system. So the average wait time for a newborn is 7-10 years in Saskatchewan, which is ridiculous. And as someone who has been wanting to have children for the past 3 years (decided to go to nursing school instead), I've waited long enough, I'm really impatient. So then we started exploring other countries and the fact is, anywhere else in the world you are getting a child that is at least 6-9 months old. In the future we might be open to adopting from somewhere else and getting an older child, but right now, for baby #1, we want to experience it right from the beginning. We want a newborn. In the USA, you can essentially go pick your baby up right from the hospital and that's what we are looking for. Now when choosing to adopt from the USA, you must choose one agency in one state to work with as different states have different laws and whatnot; we have chosen Florida. The agency we are working with adopts a lot of children to Canada and have a lot of experience specifically with Saskatchewan. Their experience and knowing how our system works was one of the biggest assets for us. Even with how early we are in the whole process, they have been so incredibly helpful. The immigration and citizenship process in incredibly complex, so to be working with an agency that is familiar with our laws and regulations will help us out significantly.

I know that so many people are always asking, well this person did this, and this person did that, why didn't you do that? You need to remember that each fertility case is different, each adoption case is different. The way I make decisions may significantly differ from you. But we know that this is the path we are to be on at this moment in time, and God has really been affirming that. In my first blog post, I wrote about how I dreamt about pregnancy and the moment I would get to meet my little one. As of right now, I have less of a desire to get pregnant than I did and honestly that amazes me. I am now dreaming about the day that I will get to travel to Florida (maybe it will be in winter, a much needed break from a Saskatchewan Winter), and get to meet my baby. I dream of the moment my family will get to meet the little one.... all the same things you would in a normal pregnancy, except my body will not need to go through pregnancy and birth. I kind of think it's awesome that I am running a half marathon in September and could very well get a baby that same month... I know my body will appreciate it! It is still hard to see everyone else in their pregnancies, but I know that moment when I will get to hold my baby for the first time, that all this hurt, waiting, money, crying, worrying.... it will all be worth it and I can't wait for that day! Each day we get closer to that day, and that comforts me enough for today, that's all that matters.

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own" Matthew 6:34

It takes a village....

Many of you might of heard the african proverb "It takes a whole village to raise a child". And it does. From a stand point of living in a community with others, raising children should be a responsibility of the said 'village' that involves not only parents but also friends, extended family and essentially anyone else who is part of that community. Children learn all sorts of things from a variety of different places. So let's keep that in mind when we around other people's kids.... they pick up stuff from everywhere, and we should live as examples for the younger generation.

I am going to put a little bit of a different spin on this. Yes, Justin and I are currently adults. We have grown up and work full time jobs, but we are still growing every single day. As we walk through this experience of infertility and now the adoption process, God is stretching us pretty thin (not literally, but that would be nice!), and honestly, we need a village built up around us!

It's really hard and humbling to reach out for help. In our society, asking others for money is considered 'charity' and no one wants to have that classification over their head. Well friends, call me what you want, but Justin and I can't do this alone. I'm a very open, social person, and it was incredibly hard for me not to be able to share this with everyone. The moment I published my first blog, I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders, like I could breathe, like I didn't need to just cry every moment of every day. I think this peace has really come from God, as I learn to reach out and rely on other people. Which is hard, really hard.

That being said. I know that I am more than willing to help those in need, whether in practical ways, monetary ways or through prayer and friendship. And part of me needed to see that maybe people would be willing to do that for me, and that is really humbling especially coming from a person who has struggled with self-worth issues her entire life.

I guess I firstly want to say thanks. Thanks for the overwhelming love that everyone has shown us since we started up the blog. Thanks for the people that have started donating via pay pal! We have truly been blessed. But I still really want to challenge you guys to become and remain part of our village as we continue to journey through this. Keep up with the blog, encourage people you know to read it! Pray for us! Give us money if you feel that you are called to!

We need a village.... and you are part of that village! Help us get our baby, so you as part of our village can help us raise that little one!

I also want to give you guys an update on our funds (I hope to get like a thermometer or something on the side there so you can see how much we have in the bank). Justin and I opened up our bank account last week and deposited the money from our spare change and from items that we have sold from in our house. That along with the donations that we have received so far via pay pal, already puts us over $1000 raised! We are on our way, only about $34,000 to go.

Thanks for all your love and support.... we need a village for the long haul!

PayPal donate button up and running!

Hey guys, I worked today (I'm a nurse and work 12 hour shifts), so today's post is a quick one just to announce that I've got the pay pal donate button up and running! I also want to let you know that paypal charges 3% fee from each transaction, so if you don't feel like giving $3 of your $100 donation to paypal, let us know and we can give you our mailing address for you to send your cheques to if you would prefer. Thanks so much for all the positive feedback! We're excited to get raising some funds!

So, let's talk about it.

So I've have really been wanting to share with everyone what is truly one of the hardest parts of dealing with infertility. Yes, the infertility itself sucks, the lack of children just appearing in your arms also sucks, and so does watching everyone else have children, but that isn't the most difficult part of it. For me, the most difficult part is talking to people about it, let me explain what I mean.

The 1st type of person that is hard to talk to, is the person you rarely see, one you really don't have a relationship with. The ones that love to ask "when are you having children". I really don't know how people would respond if I just said "my husband is sterile", but I've kind of been wanting to try it out, and maybe make them reconsider asking that question again, but I know I would feel horrible after the fact. I don't know why people think this is a 'how is the weather' topic. But as someone who won't be 'having children' anytime soon, please stop asking people this question. Justin and I have been really open with the people who are close to us in our lives. Our family and our friends know about this issue and have known from the start. I guess what I'm trying to explain to people is: yes I know that we live in a society that has no boundaries.... people want to know everything, but this is literally none of your business. Making a baby is between a husband, a wife and God. I don't mean to sound rude.... but someone needs to tell you guys to stop asking.... because it hurts.... a lot. And frankly, we don't know what people are going through. I know that I have asked this question before, and I'm pretty sure, I will never ask it again. I just ask that you carefully think of the words you are saying to people before you say them, because even if you don't know it, they are hard to hear and may hurt. Infertility is on the rise in our culture, a ton of people are going through it, and not everyone is as open about it as we are, so please think about that. Even if Justin and I decided to have kids 6 years ago, when we were 20- we wouldn't be able to. We are young and infertile, it happens a lot. So I hope that you have gained a bit of perspective on this topic and will think twice before asking someone when the little ones will be appearing.

The 2nd type of person I have a really hard time talking with are people that know what we are going through and really want to love us and comfort us by using words. I know that people want to fix our problem and make us feel better, but I ask you if this is the case please stop using words, because again they hurt much more than if you would say nothing. I have had so many "God has a plan! He could work a miracle and make you pregnant!" Ok... I know God has a plan, I'm already pretty ticked off about God's plan.... I know his plan and for us, it's adoption. Secondly, I am a person that grabs on to every single string of hope and holds onto it for dear life. I believe in miracles, but if I went around every month believing God was going to make me pregnant this month, I would be suicidal when my period came. The third comment always gets me as well "so and so were told they would never have children and now they have 25". Good for so and so. My name is Charissa and my husband is sterile. Although I know in my heart that you are all meaning well - it's easy for people who don't face this problem to want to try and offer reassurance and comfort. But some days this isn't possible, and please know that I would love to chat and take hugs as you give them freely, but these words aren't going to profoundly change the situation and a lot of times words make it worse. Please I ask, use actions, not words. They are so much more comforting.

The last person I'm going to talk about is a positive one, and it's my sister - Courtney. My sister is freaking awesome and I just really want her as well as every person that ever lived to know that. My sister has two beautiful kids (yes, I have already joked about kidnapping them - my niece looks and acts just like me.... no one would know...JK), these kids are a big part of my world. On the day that we received confirmation of Justin's sperm test, I was working nights. So I had gotten home around 8am, went to bed, woke up around 10 or so to go to the Dr., got the results, texted my sister, came home and went back to bed. My sister- on her lunch break- came over to my house, crawled into my bed and cried with me for about half an hour. Yes, she said a few words here and there, but she just sat there and hurt with me. I have never felt so much love in my life. And through this entire experience so far.... that is my favourite moment.

Too often we get too concerned with how people will perceive us if we show emotions, and as a highly emotional person, who loves to be real, crying with someone was way better than crying alone and being told everything will be ok. At the same time, it's really hard to be open and exposed like that. I do hate crying in front of people, but honestly, that's what I do these days, I cry.

As we share with you guys, we know you want to help us feel better, but all we want is for people to hurt with us, to do life with us. We do appreciate your prayers and your kind words, but please know that a hug is worth more than we could ever ask for on most days. We really need a village built up around us, to hurt with us, to walk through this with us.

I also want to reassure people... if you have said some of the things mentioned above, don't worry about it. I am not harbouring any resentful feelings or anything. But this is a really important topic to me as I have really experienced first hand how a few words that someone didn't even think about ruined my day. I decided that blogging about this was a better option than blowing up on people. On here, I can think about my words, change them. In conversation, while I'm hurting, all that would be said would come from emotions running high and I don't want to hurt anyone. I just want to encourage people to think before they speak. Consider how well you know that person, and if what you are asking or saying is for their benefit or for yours. Majority of time, it's for you. Silence is incredibly powerful.... try it out sometime.

Again, thank you so much for all your love, prayers and support! We love you guys, and are truly blessed by the people that surround us.

The Journey so far.....

Hey everyone.... I really want this blog to be a safe space that I can share with you what's going on in mine and Justin's life right now. This topic is so close to my heart that it hurts me every single day. But, I want you all to know about it so that you can live this with us. Here's our story.

I love kids. I love babies. I always have and always will. I was made to be a mom. I have always dreamt of the moment that I would become pregnant. How I would creatively tell my family, jump around and squeal with them in excitement. How I would get to experience one of God's most amazing creations - a human being, growing inside of me. I would get to think of baby names, make a nursery, wait to go into labour. I always wanted to know how good my pain tolerance was... and I thought labour would really reveal that. I wanted to experience that complete exhaustion after giving birth and simultaneous joy as your baby gets put on your chest for the first time, when you get see their face for the first time. I dreamt of my little children looking just like their dad: Blonde hair, blue eyes, beautiful, full of energy and a zest for life. This is no longer a realistic dream for me.... and it cuts into me every single day.

When we decided to start trying for a family, we decided to get Justin tested, as we know he has a family history of some infertility. Surely enough Justin has a condition called congenital absence of the vas deferens (CAVD), which essentially means he makes sperm but he is missing some of the plumbing that gets his sperm out of his body. He was born with a vasectomy.

Justin was just diagnosed last week. It's been a long 4 month (ish) wait for us to get a definite diagnosis. And honestly, from the first lab test where it read that Justin had no sperm, we knew we weren't going to be having kids the 'usual' way.

I have considered deleting facebook nearly everyday.... someone has either had a baby, or is announcing their pregnancy (at least one per week). Please understand, I love you all and are so excited for you guys, but I'm so jealous in those moments. I do wish that was me, however, I know that I get to experience this for a reason and I know I will become a better person because of it.

So, Justin and I want to announce to you that we have decided to adopt a baby. We have been approved by Saskatchewan Social Services and our home study will be beginning soon. We have created and are still perfecting our adoption profile. We are adopting a newborn from the USA. (in saskatchewan the wait time for a newborn is about 7 - 10 years). Adoption doesn't come cheap and it's truly the calling that we feel towards it that has kept us going in this process. Adoptions can cost between $26,000 and $40,000 USD. I know. It's ridiculous. It's a lot of money. Needless to say, Justin and I aren't millionaires. We need help. We have started saving our pennies (literally, we had $7 in pennies in our house!) and selling things and putting the profits into our baby jar. However, we won't be able to raise $35,000 on our own. We have many fundraising strategies that we are putting into place, one of which will be announced in the next few days! Stay Tuned! But I will let you know that if you are interested in just giving us money, I will be adding a paypal "donate" button to this blog in the next couple days. This will allow you to donate to our adoption through paypal, or by using your credit card. This money will go directly into a separate account that we have opened for our adoption.

If you are unable to support us financially, we ask that you please pray for us. This process is incredibly difficult, and we know that God is the one who provides for us, comforts us and gives us strength in each day. It's with his help that we will be able to sanely make it through this process!!

I also just want to say thanks for reading, thanks for your love, and your kind words. It's incredibly difficult to put myself out there like this, so thanks. I also just want to encourage you to share our blog, our fundraisers and our story with others around you. We are really looking for help from everyone!

Thanks for reading. Please check back regularly as we update you on our thoughts, experiences and upcoming fundraisers!