New beginnings

Here I am awake at 6:30 a.m on a Sunday. Had not done this in a very long time, yet I am suprisingly refreshed. My times are all switched due to my travels and also to the daylights saving time change that just took place today here in Mexico.

Its a good time for an "Autum/Winter" cleaning in every respect and I have Monday and Tuesday off and unexpectedly open of all activities.

Medical testing, back to the diet, puting my space in order and starting the next step with our agency are all new beginings this week. Also we are starting a new novena with some friends to Our Lady Who Unties Knots whose image is above.

Today is CD 1 and I to not feel bad about it. We did not really try this cycle since I was too afraid after my miscarriage. I wanted to wait another month to heal emotionally also to check that my cycles were back to normal, which they were in part just some changes to my chart.

Also I have not done the testing for blood clotting issues, nor my thyroid. I pushed the doctors so hard for answers and then was petrified of strarting the tests!

Why? I am not sure. Maybe after spending 4 days in the hospital with the complications I had with the miscarriage and last week a flu (all my office had it!) I was done with doctors or too afraid to find something else wrong.

Yet this week I will start with everything. I will have the time to put things in order and somewhere deep within my soul and body I know right now it the time.

The Novena is a great way to start and its so powerful. I love the image of our Lady who unties Knots!! A ribbon full of knots on one side and then slowly with the angels she unties them. A very clear image.

I will ask for all bloggers and my catholic If yahoo group and also for my specific intentions: Faith, clear signals on how to continue our quest for a family, that the job situation of my DH becomes secure and my health.

I will also be starting a whole new diet. I am after Brasil (I ate everything in sight as the food is delicious!) and on top of my miscarriage diet mess back to 70 kilos (154 pounds!!!!) Ughhh.

I need to lose some 20 pounts to be at my ideal weight.... wow!

I am not overweight according to the charts, but the BMI put me in the very upper of normal and I am only a kilo away from overweight. I feel bloated, my clothes do not fit and in general this is not the body to be a mom either through adoption or biologically.

I will try to do a detox first using the "you are what you eat" book (which I loved) and see how it goes, if not I will go back to the nutritionist I was seeing when I got pregnant. I just crave right now healthy food as I feel so bloated.

On the adoption front. The agency sent an email very late Friday and we were suprised by the date. We will start the adoption course in a week!!!! Novembere 8th. wow!

Its 3 months long, every Monday from 7 to 10 p.m. and very intensive. Its a requisite towards adoption where they teach you everything from the issues that we will face, how to handle many aspects of the adoption, the importance of genetics to how to educate in all age brackets, etc.

We will be together with another 11 couples and this will become our support group in the coming months of wait. According to our friends who recently adopted once you are in the course it takes from 7 months to a year to get a placement. My God!

After we finish the course we will have the visit by the psychologist and the social worker and if everything goes OK we will be approved... and then is only waiting. Not 100% sure we will pass everything but we are one step nearer.

Since we are somewhat of a difficult case for the agency as we do not look Mexican it can work for or against us in terms of time.

My DH and I look mainly European and are a minority in Mexico. I am pale blond and my DH is very tall and pale. In Mexico they still try for the children to look as much possible as the adoptive families and all adoptions are closed, so we will see how this plays.

today is a very nice day outside so I will go out now with DH and FIl for breakfast and then midday Mass. A great way to start new beginnings.

God what are you asking of me right now? (updated 5 minutes later)

For the last 3 years I have so focused on fixing or surviving one thing or the other that I have lost myself in the process.

Lost myself. Wow.

That is exactly correct and as I wrote it it became so very clear.

But most importantly lost Faith.

My general focus as a very Martha person has been to fix things so I could feel some sort of control in my life, which has at least given me some sense of security in all of this mess. But it has not worked on a deep emotional and spiritual level.

I can see this clearly reflected in my last 2 posts, which came from a frustration and anger that it is there deep down in places in my heart that I have avoided seeing. And I hate it.

I do not want to live my life as a person that is angry, sad, the eldest sister.

I am not called by God to that.

I am called to love, to accept, to grow, to live life to the fullest. Yet from a human perspective I do not understand the last 3 years. So I need to see it from His perspective. He must want something from all of this.

What is He asking of me right now?

What is He telling me in all that has happened in the last three years?

Wanting a baby so badly it broke my heart
2 emergency stays in the hospital by my DH. One of them major.
1 by me for major bleeding and contractions after my miscarriage
2 operation for my DH
3 operations for me
1 violent mugging to my parents
A failed adoption
The death of my grandfather
The death and its aftermaths of my mother in law
The job loss of my DH and his lack of clarity professionally at this time
The emergency hospitalization with diabetes by my FIL
Living with my inlaws for 8 months in some of the worst emotional conditions imaginable
My horrible thyroid that has brought me to my knees in terms of tiredness
etc...

and last: my miscarriage after 3 years of IF.

As I am writing this I am crying. What do You want? All of this has not brought me closer to You. But into an angry, jealous and sad person. And I hate it and I am sure these are not the plans You have for me.

I am on my knees. I am no longer mad tonight as I was yesterday, I just need Your help please.

Please give me a sign. Please. I really cannot fight anymore.


UPDATE:

5 minutes after I closed this post and I was crying in the middle of a hotel lobby in Brasil my DH called....

He has been offered a great job just today and was called for a couple of interviews. He has not sounded so happy in months.

My God!

The eldest daughter

I am sitting in a hotel lobby in Brazil reflecting on the last days, some of the hardest of my life and I feel utterly alone. I am here for work and will stay the next days which probably is a good idea given the state of my heart.

I am in no way good company to anybody.

My IF hit me like a ton of bricks and it became painfully clear that my family cannot even begin to understand what we are going through. But also other older scars added to the pain and jealousy.

I spent the last days prior to this trip at my sisters, near Cancun , where my DH and I were invited for my oldest nephews First Communion. We were ínvited by him to be his Godparents at a beautiful ceremony. In Mexico is something not so official as in the Baptism, but an opportunity by the child to chose his companions for this.

What should have been a joyus time turned into a time where I spent a great deal of it hiding my tears.

Here were were at the First Communion of an 8 year old, son of my younger sister, and here were childless. But it was not only this, but waves of sadness over many things that I am not happy about in my life.

I have been having the same feelings at the oldest son in the prodigal son. I am not proud of it, but at the same time this truly reflects that i feel abandoned by God and jealous for the plenty given to those I think less deserving (she has never been interested in God, nor religion). Horrible yes, but this is how I feel right now.

My sister has the life I would love to have (2 beautiful children, the ability to work as she pleases, a healthy body, a very good economic position, etc) and being near this for 5 days and then seeing my parents so proud of her and only talking about her success and children and so disappointed with me, took me way back to very painful times in my life.

This was not always like this, my parents were very proud of all 3 children, but I know deeply in me that they do not understand where my life is heading and are very pained by what they see.

My sister is only a year and a couple of months younger than me. For the longest time I behaved as she was my doll, my little daughter and was deeply protective of her. She was afraid of many things as a child (dogs, escalators, people, etc) and I took it as my duty to protect her. We even slept on the same bed for the longest time. My grandmother called me "la mamacita", the little mother and always said I was to be a great mother by seeing the way I treated her.

As time passed we grew apart and there were very marked differences between the both of us.

I loved to read and she did not, I was very messy and she was orderly, I never knew how to dress up and she was always in fashion, she loved sports and I books, etc.

With time she was always named by people as the beautiful one and I the intelectual one. I hated it.

Adolescence was specially difficult as I had horrible acne from the age of 11 until my late 20´s and my sister grew up to be a beauty. She even began to look like my adored grandmother after whom I am named. People always complimented her and many times did not know what to tell me so they ignored me.

She was never interested in religion and was always popular and I grew to be very introverted due to my acne and found solace in God and in reading. Later I outgrew in part my introversion by becoming an achiver in terms of studies and work, yet I have never overcome it completly and it became painfully clear this weekend.

She married at 26 and moved to this small city by the sea. She lived in a small house at the beginning right by the beach and with time her DH and her built the most amazing house.

Her father in law had moved there some years ago and helped open the doors for them and with time has become one of the most renowed businessmen in Mexico and very well known for his social commitment. He is this figure that is revered by the press and his workers and its truly well deserved.

During the next years she decided not to have children and spent the time focusing on herself and her marriage. She decided to start it 4 years later. I never found the right person until I was 33 and by that time her first born was 3.

Later she lost 2 very early pregnancies and then 1 year later my niece was born. I married 2 years later and have fought with IF and my health ever since. Something that my family has never understood and will probably never understand.

During the longest time we only spoke as necessary since we did not have anything in common and for a while I even made the concious decision not speak to her . She is always trying to fix my way of dressing or telling me what I was doing wrong or telling to get over things (she is a psychologist and had always tried to give me adivice) and one day it became too much and decided to separate myself from her.

She called me 4 months later saying she wanted to amend things and for the first time I told her how much her comments always hurt me. She asked me for forgiveness. We were again on the right path.

Then a couple of years later it started to become increasingly painful as my parents were always speaking about the grandchildren or her DH achivements and I know that my IF and my DH lack of success has worried them a lot.

Then came my pregnancy and she started calling me every week and asking me how I felt and we had some common ground. She even cried tears of joy when she found out. I have always known that she loves me deeply, yet somehow there is always something keeping us apart.

Then when my miscarriage happened I thought she would understand and she did for a few weeks, but later told me to move on as she had done and not dwell on it.

She had had 2 and had survived, but in my head I told myself she had never had IF, had gotten pregnant as she wanted, has always contracepted and had the miscarriages after having a healthy son.

So she had at least one child and wait.... she was not nearing 40. I felt like she was comparing us and that she could handle it so should I.

Then this weekend the depth of my feelings about everything caught me by surprise and it became painfully clear that I am hiding some very deep wounds, old and new.

Old ones like the fact that she is gourgeous and my mother telling her over and over again right in front of me and that I am normal and not feeling very good about myself since gaining weight again. When we were heading to the Mass she told her: wow you look amazing! and then turned to me and said nothing. It truly stung.

The fact that I barely can move in the mornings and she is preparing for a Triathlon which was the talk of most meals. I tried to wake up to go walk and could not even do that!

The fact that we are the ones helping my DH family and in her case they help them.

The fact that her DH is very successful and mine does not know what to do with his life and I hate to admit....I support.

That she can choose to work and I have to.

And then as if it were not enough and even if she has never been a believer in anything from the Church nor God she has 2 children and I have none.

I feel like this cruel joke. I feel like the one that was always near the Father is punished and the one that has never been is being rewarded in all aspects.

So I ended this weekend hiding the tears which came pouring down as my nephew had his first Communion, as I lay down in bed, as I showered and as I spent several sleepless nights asking God why things had turned out this way.

Me, the eldest daughter, asking why He has chosen to give his bounty abundantly to others and not only was I not his daughter at his side anymore sharing His love, but He has seemed to have forgotten us for the last 3 years.

BLAH

I have been thinking a lot lately where my life is right now and I do not like it a bit.

No aspect of it seems to be working and I absolutely hate it. My whole life right now is mediocre to say the least. I call it blahh. Not terrible, but also not OK.

I am not praying as I should, going everyday to my job is a huge burden, I feel very alone as we have less and less in common with our friends and I feel as my body is 80 years old, yet I do not have the energy to begin to change things.

Its like this big cicle that goes on and one and I do not have the strenght to step out of it or change it.

FRIENDS

My closest IF friends here in Mexico ALL have adopted in the last months. Just this Saturday was the last announcement. The third adoption completed by some very close friends. All of them were our companions on our journey and have helped us tremendously in the last years.

We are very happy for them, yet we are now the last ones of the IF friends that do not have children.

From our close friends that had IF one couple has finished the second adoption, the one I mentioned the 3rd and our closest friends adopted a month and a half ago.

All our friends that were our constant companions in the IF journey are now discussing diapers or nursery decorations. My FB is filled with adoption announcement and its very hard.

All have been very careful with us as not to hurt us and I truly appreciate this, yet I am realistic that they are at another point in their lifes and that things will not be like before.

And let´s not talk about our friends with normal fertility. All are in the second or 3rd child and some of these children are even 12 years old! Every day we have less and less in common with all of our friends and I feel that they do not understand where we are and its difficult to relate.

Basically we are hanging out with couples 10 years younger than us since they are the ones that are still inviting us. My DH is 43 and I am 39 so soon it will be empty nests for people our age. Just writing this makes me want to cry.

For the first time in this journey I feel utterly alone.

This cycle I am restarting my Napro treatments and the adoption proceedings are still underway, yet I feel so tired and that all if worth for nothing. Maybe irrational, but the last weeks is what I feel.

I feel like I have no strenght to fight anymore and I am expecting that God throws me another curveball.


SPIRITUAL LIFE


From the previous paragraph you can clearly read that my prayer life is at a standstill. I have been praying very little since my miscarriage and the last months of IF also have not helped.

I know what I need to do, but I am lacking the strenght. I am still at the point where I mistrust God´s plans for us. I am afraid what else He will ask of us.


JOB

My job.... lets say that it will sound like I am whining and I am a spoiled child, yet I am very unhappy in it.

I have what most people would call a great one, but my heart is heavy when I think about it.

I have tons of flexibility, a good salary (not as good as a new person hired for my postion would have, still its good), security and an international position.

I have been at the same company for 11.5 years now. For the longest time I was so happy!! Due to the nature of the company I work for (an European company) I was blessed to travel to many different countries and I was also able to reach many professional goals, quite uncommon for women here. I loved every day of it.

Then a few months after I married I decided that I needed to slow down for my marriage and to prepare for motherhood. I do not repent from this decision, yet here I am 3 years later unhappy in my job and yet not a mother. Its as life had a good laugh at me.

I moved to the side that sells to business, not to the end consumer. Lifecycles are very long, the work is very technical and I have limited contact with people.

I knew right from the beginning that it would be very different from all that I had done, yet I knew the sacrifice would be worth it. I would be able to work from home and take care of a baby.

Every day it takes more of my energy to go to the office, every Monday is difficult and here I am 3 years later, hating my job and not being a mother.

Also I cannot simply leave my job now also since my DH´s one is a bad one. He was laid off several months after our marriage (we were in the middle of our appartment renovations and his mother had just died) and has had a new job for the last 2 years, yet its a dead end one. One that he took while he found another, one that does not exist right now.

I have wanted to build a way out, but my IF has taken all my time and energy. Yet I know I cannot continue like this anymore, it sucking all my energy day in and day out.

And this guides me to the last part.

MY ENERGY

I have not talked in this blog a lot about it, but I have been fighting with fatigue and health related issues for years.

The diagnosis of adrenal fatigue and that I am hypothyroid done by DR H was a miracle in my life. I was not crazy!

The mental fog, the exhaustion after a normal day, the fatigue after doing some excercise, the inability to wake up all had medical reasons.

Since January and until right before my pregnancy I was for the first time in years feeling OK. I had energy!!! It was the most amazing feeling!

Then came my pregnancy and I was exhausted. So exhausted that I felt I could not function. I was scared. How could I manage a pregnancy and then a baby? Maybe I was not built for motherhood after all.

After the miscarriage I have again extreme fatigue. I know in my bones that something is off again and I will retest my thyroid in the coming weeks, yet I hate having this body of a 80 year old when I am only 39.

I continue to be on hydrocort for the fatigue and on T3, yet it feels that this time they are not helping as they should.

I want to fight, yet all seems like this big mountain right now and I do not have the energy again to do it.

Hope in media!

Yesterday night I was invited to a private screening of the most amazing movie I have seen in the last years. A movie that gave me tremendous hope.

The surprising subject, a documentary of the day to day life of a priest.


Its called: "The last summit"

It speaks about celibacy, prayer, donation of oneself to others, the Eucharist, death, etc. in a very fun and surprising way.

It captures you from the very beginning and it speaks no only to the believers, but also to the non-believers.

Cardinal Cañizares has said: Its a movie that speaks clearly about God and it does not make any excuses. =)

It has been a huge and completly unexpected success in a Spain that is traditionaly Catholic, but is facing perhaps the worst moment for the Church in the last 70 years. Just right now it has one of the worst abortion laws in the world.

Media are virulently anti-Catholic and now are speaking well about the movie! and people are going in droves. Its going soon to the USA so please , please when it near you please see it!

The first 5 minutes of the movie have been downloaded more than a 1,000,000 times in just a few months.

Here is the link (work in progress) in English:

http://www.thelastsummit.com/us

The 3rd clip is the first 5 minutes of the movie with subtitles.
Clip nr 2 is very very moving. Hard to watch, but amazing.

In Spain it has been screening 4 months without any formal publicity and last night the director said that they have received requests from over 100 countries and had just been to the US to work on its public release . They were here in Mexico also to negotiate its opening.

Its about the life of Pablo, a 42 year old priest that had died while climbing the highest peak in Spain in February of 2009.

The director of the movie had met Pablo just 12 days before when he had gone to a conference dictated by him. He did not want to go and was very much suprised by this priest. Later he learned that Pablo had died.

The director had liked the priest and had thought to honor him by providing his friends and family with a video of the conference. Yet God had other plans.

They ended up doing a movie with a ton of testimonials on the holiness of this priest. A movie that has rocked Spain and has shed a new light on the Church.

It has moved me to the core and made me question how good a christian I am. I am sure it will do the same to many people.

God is so good!

NAPRO signs

A year ago I decided on a whim to send my application to become a certified FertiltyCare practitioner.

It has been a long and bumpy road and many times I have almost given up on it. I am not the strongest person and prayer has been certainly lacking from my part. As always I was very Martha and relied on my own strenght. Yet God certainly knows this and when I am about to give up gives the most amazing signs.

I made the decision to study this one night after months of reading about these amazing women in the Catholic IF blog community and by the yahoo Catholic IF group that somehow someway I needed to be near Napro.

I did not even know where Omaha was, nor what it would mean in terms of money, nor time. I only knew that I wanted this for myself, to find a cure like the one I was reading over and over on the blogs and to teach others like the blogs had done to me.

Then out of the blue Napro began appearing on a weekly basis in my life here and weeks later I ended up in Omaha. I cannot even explain it to this day.

During the months ahead as I mentioned I almost gave up on this several times. I had all kinds of excuses to give up, but somehow every excuse was destroyed days later.

After my miscarriage I had a very strong spiritual battle and decided to give up on FertiltyCare. I did not want to face my clients after what I felt for a few days to be my failure. I know now it was not, but I felt that way.

I also was very mad at God.

"Hey, I have gone to Omaha and begun spreading the Napro word here and this is how you treat me? I lose my baby after 3 years of heartbreaking IF ?"

Like a spoiled child I said to myself if You do this to me, then I am no longer to continue helping You in this. God must have smiled at this spoiled brat.

In the hospital I make the definitive decision to write to everybody that I was done.

God decided to say otherwise. He continued to pull me in despite my rebelion.

The very next day once I am home after the hospital one of my client calls me.

She is pregnant thanks to Napro after facing IF.

This is the second Napro pregnancy of my CrMS charters. First was mine and then hers. wow... a pregnancy of my clients!! It was so amazing! In the midst of my rebelion to God I know need to do my very first pregnancy evaluation.

Yet I continue to rebel and I say after this evaluation I am done.

In the darkest days following my second hospital stay of 4 days 3 amazing women from Mexico finally decide to become practitioners. They are in Omaha right now. They tell me that after they come back we will meet to build the first FertilityCare center here.

I do not send the email. I will speak with them later when they come back that I cannot do it anymore.

One week ago the first doctor decides to go after we had hounded him for months. The first gynecologist from Latinamerica. Young, very very bright and very pro-life. He is also in Omaha right now. Asks me to send clients his way when he is back.

Is as if He is being very patient with this spoiled brat and continues to reign her in.

and yesterday...

even after so many signs He was there and He will provide for Napro here I continue to doubt. The email is in my computer ready to be sent.

I go to the Church where I used to teach CrMS. I am afraid to meet with my first client after my miscarriage since she also has miscarried several times and is looking for Napro to help her. I still feel so emotionally weak that I am afraid I might not be able to help her.

I tell her that even if i miscarried that Napro is a gift and that it works. She tells me the kindest words ever: that my miscarriage will help others as I will understand what they feel. I cry.

I go to confession a few minutes later and speak about my lack of prayer and strenght to continue.

The priest tells me his superior, had just assigned him to dedicate his time to diseminating the message of Napro. Assigned him.

He will go to Omaha in April and asked me what he needed to do to work with me.

I also cry. We have a priest. God is yet again saying: "woman of poor faith! even if you rebel I know what is best for you"

and moments after my confession and a few minutes of adoration...

I go out and a very close friend of mine tells me: "my sister was given your name, can she meet with you?"

"She went to Florida on a business trip and went to a doctor in Orlando to get an opinon on her IF and the doctor sent her back to you".

I had just met the sister days ago. The sister is there right now. She is never in this Church, but yesterday is there.

Her sister is amazed. Out of this city of millions she is refered to me days later after meeting me for the first time during a pic-nic.

She is almost at the end of the road after 6 doctors and 11 years of IF and countless treatments. Her DH found online about this doctor and decides on a whim to go. The doctor tells them he can help long distance, but first they need to meet with this crazy practitioner from Mexico.

She knows me. I am her sisters friend from Church. Out of the thousands of churches in this city. She asks me if I will work with her.

I erase the email where I quit.

How can I quit after sign after sign that He will bring this here ? He has brought amazing women, a priest, a doctor and a never ending stream of clients. More than ever I can see clearly that Napro is His work and regardless of our strenghts, lack of, or rebelions He will see to it.

.

She is just like my mother in law

Yesterday we met with the director of our adoption agency. A year after I had made the initial call to them. And 2.5 months after we had given them all our paperwork. A long awaited interview. We received the call Thursday to come ASAP on Monday at noon. If we could not make it it could be another 2 months more until she had another appointment open.

This meeting was crucial in our process and acceptance. She could deny us or stall the process until she tought we were ready. We were very, very nervous.

This woman is very famous for being a very strong personality, strict and very, very Catholic. She singlehandedly changed the adoption laws in Mexico 25 years ago and has helped over 20,000 women in crisis pregnancies and has asigned over 3,500 newborns to adoptive families in the last years.

She also has built over 20 shelters in as many cities. She is a force to be reckoned with. The most renowed person in my country for adoption and we had to meet with her for an hour.

Everybody had warned us: she is very strict, is looking 100% out for the baby and not the adoptive parents and the questions she asks can be very painful.

She wants you to have closed the biological part of IF and she could even ask if we had closed the grief from our miscarriage. Since we are still healing from our miscarriage and have certainly not closed the biological part I was very afraid not to lose it in the interview.

We are complelty convinced that adoption is a path for us and we feel that God is calling us to both adoption and biological parenthood. We do not know how He plans to build our family, specially since our suprise pregnancy and then our miscarriage, but we will forge ahead with both and see where He leads us.

This meeting was crucial.

A couple that is close friends of ours and an adoptive family currently in the process with her agency invited us on Saturday for dinner to coach us. They gave us the basic questions from the interview and went over what was the most important for the agency. We were in for a very difficult one hour.

We were so nervous that my DH stayed home from work as I and we rehearsed the questions. We also prayed very hard and called several friends to join us in prayer.

We arrived at the agency and she was late with other interviews. I could barely breath.

Then she received us in her office. From there we could see a window that opened to the nursery filled with babies. Filled. My heart stoped.

The interview began. As they had told us several difficult questions, but somehow we started to relax. I did not know why, but she reminded me of someone.

The interview went much better than anticipated. In the end she did not follow her normal script of questions, but rather opened her heart to us. How she felt the urgent need to promote older children adoptions, how they were opening the laws to make adoption legal for homosexuals and she had to fight this everyday, etc.

During all of this she kept staring at my DH and the last 10 minutes of the interview she only spoke to him. My DH was completly relaxed, talking to her like to an old friend and smiling brightly the whole time. I was so surprised.

She told us we were great candidates, that is was great that we had not done any IVF or such things (a rarity now), that she foresaw that our process would go very fast if we passed all the tests(9 to 10 months to a year) and even said that we were going to be parents before my brother who is now searching for a pregnancy. I could not believe my ears.

She smiled the whole time when saying this to my DH. This lady that was the terror to everybody.

We went out and my DH goes into the car. He is so happy and tells me he loved her. He really, really liked her. This woman that we were warned so much about.

I tell him she reminds me of someone. He says sure: "She is identical to my mother".

An indeed she was. I could not put my finger to it, but when he said it it was complelty right.

To my dear MIL that died almost to the date of this interview 3 years ago (October 9th) and that I was so scared of in the beginning, but that later grew to love. A very strong woman, with a keen sense of what was right, but so merciful. The one that had taught my DH his faith, a very, very strong faith.

God had given us a clear sign that He is with us and will help us build our family. Not sure the path, but HE is with us. I could not help to smile the whole day!

Storming heavens against abortions next week

Today is a very sad day since for the second time in a week the blogs are asking for prayers.


First it was: Alive in hope in this post http://alive-in-hope.blogspot.com/2010/10/abortion-scheduled-for-october-5th.html (I am still learning to put in links!)

and then Sew Infertile in this http://sewinfertile.blogspot.com/2010/10/17-wks-pregnant-abortion-scheduled-next.html" and Magnify the Lord in this http://psalm34-3.blogspot.com/2010/10/urgent-abortion-at-stake.html


My only thought was to run to my computer and ask for the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Time and time again I have seen how powerful She is and specially in cases where Life is involved.

She has changed hearts and stopped abortions many tims over. If you want to join me there is a way to put our intentions at Her feet and that they are prayed over in Mass.


The link in English for putting the intentions at the Basilica of Guadalupe: http://www.virgendeguadalupe.org.mx/eng/petitions.htm


The intentions are prayed everyday at 9a.m Mass right in front of Her, just a few feet away.

If we unite in prayer it might be possible for these and other abortions to be stopped. I think that at this time prayer is the only way.

Whirlwind of emotions

My last 4 months have been a whirlwind of emotions and of things I did not expect to live.

I thought I had clear signals from God on which direction to take, but the only thing for sure that I know right now is that my heart is desperate to have a child to love and hold and I do not have one.

Four months ago I started a very serious attempt at getting myself healthy. I started excercising, did the endo diet very, very strictly, did NaPro perfectly and used alternative therapies such as accupuncture. I felt great and I thought that either for a biological or adoptive child this was very good. I finally had given up the result and somehow knew that we would be parents.

In the midst of everything we got the call.

The call in our case meant the Catholic adoption agency that we had chosen had accepted us as viable for adoption, one year before we expected. I was so happy!

NOTE:
Here things are very different than in the USA.

Adoption is free (in private agencies you only pay some minimal agency fees and an adoption course, all no more than 2 thousand USD) and in the case of the goverment nothing. BUT you need to be accepted and at any time they can deny you.

Well, out of hundreds of couples we had been accepted for some reason and now had to start the heartstopping time of tests and interviews, but this was an enourmous first step. We were told by friends that basically if we passed the tests and interviews in the coming months we were guaranteed a child in a year or less. Wow!!! we most possibly were going to be parents

Then.....

I got pregnant

I was shocked and afraid. Afraid of a miscarriage and of the dangers of a pregnancy at 39. Still so thankful. I had almost given up I would live to experience this.

We did not cancel the adoption process, since we knew there was the possibility of miscarriage. With this agency and most you cannot adopt if you are pregnant or have a biological child unless a certain time has passed, so we decided not to say anything.

I was very afraid and I was taking the precaution of not cancelling the adoption process, but I was sure that God that had asked to go through the cross of IF for 3 horrible years would not ask more of us.

I was wrong.

I miscarried a few weeks later, at 9 weeks and had serious complications which landed me in the hospital for 4 horrible days.

In the weeks afterwards I decided to concentrate in my mourning, started to blog and recuperate

And here I am one month later Friday and what happens?

We receive the call for the most crucial interview of all to adopt. For next Monday. With the director of the agency. She can decide that we are suitable or not. We learn from the same friends that since abortion has just become legal in some states in Mexico in the last months the number of pregnant women coming in had diminished and that now the process was even tougher. That this interview could be more crucial than ever.

Since we closed other adoption venues in months past, this is our only avenue for now. And I am 39, almost at the cutoff age for babies.

I am terrified.

This woman has a whole team of experts backing her up, but she will make the final decision. She is very tough and will for sure ask us if we have closed the biological search for a child, if we have mourned our miscarriage and other such difficult questions. A lot of people end up crying. She is a good person, but so very tough.

She is known to be so tough that a couple of friends that have adopted there have invited us to dinner to coach us... and last night confirmed to us that they had become stricter.

But this is not all...

Just days ago I am sent by PPVI for some medical testing for blood clotting issues (might have played a factor in my IF and miscarriage. the hematologist has booked me for them..... next week.

And my doctor tells me to start again TTC...... also next week since my cycles have stabilized. He believes that my hormones had reached a point of health and that we have the greatest chance in the coming cycles.

And so today I am overwhelmed with emotions. Excited, tentatively hopeful and fearful and most of all tired with my search for a family.

What does God want from us? what is our direction? can we manage both the biological and adoptive path at the same time?

Non of the peace I felt 4 months ago is right now with me. Even with so many things going on at once the possibility of having a baby or adopting seems to be to me futher than ever away.