BIOLOGICAL BABY BLUES

People who know me well, know that birthing a baby was my number one fear in life! For some reason, I've always been terrified and semi grossed out by the whole thing. So it came as a huge surprise to find out that I actually LOVED giving birth. I LOVE breastfeeding and I LOVE being mom to an infant! It might sound crazy, but I just did not think I would love it. I thought newborns were boring sleep suckers that made your nipples bleed! I kept telling myself… "You just have to make it through the first year and you're good to go!"

I'll save my "birth story" for another post, but for now I will tell you that it wasn't ideal and it was almost 40 hours long. And even though it was sort of terrible… I wanted to experience it over and over again. In those hours I felt so loved, so strong, so weak, so vulnerable, so important and heroic! And when I finally met this second son, it was nothing short of a miracle! ...A second miracle! And yes, he is perfect!

Here's a recent picture. Ezra Golden, 4 months old :)

After a few weeks home, Arthur started to show his "big brother jealousy". In hind-sight it was all normal new big brother behavior, but I was really worried about him! He just wasn't' himself and I had a lot of guilt and honestly, a lot of extra worry, because he was adopted. I was projecting a lot of emotions onto him… really thinking I knew what was going on in his head and his heart and the stories I was telling myself kept growing and growing.

Just in the nick of time a friend of mine invited me to a class that Adoptive Families of Houston was offering. The class was titled "sibling relationships" and I knew I needed to attend. I sat through the class and unfortunately, it ended up being more focused on biological siblings that your child may have outside of your family. Interesting... but I was disappointed that the teacher wasn't telling me what to do with my jealous 2 year old!! I hung around after class for some free food and hoped to get answers from other adoptive moms. I suddenly went from awkwardly eating my Jason's Deli Tuna roll to crying my eyes out in front of a complete stranger! And I mean an UGLY cry!

I was telling her that Arthur was starting to observe and compare and ask questions about when he was a baby. Things like "Mama, when I was a baby, did you feed me a bottle?" For some reason that question made my heart break a little. I DID feed him a bottle. I didn't understand why the question made me sad until she said it… she pegged me! With her hand on my shoulder she said "Oh, you're probably grieving what you missed with Arthur in that first year."

THANKS A LOT, LADY! No, but really! Thank you, stranger from the adoption class! Being able to experience with Ezra everything I missed with Arthur really had me missing infant Arthur. It feels so wrong that I didn't get to carry Arthur, breastfeed him and comfort him in the wee hours of the night in that first year.  It's time that I will never get back and I have to grieve it and be thankful for the love that others showed him his first year.

So, in an effort to get help for my crazy 2 year old, I find that, actually, I am the crazy one.

THE LEOS FAMILY

This family is especially close to my heart because Rachel and I were waiting Mamas together! For a few months our waits overlapped. We had weekly chats over google chat, checking in on each other and hearing the latest news! Please take some time to read their story! It's filled with peaks and valleys, unexpected turns, heartbreak and unspeakable joy! And their story isn't over yet! Help them bring their second son home!

Ahhhh! How precious is Ollie??

In August 2011, we officially started the process to adopt two children from Uganda. After many many months of prayer, research, and longing to grow our family through adoption, we were so excited to start our journey.  Our journey hasn't quite looked like what we originally expected, but it has been the most amazing, most sanctifying (which isn't always fun), and best thing we have ever done in our lives. I have seen more of Jesus in others, I have realized a desperate need for Jesus in myself, that maybe I didn't know I needed previously, and I have cried tears of joy and suffering. Our journey hasn't always been smooth sailing, but it has been good. 

When we started the process, we hoped to bring two kiddos home together in about a year to 18 months. Things started slowing down however, and that timeline continued to extend. The wait is/was hard, but it taught me, it prepared me, and I let go of a lot of control that I thought I had (lets be honest, some days I was losing my mind, and some days were peachy, and even now I try to grasp that control back only to quickly realize it still isn't mine). In December 2012, we learned, that things were going to be a little different than we expected. We were going to still be adopting two children, but now we were going to complete two adoptions with two trips. We were thrilled however to receive a referral for a 15 month old, who we were going to name Titus. What I didn't know then, and wouldn't realize until actually we were home with Ollie (see, there is more coming) is that God worked in our family through Titus' name, even though we did not become Titus' parents. You see, we chose the name Titus because of the profound impact of the book of Titus. In the book of Titus, Paul lists the characteristics for a church Elder. In that, we prayed for our son, that he would become a man of God, that God would save our Titus, and use him for His works. We celebrated Titus' referral over Christmas and throughout the spring and prepared to become parents.  We were overjoyed to receive a courtdate in March.

Four days before we were to step foot on the plane, we found out that we would no longer be able to adopt Titus. To say that we were devastated, would probably be an understatement. Using the words of our dear friend Abi, who also lost an adoption referral: "He might not of been in my arms but he was with me every day as I prepared for his arrival. ... A failed adoption isn't just on paper. You let your guard down. You open your heart. And sometimes, it doesn't end the way your heart thinks it should ..." And for our dear Titus, we still pray every day that God will save him, that we would trust in God's sovereign plan for him and that He will use Titus for His glory. What I also didn't fully grasp until recently, was that my husband has become the man of God that is spoken of in Titus. He has led our family well throughout this journey and always pointed us back toward the gospel. I still don't think we will ever know why Titus didn't come home with us, but we know God is good, and sovereign even in a broken world.

So once again, we were waiting. But again, God was at work in profound ways that we wouldn't know about until later. At the end of May, we were thrilled to receive an unexpected call from our agency saying that they had a referral for us! We were excited (and terrified) to receive a referral for a beautiful 9 month old boy. With a true miracle, one month later we left the U.S. and arrived in Uganda. On July 2, 2013 we met our son.  We spent seven weeks in Uganda, as a family of 3, falling more in love with our son and family every single day.  We arrived home with Ollie 5 days before his first birthday, which again was a huge answer to prayer.  We are now the proud parents of Jesse Oliver Leos ("Ollie").

What we know now was that a girl that spent 7 weeks with Ollie in Uganda shortly after Ollie was born had been praying for months that we specifically would be Ollie's parents. She was/is a prayer warrior for Ollie and we have no doubt that God used her to connect our stories. (Ollie is set to be a ring bearer in Melana's wedding in January!) Ollie is truly a miracle and we are so thankful and blessed to be his parents. He is snuggly, funny, loud and fits perfectly in our family. Ollie's story is one of redemption and hope, of peace and trust, and God's protection over us and Ollie. An olive branch is used to show a sign of peace throughout the Bible, and God has already used Ollie to bring so much peace. He is truly a light, and our prayer is that he will be a peacemaker in the name of the gospel. And oh man, being a mama to Ollie, it is seriously the best. I am so amazed every single day that he is our son. Jesse Oliver Leos, you are a miracle, you are loved by God and loved by your mama and daddy. We praise God for you every single day.

Our story still isn't over! We are now waiting to receive our second referral, that we started out in August 2011 to receive. We are next on the waitlist for another boy (I love being a boy mom!) and are hoping to get a referral by the end of the year. We cannot wait for Ollie to be a brother and for us to become parents to another cherished son. We will then travel again to Uganda and if it is God's will, we will bring home our second son, hopefully in the first half of 2014.

Because of all the changes, our expenses have been and will be significantly more than we initially expected, fund raised and saved for. We are so excited to continue to grow our family through adoption and we are truly honored to be featured and to publicly share our story for the first time on Heather's blog this week!

Love,

Rachel, Jesse, and Ollie Leos

20% of the proceeds from Love is Waiting go toward the Leos family this week only!! If you want to give directly to Leos' adoption you can do so here through PayPal!

THIS BOY!

This boy amazes me daily. He is so sharp, so clever, so creative!! I wanted to share just a couple of quick stories from this week!

Every night one of us puts Arthur to bed. We read a book, then we tell him a story then sing him a song. This has started to be pretty funny, because Arthur will tell us what kind of story AND song he wants and we make something up on the spot!

The other night Arthur wanted a story about snow, and for some reason the first thing I thought of was making snow ice-cream. He LOVES to help in the kitchen with me so, naturally, this story was a hit! The next day Arthur woke up and of course the first thing he wanted to do was go outside and make snow ice-cream. I said, "Well, we can only make snow ice-cream if it snows outside, remember?" (not likely to EVER happen in Houston. So sorry, guy) I assumed that would be it and we would move on to playing with cars or watching Jake and the Neverland Pirates for the 700th time. Nope, he said "We can make caramel apples! We can use mud!!" My creative heart burst into a million pieces and melted into a puddle at his feet. I'm soooo happy he's mine!

The other story I wanted to share is an example of what Aaron and I like to call a "God wink".  Something that is hard to explain, something that gives you chills... somehow you just know that God is affirming you. It happened Saturday night after church. We were in the car, on the way home and Arthur was talking a hundred miles a minute, just to himself, just saying every word he could think of. Not really talking to us. Not really talking to anyone, just jabbering. Aaron and I were listening and sort of chuckling at the funny collage of words coming from the back seat. Then Aaron looks at me and says... "This little voice! It's crazy to think about how different his words would be..." He didn't really finish the sentence. I understood. I said, "Yeah, I know. Crazy!" Then the very next words out of Arthur's mouth... not missing a beat in his constant flow of words, was "You're my Dada and you changed my life!" Then he continued on talking about ninja turtles and whatever else he could think of. My jaw dropped! I looked at Aaron and he, of course burst, into tears. We just knew it was a God wink.

;) Heather

MEET THE HUNTER FAMILY!

Phillip and Shelly head up the Hunter family! They have FOUR biological kids and are in the process of adopting their 5th from China! They are just a few weeks away from getting their Dossier to China, and then will have about an 18-24 month wait for a referral. They are pursuing a waiting child (moderate special needs). God did amazing work providing them with the funds they have needed up to this point. I'm hoping to help them get a start on raising funds for the second half of their adoption! Phillip is the associate pastor at their church and they have been encouraged by the growing awareness around adoption in their community. I loved what Shelly had to say about adoption in her email...

"We believe adoption is the Lord's heart and we want adoption to be our heart too!  He calls us to care for the widows and orphans, and though we can choose to adopt, those children do not choose to become orphans. We are called and willing."

Thank you Phillip, Shelly and Hunter kiddos for being the first Love is Waiting family! 20% of this week's sales go to support their adoption. 

loveiswaiting.storenvy.com

ALL HALLOWS' EVE

It's been quiet over here, I know... but that's all about to change. First, let's play catch up!

This last year has brought a lot of change! I left Hallmark officially and accepted a new job at May Designs, working alongside Miss Mica May herself! It has been so fun dreaming with her and watching her company take off! Soon after starting at May Designs, Mica and I both found ourselves pregnant with dues dates 2 days apart! Crazy! Ezra Golden Hale joined us June 28th, weighing in at a whopping 9 pounds, 12 ounces! Arthur is such a sweet big brother and you wont believe it... but he's about to be 3!! Aaron is still leading worship up at the Methodist church in Kingwood, producing and writing in his spare time.

All of that brings us to today! Halloween! All Hallows' Eve! And the Eve of something really exciting I've been working on. The reopening of the Love is Waiting store! No... we arent adopting again (not yet anyway). This time your purchase will go to help OTHER families adopting. Cool right?? Here's how it will work.

Each family will get 20% of the sales from the store for ONE week. I will share a little bit about their story to kick off the week! Most families end up having to do multiple fundraisers and my hope is that the store can give friends and family another fun and easy way to support. I also hope to bring a bigger audience to each unique story! They are all so different and so beautiful! 

November is Adoption Awareness Month and the perfect time to get this whole thing started! I will introduce you to the first family tomorrow! That will be your cue to start shopping!!! Thanks for cheering me on and journeying with me into this next chapter!

If you are new here, check out my "Birth Story" and video of our First Moments With Arthur!

- Heather

RACHEL ROBINSON PHOTOGRAPHY

Pretty soon after we moved to Houston our sweet friend Rachel took photos and I've been meaning to share them here. Can't wait to print and hang them in our home! AMAZING work, Rachel!

EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED

If you told me 6 months ago that we would be living in a one bedroom apartment for 6 months... I would have told you, "you're stupid".

If you told me a year ago that we would have to wait 6 months to go get our son instead of six weeks... I would have said, "not possible".

If you told me 18 months ago, that Arthur would only spend 2 weeks in the nursery I was creating for him... I probably would have saved a lot of money.


Needless to say, things have not unfolded quite the way we thought they would this past year. It has been HARD, scary, weird, confusing, but it has probably been one of the most important years for us. We have grown as a family and I know I will look back on this time and understand why it all happened this way.

I feel like we are almost out of the woods. We finally moved into a sweet little 3 bedroom house in Houston and I'm finally starting to feel like myself again.

Arthur is growing and talking and running and we absolutely adore him. In the last few weeks, he has really grown up! He started school, had his first visit to the barber shop and has transitioned into a big boy bed!

I hope to get back to blogging regularly, but we all know how that goes. No promises :)