Am I too sensitive?

Has everyone seen the promo ad for "F.ind My F.amily?" Was anyone else furious? Am I being too sensitive? Below is the email I sent to their staff and to ABC. I know it won't do any good, but it made me feel better.

Dear "F.ind My F.amily" Staff,

My husband and I are about to embark upon a domestic adoption. We are thrilled beyond belief to put our two + years of infertility, three miscarriages, premature birth and death of our daughter, Grace, aside as we celebrate and welcome a new life into our family.

We are avid ABC watchers and last night, during one of our favorite shows saw the preview for "F.ind My F.amily." I am furious. While I appreciate the premise, I am appalled by the title. How insensitive to all of the families who take in these babies and children as our own. We are their families, too. We love them, raise them, and care for them.

The implication of this title is that biology is what makes you a "family." I assure you it is not.

I would hope that a network with shows as enlightened as "Brothers and Sisters," would realize the error and correct it immediately.

We are seeking an open adoption, and hope our children will never have to search for their first families. Their first families are part of their identity, part of their story. They deserve to know all about their beginnings and have relationships with those they are missing. I hope that you will represent the anguish of your subjects with more care and concern than you have given to naming this series. I hope you will think about how everyone involved feels about this chapter in their lives.

We will not be watching.

Public Service Announcement

Last week I was running low on time and energy, and didn't know what to do about dinner. Then I remembered that I had some pork chops chilling out in the refrigerator.


I popped open a can of green beans, found some sweet potatoes in the pantry...voila! Instant dinner.

I threw the chops in the oven and went upstairs with Peter to work on something in the office. Jack came with us. About ten minutes later we heard a HUGE explosion. All three of us ran downstairs, and found this...

Apparently P.yrex was sold five years ago and they changed the formulation of the glass. Now it is known to shatter. The explosion was so violent that it must have blown the door open because I found shards of glass a few minutes later fifteen feet away in our family room! Thank goodness none of us were downstairs when it happened.

All of this is to say that if you have P.yrex from the last five years, be careful! If you have a lock on your oven door, use it!

Pictures

We had our picture taken last weekend for our adoption profile. While I don't have them back from the photographer yet (who is totally awesome and also a DBM), we decided to take some pics on our front porch and use them for our initial application.

This is what we came up with...(ps, they will be removed later in the week for privacy sake)

The first is what we used for the application, the second is going to be a Christmas present for our families.

It's in the mail!

Wow...just, wow!

Our application is in the mail!!!!

About an hour ago, I walked into our local Post Office, spoke with a lovely lady behind the counter about the joy of adoption as she put stamps on our packet, and then she took it!

It's now out of my hands. In so many ways.

Wow. So excited!! And nervous! Now we hurry up and wait...which I hear defines the adoption process! The agency and social worker won't be contacting us until February to start our home study, but at least we jumped one hurdle. Hang on, baby, here come mommy and daddy!

A Message From Jack

Jack would like to wish you a Happy Halloween! He hopes you enjoy his "beeee"utiful costume!

Announcement!

I have been thinking long and hard about what to do with this blog and its content. I'm still a bit undecided, but for now, I'm going to leave the content hidden. Why?

Because our life has taken a different direction.

We have decided to pursue d.omestic a.doption!

We are so very excited!!

On Sunday we are getting our picture taken for our profile, and I have started going through all of our candid photos to use, too. I am starting on our d.ear b.irthmother letter this weekend, although I have been working on it in my head for months. We have chosen to go the "agency" route, although we will be announcing to our friends and family that we are pursuing adoption in case they find any potential matches for us.

The agency we have decided on will not officially start our h.omestudy until February, and we will likely go on the "list" in May/June. At first I was upset about this, but it gives us some time to get our finances together, and I need to get a full time job (although I am getting LOTS of students right now, and hoping to make that a "go" part time and get another part time job to fill the gap).

Grace will always be a part of our lives. Her photo is up all over our house, I think of her every single day. I miss her. The fact that her story doesn't appear here has nothing to do with her place in our lives. I might uncover her content at some point, but it feels odd to have that here now. Infertility will always be a part of our lives, too, but I need to put that away. I need to not be reminded of it everytime I log into my blog. I just feel like we are moving on.

I'm scared, nervous, excited, relieved...so many things. But what I feel the most is...happy. I walk by the nursery and think, "soon there will be a baby in here." I just know it. I know the Lord will bless us with a child, and I know it is going to be better than I ever imagined. We have been praying for our b.irthmother since before we were married because we always knew we would want to adopt. But now it's different. I can almost picture her when I pray (although she is only a big ball of light...does that make sense?), and I love her already. How can you love someone you've never met? In the same way I love this baby and I've never met her/him. It's crazy. Crazy awesome.

So, I'll still be here. I'm going to change our names back to letters, ~S and ~P. My topics will probably change. But I'm still me. I will still be here supporting all of you on whatever journey life takes you (I'll be back to commenting soon...I've been reading along faithfully, though!), and I hope you will support us through this just as you have supported us these last two years. Much love to you all... ~S

Changes

You may notice that my content has been removed.

Through an innocent mistake, my blog was accidentally shared with a large population. While I have never written anything here that I am ashamed of or anything negative about anyone in my life, I am very selective with who I share my deepest thoughts and feelings with.

I always realized this could happen, I just thought after more than 2 years I was safe here. The "troll" comments are already starting.

I will be deciding what to do in the next few days. I hate to lose my space here, but I may take it private. I may decide I don't care what people think and repost my entries. I may keep this site for other things, but go anonymous elsewhere. I need some time to decide what to do.

Thank you to all my loyal readers and those of you who have been such a support to me over the last few years. You all mean the world to me.