As we exit October and enter November we also leave behind Down syndrome Awareness Month and enter into National Adoption Month. If you have been following my blog long, you know what adoption means to us and our family. You know that it has brought us more joy than imaginable and you also know that has been the greatest gift we have ever received. But something you may not know is that it also brings grief.

First and foremost it brings grief to the strong women/couples that choose to voluntarily place their child(ren) for adoption to give them more. Placing a child for adoption is a choice, but just because it's a choice does not mean that it doesn't come with pain. Open adoption can alleviate some of that pain by allowing birth parents to be part of their child's life through pictures and visits, allowing them to watch their child grow and thrive and to see that their child is indeed loved and feels loved. I know Asher and Lucas' Mama Kate hurts from time to time all while being at peace with her decision. It's complicated and beautiful and painful.

Adoptive parents grieve. I'm not talking about the grief that we face of the dream we originally had of growing our family through the process of pregnancy and biology and looking into a child's face to figure out who they look like, even though that grief is very real. Whenever you have to let one dream die to allow another to begin it brings grief. But the grief that I am referencing here is the grief we feel for both our child's birthparents and our children themselves. We grieve for their birthparents knowing that we have the opportunity to be mommy and daddy and raise the child that they love just as much as we do. We grieve for the process that they have gone through, the pain of coming to the decision to place, the signing of the papers, going home without their child, and then not being with their child each and every day, watching them grow. We grieve for our children and the complex emotions they will face as they grow. As they begin to process their story, when they struggle with the why's, when they miss their birthparents and when people unknowingly make insensitive comments. For those that have been adopted out of foster care or from an orphanage setting, we also grieve for their past. What they experienced at such a young age, the years they spent not having a family of their own, and the years that we as their parents missed out on.

Lastly, children who have been adopted grieve. They grieve the loss of their first families. Some get to know their first families through open adoption, other's don't have any information on their first families and feel that hole in their story. Regardless of the reasons they were placed for adoption, these children grieve because adoption comes with loss. This is something we will learn more about as our children grow and get older.

Adoption is beautiful and messy, it comes with joy and it comes with grief. I focus mostly on the joy, but it's important to recognize that there is another side.

To my newly married self

After watching a video today, I started thinking about what I would say to myself  if I could write a letter to myself when I was newly married. So here it goes.

Dear newly married me,

You have such an amazing adventure ahead of you! Enjoy every moment. Everyone is right when they say it goes fast. I know that you are so excited about the possibility of starting a family and how you begrudge it when someone tells you how young you are. I also know that you know that starting that family might not be so easy and it won't be, but maybe a few of these words will make it easier. You have an amazing husband and God is going to give you some incredible years to share with just him before He gives you the gift of children. I know that right now you don't think you need those years and you even think that you don't want all of those years, but believe me when I say you will look back and be thankful for that time. God is going to call you to some amazing places, you will meet some amazing people and He will do awesome things in your marriage, if you let Him. Know that you WILL become a mom, and it will be the most rewarding thing you have ever done in your life, but until then you CAN be happy and fulfilled and you CAN make the most of every opportunity placed before you. Don't go into that dark place of depression that steals your hope and joy, instead know and trust that your day is coming and it will be beautiful. God is planning something great and great things need time.

I know you see others starting families. Some of them got married at the same time or after you, some of them weren't planned and it's hard to watch and wait and wonder why it's their time and not yours. Just know, that age that you thought was "old" for starting a family, really isn't that old and your children will change your relationship with your husband and friends forever in ways you may not expect right now. Take this time, build a strong foundation and set the best example that you possibly can for your children or you might find that you wish you would have focused on this a bit more.

If you could see your future kids, you would know without a shadow of a doubt that they are so worth the wait! I think you would also know why God is taking so long to prepare you. They really are special.

Even though you hate hearing it, you ARE young and you have the world ahead of you. You will someday look back and wish you could go see the world and how others live at the drop of a hat without thinking about how it will impact those little people that you trying to raise into exceptional adults. Now don't get me wrong, you won't feel as though your children are keeping you from doing these things, you just might wish you had gone and done and seen more because one day it won't be quite as easy. Not impossible, but just not as easy.

You will enter into a new phase of life that holds different treasures, but don't wish this time away. This time is part of your life and your story. This time is beautiful and embrace it in all of it's beauty. Go ahead and cry tears of frustration that you have to wait longer than others, but then move forward and choose happiness because one day it won't matter that your children took a little longer to come to you. It will just matter that God chose you to be their mom.

Love,
Your future self

Being Asher's mom

Being Asher's mom has and will continue to change me. In case you are new to our story, Asher has Down syndrome. I never envisioned myself as a "special needs parent". In fact, that was something I feared. When you have a child with special needs you stand out, which is something that I enjoy less and less the older I get. Advocating for my child doesn't come naturally to me, yet it's part of my role now and I do it for him.

Not everyone notices at this point that Asher has Down syndrome. They see that he is cute, if they ask his age they might be able to see that he is delayed, but I am rarely asked if he has Down syndrome and people don't stare yet because if it. Right now they stare because I have two children under 2 and they are trying to figure out if they are twins or not or because I look frazzled like many moms of young children do.

Asher really is a light in our family. He brings joy with his smiles and giggles. He brings celebration with every milestone he works so hard to meet. His normally relaxed personality is in stark contrast to Lucas' higher strung, busier personality. He loves to give hugs and kisses, be held and loved on. He is really perfect in so many ways.

He makes me see the world differently. He makes me more aware of other parents and children with special needs. Creating a special bond between us immediately upon meeting. He makes me slow down and not rush milestones and development, knowing that he will get there in his time, not according to a table or chart. He brings out a passion in me to fight for him and his rights even when it's uncomfortable and may lead to making tough choices. He also makes me fear for his future, how will he be treated and what happens when one of us isn't there to "protect" him. He opens my mind to how someone can be so valuable to those around them that other's might not see as being able to contribute to society and how God can truly use anyone, regardless of their ability or disability. He shows me how blessed I am to have him as my tour guide on a journey that I feared and wasn't sure I wanted to take.

When we were deciding whether or not we wanted to be considered as potential parents to adopt Asher and Lucas, I was so afraid of the far off future. God kept telling me that I couldn't focus just on that, but it was hard. I was afraid that Asher being a member of our family might mean that we would have to alter travel and vacation plans, that we might not be able to serve in international missions again if that was part of God's plan, and that Elias and I might not get to enjoy our retirement years as a couple because he would always be dependent on us.

I.was.so.silly.

Now I have learned that Asher has an amazingly bright future. We will travel and vacation to the same places that we would have if he was typical. If God calls us back to international missions, he will come and be a light and probably reach people in a way that we would be unable to without him. I now know that he can go to college (if he wants) and live semi independently with other adults with developmental disabilities and possibly even get married (if he wants). But now I want that for HIM not so that Elias and I can enjoy the freedom of retirement. He has changed my heart and I want so much for him and his future! Each night that I am home, I sign him my favorite song for him as he falls asleep in my arms and I know that I am blessed to be Asher's mom.

The process of making pickles with twin toddlers

Today I attempted to make pickles while my twin toddlers were awake, it went like this:

1. Get the cucumbers out.

2. Lucas decides he wants to wash dishes.

3. Get clean dish water drawn with clean dishes for Lucas to "wash". 

4. Get Lucas set up on chair to "wash" dishes at the sink.

5. Wash cucumbers and beginning slicing. 

6. Asher decides that he too wants to "wash" dishes. 

7. Get another dishpan with soap, water and clean dishes to put on a towel on the floor. 

8. Continue slicing.

9. Lucas no longer wants to wash his dishes, he wants to wash Asher's dishes. Help Lucas off of the chair to play in the water on the floor. 

10. Baby gate the children into the kitchen to keep soggy toddlers contained to hard surfaces. 

11. Lucas dumps water all over the floor, grab 3 more towels to dry the pond that has now formed on the kitchen floor. 

12. Finish slicing cucumbers only to find out that they need to be salted and sit for 90 minutes. 

13. Clean up all the dishwashing activities, get towels in the wash, return baby gates to their proper stations.

14. Realize 30 minutes later that salted cucumbers should be covered and chilled. 

15. Write this post while I wait for cucumbers to be ready to be pickled. 

16. Finish the project tomorrow.

Becoming a doula after infertility

As many of you know, in March of this year I made the decision to pursue continuing education in prenatal and postpartum massage as well as a massage doula. Some of you may be wondering how I came to this decision after our long struggle with infertility. Others of you are wondering what the heck a doula is and what one has to do with infertility at all. A doula is a non-medical, labor support person who provides education, emotional and physical support to women and couples during pregnancy, labor and delivery, and shortly after birth. As a massage doula I can provide regular prenatal massage throughout pregnancy, massage during labor along with typical birth doula support, postpartum massage and newborn massage instruction. I’m hoping to add fertility massage on to all of that in the future to provide all encompassing care from prior to conception all the way through learning how to massage one’s new baby. 

Now that you have a description of the work I am trained to do, you probably understand a bit better how infertility and becoming a doula impact each other. Ever since I was in massage school, I was drawn to prenatal massage. I even created a business plan in school based around my dream for my future practice that offered various types of massage with specialized training in all aspects of prenatal massage, from fertility massage all the way through to newborn massage instruction. However, that was also the time that we were just beginning fertility treatments.

As our failures with IVF began to take a heavier toll and adoption seemed financially impossible, I put all of this on hold. I was not in a healthy place to focus on helping women conceive, massaging them throughout their pregnancies and then teaching them to massage their sweet new babies. I was struggling with bitterness, depression and anger with God. No one wants a bitter infertile woman as her massage therapist during pregnancy, and frankly, at that point I probably didn’t want to be her therapist throughout her pregnancy because it just hurt too much. In retrospect, regardless of our infertility, providing general massage therapy without a specialization when just starting out in the field, provided much needed experience that will benefit me for years to come.

With time however, God began to heal my heart, the bitterness began to fade and depression was slowly replaced with joy. Then came Asher and Lucas. Every day that I got to wake up and be their mom, my heart sang, and that joy and healing continued to increase exponentially. Just shy of their first birthday, I decided that it was time to begin focusing on my massage practice again after putting on the back burner for a year. I began looking into continuing education and remembered a program for training as a massage doula that I had seen around the time I graduated from massage school. God had been working on healing my heart and I knew that emotionally, I was ready to take this step and continue on the path that He had called me to nearly 4 years earlier.

I began my courses with excitement and even though I have had to face some of the emotions that I haven’t had to deal with for awhile pertaining to experiences that I may never get to have, I continue to be excited about this new path that my career will take. I will still offer the same massage services as before, but with the added specialization in prenatal and postpartum massage as well as massage doula services. I am now in a healthy place to support women and couples on their journey to growing their families, in fact I think that God will use our journey to allow me to even better support women and couples, and it is an honor to do so.

10 things I have learned about motherhood.

Since becoming a mom, here are some things I have learned:

1. I never knew how much a mom truly loves her child and how much my mom truly loves me. I could not have imagined the depth of the love that I feel for my boys.

2. That that intense love is only a fraction of how much God in turn loves me. If I had truly understood this while going through infertility, I still would have hurt, but maybe my perspective would have been different.

3. Love is not dependent on genetics. For every person who has said "I couldn't do that" when referring to adoption, let me reassure you, the love I feel for my children is no different than what you feel for yours.

4. Even despite this incredible love, there are still hard days and hard moments. Every child has moments that make their parents want to pull there hair out, yet our love for them doesn't change.

5. Just like more than one mom can love a child, a child can love more than one mom. Open adoption has it's complexities, but loving more than one mom doesn't have to be as complicated as we as adults make it.

6. There are days that I have thought how "easy" it would be to have only one child, but that's not really true. If Asher was my only child, I would probably think that parenthood was easier than people make it sound. If Lucas was my only child, I would still think that it's as hard as people make it out to be. Each child is unique with their own personalities. Asher is laid back and fairly easy going most of the time, Lucas is strong willed a bit more needy. They are both adorable and happy most of the time, both have unique, sweet personalities and they both have traits that can try my patience. What I find difficult in one child, might turn out to be their greatest strength.

7. I feel as though God created me to a mother. In many ways, I feel as though it completes me. That being said, I need to learn how to be completely content in God, outside of that role as I really don't need anything other than Him to be complete.

8. I would love to have more children, but I don't HAVE to have more children. I can be happy and our family can be complete as it is. Infertility is still a part of me, but it no longer consumes and controls me, it no longer defines me.

9. Being a parent is an honor and a privilege, and I will never take that for granted.

10. I am blessed.

Where we are today

So much has changed over the past year and I feel like it is time to update all of you on where our lives have taken us.

In the past year I finished working as an office assistant and began working as a personal care aide for an elderly woman in addition to my massage practice. The hours are a much better fit for our family and allow me to be home during the day to take the boys to checkups, Asher's extra appointments with specialists as well as be home for all of Asher's therapies which we now do 4 times a week in our home. I am also now a trained massage doula (pregnancy, birth and labor support person), which is something I'm very excited about.

Elias graduated in the spring with his degree as a Computer Network Technician and began working for the NY Air Break in Watertown as a paid intern for 6 months. He is really enjoying his work and we are hoping and praying that it turns into a full time position at the end of the year!

Asher and Lucas are super busy and super cute! We are no longer parents to two babies, but now we have two toddlers on our hands!

Lucas never stops moving. He walks and runs like he's been doing it forever. He has become a little more snuggly again which is nice since he wanted nothing to do with sitting and snuggling for awhile. He is signing and starting to say more and more words, claps for himself if he does something he is proud of and is very smart. He is still dramatic yet very charming and loves to give me kisses and bring toys to Asher when he is not pushing him over.

Asher still has his same sweet demeanor, but he is beginning to learn that he can be assertive and demanding when he wants to to communicate his needs. He crawls all over the house, really enjoying playing in the dog water and trying to eat the dog food. Sometimes he chases Lucas around and other times he just does his own thing. He eats everything (including sand and coupons) and is trying so hard to pull himself up. If an object, or person, is just he right height he can do it, which makes him very proud. He loves to smile and giggle as well as steal Lucas' wubbanub and pull his hair.

Both of the boys love pushing cars around and they are starting to actually play together more and more which is really fun to see. Lucas loves pools and water, no matter how deep or much he is shivering whereas Asher loves bath tubs and kiddy pools that are warm and that he can crawl around in. Right now we are taking parent and tot swimming lessons and having a blast doing it!

Scrumpy has done surprisingly well and has mellowed out over the past year when it comes to tolerating the boys. He didn't love it when Lucas started crawling, but now the boys crawl on him and pet him and he just gets up and leaves if he doesn't like it. We are really proud and really thankful for how well he has done since he traditionally has not liked children.

Going out to eat is a new challenge that we don't tackle very ofter as Lucas is very picky and very active and Asher isn't a fan of missing out on the action either. Traveling in the car for long distances is also tough for the same reasons as above. We are always tired and always busy, but we are so in love and wouldn't have it any other way. Twins are definitely a lot of work, but they are so much fun. I love that they always have a playmate and another child around. I also love when I get home and they squeal and come over to me, then I sit down on the floor and they climb all over me, fighting for attention (Scrumpy included). Our life is chaotic, but it's a perfect kind of chaos.