WOW

Boy has it been a LONG time since I last posted! GEESH! A year and a half? Really?

It's amazing how much changes in a year and a half. Let's see, we've been through 2 springs, 2 summers and a fall and winter in that amount of time. The twins have lived with us full time now for a year and almost 2 months! We are closer to adopting them, though there's a ways to go in that process! Dan's position was "eliminated" at Crestview and he is now working a mainstream job and I am getting ready to begin my ministry at Fairview Church next Monday (Sept 20, 2010)

Daniel and Amy have changed in so many ways. They are busy and talking and running all over the place and are so amazingly beautiful. They are stressful and exhausting and amazing and WONDERFUL. They are so smart and it's just incredible to see all of the changes in them every day.

Daniel is sweet, loves to be kissed, loves to give hugs and LOVES balloons! Amy isn't as cuddly, though she has her moments where she just wants to kiss you repeatedly, hug you as tight as possible and touch your face. They love puzzles and pizza and singing and dancing...they love Yo Gabba, Gabba and the Backyardigans. They love to sit on your lap and be read to. They love other people so much-Granny and Pa Pa, Gigi and Bubba...it's so sweet to see them react when they see them all.

God blessed us with a new van last Fall, a new house in February (2010), and a new outlook on the future with the happenings that ended our time at Crestview and started our time at Fairview.

We're blessed and grateful and I couldn't ask for more right now.

More news about the kids in the VERY near future.....

How do I......?

I'm not sure on days like today how someone is supposed to get through the day. So many things hinge on decisions made on days like today...so many lives could change with the snap of a finger...so many hopes and dreams could come crashing down, or completely be fulfilled.

How do I pray? How do I rest? How do I relax? How do I remain calm? How do I not cry? Why don't I get to have a voice? Why do I have to sit and let this room full of people make the decisions? How do I trust Him?

The whole "Be still and Know that I am God" keeps ringing through my head, but there's so much I want to do, so much I want to say, so much frustration.

Going to do my best to be still, and trust, and patiently wait. patiently. quietly. trusting He is God and He is in control.

Living in Fear

Well, I am pretty sure that the date was June 28, 2008. Dan and I went to our church to help with distributing beach balls with our VBS information written on it to local pools and parks in order to invite children to attend our VBS. We almost didn't go because the weather was bad and we knew that it was likely going to get cancelled, BUT decided to show up to show our support and find out when it would be rescheduled for. We did not realize that our lives would be forever changed.

As I said, the weather was bad, so no one but us and Stephen and Regina showed up. We had met them, but had never really talked with them, but through our conversation we learned that their niece had delivered twins in April and that they were going to be "foster parenting" them and would we be interested in adopting them when the time came. We literally left that discussion dumbfounded, confused, and very excited.

From there, it's all really a blur. If I was any good at journaling, I would have been documenting all of the details...but I didn't. I know there were a few conversations like "So you want me to babysit?"..."Well, yes, but we want you to take the kids permanently". "So, you need some help while you're at work?"..."Well, yes, but we are hoping that their parents give up their rights so you can adopt them" It took me a while to really let it sink in that these people just might have some kind of weird line to God and this might be our prayers answered.

So, we get through VBS, and on Monday night after VBS was over, Regina calls and says "the babies are here...they dropped them off tonight" THEN it's really a blur. I am pretty sure that the very next day I started "babysitting" them. First it was over at their house. The kids were on monitors to track their breathing and heartbeats, Amy was on oxygen. Transferring all of their equipment back and forth would have been such a pain in the butt. After about a month-6 weeks of taking care of them over there, we started bringing them to our house.

At the beginning, it was kind of easy. They slept a lot (A LOT) and only ate a little. Amy threw up a lot, Daniel has always been sweet and patient. I was able to get a good bit of housework done while they slept. Yeah, that's kind of over now. They're awake a lot more, and just not very content being on their own for too long before I have to serve them again. The house stays cluttered and my hair is getting thinner, but it's so wonderful.

I just look forward to the day when they are here permanently. And I can officially call them my
son and daughter, and don't feel weird to refer to myself as mommy...but we don't know when that day will come, or IF that day will come...and that's where the fear sets in.

I have no clue how to picture my life without them in it, and there's this possibility that it could come to an end. I have no idea how I will breathe if I have to watch them walk away for a last time, but it's something I have to consider could happen. I have no idea how to just sit back and let God have ALL of the control and surrender the total outcome to Him. I so badly want to be in control of how this is all going to happen, but I have no voice, no control at all....all I can do is sit and watch.

I get so frustrated sometimes because Amy is such a needy little princess. She cries and cries and cries and I can't do anything to appease her. And I start to feel anger towards this precious baby and I feel some of the ghosts of my past, and how quickly my mom would strike us if we made her mad...and I fear that I will have that same urge as they grow. I don't feel like I was abused, but mom's fuse was pretty short...the stress gets to me fast.

So, the fear is two-fold...I fear not having them permanently in my life, and I fear what kind of mom I'm going to be. I fear losing my future. I fear having to call my family and telling them that it's over. I fear losing my cool too often. I fear making my husband crazy with my stress level and my quickness to yell at him. I fear that God really knows all the junk in my life and decides that this is not something I deserve and it all goes away.

I see God working in such a mighty way...all the way back to the rainy day in June that allowed us to talk to Regina and Stephen without distraction of other people there. I know that He really wants what's best for us, what's best for the Rockeys, what's best for those precious babies sleeping in there right now. I know that He created the whole universe and everything in it, and if He can take care of that in such grand fashion then he can certainly take care of this whole situation too. But, I'm scared. And I'm in love with these little bitty humans. And I can't bear to see it end.

For now, I'll just keep praying and trusting and hoping and loving them with everything I've got.

The Curse of Infertility

"You'll probably never be able to have kids on your own". A doctor whose name I can't remember, but whose face I can't forget told me that when I was only 18 years old. I really didn't believe him because he didn't know me. He didn't know how much I wanted to be a mom one day. He hadn't examined me or run any tests on me. He was just going off of what my records said about my "female history". But I didn't believe him.

Every missed menstrual cycle I was convinced that this would be the time I would get to tell my husband "You're going to be a daddy"...once we even had a false positive home pregnancy test...I'll never forget the look on his face and the hug he gave me when I told him that it was positive...only to go to the hospital to get it confirmed and for them to say that I was not pregnant.

Years and years go by and you go ahead and discover reasons why it's ok that you don't have kids yet: you can go anywhere you want, whenever you want and not have to worry about packing up kids every time...it is good to get your husband through school without worrying about taking care of kids...this job wouldn't be as easy to get done if you had kids to worry about...finances would be tighter...schedules would be busier...blah, blah, blah...your heart never stops longing for a little voice to call you mommy.

We prayed, tried medications, prayed, went through actual infertility testings, prayed, talked to professionals in the field of infertility, prayed, cried, talked about what to do next, prayed, accepted it, grieved it, prayed, grieved harder, trusted God, and prayed about it for over 20 years. It really only gets HARD around mother's day, father's day and Christmas...those are the days you'd love to spend with a child of your own...the days when you feel like you're forgotten or not a real woman.

Through all of this, I've held firmly to the belief that ONE DAY, somehow, some way, God would fulfill the desire of my heart and give us a child of our own. Not necessarily through my body...maybe through someone else's...but our own child nonetheless. We're now coming out of a dark tunnel with some very bright light at the end of it. Hoping, once again praying, dreaming and so fearful of how this is all going to end.

God's ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts deeper than ours and I know that He has plans for a future for me and Dan. He has shown us how much He cares about us in so many ways over the years, and now all we can do is sit and watch Him work. It's so hard to have no control over the matter and to just sit back and trust Him, but we have no choice.

I'll talk more about how the relationship with the twins came to me in my next posting...

My Introduction to Blogging

This is actually my second blog page. I started another up, but after some thought, I decided I wanted to retitle it to match up with a current note I wrote on my facebook.
For those of you coming here for the first time, I do just consider myself an average woman. I don't have extraordinary talents, nothing that would bring me into the spotlight or make me famous. I can sometimes make a really pretty cake, or bake an awesome cheesecake (thanks to my friend Dianna's recipe), I get really lucky now and then by snapping an awesome picture or getting really creative and producing a great video. But, for the most part, I'm not the most beautiful, the most talented, or the best dressed woman in the room. (Most of the time I am the tallest though!)
In spite of my averageness, I think there are some great things about me. My faith in God, my relationship with my husband, my commitment to my friends, my dedication to my family, my creativity...and yes, there are things about me that I consider to be faults...not going to dwell on those in this particular blog, but I will hit on them at some other time.
I really really love my husband. I think that he and I were totally created to be married to each other. I believe that we are a great team and a positive example to others. We are certainly not perfect and have room for improvement, as does any couple, but overall, we have a good thing going on.
I am going to talk about the twins in my next blog. Going to go a little deeper about the background leading up to this time in my life.
Well, that's just my brief introduction...I am who I am and that's all that I am. Better yet, to quote one of my favorite authors/speakers/ministers "I am not, but I know I AM" and that's all that matters.