Babymoon!

We spent the last part of April down in South Padre Island!! We called this trip our "babymoon" as it is our last Lovecation before the kiddos come! It was such a wonderful trip... the weather was awesome and the beach was incredible. Here are photos from us on the beach! We spent just about everyday on the beach until dinner time, went out for dinner and ice cream, watched the sunrises/sunsets, and traveled into Mexico one day. Overall it was just a wonderful time of enjoying each other's company.

To view all of our photos from this trip and more please visit our webalbums at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/darbyandjason

To see photos from Baby Shower #1 you can visit:
www.lightinghisworld.com/babydugger

Officially Sharing the News!!

Okay, so this post will come to no surprise to 98% of you who we have been lucky enough to see over the past month or so. But for the few that live a bit farther I apologize for updating this blog so late. I don't know where April went (more about that in my next post) and this has been on my "to do" list daily the entire month!

Jason and I are extremely happy and excited for the adoption of first child here in just a matter of days! We are also pleased to announce that we are also pregnant and due in October!

Here's the story:

On March 2nd, I asked Jason to bring home a pregnancy test. He asked, "why?" And I said, "I don't know... I just feel like we should take one. I know it is going to be negative, I just want to take one." He said okay. The reason he asked why is because we were no longer trying for a biological baby. After our miscarriage we felt strongly that God was calling us to adopt and I didn't want the emotions of adoption/pregnancy/miscarriage again. So we decided to prevent pregnancy for the first time in years!

That night Jason brings home a test and I go into our downstairs bathroom to take it while he's staying the the kitchen. As soon as I take it I see that it is positive!!! I didn't even wait 30 seconds. I was shocked and just yelled, "Uh, come here!" And Jason (who had actually forgotten that I had gone in the bathroom to take the test came to the bathroom excepting me to be out of toilet paper or something like that) walked in and I just pointed and said, "Is that positive?" We both looked like someone had knocked the wind out of us and he just shook his head yes.

We were quiet for some time. Then my first words were, "If we loose this baby... you might as well lock me up in a crazy ward." Jason didn't say much for a while and then he said, "I don't understand. This is so different from the first time we found out we were pregnant." I agreed. While we were happy... at the same time we were not only shocked (we asked how this happened several times) but also fearful. Loosing Elijah was such a trying time for us in every way. I was not ready to do that again.

The rest of the evening was spent just asking lots and lots of questions back and forth and then praying quite a bit. The next day we went down to the hospital and Jason did an ultrasound on me and yep, there was a little baby there. However, we were still early... 4.5 weeks or so. We then started talking about what we should do about the adoption. Bethany Christian Services do not allow you to adopt a baby if you are pregnant or have had a baby in the past year. We were to tell them if we became pregnant during the adoption process and our names would be taken off of the waiting list. We wrestled with "when" to tell them in case we lost this baby too. We were both a little discouraged because we wondered if we had misunderstood the Lord. Why did we feel so led towards adoption if that wasn't His will?

Those questions were quickly answered because the next day we got a call from Bethany saying that a birthmother had picked us! We were shocked! We told them that we were excited and wanted to continue with this adoption (after all we had been praying that only one birthmother would be interested in us) but that we had just found out that we were pregnant again. And with that, we were told we could not longer pursue the adoption. We were heartbroken and Jason really wanted to fight for this baby. So, we wrote a letter to three staff people at Bethany that we had been working with throughout this process -- and we shared our hearts. Here is an excerpt from our letter:

We cannot fully express just how excited.....and confused we are about the past few days. We were overjoyed last night to receive the call from Kelly. For many months we've been praying every day that a birthmother would choose us and that we'd finally get a chance to "match." Receiving that phone call last night was truly an answer to prayer.
However, most of you probably know by now that we are once again pregnant with a biological baby. We literally found out a few days ago when taking a home pregnancy test and Darby just went to the Doctor's office this morning for blood tests to confirm it. Please understand that we are very early in our pregnancy - approximately 4-5 weeks at most. If you remember correctly, you'll know that this is not our first time to become pregnant. We lost our last baby at about 10 weeks and it was a very difficult time for us. Given our past experiences we feel that there is no guarantee that we will carry this pregnancy to full term, but are obviously now praying for God to protect and nurture our biological baby in the womb.
We do not profess to know exactly what God's will is for us in this situation, but please know that we are still VERY eager to bring an adopted baby into our family and we do not feel that HE has made any mistakes in allowing Alicia to pick us at this time. We believe that we are prepared and capable of raising two infants at the same time in our home if that's what God has in store for us.
We are not pretending that it would be easy, though. After attending the classes on attachment & trans-racial parenting, and after reading so many books on adoption, we understand very well that our adopted baby will require and deserve more from us than our biological baby might need. We are dedicated to that purpose and we sincerely promise both Alicia and everyone at Bethany that we are suited to care for both an adopted baby and a biological baby in our home.
Most importantly, though, we wanted to be honest and forthcoming with all the details of our situation right now. We are trying very hard to walk by faith in this moment of uncertainty, but we are also very scared that we might have another miscarriage AND lose our chance to be matched with Alicia. In essence, it would be like two more miscarriages for us.

We asked for the agency to allow the birthmother to choose if she would still like to place her baby with us even though we are pregnant. They had a meeting (that lasted several hours) and then they came to the conclusion that they would allow the adoption to take place if the birthmother still wanted to press forward. We were thrilled, but we had to read several articles on what is called "artificial twinning" and write our responses for how we plan to handle the challenges of raising two biologically unrelated children less than 9 months apart. Our response was three pages long (single spaced) and after we gave that to the agency -- they passed it along to the birthmother who read the articles and our responses. After reading all of that she said she still wanted to place her baby with us!

We got the call on March 15th - a little over two weeks after our adventure began. This call was to inform us that Alicia, the birthmother, still wanted us to adopt her baby. The social worker on the phone said, "All I can say is that God really must want this baby in your house because this just doesn't happen." We were thrilled and really trusted that this is the baby the Lord wanted all along to start our family.

It was then that we started sharing the news of the adoption, but continued to keep the pregnancy a secrete for another few weeks. We are currently 15 weeks pregnant and all seems to be going well. We continue to be a little bit scared of loosing this baby, but trying to have faith. It is also nice to have our first baby (due this month) to take our minds off the worry. :)

We're not sure what God wants for our family, but we're excited for the prospect of these two children joining our family!

Elijah's Due Date

Today, April 17th, was the due date for Elijah. While we're very excited for what God is doing in our family now... Elijah was our first child and the day is still painful. Thanks for all your prayers, calls, and cards.

Things are going well

Hey Everyone,

Well, I think the title pretty much sums things up for us. :) We are so excited that very soon we will be bringing home our first child!!! This has been such a long awaited event and we continue to pray for our baby as it develops, the birthmother of our child, and that everything goes smoothly and according to plan.

We met with Alicia (the birthmother) last Tuesday the 18th and we absolutely loved her!!!! We were told that those "match meetings" usually last about an hour, but we left after three. Alicia is such an incredible person and we got in the car and Jason said, "If I could handpick everything I want in a birthmother.... Alicia would be it." And I totally agreed. We have such a great respect and love for her now more than ever.

The baby's due date is May 31st, but the doctors think that Alicia might deliver early! So we're going to be ready to take in a baby at any time. We are putting the finishing touches on our nursery and my first baby shower is this Saturday (March 29th). The plan is for Alicia to call Bethany as soon as her water breaks and then they will call us and we'll head to the hospital where we plan to be in the room when our baby is delivered. We are so excited!!!

We look forward to sharing our blessing with you! Thanks for all your prayers and support in the meantime!

Love to all...
J&D

SOME GOOD NEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have been matched!!!!!!! :) :) :)

A birthmother has chosen us to adopt her baby! She is due in May and we couldn't be more thrilled! The details of this event have the fingerprints of God all over them and it is evident that He wants us to be matched with this birthmother -- for which we are so grateful!

More details to follow....

The Lord is soooo good!!!

In our excitement for Baby Dugger's arrival we have been doing lots to prepare. As I mentioned in our last post... we bought a crib and all the extras, the quilt clips we ordered for our theme quilt arrived and they are beautiful (handmade and special ordered to match our room). We went to Babies R Us last week to buy our dresser/combo changing table, but they were out of stock. Hopefully it will arrive soon and we can continue to make our nursery complete. I've also been studying parenting books and writing down the things I want to do with our baby (feeding schedule, sleeping, etc. ... FYI, I'm reading lots of books, but we're primarily going with Baby Wise and Shepherding a Child's Heart -- Great books for us!!!)

I say all that because while we are getting excited and able to look towards the future with great joy. We are also in the process of "guarding our hearts." I asked Jason if he thought that we would have a baby by Mother's Day. See, we have have three Monther's Day where we thought "this will be our last year not to be parents" -- each year it became incredibly harder to bear. This past year, 2007, we went away for the weekend, lots of friends sent me cards in the mail telling me they were praying for me during that hard time and they reminded me that I was in face a spiritual mother to lots of people. That helped a lot. I remember that night in bed Jason firmly believed that by Mother's Day of 08 we would have a child...

However, when I brought it up the other day he shook his head and said he didn't know. He said that he was done predicting. At that time I agreed even though it did hurt my heart... I didn't mean to, but I started guarding my heart a little more to the point that I didn't pray boldly.

This was made evident to me during a retreat that I went on over the weekend. Pastor Gary was talking about how Prayerless lives lead to a Powerless ministry. The context of his talk was on praying intently, boldly, and often for the ministries and the church in which we serve. We then broke into prayer groups and Pastor Gary asked us to pray and not a wimpy prayer, but a bold and powerful prayer.

My group was Lise, Laura, and Michelle. The three ladies that I spent the night with before and stayed up talking with them until the wee hours of the morning. They are all great friends who I love dearly, Lise was the first to pray and boy did she bring me to my knees. She prayed for me and my health and then for us as we wait for a baby. She prayed BOLDLY that we would get a baby in 2008. She didn't hold back, she took the leap.

I was in tears and very humbled at that moment. I was convicted that I was not praying boldly for Baby Dugger. Yes, we were praying for the birthmother and Baby Dugger's development, and ourselves. But we weren't praying boldly. Asking in the name of Jesus without holding back. That has changed in my life now. I am boldly asking the Lord for a child... and for one soon. I am boldly praying for His will to come to be in my life and that I will do all that I can to glorify Him and show Christ to others. Oh, how I fall short daily, but BOLDLY I am trying harder and praying more passionately.

I just wanted to share some of these thoughts. I certainly have more (you know me... I have lots of words :) But I just wanted to share how Lise's prayer meant so much to me and how it challenged me to let go of the hesitations that I carry around in my prayers. We are asking and trusting in faith that 2008 will be the year that Baby Dugger will join our family.

Love to all!!!

Be Careful What You Say...

We have heard from several other people who have dealt with infertility and/or a miscarriage that some people say ignorant things. We have TOTALLY found that to be true. Usually, they come from people with the biggest hearts who don't mean anything negative by the comments. So it is easy for Jason and I to brush them off, but at the same time I wish I used those opportunities to educate those people that what they said hurt. The didn't mean it in a harmful way... we know that... but how do we tell them that what they said isn't really appropriate? Here are some examples of things NOT to say to anyone going through infertility, miscarriage, and/or adoption:

"Just relax -- you'll get pregnant then." (I know tons of stressed out people who get pregnant and trust me there have been times when we've been relaxed - Nothing. It isn't that easy!)

"Once you adopt, then you'll get pregnant, that happens all the time" (actually it only happens in 2% of everyone who adopts. Plus, it can be interpreted as the adopted child is just a means of getting a biological child and that is not what we want. We want our adopted child because we want our adopted child. Not as a means to get pregnant.)

"Why do you want to adopt when you now know you can get pregnant?" (we get this a lot. And the truth is, it took us 2 years to get pregnant and that was with the help of drugs. That isn't something I want to go through again. BUT... THE MAIN REASON WE ARE ADOPTING IS BECAUSE IT IS NOT A LAST RESORT FOR US. We WANT to adopt. We feel called to adopt!)

"Don't you want a child of your own?" (yes, an adopted child will be our own child. Both our adopted children and our biological children, if we have them, will all be our own!)

"Darby's throwing up - she must be pregnant!" (we got this a few weeks ago when I had the stomach flu... please be careful what you say around us in regards to pregnancy.)

"(insert any complaint about being a parent here)" (we understand that being a parent is hard and at times frustrating... but you are still blessed to be parents. One of my friends from Louisville changed her tune after reading our blog and she realized that wishing for her life Before Children was hurtful to people like me. Thanks, Tara!)

"Maybe God is waiting to give you a child when you are through this depression so you'll be a better mother" - (um, okay, this is hurtful. If God is waiting for me to get my act together - we'll never be parents, no one would. We're doing the best we can and I feel that God is in no way keeping a child from our home. He's just preparing the right child for us.)

"You've only been on the waiting list a few months, that's not long at all" - (sometimes days feel like months around here. And we've been waiting for a child going on three years now... not for just a few months.)

"We're pregnant! We're in our 2nd trimester. We don't tell anyone until then because you know, stuff happens." (Yes, we are quite aware that the death of a child can occur in the first trimester. We've experienced that! It is not just stuff that happens, but a death, and yes, we're very aware. Please take that into consideration when you tell us your news!)


These are just a few of the comments that we've received that are ignorant. Most all of them came from good friends just trying to encourage us. So, we don't take them as insults, but I wanted to educate some of you on things to say and not to say - just for future reference. These are just a few, if you are interested in more let me know and I'll tell you personally. Also, if you are pregnant, I know we appreciate it when you tell us privately before we hear it through the grape vine. We do get excited for people who are pregnant and we love to pray for the health of your baby, but please be sensitive to other's situations.