Ramblings about orphan Sunday

Orphan Sunday...
That word, orphan, just hits me in the gut.
I suppose because some of the most the important people in my life were considered orphans...
Only they're not. They're certainly not orphaned in the way I think of.
Growing up I thought of orphans as children who's parents had died. Honestly most of my experience with the word orphan came from Disney movies. It's a time honored way to make a Disney movie.
But that's not my boys.
My boys were all loved. I love them fiercely with a momma's love, but I'm not the only momma. The details of those stories are not mine to tell, but I know that their other mommas love them. And the word orphan gives me pause because I never want to forget that those women are mommas to my boys too.

I know that in a perfect world my boys would not be giggling in my backyard and eating me out of house and home this morning. In a perfect world they would be with their first mommas.
Adoption starts with tragedy, always. It's always a tragedy when mother and child are separated, no matter the reason.
My children are not 'lucky' because they were adopted. 'Lucky' is the child who never needs to be adopted. My children are loved, wanted and adored. But that should be true of every child not a reason to be called lucky.
And they should never be expected to feel grateful to me that I adopted them. Grateful that I changed their diapers and braved the lego covered floor barefoot when they needed me, sure. But they are inherently deserving of love, deserving of a family. Christ died on a cross for them. They are fearfully and wonderfully made. I will take their gratitude for parenting them. They don't need to be grateful for adoption.
And while we're on the subject, can I also say the word orphan tends to lend itself to the idea that they need saving. They don't need a saviour apart from Jesus.
They do need a family. I believe the there's this lie of the adoption day and happily ever after. That's not true. It's a beautiful day, but at the end of it a family of imperfect people go home to an imperfect world. And after that we just call it parenting.
There also seems to be this notion that those who adopt are somehow saints or have some special calling on our lives. We aren't. And we don't.

We're willing. That's pretty much it. We're afraid. It's scary and unknown. And so many days we have no clue what we're doing. But we're parents. And parents change diapers, sign school folders and go to court if that's what our child needs.

Adopted families are just like everyone else's only different. We're the same in that we love each other. Biology is not a prerequisite for love. We're different in that some of the challenges are unique to adoption. These sweet babes have suffered trauma. Make no mistake that adoption involves trauma. It just does. So we love our kids. We do all the mundane things every family does. And sometimes things are a little different.
But please know that adoption is the most beautifully bittersweet thing I've ever known.
Please know that adoption is hard and scary and unbelievably worth it.
And here's the amazing part. You get to love, not just a child. You get to love your child. Those are my boys. I am their momma. Adoption will change your family. It will be a part of your child's story. But it will not define your family. It will not define your child.
Please know that you can do it. Yes you...
Pray the big scary prayers where you ask God if adoption is part of your story. Ask.
Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't, but ask. Because the number of children without a family while the church sits by just can't be a part of God's plan. It just can't.

He knew

Several years ago I was upstairs reading my Bible, and I came across a verse talking about the tribe of Benjamin. I stopped cold. At first I wasn't sure why, and I can't even tell you the exact verse. I just remember that the word Benjamin stopped me.

It was one of those moments where God spoke. There have only been a few times in my life that God has been that direct with me. He told me that was for me. 

Benjamin...

And to be honest it was a moment that I didn't think much of after that. I concluded that it wasn't really a favorite name of mine so maybe someday there where be a grand baby. 

Fast forward several years, Philip was in our home. He was sweet, loved and I had never thought to name him Benjamin. 

Then came Silas. Our plan had been three kids. We were going to adopt one more and done. We weren't open for more. Then Philip had a brother. And they wanted us to take him so that they could be together. I was afraid. The boys are 11 months apart. I was most definitely scared.

But here he came. My unexpected bundle of all boy, Philip's best friend and Seth's little shadow. The sweet blessing I never knew to ask for and whom I can't imagine my life without.

Once again, the thought to name him Benjamin never crossed my mind. Actually Wayne named Philip and Silas. And yes, he picked those names out exactly the way you think he did.

We had first names picked out, but we were still undecided as to middle names. We had been going back and forth for awhile.

Then my grandfather passed. I adore my grandpa. And while we were away for the funeral, I knew what Philip's middle name should be. I know what you're thinking but no...not Benjamin. 

Philip's full name is Philip Kenneth Cearley after my sweet grandpa. I still get teary eyed just writing that.

Seth's middle name is also named after a grandpa, Wayne's grandpa Neal.

And so it only seemed fitting that Silas was also named after a grandpa. My other grandpa who used to take me for ice cream and could fix anything, my grandpa Ben. But Ben sounded too short for a middle name with Silas. It needed to be just a bit longer. It needed to be...Silas Benjamin Cearley.

And suddenly I remembered God's word all those years ago. The word I had all but forgotten came flooding back. And ever so quietly God reminded me that his plans are so much greater and worth while then mine. 

Years ago before I had ever laid eyes on my fourth sweet babe, God knew. Beyond my well laid plans of three kids, God knew. Before the beginning of our foster care roller coaster for my sweet loves that drove me to my knees more times that I can count, He knew. Before my sweet babes were born, He knew. 

God knew.

Tomorrow it becomes official, but God knew this whole time.  

This right here is my Ebeneezer. 

Thus far the Lord has helped us.

Why I hate fundraising

Okay guys, I've put off fundraising as long as I possibly can. And even now I'm tearing up while I write this. I hate fundraising. I know. Not the best way to start off a fundraising page.

The reason I so hate fundraising is that to motivate myself I have to really force myself to consider why I'm fundraising. I'm not doing this for the tshirt or to make myself feel good. And although I love some free breakfast it's not enough to motivate me to hit my friends and family up for money. Most days we can do hours of treatments and literally handfuls of pills, and somewhere over the years it's become our normal. We let the dog out. We make school lunches. We hand out digestive enzymes. We do a couple of nebs, the vest. You get the idea. But fundraising is different. It inolves me asking for money and knowing that all too often people will keep on scrolling.

Which brings me to the reason why I'm doing this yet again. I'm doing this because My deepest fear is and has been for the last decade that my daughter will die. There it is. 

That sounds so dramatic and scary, but that's what it is. CF is an ugly, painful progressive disease. We fight. We fight what we know is a battle that we cannont win today. We know someday there will be a cure. So we fight. And we fight not knowing if the cure will be here in time.

That's it. 

So we keep going. We pray with tears streaming down our cheeks, and we trust God.

And once a year I ask you for help. I ask for the $10 that you can spare. I ask you to skip the pumpkin latte because there are 30,000 people waiting for a cure. I ask because my daughter, my baby, my whole world is waiting.

There are approximately 30,000 Americans living with cystic fibrosis. They are moms, dads, sisters, brothers, daughters, sons, friends and co-workers who struggle every day just to breathe. I walk for them and hope you will support me in my efforts.

Real progress has been made in the search for a cure, but the lives of people with CF are still cut far too short. There still is no cure for this devastating disease. By walking today, I am helping add tomorrows to the lives of people living with cystic fibrosis. Will you join me? Support me by making a donation to my Great Strides fundraising campaign today!

Great Strides is a fun, family-friendly event that raises awareness and support for people with CF and their families.

Please support me!

Help me reach my fundraising goal by donating to my Great Strides fundraising campaign. Your gift will help add tomorrows to the lives of people with cystic fibrosis by supporting life-saving research and medical progress. Your gift is 100-percent tax deductible.

http://fightcf.cff.org/site/TR/GreatStrides/90_Northeast_Texas_Dallas?px=2073415&pg=personal&fr_id=2247

Year eight with my sweet Gracie

Oh sweet girl, it's been an amazing year. You've grown. Actually if you could stop growing that would be great. You're this beautiful little girl one moment and this bouncy little vision of the woman you're becoming the next.
There are so many stories about this year. I think I'll start with your new found love to skate.
Over the summer we went to your first skating rink, and the best I can describe your first go around was like that scene from Friends where Phoebe runs. It was all flailing and squeals. And I wasn't sure you would be getting the hang of it. But that's not what makes this one of those proud mommy moments for me. What makes this a proud mommy moment is that you kept skating. I mean no matter how many times you fell, you just kept getting back up. You ran into walls and lost control over and over again. And then you went back the next day to keep practicing. And then you asked for skates for your birthday. You weren't a natural. You were determined. You made up you mind and then you kept at it.
And then there was the news that you had colonized psuedomonas. You looked at me and said, "So now I can go swimming whenever I want." I just smiled. Truly you are ever the optimist. You wore moustaches with me to the hospital to get lab work done and giggled at all the strange looks we got. This year you did all your own talking for your Great Strides CF video. I think this may be my all time fav video. You are just, well I'll put a link to it because you just blow me away.

Oh and you've started this whole making friends wherever we go. I mean you just walk right up to other kids, introduce yourself and ask if they want to play. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don't. But you always ask, and you do it absolutely fearlessly.
And when Granny's Daddy died this year, you found me crying. You wrapped your arms around me and prayed for his first night in heaven. The next day you wrote a letter to God and asked him to please take good care of him.
And you've become a big sister all over again. When Bitty first came, you struggled. You were sad because everyone was making a fuss over him. And I remember you very calmly came out of your room one day and told me that it was okay that he was everybody's favorite because you were his favorite. You're all the affection from a mom without any of that pesky word no.
You're funny. I mean like playing pranks on Seth funny. You hide around corners and jump out at him. Your giggle is infectious. Oh and this year we let you have caffeine. You giggled for ten minutes straight. We took video.

This year you started growing out of toys. You decided you were too old to play with Barbies. And I teared up. You started getting phone calls from other giggly little girls.
And my sweet little princess is growing up into this young lady that I just love to be with. I love to listen to you talk about your day, your chinchilla or just snuggle with you.
You're so wonderfully compassionate. When I'm having a bad day, you will sweetly walk over and ask me if I need a hug. And you are almost always right. There's very few things in the world a Gracie hug can't fix.
And this was the year you donated all those beyond gorgeous curls. I mean. How was I going to say no when you told me about how you wanted to help other kids by cutting your hair? I cried, but my sweet girl hopped right up there and did something amazing. I mean that's who you are.
You truly are so fearfully and wonderfully made, and I am so grateful for year eight with you.


And here's that link to the video of your adorableness...
http://youtu.be/xhu-R7J47Po

THE talk...

So there's a talk I've been dreading for almost nine years.
The talk that I would chew my right leg off to get out of.
Turns out I may never have to have THE talk.
And it's so not what you think.
For nine years I've been terrified for Grace to ask me if CF will kill her. Statistically, it will.
Let that sink in for minute.
Yeah, the very idea of that talk still makes me throw up in my mouth a little. I'm not sure how to explain to my happy, vibrant second grader that CF could slowly suffocate her to death. To tell her that she can expect a lifetime full of treatments and hospital stays to only buy time before the inevitable.
Yep, makes me nauseous every time I think about it.
I've spent the last couple of years trying to decide whether to tell her and ruin her innocence or risk a kid at school googling CF only to tell her.
But this week it hit me. I was doing the dishes and playing on a cf facebook group. They were talking about how close we are for the meds that will temporarily fix Grace's  type of gene defect. I mean like she could be on it sometime in 2014.
Yeah we're that close. As in I may NEVER have to have that talk with Grace.
As in when she asks me if Cystic Fibrosis will kill her I can say NO. Not we're looking for a cure. Not we're getting so close. But I can say NO.
And I broke down, tears streaming down my cheeks at the kitchen sink.
You guys, seriously I just can't even put this into words!
And I have to tell you guys thank you. Oh my gosh, thank you doesn't even begin to cover it.
This year and every other year since she was born you have been absolutely ah-mazing. You have donated. You have supported us. You have walked. You have prayed.
And this year when I've honestly been lacking myself. With everything else going on, I haven't been doing fundraisers. I haven't been doing benefit nights. I haven't been flooding your newsfeed for two months with pleas. And you have absolutely blown me away with your generosity. Every time and I mean every time someone donates, I cry because we are so truly, truly blessed by our friends and family.
So please keep it up. When I say we're close, I mean like almost reach out and touch it close.
And know that this isn't just about Gracie. There are so many other sweet cfers with different gene types, and the research is changing lives. The research is saving lives. You guys are saving lives and changing THE talk for so many of us.
Thank you.
To donate go to
http://www.cff.org/Great_Strides/dsp_DonationPage.cfm?walkid=8672&idUser=104366

Let me tell you about Friday

Lemme tell you about Friday. Trust me. You're gonna wanna read this.
Well first some background. When Gracie and Seth hug me I tell them it makes me heart feel happy.
It's this warm fuzzy feeling that I only get when my children hug me. You know that first day of summer when you're laying outside, you close your eyes and then you take that first big deep breath that's full of sunshine? Kinda of like that only so much better. I just can't really put that into words, but oh it's just beyond amazing. It's, well, quite possibly my fav thing about being a mom.
Anyway, on Friday Bitty had a doc appointment. He was passing the time playing in my lap. We were babbling and blowing raspberries at each other. And then it happened.
He looked up at me with those big hazel eyes and ridiculously long eyelashes, smiled with his tiny four teeth, and then put his head on my chest. He sighed softly and tucked his arms up under his body...
And my heart was so very happy.
This warm feeling ran over me. I wrapped my arms around him, grinned that silly mommy grin, and teared up like a big ol girl.
And that's it. In a random exam room, on an uneventful day with no one else there, no drama to speak of, he became my child.

And now life feels almost normal. 

Like I was driving to school, and I realized it felt totally normal to have three kids with me. 

Grace was next to Bitty and babbling away at him.

I'm getting up in the mornings and not feeling overwhelmed by the task of getting everyone fed and out the door in time. Seth gets himself dressed and then runs to play with Bitty.

In the afternoons, I find myself with an hour to myself to zone out with random tv shows during naptime.

Bitty will not only giggle, but the kid has some serious dance moves. In particular he loves him some boy bands. 

He's started signing, and even more amazing I understand it. 

He will play right next to me and then sneak off to the office to pull out all the puzzle pieces. That's right he will wander off without me to play.

The older kids offer to help with the dishes and to help feed Bitty.

In the evening Bitty gets fussy, but only for an hour. I can put him in the playpen. He throws a fit for a few minutes and then remembers how many toys are in there. And the fussiness doesn't make me cringe anymore. It's just a normal evening with a normal family that has a normal baby.

As I type this the big kids are eating dinner while Bitty plays. 

In fact, I can mostly categorize today as borderline uneventful.

Don't get me wrong. It's still scary to not know the future for Bitty and us. Things still aren't clear. There's still fear about the unknown with Bitty, but I can say unequivocally that I have three children. Three smart, funny and so loved children...And they so make my heart happy.

Drama

dra·ma:

 [drah-muh,dram-uh ]any situation or series of events having vivid, emotional,conflicting, or striking interest or results:
So drama...
I'm so not a fan.
Confrontation makes me queasy. Yeah and then I do a goofy nervous laugh.
And I think I've spent far too many years trying to avoid it.
I mean we've certainly had our share of dramatic moments over the years, but it's never something I've accepted as the norm.
My thoughts have always been to just push past the dramatic situation to get to the good stuff. Drama always had a negative tone in my opinion. I wanted life to be easy, effortless and in all honesty terribly boring.
But lately I'm rethinking that.
I find that we've been thrown into a whirlwind with Bitty, and dude that is def some drama. Drama that I never wanted. Drama that I don't feel like we did anything to cause. Drama that to be honest I've been bitter about having to deal with.
I mean I read my Bible. I go to church. I pray. I love Jesus.
So shouldn't I be drama free at some point?
When I write that out, it sounds even more crazy.
I mean I read my Bible. What Bible character ever had a drama free life?
Seriously?
Issac was put on an altar.
David was run out of his country.
Moses was a baby left in a river.
Job was, well, that's some drama.
Lazarus died and then came back.
Jesus sweat blood.
And here I am with my queasy pity party about my very cush life.
Jesus had drama. I mean serious for real drama.
He knew the drama was coming. He didn't run. He didn't hide from it. He decided that it was worth it. He decided that I was worth it...
How humbling is that?!
So that's the difference. Jesus loved me so much that he didn't care about the drama it took to save me.
It was never about the drama. It was always about love.
Love means being passionate. Love means picking up a cross. Love means there will be drama.
Drama with a purpose.
Jesus' is passionate about saving people, about fighting for people. And I'm a Jesus follower. His passions are my passions.
I'm working to accept that drama isn't a bad thing when it's for something worth being dramatic about. I'm working to trust God and know that He's got this. That if He brings drama into my life then I can trust Him with it.
And to see what lies behind the drama, love.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8