birth family

A surprise on my doorstep

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Yesterday was my birthday and you knew that right? It’s not like I’ve been keeping it a secret LOL! The day was spent in my favorite way with my family doing family stuff and sneaking in some house stuff.  Curtains hung as we continue to settle into our home after more than a year.

As we were finishing up dinner, we heard a rustle on our front porch and saw a person through headlights.  What or who could that be?  My husband went to the front door and found a bag filled with flowers, a card and a gift.  When reading the card I saw it was from S (J’s birth mom). I quickly picked up my phone and called her to come back.  What a thoughtful gesture, but not ring the bell after driving up from Fremont to our home?  That will never do!  She answered her phone right away and within minutes was back at our house with her son. Our girls were jumping up and down when I shared who the mystery gift giver was and that she would be coming back to share birthday cake with us!

stef jess and me 11-23-14

And this was how we ended our Sunday, spent with the addition of more family!

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The three kiddos playing and laughing and the three adults watching and laughing along!

This is what our family is about, being family.  S driving up to our home to drop off a gift was more than nice and coming back and spending the evening of my birthday with us was the icing on the cake for my day!

I am on many online forums for adoption and I get sad when I read that parents are too scared to allow their children a relationship with their birth family.  They seem to find so many reasons for not keeping a relationship (if there is a safety issue that is something else).

I know we are the lucky ones that as we embraced each of our girls’ birth families, they embraced us.  As the years have gone by we have become a stronger family unit with our girls developing their own autonomous relationships with their family.

I love this is the way our Sunday ended!

This is my 24th post of National Blog Posting Month, click #NaBloPoMo to read the many other bloggers participating, Enjoy!

Thankful for family

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thanks·giv·ing (thngks-gvng)
noun
1. An act of giving thanks; an expression of gratitude, especially to God: a hymn of thanksgiving.
2. Thanksgiving – Thanksgiving Day.

grati·tude (grat′i tood′)
noun
1. a feeling of thankful appreciation for favors or benefits received
2. thankfulness.

fate (fāt)
noun
1. the power or agency supposed to determine the outcome of events before they occur; destiny
2. a. something inevitable, supposedly determined by this power
b. what happens or has happened to a person or entity; lot;

family photo collage adoption

November and Thanksgiving especially brings out many emotions…thankfulness, gratefulness, love, happiness and gratitude. Have we always felt like this at the holidays? Does everyone feel the way we do now? I can think back to holidays when we were trying to have children and I am pretty sure we were not feeling much happiness and gratitude but what changed for us?

Back in 2005 we had come to a place of unknowns knowing that the one thing we wanted most was to be parents. After trying on our own and subsequently fertility treatments with no success it became for us about being “mom” & “dad” and not needing to be pregnant to get to there and realized adoption was the path we needed to take to become a family.

Our journey to parenthood was not the original one we planned but we see that this is how it was meant to be. Now here we are the proud parents of two beautiful girls! and now have a very large extended family that combined from each of our girl’s families!

All the twists and turns were made easier with the guidance of the wonderful professional, Ellen Roseman,  we worked with who helped to prepare us for the relationships we share with each of our girl’s birth mothers, birth father’s and their extended families. We know that our children cannot have too many people in their lives who love them and it has been our blessing to have our family expanded so seamlessly.

So most especially at this time of year, we feel enormous LOVE and GRATITUDE for those who chose us to be parents. We realize their decisions demonstrate the true meaning of unconditional love and we will always share an important and unending bond with them.

We LOVE our girls unconditionally and are raising them to appreciate the selfless gift of adoption as much as we do.

There are many other bloggers participating in BlogHer’s National Blog Posting Month.  Click here #NaBloPoMo to read more, Enjoy!

to lose a grandmother …

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grandma mac 2012

The other day we learned Grandma Mac had passed away, our girls have lost one of their loving Grandmas and Tim and I have lost a wonderful woman who treated and loved us like one of her own.

We became part of their clan when our oldest was entrusted to us at her birth. I will miss the calls I would get from Grandma Mac just to talk and pass on some parenting advice, we will ALL miss her terribly.

Telling our girls was the hardest part of this day.  This is the second grandparent to die in their young lifetime.

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This poem helps our girls know that they have not lost their Grandma forever that she lives in our hearts and when she is thinking of us you might find a penny from her letting you know she is around.