My motherhood journey - not what I expected!

Hello everyone, I hope that this post finds you all healthy and safe. The weather is getting warmer, but this does not mean that we need to stop doing the essential - wash our hands and not touch our face! At the end of each therapy session, I am given homework. Last week, my homework was to color. I have a few adult coloring books and I have enjoyed them. I used to be better at it. I would color each day for about a half hour. Then, life got in the way - actually, I let it get in the way. I have attempted each day to give myself some time to color. Yeah, I have failed each time. It's harder as the days goes by, because there is always something else that I should be doing - taking care of the kids, cleaning up after the kids, cleaning, laundry, dishes, meals, decluttering, getting things organized... Coloring can have a calming effect, especially when the coloring page requires you to be more meticulous and precise. It makes you escape whatever is causing anxiety and stres...

Hello everyone, I hope that when you read this post that you are safe and healthy. If you happen to be infected or know someone who is, know you are in our prayers. Remember to stay home to stop the spread of this horrible virus. Anxiety - my constant companion. It never leaves my side and it also never takes a vacation. It feels like it will never go away. The harsh truth is that it will never leave me. I just have to learn to live with it and manage it as best I can. When I was going through my depression, I only wanted to stay home. The outside seemed so dangerous because it would force me to be exposed. Now, I look at the outside as something that could actually kill me or my family. Yet, I can't wait to be out!!! My anxiety, however, is not doing so well with this quarantine. My husband just finished a week long of being on call. Each time his phone would go off, I worried that he had to go in. I know that he is taking all the necessary precautions, but I still worry a...

Hello everyone, I hope that when you read this post, you are all safe and healthy. Remember to wash your hands and do not touch your face. If you are sick or someone you know is, know you are being prayed for. How are you sleeping? How is your sleep? Are you taking more naps? Are you able to fall asleep? When you do, do you wake up feeling rested??? You are tired, but you can't fall asleep...sound familiar??? Let's be honest, this quarantine is wearing us all down. There are only so many shows you can binge watch, so much cleaning and decluttering, so much books to read, walks to take... it is getting hard. I have been quarantined for over a month and a half and as much as love my home, I am getting more and more restless... it's been hard to just not be able to go out and go into a store and buy things, try on things... it's been hard to not see friends ... it's been especially more difficult to not be able to have our families come and and meet our son. ...

Hello everyone, I hope that when you are reading this post, you are safe and healthy. I know it's not easy to stay in, but remember that we have to do this to keep that curve flat and stop the spread of this vicious virus, Covid-19. Okay, so you know that all my kids are adopted and some are not Caucasian. I also know that I am not the only Caucasian woman who has a child that is not Caucasian, yet, the looks never fail... It does not matter whether the person giving them is Caucasian or not, the looks are there and they never fail to be noticed.... I am not sure why it even makes some uncomfortable when they see me with my daughter. I don't get it??? Is it because we are not the same skin color? Is it because the other person wanted to adopt and their spouse did not? Is it because they were adopted and had a bad experience? I wish they would say something, instead of giving me a weird look or give me a snarky look - yeah, my daughter is starting to notice them more. In...

Hello everyone, I hope that when you read this post, you are healthy and safe from this virus. Remember to wash your hands and do not touch your face. I wanted to dabble into the famous question: Why did you adopt? So many ask out of curiosity while others ask, almost, with disgust or unable to comprehend how one could do such a thing. Regardless of how the question is asked, it should be answered in a truthful and educational manner. It is too easy to want to reply in anger when asked in a negative way. So, remember to always use a question about adoption into an educational moment. Because I can't answer why others adopted, I will answer why we adopted. I have approached this in a previous blog post, this post will go more in detail about the "why" and how we, ultimately chose adoption to grow our family. In high school, I had to write an essay in my English class - typical essay in your Senior class: "Where do you see yourself in the future?" I prob...

Hello everyone, I hope that this post finds you all healthy and safe from Covid-19. If you are sick or know someone who is, please know that we are praying for you all. To all healthcare workers and all those that are helping us to get food and any other supplies for our families, know that you are awesome and that you are being prayed for. I wanted to address a very upsetting issue that I came across last week.... protesters. I am not referring to people protesting about a vaccine being made or about some charity that is not getting the funds to help others. I am wanting to write about those protesters that are wanting to go against the stay-at-home orders from their local governments. Let me first say that I am so over this stay-at-home thing, but it is what is necessary in order to prevent the spread of this virus. I miss driving and running errands. I miss traveling and meeting up with friends. I miss Starbucks...I miss having my coffee there while tackling some writing and s...

Hello everyone, I hope that when you read this post you are all healthy and safe. If you or a loved one is currently infected, know you are in my prayers. Let's remember that our local governments are not wanting to remove our rights but protect our health as well as our healthcare system. It's been over a month that we have been on lockdown and although we have three young children, one toddler, an infant and a newborn, we have found ourselves getting restless... Yes, the kids have been keeping us busy, but because we are unable to do anything outside of our community, we are getting restless... After all the Netflix, YouTube and Amazon...what is left to do? because as much fun as it is to binge watch "The Gilmore Girls", I have to do something else with my mind and body. I have found it useful to look up what others are doing to keep busy and that has prompted me to follow some of the things others are doing. The first thing I started was to make a list ea...

Hello everyone, I hope that this post finds you healthy and safe. Please remember to respect the orders of your local government, be kind to others and, most importantly, wash your hands and DO NOT touch your face. Let's us keep united with social distancing and keeping this virus as far from us as we can. For those who have lost a loved one from this virus, I am sorry for your loss and keep you all in prayer. If you are infected or know someone who is, know you are prayed for. I wanted to touch base on something that has taken place with each of our adoptions. It seems that people have many false impressions about adoption. And most of these false impressions are often linked with the birthparents. For each of our adoptions, the same comment was made: I guess they were not loved by their parents or Who could just give up a child like that? These questions, although I can understand why you would ask them, are clearly the sign that people still have a lot of prejudices ag...

Hello everyone, I hope and pray that when you read this post, you are all healthy and safe from this virus that is sweeping across the world. If you or a loved one is affected by this virus, know you are prayed for and I pray that you or your loved one gets better and soon. When you are infertile, you think you are the only one that is. Then, you start to tell others and you quickly realize that you are not alone. You find comfort in it, but also sadness because infertility affects more people than we think. For those of us, like ourselves, who know that conceiving is no longer a possibility, adoption appears to the next step - but not for all. Before we adopted, I could not understand why infertile people would not be open to adoption right away. Now, that I have adopted - three times, I have a different way of looking at adoption and can understand why it is not for everyone. The first one that comes to mind is money. Yes, it does cost money to adopt. No, you are not paying f...

Hello everyone, I hope and pray that when you read this post, you are feeling healthy and are safe. If you or a family member or friend is afflicted with this virus, I hope they feel better soon. If you have lost someone to this horrific virus, I am so sorry for your loss. Know you are remain in our prayers. Today is Good Friday. As a child, my Mom was pretty strict about Good Friday. I was not allowed to listen to music, or play - all I could do was clean up for Easter and the only things I could watch on the television were Biblical movies. Back in the days, there were a lot more Biblical movies that were being televised. Nowadays, the classics are The Ten Commandments and The Sound of Music - how does Julie Andrews fit into Easter is still a mystery to me, but each year, you know you can watch it on Easter. As an adult, my spouse and I fast and we will try to fit in the Stations of the Cross. We also try to enjoy family time, but he is working (he is an essential worker - bein...

Hello everyone, I trust that when you read this post, you are healthy and safe as well as your families. Please remember to wash your hands and don't touch your face. I know that I am starting to sound like a broken record, but these are crucial times and if we each do our part, this virus will stop spreading. I wanted to touch base on the topic of fake news. I just received a Messenger text from a family member and I was annoyed at the message. It was a fake news report that mentioned that Coronavirus (which by the way was not spelled correctly) was a bio-attack from China. It also said that steam could kill the virus... 😡😡😡😡😩😩😩😒😒😒 I wrote back that this was fake news and that it should not be trusted. Then, I started thinking that this was probably shared with many and now, there is all this misinformation that is being circulating. This is how this virus wins because there are idiots out there who are spreading the wrong information. Things like this infuriate ...

Hello everyone, Once again, I hope that as you read these lines, you are healthy as well as your family and friends. These are very uncertain times and they are causing much anxiety, despair in fear in all of us. In spite of it all, let us stay united by following the orders of our state leaders. Please stay home and only leave if you are considered an essential business or you absolutely need to get groceries. Remember to be careful with what you touch, always wash your hands (20 seconds) and DO NOT touch your face. Watching the news or not watching the news? That is the question of today's post. I tried not watching the news thinking that it would cause less anxiety in me, but it was the opposite. I became more stressed thinking about what newest development I was not being aware of. Then, I limited myself to only watching in the morning and evening - but that failed also, because without even thinking, I would find myself perusing the internet and seeing what I could find....

Hello everyone, I pray that when you read this post, you are healthy and safe. If you are sick, I keep you in prayer and hope that you recover. If you have lost someone to this horrible virus, you are in my prayers and I am sorry for your loss. It has been more than a month since our family has been staying at home and practicing social distancing. Even a walk in the neighborhood brings anxiety and concern as we find ourselves changing sidewalks to prevent coming into contact with someone. We look at each other with fear and anxiety - when will this end? How is your sleep? One would think that there would be a lot of time to sleep, but with what we see in the news, it seems that sleep is the last thing on our minds. Since this all started, my sleep has been erratic and even with three small children, it seems like I cannot just rest my mind. To fall asleep, I must listen to music, a show or just mindless background noise to see if I can fall asleep. Yet, I must say that within ...

Hello everyone, I hope that this post finds you healthy and keeping your social distances. Let's keep united in this fight against this virus by keeping our distance! My blog is only about my own personal experiences and that is why I started it. And so, I have dealt with adoption, infertility and other matters pertaining to those fields. But, that is not all that I experience. I have chronic anxiety and suffered a severe depression a few years ago. Although I survived and conquered my depression, the anxiety stuck around like a bad habit. I do have medication, that I only take when it gets bad, and have regular therapy sessions - currently undergoing a treatment called EMDR. And combined with exercise, sleep (when I can) and a good diet (no worries, I do still like chips and ice cream), it has been relatively well maintained. However, with this quarantine among us, it has been non-stop anxiety city in my head and my menstrual cycles (TMI - sorry, but that's life!) ha...

Hello everyone, Yes, it has been a while since my last post. Things escalated with this virus spreading at an incredible speed. As you read this, know that you all remain in our prayers. Please respect the guidelines issued by the CDC and your local government. This is not the time to rebel against the government wanting to take over your life. These guidelines could mean the difference between life and death for many of us. Remember to always wash your hands, for at least twenty seconds, and if you need to leave the house, for essential things, don't touch anything and ESPECIALLY, your face. I just wanted to pop in and let you know how things have been going here, since we adopted our son. Since he was a preemie, he had to stay in the hospital for almost three weeks. Each day, we could only spend a few hours with him since we had our other children and we had, at the time, had no help. Each time I came back home, my heart would break. I knew the staff was taking good care o...