vaccines

Today we took one more tiny step forward to getting our baby. We got our vaccines!! How romantic. Aaron and I each got 6 shots, (3 in each arm) plus a couple prescriptions and we have LIVE TYPHOID in our refrigerator (oral vaccine). Our arms are a little sore, but, oh well. I have also been told by my wonderful sister that our blog looks really boring. I agree. So here are some random pictures for you to enjoy.
Hanging out in Hartley Park a couple weeks ago...
Here is Buddy sleeping in the carseat we have in our basement...
Aaron and Brandon..."working"....

vandalism

Last night, sometime between 9:45 and 9:55 our Subaru got vandalized!! A few middle/high school kids put tape and paint on our car. They also super glued pennies to the hood of our car, and put super glue in the locks. Luckily our locks still work. The tape and paint came off fine, but the pennies will be there until we get to the auto body shop. Hopefully insurance will cover the body work!
When I came home last night at 9:55 I saw a couple kids in our street with backpacks - the were acting totally normal so I didn't think much of it until I saw our car. I touched the super glue and it was still tacky - it got on my fingers - so I know it HAD to have been those kids. Just another exciting day in Duluth. Gotta love Halloween.

fruit flies

I think that God is playing a joke on me.

Jeff's sermon on Sunday was from Galatians 5 - he spent time talking about the fruit of the spirit and the sinful nature. He had made the analogy of "when your bucket [of life] gets kicked, what comes spilling out?" I realized that over the last few weeks I've been producing less and less fruit of the Spirit and MORE acts of sinful nature - can we say discord, fits of rage, (aka MELTDOWNS), and dissentions?

Anyway, I decided to spend a few days praying about that and studying Galatians a bit. Today as I was praying I was asking God to remove the "rotten fruit" from my life so that I can start producing good fruit. And then I started laughing to myself.

For the past 5 days we have had fruit flies in our kitchen. I have NO IDEA where they are coming from. I have cleaned our kitchen with bleach, checked ALL of our fruit, set fruit fly traps (yes, they do work!), and those nasty things KEEP ON COMING BACK!!! I am going CRAZY. And as I was praying I was realizing that those nasty little fruit flies are coming from somewhere that I can't see, and my surface cleaning isn't taking care of them. I need to find the source, which is hidden, clean it up, and THEN they'll disappear. It is a good example to me of how I can't "surface clean" and force myself to be more patient, loving, self-controlled, etc. God has to go to the hidden parts in me and deep clean them out in order to get rid of the fruit flies in my life!

Oh the irony of it all. So here's to fruit flies and God's sense of humor. (And I also prayed that he would miraculously make them disappear from my kitchen now that I learned a lesson!)

our decision to adopt.

I originally titled this post "why adopt?", but while sitting here pondering that question I realized that the answer to that is probably an entire different post. I think it probably goes deeper than how we came to the decision to adopt. It is interesting how our understanding of the whole concept of adoption has grown since we started this process...

And now, the condensed, a bit scattered, adoption story.
Since I was a little girl I knew that I always wanted to adopt a child. I figured that if I were to ever do that it would be if I was unable to have biological children - simply because you grow up, get married, have kids, and then die. :) I have never had that deep desire to be pregnant or have biological children. Before Aaron and I even got engaged we had conversations about adopting and my desire for that. Aaron had always been very open to that idea, thinking that if we couldn't have biological kids we would definitely go down that avenue.

Fast forward several years to last fall. We had come to the decision that we were ready to start trying to get pregnant in early 2007. It was about this time that I also found out that I have high blood pressure and we were beginning the process of figuring out medications for me. A few months passed and I did not have my medications figured out yet, and my primary physician had set us up to talk to a high-risk OB doctor to talk about the risks of getting pregnant with high blood pressure. It was very important to both of the physicians that we not get pregnant until my blood pressure was at a certain level for 3 straight months.

This was a really frustrating time for us on multiple levels. And although it might seem petty, three months is an ETERNITY to "wait and see" if my BP numbers stay low so we could start trying to get pregnant. It was December/January when we started talking seriously about adopting. We spent time praying together and separately if God was wanting us to adopt our first child and we also talked with some friends and family about our thoughts. We starting doing some research on adopting, knowing that if we decided to make the decision to adopt we wanted to jump right in with both feet and not decide to adopt, and then have to decide domestic or international, where, which agency, etc.

Sometimes it is hard to know if God is closing doors and leading in a new direction or if there is adversity that you just need to get through.

Last March I went back to see my physician so she could check my blood pressure and see if my numbers were good enough to start my "three month" waiting period. I had been taking my blood pressure at home and I knew it was on the verge of where she wanted it to be. Aaron and talked and decided that if I needed to change my medication again we would more than likely start the adoption process. I went to my appointment and my doctor said "well, Katie, your 3 months hasn't started yet."

I wasn't exactly sure how to react to that! Aaron and I spent some time talking after I got home. We went over our options once again...wait a minimum of 4 months to begin trying to get pregnant (assuming the new meds worked and STAYED working) and hope we got pregnant fast, or start the adoption process. We both felt extremely at peace about adopting, and we didn't want to wait and hope that something worked out quickly with getting pregnant. So, here we are, adopting our first child from Ethiopia! If someone had told me a couple years ago this is where we'd be today I would have laughed, but we are so confident that this is where God has led us that we wouldn't want it any other way.

It is hard for us to explain, really, how we decided to adopt, so I hope this gives a glimpse into a long process that we hard. Those of you that walked through it with us helped us in so many ways - even just listening to us (me!) talk endlessly about "what does God want us to do?" and "I am so frustrated!" We continually thank God and give him praise for you, our family and friends, and for directing our paths to adoption. We're excited!

Shocking!

As of yesterday we have officially been waiting 2 months. I was going to write a post explaining how we came to the decision to adopt, since I haven't done that yet (although most of you who read this probably know the story!), but then last night happened, and I thought it was funny and worth sharing. So instead of writing about our baby (in a sense), I'm writing about our dog.

I'll try to make this story as brief as I can...we'll see what happens!
Last night I came home from a baby shower for a friend and was completely exhausted and had a headache, so I took some Tylenol PM and Aaron and I went directly to bed, I was looking forward to SLEEPING. Aaron had mentioned to me earlier that Page had spent most of the day in his office with him, and she was even sleeping underneath his desk by his feet. She spent the rest of the day following us around when Aaron wasn't at his desk - it was strange. She is a timid dog, so we just brushed it off as her being 'needy' or maybe she got spooked by the cat.

ANYWAY, so we're in bed and all of a sudden I hear a high pitched "beep" and Page comes running into our room. Aaron didn't hear it, so I wrote it off as a random noise outside. A few minutes later I heard the "beep" again this time Page totally freaked out and tried to jump up on the bed. I calmed her down - she was shaking - and listened for the noise again. A few minutes later I heard it AGAIN, the dog freaked AGAIN, and I figured it was a smoke detector or the carbon monoxide detector.

Strangely, the noise seemed to be coming from far away, and both the detectors are in the hall outside our room. So I started wandering the house, listening for a beep that did not have ANY pattern to it. Sometimes there was one minute between the beeps, sometimes 3-4. After 20 minutes of this I FINALLY found the stinking smoke detector downstairs. (the joys of moving - I didn't even know there was one down there). When I found the stupid thing Page was with me - the detector beeped and that poor dog almost jumped out of her skin.

The conclusion: A couple years ago we used a bark shock collar on her. It would beep and then Page would get a shock. Now, every time she hears a high pitched beep she thinks she is going to get shocked. (There was a commercial on a while back with a heart beat monitor - when that commercial would come on TV she would stick her tail between her legs, start shaking, and try to climb on our laps!) Apparently that smoke detector had been going off all day and she was afraid of getting a shock! We hadn't heard it until everything was quiet.

Today she's back to her normal self. Unannoying, mellow, relaxed Page. So there you have it. If you are ever going to use a shock collar, keep this story in mind. If you are still reading - I hope it was worth it! :)

A blessing and a curse

Today was an interesting day. Here are my 2 events.

The Blessing: I was able to go with my very good friend Jo to her ultrasound appointment! She is 22 weeks along - it was so amazing to see the baby. You can see pictures on her blog - a link is to the right. Babies are truly miracles - God is so awesome - to think that he is creating that child and we were able to get a glimpse of its development before he is ready to come into this world...wow!!

The Curse: We got a phone call from our adoption agency today and were were told that we have to get re-fingerprinted for our background checks and fill out new background check forms. Apparently all the background checks they had on file (we did ours last spring) expired in July because of some STUPID government law that is now in effect (I guess it's called the Adam Walsh Background Study). Ok, I'm sure it isn't actually stupid, I'm sure it is necessary and all of that, but really??? Just when I thought we were done with paperwork for a while.... ANNOYING!!! On top of that, we also need to get Jen fingerprinted for both the background check AND for USCIS (immigration) since she is listed as living with us in our homestudy (which is good, because now we are able to get a referral without any messing around if she is still here. Otherwise we'd be having to deal with this later...so yeah, it's ok).

Right now this makes me want to scream. Later, I'm sure I'll be fine. I prayed about it a little bit today, and in the grand scheme of things it isn't a huge deal. This, too, shall pass!