Join Us in Praying the St. Anne Novena

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I posted this on my personal Facebook page this morning, but wanted to post it here as well, for  those of you who don’t follow me there.

From Facebook:

The Novena to St. Anne starts today and concludes on July 25, which is the day before the Feast of St. Anne and St. Joachim and the day that Toby is scheduled to arrive (via c-section). Chris and I will be praying this novena for his safe and healthy delivery, peace for his parents, and sanity for us (okay, really me, Chris is in no danger of losing his sanity). We would love for as many of our friends as possible to join us in this.
 
For those of you not familiar with St. Anne and St. Joachim, tradition tells us that these are the names of Mary’s parents (and Jesus’ grandparents). The couple struggled with infertility through the whole of their marriage, until finally, after many years of prayer, God blessed them in their old age with a very special daughter: Mary.
 
Knowing this, Chris and I have sought St. Anne’s special intercession since the beginning of our marriage. On our honeymoon, we made a pilgrimage to St. Anne’s beautiful shrine in Quebec, to pray for the gift of a child, and we have prayed this Novena together, for the same intention, many times. We also are blessed to have a small third-class relic of St. Anne (sent by a kind reader of the blog) next to our bedside, and a beautiful statue of her and the Blessed Mother in our bedroom. Both devotional items have brought me so much comfort over these past two years, perpetually reminding me that I have a friend in heaven who has walked this same, hard path. I believe St. Anne has been a faithful prayer warrior for us throughout our marriage, and I trust she’s going to keep up those prayers during these final days of waiting.
 
Thank you for all the prayers offered up on behalf of Toby, his parents, and us. I can’t even imagine where we would be without them.
 
Here is the link to the novena for those of you who missed it above: https://www.praymorenovenas.com/st-anne-novena

 

Approaching Our Journey’s End: The Complicated Joy and Tragic Gift of Adoption

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This past Friday, I spent hours and hours online, reading stories about failed adoptions. I did the same thing Thursday. And I’m fighting the temptation to do the same today.

I know. I have issues.

In my defense though, I am part Irish. It’s in my blood to expect the worst…or, as I call it, to be “extra realistic.” Besides that, this whole adoption process has been so fraught with problems, from first to last, that expecting these remaining days to be anything less than traumatic seems foolish.

Friends and family, trying to be helpful, keep telling me to relax, to put it in God’s hands, and trust that it’s going to be all right. But human hearts don’t trust on command. If they did, I assure you, mine would be trusting right now. I order it to trust God daily, explaining to my heart how loving and merciful He is, and how He is working with the mess we’ve handed Him to bring about the eternal good of everyone involved in this adoption.

But my heart can’t hear those explanations. It’s too busy flipping and flopping about in my stomach—anxious, distracted and overwhelmed—to really listen to what my head is telling it.

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Waiting and Hoping and Praying

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Sometimes no news is good news. Other times, no news is…no news. That’s sort of the case with our adoption. I mean, there’s news. There’s dramatic news, sad news, confusing news, good news, infuriating news, unbelievable news, crazy news, and plain old newsy news, but generally, by the time I can get around to sharing the news, it’s become old news, which, really, is no news at all. Right?

In my head, I swear that makes sense.

Sadly, that is my answer to those of you who have been writing and asking for an update on the adoption situation here on the blog. The whole thing is just so changeable, that I’m not sure what to say.  I’ve tried to give regular updates on Facebook, but even that has become too difficult. I worry about saying the wrong thing…or about saying the right thing but having the wrong people read it. I also worry about jinxing myself, which I know is totally stupid and unCatholic and probably going to earn me an extra millennium in Purgatory, but non-stop, soul-crushing, bank account-draining stress does crazy things to your head. So, that’s my excuse.

Because so many of you have asked, though, I’ll try to give  the Cliff’s Note Version update. In a nutshell, we are waiting and hoping and praying.

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A few (very few) thoughts on suffering and beauty and rest

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The house is quiet today. And peaceful. The windows are open. The curtains are blowing. And some sweet smell from some flowering bush is filling the house. I don’t know my plants well enough to name genus and species. Just sweetness.

The contractors will be back tomorrow to finish up some odds and ends in the bathroom, then back again in June to do a little more to the fireplaces and build a couple of shelves for baby things. There is a bit of painting to do inside. A bit more outside. There are flowers to plant, grass to seed, some deep ruts in the yard, left by large trucks, to fill. And of course, curtains and pictures to hang. But the house is, nevertheless, by and large, done.

And it’s lovely. It’s whole. It’s what it was always supposed to be: a home, filled with life and light and the hope for days to come. Continue reading →

Discerning Adoption, Part III: It Costs What??!!

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Today we’re tackling the third and final (for now) installment in my series about our adoption process: $$$$$$$$. If you need to catch up, here is Part 1 (Discerning Adoption)  and Part 2 (Picking a Path).

How Much Does It Cost?

As I mentioned yesterday, the current average cost of private domestic infant adoption is about $40,000. Let that number sink in for a minute. $40,000.

Adopting through foster care is practically free. Adopting children with special needs is likewise considerably less. And around the country, a few small local agencies manage to keep costs low(ish). But, beyond that, adopting most everywhere else, in 2018, costs more than I earned annually for the first 14 years of my adult life.

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Called to Adoption: Part II, Picking a Path

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This is Part Two in a three-part series on our discernment of adoption and the process we’re currently in. Yesterday, we covered our initial discernment. Today, I’m talking about the path we finally chose.

***

By November of last year, I was feeling desperate. I so badly wanted to begin the process of adopting a baby, but, A) Neither our house nor our finances were in any way ready, and B) It seemed like every avenue we’d investigated was closed to us. Let’s review:

  1. Local Traditional Agencies: Too old;
  2. International Adoption: Too old, too long a wait, only older children  available;
  3. Foster Care: Only older children available, too emotionally draining after 20 months of dealing with infertility, house couldn’t pass a foster care home study in any way, shape, or form.

Fortunately, I have a lot of awesome Facebook friends.

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Called to Adopt: Part I, Discerning Adoption

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Over the past several weeks, I’ve received a steady stream of emails and phone calls asking how Chris and I discerned that we wanted to pursue adoption, as well as how we decided upon the particular type of adoption we’re doing. I don’t want to turn “The Catholic Table” into “The Catholic Adoption,” but because I don’t think these emails are going to stop coming, I decided to answer those questions on the blog—not just for those writing and asking, but also for those of you who want to better understand the process of adoption.**

In order to keep this post from becoming book length, however, I’m going to break it up into three parts, which I’ll post over the next three days. On today’s docket: How we discerned adoption and began discerning what kind of adoption we wanted to pursue.

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The Power of a Name

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Six weeks ago, a wonderful adoption attorney named Colette emailed me. “Emily, I’m going to give you a call today or tomorrow regarding the adoption situation attached.”

I looked at the situation, and dismissed it on the spot. We had no profile book yet, no home study done. We had talked to this lawyer a month before, and liked her lots (a friend recommended her), but we didn’t think we were ready to move forward. It wasn’t part of the plan. Besides, I reasoned, there had to be 1000 other prospective parents lined up for this baby. This couldn’t really be a serious option for us.

But, for reasons known only to God, I dropped every pressing deadline I had, and spent the next 12 hours putting together an adoption profile book.

The next night, we were having dinner with friends, when my phone rang. I never answer my phone when I’m with friends. I love ignoring my phone. But I looked at it. Colette. I had to take it.

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One Year Later: An Update…Of Sorts

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If there were a contest for laziest Catholic blogger, I’m pretty sure I’d win. It’s been so, so long since my last update, and so, so much has happened, that I’m at a bit of a loss about where to begin.

Probably the best place is with a word of thanks to all of you who offered such kind words of consolation after I wrote about our struggle with infertility and who have been praying for us ever since. At first, I tried so hard to thank everyone individually, but eventually I just got too overwhelmed, by the sheer volume of comments and messages and by life in general, which, if it’s been anything this past year, has indeed been overwhelming.

As some of you know, I’m currently under contract with Emmaus Road to write a book about the house renovations (working title is Don’t Paint the Subway Tile! Lessons in Love, Sin, Gin, and Grace from a Real-Life Fixer Upper). I’ll be starting on it in just a couple weeks, so thoughts about what I want to say are filling up my head. I have lots of those thoughts, but so few are what I had in mind when I originally came up with the book.

Don’t worry, though; the gin recipes haven’t gone anywhere. They’ll still play a supporting role in the book…even a starring role in some parts.

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Rachel, Hannah, and Me: Our “Great Anxiety and Frustration”

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Apologies in advance for no house photos or renovation update. The house and I are at war today, and I don’t feel particularly keen on showing it off. What I feel like is burning it down.

I also feel like a fool.

Ever since Chris and I got engaged, I’ve been asking for people to pray for us to have a baby. Yes, I was 40 when we got engaged. Yes, I was 41 when we got married. Yes, I’m 42 now. But the fertility doctor I’ve been seeing this whole time (a NaPro surgeon for those tempted to suggest NaPro to me) has continued to assure me that all those things fertility doctors look for—hormones, cycle regularity, ovarian reserve—look great. I should be fine. No reason to think about my age. No reason to worry. Plenty of time for babies.

But, here we are, 14 months later, with every month feeling like a year, and still no babies on the horizon. And although I keep asking people for prayers, I am, again, starting to feel like a fool when I do that…and an old fool at that.

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