Gotta Get Away

One of my first reactions when we found out we wouldn't be bringing home baby girl was, "We need to get away! Now!" So one of the first things we did was plan a trip to Florida. We have a pretty amazing family who stepped up to offer us places to stay. So first, we stayed in Hernando, FL, where Dan's aunt and uncle just recently bought a condo. It is a really nice quiet area, just what we needed those first few days. It was nice to just escape, sleep, and play word puzzles (Dan's best purchase of the trip). There wasn't much to do in town, so we decided to head out to Weeki Wachee Springs State Park. Neither of us had ever heard of it before, but Dan found it, and apparently there was some sort of show involving mermaids. So we just had to check this place out, if anything just to say we did it. The park has a short boat ride, a spring to swim in with a lazy river and some water slides, and of course the mermaid show. The show was actually pretty cool. We watched it in an auditorium under the water behind a giant glass window. They put on about a 30 minute show, never coming up for air, but rather used special tubes to take a breath of air when they needed it. The performers could not use their legs to swim, since they had tail fins of course! They also kept their eyes open the entire time and would open their mouths to speak or sing. It was kinda crazy. We saw two shows. One was kind of a behind the scenes with some tricks and how they do some of it. The second was a short performance of The Little Mermaid. We may have been the only two adults in there without kids, but it was pretty cool. We don't regret this road side attraction one bit. 

Pretty impressive, especially when you have limited us of your legs.

Little Mermaid performance. We caught her just as she was taking a breath from their hose.

Ariel in The Little Mermaid

We also found out they are in the Kelly Clarkson "Stronger" music video. Look for them at 1:24 and 2:13

Stronger Video

 So next on our list of stops was Disney World. This was just what the doctor ordered for me. I think I felt the most "back to normal" while we were in Disney. It's kinda hard to be in a bad mood there. We spent one day park hopping at Hollywood Studios, Epcot, and Magic Kingdom. The next day we went to Blizzard Beach. It was all a blast. Wait times weren't terrible, and besides it dumping rain on us a few times in Magic Kingdom the weather was fairly cooperative.

Dan hanging out with his buddy Bill Cosby. I think he has his facial expressions down :)

Taking a ride on the Backlot Tour at Hollywood Studios

The main street at Hollywood Studios

Magical :)

So next up on our trip was Melbourne, FL to visit my Uncle Aug, Aunt Sherry, and cousin Joseph. We enjoyed lots of delicious food (thanks to Aunt Sherry), a long walk on the beach with Uncle Aug, and the longest game of Phase 10 I have ever played. It was at least 3 hours long! He are some pictures from our visit. I realized a little too late that I never got pictures with all of them :( I guess we'll just have to take another trip there soon.

A crab we came across on our walk on the beach.

Uncle Aug caught these as the sun was beginning to set.

                          We had a great getaway- just what we needed!

Here We Go Again

And so here we go again... we're back on the waiting family list. I do have to say that I felt a huge weight lifted when I was told we could go back on. I was a bit worried they would make us wait even longer. I feel like now we can move forward and check out what plan God has in store for us. That's not to say that I'm not looking back frequently. The loss of our potential adoption is still a pretty fresh wound, but I do feel like I have sorted through about a million emotions over the past week and a half, from disappointment to anger to self pity to an overall sense of loss, ending with some form of acceptance. I still miss both baby girl and the birth parents terribly. I feel like over the past two months, we formed a wonderful relationship with them. I only hope that our next match will result in a relationship similar to that one... AND a baby.

During adoption, you hear a lot about the transfer of power. Leading up to the adoption, the birth parents hold the "power". We are just sitting, waiting for the baby to be born and papers to be signed. There is nothing we can do but wait, hope, and build a relationship with the birth family (and of course pray like crazy). Once papers are signed, the power is transferred to the adoptive parents. The Cradle has always made us very aware of the difficulty of this transfer of power, grief, and overwhelming emotions the birth parents go through. I realized today that through this experience of a "change of heart" that I have gotten a small taste of what that has to feel like for the birth parents. I feel this incredible loss, for a daughter we were so prepared for. I think about her all the time. What is she doing now? (probably eating or sleeping at this point :) ) What will she look like a year from now, 10 years from now? There is nothing I can do to find out either. Our relationship with them has come to an end. She is with her forever family, in this case her birth family. At the end of the day, I do truly believe that they made the right decision. I think the way everything happened could have been a bit different, for everyone's sake, but I know that they will provide her with a loving home. Pray for them. It will likely be a rough road ahead for them, but I wish them all the happiness in the world. They are wonderful people. I only wish we could continue our relationship with them through adoption, but like I said it just wasn't right for them. All I can do at the end of the day is respect that, wish them well, and pray.

Please continue to pray for us. We are already beginning to heal. It's amazing what some time with family and friends and a few days at Disney World can do for your spirit. We have hope for what is to come, but for a while we will continue to feel a sense of loss for that baby girl in our lives and our dreams for her. We know that the best way to heal right now is to keep on trucking. I will admit, we're pretty good at this. After about 3 years of trying to build our family, we've learned to cope with disappointment and to remind ourselves that something pretty incredible is up ahead. It's the unknown that's hard. Our counselor told me today that there has been a steady flow for the past couple months, so hopefully our wait for the next call won't be long. I'm ready for it. Bring it on!

Seriously?

And so we are back where we were about 2 months ago... waiting for a baby. Yesterday we got the dreaded phone call to inform us of a "change of heart". The baby girl we held only two days before, would not be coming home with us. Seriously??? That's all I can say. I feel like I just ran a marathon and came within about 5 feet from the finish line, only to have someone stop me and tell me to go back to the beginning and do it all over again. I know that God has a plan for us, and I do really trust that it will be greater than we can imagine. But right now, I just feel defeated. Why did we have to go through this? What was the point of this experience? It certainly didn't bring me a sense of hope. If anything, I'm going to be on pins and needles from day one next time. Oy...