Just keep waiting...

Well, here I am yet again writing a blog post months after my previous one, because unfortunately I don't have much to say anymore. I'm getting tired, exhausted. I don't think people really know the pain and frustration of waiting until you have to do just that. I have a few thoughts that keep running around in my head lately, so hopefully I don't ramble too much for you.

I've been really trying to "reason" with God lately, in my own throw a good ole' temper tantrum type of manner. I am constantly just telling God that I am so done with this whole thing and at the same time hoping that because I told him that I am done that he would give in to my demands and just give me a child. Unfortunately, (as most parents will agree) giving in to temper tantrums isn't the best form of parenting… so I don't think God will be giving in to my demands. So then I go onto just straight out demanding things like "God I will expect a call from the adoption agency TODAY". Ya, that didn't happen. Once again, God doesn't negotiate with terrorists (me). It's not like I really have anything to threaten him with really… all different methods of me trying to get what I want. And still here I am.

I'm trying to not become just a negative nancy, but I feel like I have a tendency to lean towards the negativity of a situation. And let's be honest I have been overly positive for much more of this experience than I was expecting. And I know it's because I do have hope, but right now I'm starting to feel utterly hopeless.

As I only have a few people that I have been completely real with on a daily basis (Justin and my family), I feel like the smile that I put on for people when they ask how the adoption is going isn't right anymore. I had a lady at work telling me that it must be hard for us to wait when another lady jumped in and said "oh, it's not hard, it's exciting!". Yes, it was exciting, two years ago when I started this process. Now I'm just tired and becoming oh so hopeless. I know it will be exciting, the day that we get to meet our child, but right now we are talking about a day that feels like it's never going to happen… I really think I might just give up and become a crazy dog lady.

I really enjoy my job, but I'm finding that because I had planned to be off on maternity leave like a year or more ago, that some days are just hard. I will be overly emotional about things that don't even matter because I'm just tired and exhausted. I am getting so close to just being done… but I don't know what it would even look like to just straight up give up, because I would then still be childless, and I'm pretty sure that this desire to be a mom isn't going to be fulfilled by large amounts of dogs...

I had so many expectations for our adoption, and that's probably a huge problem with all this. I expected that we would wait maybe six months and then we would have a baby. I expected that anyone who read our profile would love us, because we are fun, awesome people who just want to love a child. I expected to be done waiting by now. I expected that it wouldn't be this hard. I expected that people would have more understanding of how painful this process is, especially friends. I expected understanding from friends, but somehow managed to alienate them. I expected that I would have kids by now.

Because I think my expectations are a big part of why this is so hard (Justin does amazing because he has no expectations, he just trusts that everything will happen when it's right. Psh, what does he know?) I am trying to adjust my expectations to not having expectations. But now new expectations are arising. I'm expecting 2014 to be a write off, we will not have children this year. I'm expecting every other person in the world - adopting or not - to have children before I do, because that is how things seem to go. I'm expecting that I won't be able to mentally do this much longer. I'm expecting that I will give up because I feel like I have nothing left in me to give. But even with all my negative expectations… I still am in tears thinking of the moment that I get the call, the moment I get to meet my child for the first time, the moment my family gets to meet them. I guess that tiny bit of hope and excitement that I get just thinking about those moments, that's why I'm still going. Because that day is bound to happen sometime soon, isn't it?

Life Lately….

Hey everyone it has been such a long time since I posted, so I thought I would give a bit of an update. Justin and I just got home yesterday from our 3.5 week long trip to Australia. We were blessed to be able to go there to stand up in my brother's wedding. He married an amazing Aussie and they will be starting their marriage off in Canada. The day was so beautiful and I loved being able to be there! We had a great holiday and are just trying to readjust from all the jet lag (yay 16 hour time difference, NOT).

In the meantime our adoption still feels like it's going nowhere. We have been waiting since January and haven't heard anything yet. The most frustrating part for me is that I honestly expected to be chosen by now, and we haven't. It's hard to learn to have absolutely no expectations… but remain hopeful at the same time, which unfortunately isn't very easy.

As we enter different stages in our adoption process I am surprised by all the different emotions that have come up. Some have surprised me, some I kind of expected. Here are the things I have been experiencing lately.

As I have healed through the process of our infertility I have moved past being able to handle pregnant people, like I work on labour and birth so I obviously am able to be around people having babies. What I am finding really difficult is the people who were having babies when our process started that are now having more babies. I feel like they are so greedy, having all the babies, and I'm just waiting-still.

Another thing that both Justin and I are experiencing is just a bit of frustration. Our home study expires October 3rd, so we need to have an updated home study to the agency by then or we are put on hold. So we start our home study next week. I'm thinking that the home study shouldn't be as bad as the last one, but we were a bit stressed during our home study last time. Please keep us in our prayers, I again had the expectation that we wouldn't need to do a home study update.

The last and newest thing that I have been having troubles with is hearing people complaining about their kids or watching how angry people get with their kids. I know that being a parent will be stressful, and everyone has their moments, but I would love to have a sleepless night with my baby. I would love to have a child to discipline. It's so easy to take things for granted like your kids, especially when you don't know the pain of not being able to have them. So please, stop complaining about your kids via Facebook or by mouth and just be thankful that you have that little person to love, because you aren't getting any sympathy from me.

Please continue to pray for us as we start our home study update next week. Also pray for continued peace and patience as we trust in God's timing. Also pray that God's timing is soon! I am thankful that we were able to have another trip to ourselves, we are feeling refreshed, although rather jet lagged. Thank you so much for following our story, and hopefully soon we will have news to share with you all!

Don't trust your feelings

So lately I've been trying to adjust my attitude, and while doing so I've realized that I have gotten out of the habit of taking my thoughts captive. As a person who grew up in a Christian home, I have been familiar with the verse in 2 Corinthians forever, but only gained understanding of what it truly means a few years ago.

A few years ago, I was full of anger, resentment and bitterness and in an attempt to get my life and relationship with God back on track I started meeting with a spiritual mentor. She is wonderful and has helped grow in my walk with God significantly. It was through one of the studies that we did that I learned what taking my thoughts captive meant. The world is full of lies. Full of things that try to distract us and try to deceive our minds. Taking our thoughts captive means catching those lies that are running around in your head and lining them up with what the Bible says. If they don't match, then obviously that is a lie. From there we are to renounce the lie that we have been believing and announce the truth of God's word.

I've been out of practice lately, which has probably allowed my attitude to shift into such negativity. I'm constantly saying things like "our baby is never going to get here" or "God has forgotten about us". These are obviously not true, but the problem is I FEEL like they are. Unfortunately for us, our feelings make us think that something is true because we feel all the hurt and pain from whatever is happening in our life. The dilemma is that our feelings aren't necessarily an accurate portrayal of the truth. Our feelings are incredibly real and matter, however we need to give our feelings some significant adjustments on occasion as well. Like my mentor always tells me, take your thoughts captive by recognizing the lie you believe, replace it with God's truth and your feelings will catch up later.

I've been putting my feelings and the lies that I have floating around in check. God hasn't forgotten about me, everything he does is in His perfect timing, and right now I need to wait. Our baby will come - again in God's timing. God isn't punishing us with infertility for something we did in the past, He loves us and wants us to have complete dependence and trust in him.

I've already been putting these skills back into practice and have been noticing the shift in my attitude. Justin is also a great person to have around as he constantly saying to me "Charissa, you are believing a lie", he is good at giving me a reality check when I need it. So I am now waiting, with a better attitude, believing God's truth and just waiting for my feelings to catch up.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5
"For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ".

Attitude Adjustment

Hey everyone, I've been trying to get consistent in my blogging but it seems like I do a couple and then completely forget, so here's a bit of an update blog.

Mother's day happened in May, and I think that was kinda sucky. I remember last year on Mother's day, I was hoping that Mother's day 2014 would be a day that I was actually a Mother. And here we are a few weeks later, still no baby…. I think the hardest thing for me, is not being jealous of people having babies - it's being jealous of people that will have 2 - 3 kids in the time it will take us to get our baby. There are people I know that are pregnant for the second time since we started our adoption process, I find that hard. Almost like people are hogging the babies… only I know they aren't. Once again, it's hard to stand still while everyone else doesn't.

I have been in a really low place in the last few months. Feeling like all my hope is gone, not wanting to leave my house, see people or really do anything. But at the same time, I hassle Justin that we never do anything and that I want to do stuff, but when it comes down to it, I really don't. What a weird place to be. As mentioned before, I don't feel depressed, I just feel really discouraged and quite hopeless on a lot of days. Because of this I have been having the worst attitude, and God has really convicted me of this in the past week or so.

As I have been trying to adjust my attitude, to stop feeling sorry for myself and mope in my hopelessness - I have been diving into a book of the bible that I find very encouraging when I get like this. The book of James.

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you." James 1:2-5.

I have been lacking peace, and patience. So I have been asking God for these things, but at the same time I know patience is developed by waiting. So here I am, continuing to wait, but hoping to do it with a better attitude. I am also lacking children, so I will continue to pray that God will end our wait soon.

Life throws a lot of hard times our way, it's part of living. I'm making a choice to do it with a better attitude. One that clings to the truth that God's timing is always perfect, and the match that he has for us is the best one ever. So in the mean time, I'm trying to be full of hope, because in Jesus, there is nothing but hope. And he's got my back.

The diseased label of "Infertility"

Everyone has been constantly telling me how strong Justin and I are, to be able to share our experiences so openly. And that's honestly just who I am, and I'm thankful that I have been able to share it with you. I can't imagine going through this in the dark. But honestly that is a reality for many people who struggle with infertility, and I totally get why they choose to do it that way.

Putting aside all the comments that people say that are clearly not thought through, or the just plain ignorance or stupidity of people, many choose to go through infertility quietly so they aren't put under a label. No one wants to have the giant label of sterility across their foreheads, but sometimes it feels like it's permanently there. It becomes something you pity, or whisper to your friend: "see that couple, they can't have kids, it's so sad…". And even though you don't say these things directly to our faces (ok sometimes people do), we feel it. It comes across in the way you treat us. When I'm having a bad week and don't want to see anyone - it's ok. I'm not depressed. I'm still myself and having to grieve through some stuff. Also if I do see you, I don't need to be asked a very sad "so how are you doing, really?" If you genuinely ask me how I'm doing, without the sad face, I'll still tell you if I'm doing great or if I'm down in an unmentionable hole; I'm open enough to be honest.

Somedays I feel almost like I have a disease. People who are usually good friends to us seem to be tip toeing around us like we are fragile cracked china who will crumble into a thousand pieces if someone speaks louder than a whisper. This is not so. We are getting worn down through this process, yes, but we are still us. We can still laugh and joke about things, we are still ourselves. We need people who will keep treating us like us, because it's just awkward when you change on us like that.

There is a difference, however, in being sensitive to someone's feelings and treating them like they are about to break. I have appreciated when people ask if a subject of conversation is bothering me, most of the time it isn't. But thanks for the consideration.

I really want to just challenge everyone to be real with people. Be real with us, and others that are experiencing something similar. Don't tip toe around us, we wear big girl panties, we can take it. Try as hard as you can not to place that giant label on someone's forehead, it makes us feel a bit outcasted. And the truth of the matter is that the rate of infertility is continually on the rise. It would freak you out to know how many people have trouble getting pregnant, and the majority of these are young healthy people. Soon there will be more of us than you, haha, just joking, I really hope that never happens. But for reals, be real with people, understand there is a grieving process and that we sometimes just need some space.

Standing still

Hey everyone, sorry for the lack of updates on here, I will explain why there has been a lack of posts in this blog.

Every week Justin and I are constantly asked "So have you heard anything yet". To which I'm really wanting to tell people "Yes, here is my invisible child (insert name here)"(LOL). I totally get that people are wanting to know where we are at, but where we are at is honestly the most incredibly difficult thing right now.

We are the same. We are in the exact same spot we were in since January. We are waiting, anxiously. Nothing is changing. Everything is the same. That's the hardest part - that everything - the circumstances, our feelings - stay the same. We know we have no control over this, we know that our God is bigger than this and has all this in His control; His timing will be perfect, but right now it doesn't feel perfect. Right now it hurts. It's hard to stand still as the rest of the world moves at it's ridiculously fast pace around you.

I just want to ask a few things of you guys, because we have had some experiences lately that have made everything that much harder. Firstly: if we come to you asking for prayer please just pray for us. I have unfortunately experienced getting lectured and preached at, which has completely turned me off to asking for prayer. So please, just pray. We would appreciate keeping your "wisdom" to yourself. We have close friends and family who offer us truth and love, so please just pray and keep your thoughts to yourself.

Secondly, I don't mind people asking us how we are doing with the adoption and where we are at with it all, but the question of whether we have heard anything is getting old. I do want to reassure you guys that if and when (it could be another year down the road) we hear something, we will be so flipping excited that everyone on this planet will hear it too. So please, if you can refrain from asking, do. It makes feeling like we are standing absolutely still so much harder when everyone reminds you several times a day that you are standing still.

I never imagined that waiting would be this hard, but it is. Both Justin and I are really beginning to be worn down emotionally, and I know for me it's starting to creep into me physically as well. I haven't really been sleeping well, which is probably a combination of the adoption and working shift work. So please pray for that.

Justin has really been realizing how this is always going to be a struggle for us. That having a family will never come easily. It won't be an "oops, we're pregnant", although I so wish that could happen. We believe in miracles, but haven't felt at all that God will be granting us this one. So we are facing some battles within ourselves, looking at what seems to be an incredibly long road ahead of us. It's rather daunting, and extremely discouraging.

Please please please pray for us. Pray for strength in every day, every moment. Pray for the truth to resound in our hearts and minds. Pray for God to be vocal in our lives. Pray that babies come, and that they come soon. Pray for peace. Pray for rest.

We thank you all for the love and support that you show us. Please continue to pray for us as we struggle to stand still while the world runs laps around us.

Laser Tag 'Fun'draiser

Hey Everyone, just wanted to make an announcement about our next fundraiser.

What: Laser tag All nighter
When: March 7, 2014 11Pm until 5AM (need to be there at 10:40PM)
Where: Laser Quest, 10 Hesse Bay Regina, SK
Cost: $50

So this event is going to be a ton of fun! Anyone over the age of 5 can come (assuming they can stay awake)! We will be providing some snack food - chips and drinks. The night will be full of awesome, laser tagging adventures! Hope to see you there!! Tickets are available through Justin/Charissa Jaarsma, Kristin Woolhead and you can also purchase your spot at laser quest!

For those of you who aren't into laser tag, we will be planning a steak night soon, so no worries if you need to sit this one out!

Looking forward to seeing you guys there!