St. Anthony working already!!! and more intentions!

Hi!

the intention list keeps growing and this makes me so happy!

Please add:

For the cousin of mnr who recently miscarried and for this baby.
For matching moonheads: My intentions are also for us both to see improvement with our joint fertility and have the grace to accept God's will.


Well and St. Anthony has begun working.... a couple of days ago I FOUND this without even looking.. the picture on top is the St. Anthony I had given to my grandmother one birthday over 25 years ago and that she kept in her night stand, with a prayer and with a note from me in my teenager writting.

Well its the exact same prayer we have been praying, but I had not seen it in a very, very long time and had no idea where it was and that it was the same prayer!!!

I found it just as I was just trying to put some order in my house and unexpectedly there he was!! Just like that!

And it belonged to my grandmother who was so devoted to him and I found this during our novena. I have tears in my eyes! Just amazing.


And then today I was an offered an opportunity that I was not even looking for and the adoptions in my group started early.

Its a long update since so many things are going on, but if you want to know what it is go the last part of this entry.

The novena has been a light of ray for me and has given me renewed hope since the last days have been emotionally difficult. Blame it on the coming legal aspects of the adoption, PMS, the possibility of a job offer abroad and many things happening at once here.

My grandmother used to say ask St. Anthony to find something and he will, it just might not be what you ask him for. Well I have been reminded of this today with an early call with my boss, but more on this later. Adoption status is first and it has moved faster than anticipated.

I am very anxious about the coming days when we will be granted or not the permision to adopt and later how it all will turn out. I am very, very bad at not knowing and trusting.

My class generation at the adoption agency consisted of 12 couples when we started classes back in October of 2010. All of us started proceedings about 1 year before.

It is very different here than in the USA.

In Mexico most adoptions are closed since we follow the international protocols of adoption from the Hague, the USA does not. So the birth mothers relinquish their rights to the insitution who becomes the legal guardian and then the institution hands over the rights to the adoptive parents. From the time of birth until this is all finished and becomes permanent its just a few weeks (even days) and while this takes place the babies remain in their care in a beautiful nursery filled with love. I was able to see it from afar and its really God filled.

Its really a place from God where volunteers go and take care of the babies during the day like real mothers and also specialized nurses and doctors.

You can be matched with a baby and not know it for weeks, because they only tell you until is definitive.

Thinking that our baby might have been born already makes me even more anxious!!! I really do not even want to think about this possibility!

Well the agency normally gives the babies to class generations. They finish with class A and move over to class B and so on. There is some overlapping in cases where they think there is a better match with class B than A, but they follow normally an order in some 85% of the cases.

The agency matches the babies normally with the families (only Catholic marriages in this particular case) after much prayer and after looking at the characteristics of the family. Most of the babies look a little or a lot like the adoptive family (we saw some things during the annual meeting that were simply amazing), although this is not their main criteria.

The babies and families are not matched in any particular order. But they have almost finished with the previous generation and now have started matching mine!!!! ONE week before it was even possible, ohh St. Anthony!!

and not only this: they have in their nursery 24 babies waiting for the legal proceedings to finish and to be matched! A friend was there last week and told me. this is highly unusual! Twenty-Four! It seems that this push for abortion has also made many people promote this much more as an alternative.

Abortion is horrible, but has also brought the need for all to support pregnant women to the light even more and this has been helping.

Well yesterday we started receiving news form my group. Adoptions have started this week!!!!!!

From my generation:
1 couple received their baby about a month ago. They were an unusual case since they were between generations. I was not worried when I found out since it was not our group.
1 in December decided to adopt via the goverment agency in anothes state which they did that month.
1 in April decided to adopt privately and quit their proceedings. Yesterday they announced that it had fell through and that the birth mother even if they had taken care of her for the last 3 months and paid all her expenses had decided to parent at the very last minute. They are heart broken and since they did not inform all of this (the woman was living at their house while they were in classes with us) I am not sure the agency will let them adopt via them. The way they did it its not legal in Mexico.

1 couple will receive their baby boy today. A 1.5 month old baby boy and amazingly born on St Gianna´s day. =)

so adoptions have started in my group this week, the week of the Novena and we are just 8 couples left!!!

On Monday June 13th day of St Anthony the agency will present our file to the governement and we will be approved or not. I also have been asking my maternal grandparents to interceed for us that day. Both died on St Anthony´s feast day as I have mentioned before.

The statistics say that normally one couple (max 2) per group is not accepted in their first try and they are sent to therapy (normally marriage or grief). Lately they have also added religious formation to this and after a few months they can adopt.

So we have right now around 15% to 25% (since none have been canceled so far) chance of not being accepted. Argggh! Its just like the miscarriage chance I was given and with my luck I do not know what will happen! I so need to stop worrying and not compare these statisics!

Yet on Saturday we took the risk and bought several important items and several friends have started giving me stuff.

The room that has been empty for 2.5 years now has started to look like a nursery.

We have a crib (who belonged to my nice and nephew), two drawers from my old teenager bedroom which are exactly like the crib, a baby car seat, clothing that I had been given when I was pregnant and some very basic new stuff. Its really blows my mind!

We spent Saturday at a Baby Expo, a big expo dedicated to selling all things baby with great prices. I was very anxious about being around so many babies and pregnant women and it was emotionally draining, but I survived.

At times I had tears in my eyes thinking that Miguel would have been 3 months old, but God gave me somehow strenght.

Sometimes I had to look away from all the pregnant bellies or the amazingly beautiful babies and most of the time I felt so alone.

Some people did not know how to act when we told them we were adopting, but most were great and seemed so genuinely happy that it was great.

We are taking a big risk with our hearts really, but at the same time I do not want to be running around the city buying the stuff with a new baby in tow. I want to enjoy the time with him / her as much as I can. I will have 4 months maternity leave and I want enjoy each and every minute.

So we are trusting God that all will be well.

Yet miscarriage made my heart so very, very fearful as well as my multiple health complications of last year. I had never been a fearful person, yet I have become one. A bad case.

Since we do not know when the baby will come and at what age (anywhere from 20 days of birth to 6 months depending on when the birth mother gave up her legal rights) I have not wanted to buy a lot, nor think about what the baby will look like nor its gender (we were open about all of this).

Its very, very hard right now. I know I should be joyful, but I cannot be calm until I have the baby in my arms.

On my health front: I decided to start excercising last week and I guess I overdid it. It has been very warm here, so I was sweating a lot after class and I did not cover myself coming out of class and it had become chilly became very ill with a chest cold. Not something that I needed at this time. I felt horrible for 3 days! and have been doing home office most of the time.

I sent my cycle review yesterday (AF arrive in the middle of a lot of PMS) and for the first time in many, many months my 2 last cycles looked normal. I had a very late ovulation for me (CD 22) and great mucus which I had not seen since my miscarriage (without medicines for mucus!) ! but I was in Brasil and DH in Mex.ico around Peak! arghh!!!!!!!

My progesterone P+7 was 25 which is great and I had a normal post peak phase! so good news among all this fear! I am 40 and still have normal cycles, at least this gives me hope.

The only bad thing other than having DH 11 hours away by plane with great signs of ovulation was that I once again had tail end brown bleeding. This strarted with my miscarriage in September and lasted for 3 months then took antibiotics and it went away, but had then yeast! not nice!

I refuse to take antibiotic once again (though it seems I will have to!) and asked in my cycle review if it could be related to C.lomid (its started when I started this) or to inflammation and if I could try with diet one month!

Tomorrow I will restart accupuncture and this cycle I will be back on the antinflammatory diet, meditation, off wheat and lactose, regular excercise, supplements. All the things I was doing when I became pregnant. I kept a diary and I have all my notes.

I want to be really in the best shape ever for whatever way God chooses for me to be a mother and if its both biological and adoptive the more the merrier. We do not have time to waste!!!.

If a baby comes via adoption soon I want to be a healthy mother and not only did this regime work in terms of my fertility, but I felt great.

Like never before and this will help me be a better mother and I need to focus in something that I can least have a grip on during the coming weeks.

Adding to my anxiety .....

DH has been having some interviews in the last weeks. It has been a roller coaster of emotions also!.

He was recommened by his current boss to work as a teacher at a university. He has had 3 interviews so far and one more to go or more.

All looks very positive, but it looks as there are still 2 options in the air: one only part time which would still be not enough for him to support us (would give some 4 classes a week until they know he can handle more) after a period of training which I am not sure is paid or it can become a university coordination plus classes, which would be much better. All is up in the air right now!

We need a break in this respect please God and St Anthony! It has been 3.5 years since he lost his corporate job and has had only part time work. This has strained our marriage, in addition to IF and miscarriage and my health crisis and I do not wish the combination on anybody. There is ligth at the end of the tunnel, but the more we seem to reach it the farther away it moves or so it seems.

On my front: The event in Rio went extremely well (it was rated as the best one yet globally) and many people from global, including the boss of my boss and corporate HR, where there. This means that my team and I were in the HR radar and today my boss called me extremely early. He was in Ge.rmany all week in planning meetings.

He told me early today:

To prepare for a call from global HR and if I could consider moving to Germany, just like that.... my jaw dropped like miles! I was and am speechless.

He told me:

You have been in your current position long enough and need to grow, you speak German, have an European passport and it would be natural for you as a next career step. You would be the perfect fit. Start thinking about it for the coming weeks.

DH also speaks some German and is in love with the idea of living in Europe once again. He studied in France his MBA. When I told him today very early today just after my call with my boss he said:

When do I start packing!

Wow! He was ecstatic and me ... terrified! Oh St Anthony!!!

For him it would be ideal since he would start fresh and he could work since I have the nationality and he would just need some 6 months to a year of German to be fluent (he is great at languages).

This is not something that I needed right now! haha! My prayer might have been misunderstood by St Anthony! My DH needs the job, not me!

And on top of my work for Fertility.Care which I feel is my true vocation. This is also growing like mad, but I have been putting some order there so I can manage it with everything else going on.

Well I am sure St. Anthony is having a field day with me right now! Adoption: yes or no? (the adoptions in my group started early, the same week as the novena which I attribute to him!), when for us: no idea, my fertilty: also up in the air, my DH job: no idea!! and now an opportunity for me that I did not look for....

I did not warn people when we started the Novena. I truly forgot, but was reminded today via my boss´s call..

Always , always expect things in a novena to St. Anthony.

He always finds what is best for you and it might not be exactly what you ask for! But he knows best. Enjoy the ride!