Hannah's Hope

I have heard of several people out there who read this blog and also have felt the pain of infertility become part of their life story.  I wanted to share a book with you all that I was given from someone in my church who also struggled with infertility.  The book is called Hannah's Hope.

"Hannah’s Hope offers insightful and heartfelt encouragement for couples dealing with infertility, miscarriage or failed adoption. Building on the story of Hannah (First Samuel, chapter 1), Jennifer Saake interweaves her personal experiences with advice gleaned from over ten years of providing aid to grieving families through the support network she co-founded with husband Rick, Hannah’s Prayer Ministries. While remaining true to the very real and anguishing emotions of longing for a child, Jenni continually directs her readers back to the comfort and strength of a compassionate God. Each chapter concludes with a special “Burden Bearers” section offering practical suggestions for pastors, family members and friends."

I was so encouraged by this book and also given an opportunity to examine my own self and how I am handling my infertility.  This book touches on so many aspects of infertility and all from a Biblical viewpoint. I found myself recognizing areas that I subconsciously worked through and finally I was able to make sense of the feelings I had and why I had them.  I also found areas that I had not worked through yet but I really needed to in order to be closer to God and truly give this infertility journey completely to Him.

I really really appreciated being given this book and so I want others to benefit from it as well.  Infertility is such a hard thing and something not often discussed for some reason.  In our church it seems that pregnancy and big families are so common, we often just expect to get pregnant and have a family.  It's not until month after month the test shows negative that we realize just how little we have to do with "blessing" ourselves with children and how each child truly is a blessing from God.  I know I was completely guilty of this as I never would have expected infertility to be a part of my story and always just expected that I would be able to get pregnant when I wanted to.

I think this book is not just for those who have dealt with infertility first hand.  Each chapter has a section at the end for those who are close to couples struggling with infertility. I think reading this book could really help those who are close to families struggling with infertility to really understand what they are going through and how they can be sensitive to their needs and understand how they can help during this difficult time for that couple.  I have so much appreciated the strong love and support I have been given by my friends and family as we struggled with the feelings that came after learning about our infertility and I hurt for those that don't receive that love and support as well.

Currently a friend has this book but if anyone else would like to borrow it once she is done just let me know and I will get it to you!

Fundraising Success!

I am so thankful for the awesome success we had with our t-shirt fundraiser!  I want to thank everyone who bought a shirt and supported the cause of adoption.  Through the fundraiser we were able to help three local families, including ourselves, raise money to put toward adoption expenses. We look forward to bringing HOPE to a child from the Philippines, China, and the United States and your support has helped make the financial burden a little lighter! I know everyone is very thankful for your support.  I wanted to give a little shout out to www.fundthenations.com as they were great to work with in all this! Despite a slight error and reprint of the t-shirts they were very quick to respond and fix the problem at hand.  So if anyone is looking for a company to use for a t-shirt fundraiser I would definitely recommend www.fundthenations.com!

                                                  Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!!

(Ignore how bad this picture is :) We haven't been able to get a good one because we have to set up the camera with a timer since we don't have anyone around to take our picture! But I wanted to get this post up before it goes too long!)

Patience Patience...

For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done 

the will of God, ye might receive the promise.

Hebrews 10:36

The most common question I get from friends and family now that we are done with paperwork is..."How's the waiting going?" or "How are you doing with patience?" and my answer is "It depends on the day and the perspective I look through."  Some days I am perfectly content just waiting, having the hope of a child and a family somewhere in my future. Other days it can be hard and I wonder when or if it will ever really happen. 

I am learning just how truly thankful I am that God gives us one day at a time and doesn't allow us to see into our future.  It has been one year and nine months since we were told we would have to wait until I turned 21, which was nine months away at the time, to even begin the adoption paperwork/process.  Today, one year and nine months later, I turn 22 and we have completed paperwork and are simply waiting.  If I had known at the time that we would still be waiting and hoping to have a child almost two years later I would have wanted to give up and not even go down this path.  But God knew and still knows exactly what we need and what we can handle.  It could be another two years until we get chosen and have a baby, but God gives us the hope that it will be sooner and if we hang onto that hope each day, two years will fly right by. (right?) So that is the perspective I use that really helps me.  Almost two years have passed that we have been on this journey and looking back those years flew right by.  When I think about waiting with that perspective it doesn't seem to bad and I can just enjoy the little things in life that will be changed once we have a baby. I told one friend I just try not to dwell on it to much because that's when the impatience comes.  Her response was "How can you do that? I would think about it every single day!" and I do! Every single day! But it's when I start making "plans" that the impatience comes and then I am reminded that my so called "plans" don't usually happen anyways so I am better off just being content with my life just the way it is and allowing God to make the plans and changes to my future.  

The verse above is an encouraging one to me and usually convicting too.  Patience doesn't come easily to me:)  But patience has helped me to grow in faith and trust in God and His ultimate plan.  Awhile ago I was listening to Focus on the Family and I learned something I had never really thought about before.  One of  the Fruit of the Spirit is long-suffering and often times we can replace that word or explain it by saying it is having patience.  I learned there is a big difference in patience and long-suffering.  Patience is waiting for something you expect to happen or change.  For example, we need patience as we wait to have a baby some day.  We know it will happen some how but we have to wait for it to come to pass.  Another example of patience is waiting for Christ to return, as the verse above is talking about.  We know He is coming back but we need to be patient as we wait.  I would say patience is more comparable to contentment than long-suffering. Long-suffering is dealing with a person/situation that you do not expect will ever change, yet you still endure. We as Christians are constantly tempted and struggling against the devil.  He is not going to let up while we have the breath of life.  Now if we can endure and overcome and still praise God and serve him through it all with a cheerful attitude, that's long-suffering.  It was so interesting to me because I had never really thought about the difference in those two words that we use almost interchangeably.  It is encouraging to know that for our situation in life right now we are in need of patience, not long-suffering.  We have the hope and expectation that someday, in God's timing, we will have a little baby to hold in our arms and call our own. 

So to answer the question of patience, I have my up days and I have my down days but overall I am thankful that I am only in need of patience and I can use this time to learn how to depend more fully on God and to hold onto hope for all He has planned for our future. 

T-Shirt Fundraiser!

Jesse and I teamed up with www.fundthenations.com to create an original adoption t-shirt. We will be selling this t-shirt along with several other adoptive families in the Fairbury/Forrest area to help raise adoption awareness and raise money to help with some of the many costs of adoption.

We have Adult sizes S-XXXL for $25.00 each.
We also have Youth sizes XS(2-4) S(6-8) M(10-12)  L(14-16)  XL(18-20)  for $15.00 each.

Proceeds will be used to help fund our adoption as well as two other families that are adopting in the Forrest/Fairbury area.

If you would like to purchase a shirt please email me or leave a comment below.  Please mail payment upon placing an order.  If you need my address please email me at kzimm91@yahoo.com

Sales will be open until November 25th and at that time we will place our order and then deliver shirts once we get them!

Thanks so much for your support and prayers!!

Redemption

I am sure many of you have heard Zach Bertsch tell his testimony on the CD entitled Home that he made for his cancer redemption project.  I was listening to the CD the other day and usually it brings me to tears when I listen to him tell a little of his story and how God is redeeming his cancer to help build homes in Haiti for orphans and all the good that has come because of something we perceive as negative. This link will take you to Zach's testimony. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFYbEHMpxRA) I encourage anyone who hasn't heard it to listen to it!  It is so encouraging and really helps put trials and struggles in this life into a heavenly perspective. Zach says in his testimony that he sometimes gets excited about the ways God can use his cancer to accomplish God's purposes.  I finally got that yesterday as I was bursting with excitement on all the ways God can use Jesse and I  because of our infertility.  Now I know I don't understand what it is like to be on my death bed and still excited for all God can do because of it, but I got a glimpse of why he could say that despite the pain he was facing.  If Zach never had cancer there would be over 70 orphans in Haiti without homes and if I can speak on Zach's behalf I think he wouldn't have changed his situation even if he could have.  I feel the same way when it comes to infertility. Don't get me wrong I long to become pregnant and feel my little baby kicking inside me and have my own birthing story to share of how my child came into this world, but I wouldn't change our infertility.  Adoption would have been the farthest thing from my mind if we would have been able to get pregnant and start a family when we hoped we could.  Now it seems crazy that adoption wouldn't be part of our life.  It has defined us these last few years and really it's who we have become.  Just like when you are expecting a baby, as soon as you find out you are pregnant your world begins to revolve around the growing baby inside you and you plan and you hope and you dream of what your little baby will be like and how things will change when he/she arrives.  It's the same with adoption.  I think I plan and hope and dream about our adoption every day!  It has been the focus of my life for the past year and a half now.  There is a baby growing in my heart.  I don't know if it needs 9 months to grow or maybe 2 years to grow but it is growing and I can't wait till the day I get to meet him/her. Every day it seems to become more and more clear just why we can't have our own children and the way God is using this to form both Jesse and I into more perfect children of His.  I get so excited about all that God can do through us in adoption that sometimes it's hard for me to wait for His perfect timing. I am ready to be used so why are there all these things that seem to slow me down???  I've also learned in the last year and half that waiting is usually learning.  We learn so much in a time of waiting that will be important for when God asks us to move.  My life as a married woman has gone completely different than how I have always dreamed it would go but SURPRISE I wouldn't change one single thing about it!!!  God has already done so much simply in our hearts to redeem our infertility and we haven't even interacted with a birth mom or a child.  I know God has a lot more He can do to redeem our situation to accomplish His purposes!

Officially Waiting...

So by the title you can see that we are officially a waiting family.  Technically we have been a waiting family for a little while with Family Core without them having our book but they now have a copy of our book as of September 12th, 2013.  We are also now a waiting family with our Attorney in Charleston as well.  I sent her multiple copies of our book on September 12th.  So now the real "waiting" begins.  We have been able to keep doing things here and there that help us feel like we are making progress but now I think those things are coming to an end. We will probably have a few things here and there that we need to do as time goes on and things need updated and we do have a little research to do on babies that have been exposed to drugs and different things like that but for the most part our job is done! We have done what we can and the rest is in God's hands!   Now we can see how patient we really are:)

P.S. If anyone who reads this blog has experience with adopting a baby exposed to drugs I would love to hear your experience.

To our Child...We can't wait to hold you in our arms for the first time, 

to welcome you into our hearts and lives.  You will be loved.

Adoption Attorney Meeting

Yesterday Jesse and I had a meeting with an adoption attorney from Charleston IL.  We were informed of this attorney by our case worker in Peoria.  Kirsten, the attorney, does outreach and helps connect adoptive couples with birth parents and then also can do all the legal parts of the adoption once we would be chosen and need that done.  I was planning on waiting until after harvest to contact Kirsten and get set up to be her client but Jesse felt we should do it now.  He felt like it would be smart to be using all our resources right away to connect to birth parents because the longer it goes the more we will become impatient and want a child.  I didn't want to start anything that couldn't be completed before harvest since we will be very busy then, so I called Kirsten's office just to get information on how her program works.  I learned that it was actually very simple to get set up with her since we already had our home-study and foster license completed through Family Core.  I then set up a meeting with her and we went yesterday to get information and learn about her program.

The meeting went great and we left feeling pretty excited to get to work with Kirsten and for what the future holds!  Kirsten is very straight forward and tells you exactly what she thinks.  This was actually great because it really gave us a better idea of what to expect for our adoption journey.  She looked at our profile book as well and gave us some helpful tips on that.  Kirsten has been working as an adoption attorney for over 20 years now so she has a lot of experience and knows the trends of adoption and what birth parents are looking for in an adoptive couple.  There were two main things she felt might delay us being chosen quickly. The first is that fact that we are so young.  Anyone older than us that would be placing a child up for adoption would most likely not choose us because if they feel they can't parent then they would not give their child to someone younger than them!  She said we will most likely be chosen by a teenager or someone younger than us.  The second thing is our religion.  She said a lot of birth mothers are rebelling against religion and so to see us so strongly serve God could be a turn off for them.  She did tell us that if we were a few years older she would say we would be chosen within six months!  But because we are so young that narrows down who will chose us so she said more realistically would be a year, two at the most.  Kirsten deals with a lot of birth parents compared to Family Core.  She has created a network of ways to connect with birth parents all over Illinois not just in Charleston.  She usually works with about 15 adoptive couples and places anywhere from 10-25 babies a year through her adoption program. She said right now is a great time to enter the adoption world because there have been a lot of babies placed for adoption in recent months and years.  Since July she has placed six babies through her adoption program!

She gave us a form to fill out that is four pages of general information.  We need to complete the form and return it to her along with several copies of our profile book.  She likes to have several copies of profile books because she said she sends them in the mail to birth parents, takes them in her car and keeps some in the office etc. so she likes to have plenty on hand.  It seems as though she shows books often and is a very busy person which is great news!  Then that is pretty much all we have to do so I am glad we went ahead and are getting set up with her now rather than after harvest.

As far as our profile book goes I said earlier that she gave us some helpful tips.  Before we went to this meeting our case worker told us that Kirsten would tell us exactly what she thought of our book and would tell us to make changes.  Some people can be offended after working with Family Core where they don't give too much criticism on profile books.  Our case worker just wanted us to be prepared!  So we figured there would be a least a few things that needed to change if not a bunch!  After looking through our book Kirsten closed it and looked at us with this expression like she was going to tell us the whole thing needed to be redone!  Then she said that the trend and what seems to be working best for being chosen quickly was to have a very simple plain profile book without all the embellishments and decoration like scrapbooks.  Well basically that's what ours is (the scrapbook type)!  She then said that she would normally ask us to change it to more simple so we would have a better chance of getting chosen but she wanted us to leave it just the way it was.  She said our book has a very youthful feel to it and that would be perfect for attracting the young women who would be the ones choosing us since we are so young!  She said to leave our book the way it is for at least six months and if it wasn't getting any "nibbles" then we could make a new book that was more plain.  She did say that our "story" and pictures were great and she really liked them.  So we actually didn't have to change anything! (Except putting borders around pictures to help them stand out)  I did decide to make a more plain book to send to Kirsten along with some copies of our original book and then she can show whichever one she prefers.

So I have been creating and updating our profile book and filling out a little paperwork.  I think Jesse and I are both just a little more excited knowing how many babies Kirsten places through her program.  We also really like Kirsten as a person and think she will be a great attorney to have in the future!

On the way home from our meeting in Charleston there was a sticker on the back of a vehicle that said Psalm 37:4.  Jesse told me to look it up in our Bible we had in the vehicle so I did and here is what it says!

Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.

The next verse went on to say...

Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him; and He shall bring it to pass.

Jesse's words were " Just what we needed for the ride home!"
God has it all figured out and I am encouraged to know He will bring it to pass, in His timing and in His way!