living life abundantly in spite of PCOS
When I shared about the embryo adoption consultation, I mentioned that it would take 2-2.5 weeks for the RE’s office to get all of the results in, and then, of course, the doctor would have to review them before I could see them. Some of these tests are extremely extensive and go way over my head. This is going to be short and sweet because it’s all good news!
Today is my 35th birthday! Out of all of the milestone birthdays I’ve had, this one is by far in the strangest time of my life. Today, I want to share some of my thoughts on turning 35 and document where I’m at in this time.
This age for some people probably leads to a lot of tears. It’s another year closer to 40 and another year closer to going “over the hill”. But the truth is age has never bothered me. I’ve never been one to mope and moan about getting another year older (another year wiser). Every year lived is another year to celebrate. This year is going to be so exciting in so many ways! Whether I’m turning 35 or turning 60, I’m going to thank God for another year with my husband and daughter. I try so hard to live my life with zero regrets, so instead of worrying about how old I am, I focus on how I can live abundantly today.
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We’ve been in fundraising mode like crazy lately! It’s a lot of work but it will be worth it to bring home these sweet babies. The last time I shared about our embryo adoption fundraisers, we only had three that were active. You can read about those here: Our Embryo Adoption Fundraisers. Since then, we’ve added SEVEN more, and today I’m going to share them! If anything, this should help give others ideas on how to raise money for adoption, no matter what kind of adoption they’re pursuing.
Between those three fundraisers, plus the first one I’m about to share, plus the amount we are setting aside off each paycheck we receive, we will officially have half what we need by October 15! HALF! I’m so hopeful that between the remaining fundraisers and what we set aside will help us raise the second half by transfer time!
Before I share these, let me preface this by saying that we have the BEST tribe of supporters. You honestly never realize how many people are cheering you on until you start being transparent and humbly ask for help. We’ve had people come forward and offer to host fundraisers on our behalf, and not all are going to be the biggest moneymakers, but they all matter. Not only the funds raised, but the heart behind them matter so much to us! I don’t care if it’s $20 raised… that’s $20 we didn’t have that covers some part of this embryo adoption process. We are so thankful for every dollar, every prayer, every word of encouragement we receive.
Also, I have to give a shoutout to my sweet friend Blair who sent me the most generous Erin Condren gift card [use that link to get $10 off your first order!] so I was able to pick out an amazing 15-month planner to help me keep all of these fundraisers and appointments organized from October 2019 to December 2020! I hope and pray that this planner will be the one to keep forever that chronicles how we got these babies and my hopeful pregnancy! So not only have our friends and family been generous with our fundraising, but they have helped fill other needs like this! It’s been so humbling.
Okay, so I’m done rambling. 🙂 Here are our newest fundraisers for our embryo adoption:
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Now that we are officially in full “embryo adoption” mode, we currently have three active embryo adoption fundraisers that I wanted to share today!
I can’t even begin to explain how many times I’ve edited this shirt design before I finally had to say “enough is enough” and launch it! That’s the enneagram 1 in me, I’m telling you. But it’s finally here and I’m so happy with it! It was important to me that this shirt honored many different avenues of adoption, not just ours. I wanted this to be a shirt for all adoptive families. I even had an adoptee on Instagram message me and tell me she loved the shirt! That made my heart melt! This shirt design is available to print on 5 different garments, and each garment has a variety of color options. Here is a little peek!
Bonfire doesn’t have the exact same colors for every garment type they offer, which makes sense, but I wanted to make sure people understood that if they’re looking for the same color for the whole family. It can be a bit tricky. If you order a shirt, please tag me on social media! I want to see it!
Order: ADOPTION is a BEAUTIFUL Adventure
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We had our very first appointment with our new Reproductive Endocrinologist to start embryo adoption! The point of this appointment was to get established as a new patient and to identify a process for finding out if I can carry the two embryos we are adopting. While we know nothing is ever a sure thing (the embryos could not survive the thaw or the transfer), this appointment gave us so much hope.
What I particularly loved about this appointment was how supportive this doctor was. He didn’t try to convince us to do IVF with our own eggs and sperm, he didn’t push an agenda that benefits him and his clinic, he listened to us, encouraged us, and it was very clear that he supports us 100%. He personally knows the individual who has chosen us for this embryo adoption and thinks the world of her (all the staff there does!) so it was blatantly obvious that we were in the right place for this whole process.
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When we said “yes” to adoption, we originally said “no” to embryo adoption. IVF never felt like it was meant to be a part of our story, and I’ve always felt like embryo adoption was an amazing thing that I would be open to, but Glenn was really unsure about it for a long time. I think it was just too scary and my body is so unpredictable. Let’s be real: adoption is scary. And unpredictable. As we’ve entered into this journey, I’ve learned how important it is for us to be flexible because anything can happen to change our plans at any point.
In our case, our most recent miscarriage led to this change of plans.
Everyone says it: “as soon as you start adoption, you’ll get pregnant!”
Little did I know just how much truth was to that statement for me. When I found out I was pregnant, I didn’t want to believe it. I felt so disconnected, so confused, so unsure that I’d get to bring that baby home. I had already poured hours into adoption, between talking to agencies, working on our profile book, and reading about grants.
Then it happened.
Two pink lines.
Then two more pink lines the next day. The test line was light, but the hCG has to start somewhere, right? “A line is a line”, thats what they always say. Two means positive!
Here’s the deal: I’m going to try to share what I can, when I can, while also keeping a certain level of privacy. The journey of adoption includes unlimited options and combinations of options. No journey is really wrong, it’s just different for everyone. What works for some may not for others and vice versa. Each step includes a very personal decision, and for us, those decisions are carefully prayed over. We will make mistakes along the way, and things that we thought would work probably won’t. That said, I don’t intend to share the names of agencies, home study case workers, etc. on here right now. I’m going to share some of the things I’ve been looking for and have come across. If you want to talk further, DM me on Instagram!
The first thing we did was get the list of licensed agencies for our state from our attorney, and then the list of licensed home study caseworkers with whom she has successfully worked. Going through the list, it was quite clear that our state has more home study agencies than adoption agencies. In my research, I learned that the reason is that we are a state where private adoptions are allowed, so there are a lot more of them than agency placements. I thought this was quite interesting. I don’t think this is the case for all states that allow private adoptions, but for us, this seems to be the case.
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We have been back from our 3rd Disney World vacation for a few weeks now and I’m seriously experiencing the Disney blues lately. Of all the trips we’ve done, this one was the most action-packed! Our first two trips included four-and-a-half park days and this one had EIGHT! Yes, eight. The difference? We flew down this time instead of drove, so we didn’t lose an entire day (or two) driving down and back. Instead, our travel days were also park days. I’ll explain how that worked in this post! Another difference in this trip compared to our last two: park hopper tickets. This was our first time park hopping! I’ll also explain how that went for us.
Also, we got a LOT of Fast Passes on this trip. I’ll show which ones we reserved at 60 days out but I won’t list every single one we got because I honestly forgot already. But we rarely stood in lines.
Before I get into the day to day schedule and how everything went, I want to review the hotel we stayed in on property. In 2015, we stayed off-site (read about that here). In 2017, we stayed at Art of Animation in the Little Mermaid rooms (read about that here). This year, we stayed at Port Orleans French Quarter. Several of my friends have been waiting to see what I think of it compared to the last resort, so here we go!
This resort… oh, this resort. We absolutely fell in love! Everything about it was wonderful. The grounds are quiet and it has a romantic feel to it, even with kids running around. The pool area is surrounded by trees and it almost adds a layer of soundproofing, so even though we were close to the pool, we rarely heard the parties that lasted late into the night.
We stayed in building 5, which was the perfect spot! It was central to everything: the food, the buses, the pool, the front desk. Nothing was too far of a walk. This was critical at the end of the night when we were exhausted and dragging ourselves from the bus stop to the room. We were on the 3rd floor so we did have stairs to take, but regardless, it was wonderful.
Somehow we ended up with an accessible room, which means we had access to a larger bathroom. I assume we were put in there because the resort was sold out over Memorial Day weekend and not enough accessibility requests came in, otherwise we would have gladly given it up for someone who needed it. But since we were never asked, we were happy to take the blessing of the extra space.
The Night Before We Left: Because this was a Disney vacation, we kicked off our trip by seeing the movie Aladdin in the theater and spending the night in a hotel across from our home airport. This was our key to success and I am so glad we did this! I won’t give a movie review, but I am excited that the release timed so perfectly with our trip.
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Who remembers this post on Instagram that I made on the last day of 2018?
Notice how it says “God has to move some mountains… and until he does, we’ll wait.” I’m excited to say that God has definitely moved mountains, and while it’s not the mountain I’ve been praying for since 2012, it’s the mountain that I’ve been praying for release to pursue. Every time I prayed about this in the last 7+ years, I’ve been met with “just wait”. I’ve never felt called to it even though I’ve prayed to be called. It’s been very frustrating, to say the least. Waiting is a badge I’ve been wearing for a long time.
The secret is ready to be revealed:
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