Time for Introductions

Meet Aiden Curtis West!

This little love joined our family July 31.  The ten day revocation period ended today.  So, now it is my privilege, as his mama, to introduce Aiden to the world.  He was born May 15.  He now weighs 11.2 lbs and is 22.5 in long.  He is in great health and is a sweet sweet little boy.

His birth mother is a wonderful, intelligent young woman who loves him very much. She has known from the beginning that God has big plans for Aiden and that those plans include adoption.  We feel honored and blessed that she has chosen our family for Aiden.  We will always and forever be thankful for the great sacrifice of love she has been willing to make for her son to now be our son.  There are no words that can fully express our respect for her or our gratitude to her.

We have prayed for this little boy for a year and a half now, since before he was even conceived.  Even before we knew him, God knew him and knew he would be a part of our family.  Just as God knit Aiden together in the womb, He is knitting and grafting him into our family.  What an amazing God we serve that writes stories we can hardly comprehend.  I am and always will be thankful for this call to adoption.  It has been a hard, long road, but I have seen my Father's hand and felt his embrace the entire journey.  Now that Aiden is here, all I know to do is praise Him because it is all because of Him that this is the path Adam and I took to grow our family.

Aiden is ours, we are his. And we are forever changed by this little blessing.

Created for Care - Part 2 - Names of God

There were two parts of the conference that I really was not looking forward to attending.  It wasn't that I thought they were going to be terrible, they just didn't seem as appealing as the rest of the options.  The first was this time called "Date with God," and the second was a breakout session called "Coffee Talk."  I'll give you two guesses which two sessions God used the most over the weekend.  God is funny like that!

So..."Date with God" ...even the name sounds hokey.  I just knew this was going to be one of those times that was cheesy and filled with things that try to stir women's emotions and draw out tears.  I went because my friend said we should at least attempt to experience everything the conference had to offer.  My attitude was bad.  But, my heart was already so raw from the chiseling God had been doing that it didn't take long for His sweet voice to enter in and replace hokey with divine.  During that time, I had picked two cards out of a bowl with names of God on them.  I thought, well, just to pass the time, I'll look at these names and all the scripture references that go along with them.

The first name I had randomly drawn was God's name, El Roi: the God who sees.  I heard God reminding me that He sees me.  He sees all.  Genesis 6:3 says, "Truly here I have seen Him who looks after me."  I am not forgotten, and God knows exactly what my heart desires.  He sees me, and He is looking out for me.  How precious it is to have a God, a father, that is looking after me.  I could see in my mind's eye the image of a father running after and protecting his little girl.  Sweet, sweet time.  In Psalm 139, it says, "Where shall I go that you are not there?"  God sees me and is always with me.  Knowing this, how can I be afraid or doubt that I am in the right place.  I have a God that is watching out for me and has far above and beyond what I can imagine in store for our family.  It is a blessing to be called to adoption and to know that, not only do I have a God who sees me, I have a God who sees my baby.  Such comfort!

    So, I have established that God is a God who sees me.  The next name I pulled out was Jehovah Jireh: You provide.  Well, there you have it.  God sees me, and He provides for me.  Matthew 6:8 says," [...] your Father knows what you need before you ask Him."  God whispered, "You are not forgotten."  He knows my need, my longing, to grow our family.  He is providing the peace, patience, and grace to stand the waiting and disappointments along the way.  He is not only providing a way to stand theses times; He is replacing the frustration with joy.  He provides, and He graciously reminded me that He, and only He, sustains.  I can rest in Him and allow Him to turn our waiting into joy.

Now for "Coffee Talk."  Again with the name! It sounds like surface level chitchat.  I guess I did not read the description very well.  Within the first few seconds, I realized that I might have been in over my head at this point.  God was chiseling away all weekend, and I was unsure that my heart could withstand the mighty surgeon's hand any longer.  God knows when to cut and when to soothe.  There was an adult adoptee and an adoptive mama speaking and answering questions for the rest of us.  As the adoptee spoke and shared her story, my heart melted for the future we will be blessed to have one day with our adoptive child, but it also broke for the questions and the struggles that this broken situation will bring.  She reminded me that our story is one of growing our family and not one of orphan care.  We are called to adoption but not to be rescuers, just to be a normal mama and daddy.  What a wonderful calling.  Here God replaced the frustration in the wait with joy for the calling.  Thank you, Lord, that You have a child for us.  What a treasured gift children are in the family!  She also reminded us that our story begins with a broken story first.  I need to remember that my child will experience a loss before being brought into our family.  I need to be willing to enter into this pain with him/her someday and realize that I can't fix it or take the pain away and that it is not my job to do so.  Finally, I was also reminded to have patience with others in our journey.  We were called to adopt.  That does not mean that everyone one of our friends or family members feels the same call or is ready to have an adoptive child in the family, especially if that means having a child of different ethnicity.  The speakers reminded me to have patience and respect our family and friends' journeys as they process and as God moves them in the direction they need to go.

In the last session, I was reminded that I serve a God that is always on time and that I should always be prepared to praise and worship Him.

Throughout the entire conference, the Great Healer gently and methodically cut away the parts, in my heart, that were cancerous and replaced them with whole, life-giving, overflowing-with-joy parts.  God, in His wisdom, changed things deep inside me that I was unaware needed changing.  He showed me that this is not about me.  God has a plan, and what a joy it is to be part of this plan.  What better way to serve God than to take care of His children!?  What an honor it is that God has already entrusted us with two little loves and is preparing our hearts for more.  This is only the beginning.  God has opened a door in my heart and my eyes to His work in the world of adoption and orphan care.  I don't know what all He has in store for us, but I am looking forward to the journey.

Created for Care Part 1 - Repentance and Reliance

    A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of going to an adoption conference called Created for Care.  I traveled and roomed with some friends from Huntsville, AL.  I couldn't decide what I was more excited about:  the trip with good friends or the conference.  I had no clue what all God had in store for me during the sweet weekend with a lodge full of adoptive mamas.

    You see, adoption is a journey, for our family, that I don't always understand.  As I have shared in other post, adoption is hard.  The wait is hard.  The longing is hard.  The not knowing is hard. Adoption is also amazing, and the ways in which God is showing Himself to me and my family are, well, hard to even describe.  The love I can have for a child I have yet to meet is amazing.  The way my heart has been changed and drawn to love a God, one that I have known for years, more and more is amazing.  The way my sweet little family of four gathers together to ask God to care for soon-to-be (hopefully) family members and to bring them home quickly is amazing.  The questions that adoption brings for my five and three year old to ask is amazing. The way the word adoption opens the door to share the gospel with people we barely know is amazing.

    God has moved and worked and moved and worked in my heart throughout our adoption story and I am sure there is moving and working yet to come.  God used this conference to gently, but undeniably, reveal sin in my heart and renew a reliance on Him.  I thought I would walk away with great knowledge nuggets about adoption and a feeling of encouragement.  While those two things are true, they take a back burner to the truth shown to me.

I could feel God working from the minute I entered the van with the three godly women with whom God orchestrated for me to travel.  I could feel His gentle, unmistakable chiseling.  One of my friends said, "When God calls you to do something, you don't make a pros and cons list.  That is just not how obedience works.  We are called to a obey."  Such wisdom.  Such truth.  I could feel the walls beginning to break.

Once we arrived, it seemed the theme of every session, no matter the actual topic, was drawing me to repent.  It started in the first breakout session, "Waiting", when a woman shared her story and then shared that she felt God asking her, "What if the things you view as failures are actually successes?  Will you still follow me?  Will you still follow when you don't understand?"  Wham! Like that, this question entered my heart with such force I couldn't breath.  Will I?  Am I?  While I wait, on the days I feel discouraged, am I trusting and following God?  There were now gaping holes in my walls.

Then, in our main session, the speaker spoke from Exodus about God using Moses to tell Pharaoh to let His people go. At one point, during the plague of frogs, Pharaoh agrees to let the people go because he wants the frogs gone.  Moses asks when he would like the frogs to go, and Pharaoh says tomorrow.  Tomorrow! Really, Pharaoh, tomorrow, not now this very minute?  The speaker points out that frogs are like our sin, and God is saying, "I have freedom for you; just let go of your frog." And we say, "Hold on. Tomorrow."  That got me thinking, "What is my frog? What am I holding on to?"  And down the walls came.

  The chisel had broken through and my heart was laying outside of me, raw and vulnerable.  I could see all the dark spots clearly now.  I could see the parts of my heart that were no longer fleshy and full but hardened and dark.  I could see a belief that had crept in and was shriveling my heart bit by bit.  If it continued, my heart would no longer beat and pump life into me, and those around but would turn completely hard and crumble, giving in to the lies that the enemy had placed there.

God began, in a way that only He can, to show me that I was not trusting in Him.  I had given in to the lie that God is not good and that He is not calling us to what is best for us.  I had been holding onto control.  I had become selfish in my desire to adopt, and I had made His calling about me.  Having children, whether biologically or through adoption, is not about me.  This life, my life, is about obedience to God.  He has called us to adopt just as he called us to biologically have children.  This is His plan for our life, and He is in control.

My job, my family's job, is to be obedient, say yes, and be in a position to be used.  In God's timing, He will call on us to be a family for a child. And, when that time comes, we will be overjoyed.  For now, we wait with expectancy, and we rest in the knowledge that we serve a mighty God and that this is His plan, His life.

God Knows

Here is a video that someone posted on facebook or twitter.  I saw it and it moved me.
http://www.faithit.com/couple-sees-son-first-time-reaction-is-beautiful/#.UqoiuBhOTnl.facebook

I just loved it and cried right along with them. My favorite line in the whole video is when the dad says, "All those years, all those prayers were for him.  Were for Jacob."

I loved this line so much because it reminded me that all our prayers and all the preparations we are doing now are for a specific child.  It reminded me that this is not in my control and there is nothing I can to do to make it happen sooner or to mess it up.  God knows!  God knows the very child that is our son or daughter.  Adoption is not a random happening that takes place when our number comes up.  Just as God knits children together in the womb, He has a plan for their life from the very beginning.  It does not surprise Him that they are in need of a family or the timing when they will make their entry into the world.  God knows exactly when our child will be born and He will make us ready.  God knows what we need and He provides!  All of that is encouraging, but the thing that gives me the most comfort is to know that God already, knows our baby, whether conceived or not!  He already loves our baby and He already has a plan for our baby.  God already has His hand in our baby's life.  He can see our baby's face.  God knows!  When we don't, God knows!

 How can I not be comforted knowing that God is holding our baby and when it is His perfect timing so will we!!

Adoption: The Raw Truth of Waiting

We are homestudy complete.  Yay...I guess!  What does that mean exactly.  Well, it means we have completed paperwork and waited and waited and now we are officially WAITING.

Here is the truth about adoption from my perspective.

Everyone has a different story to tell and the journey to adoption takes many different paths.  So, as you read this, keep in mind that this is our journey.  I am not telling you how everyone feels about waiting, just me.

We did not come to adoption through infertility, so I feel like our story is one that is not as common, or at least not as understood and as commonly shared.  We have two biological children and are ready to grow our family.  About a year ago we began to pray and talk about having another baby and God made it very clear to us that He had a plan to grow our family and that plan included adoption.  We couldn't be more thrilled.

So, here we are almost a year later and we are on what seems like a never ending waiting period.  It is hard!  I want nothing more than to have another little love in my home.  Adoption is hard!  It is not a calling for the weak and it can make you weary.  The difference in my experience is this:

Pregnancy went something like this for us...  We decided to have a baby.  We quit preventing pregnancy and began trying to conceive. In a couple of months we were pregnant.  I had great pregnancies; no complications.  I had beautiful births.  I did have to have two c-sections but that is how my little loves were brought into this world.  That is our story and I love it.  I wouldn't change it.  Because of modern medicine, my babies were born and are alive.  Thank you, Lord, for the c-section!  From the thought of wanting and child to the birth was less than a year for both of my children.

Adoption has been more like this...  We began praying about adoption about a year ago.  We went to our first informational meeting in January 2012.  We began the paperwork the very next day.  God poured a peace over us that this was His calling on our life and we ran with it.  We flew through paperwork and background checks.  We made our profile books and scheduled our interviews and our homestudy.  Anything and everything we could do, we have done.  And now, a few months shy of a year since we began  the adoption process, we are finally waiting to be chosen.  We don't have a child yet.  We have no timeline for when we will.  We are just waiting.

Along the way we have had to rely on a lot of other people to do their part for the process to move along.  Of this, I am not a fan!  You see, when we were trying to get pregnant, the only two people that were involved in the process were me and Adam.  Adam and I both felt equally excited about getting pregnant and we both felt very connected to the idea of growing our family, as we should.  Well, I have learned, that people are busy and my desire to have another child is not their desire to have another child.  Therefore, other people do not feel the urgency that I feel to move the process along.

Along the way, I have also learned that it is emotionally draining to know that God has a child, out there, for us, but not to know if that child is born yet, if that child is even conceived yet, if that child's mom is taking care of him or her like they should, will they be ok, is it a him or a her, what race will our child be.  It is almost unbearably hard to, in the deepest part of my heart long for another baby and to realize that I have absolutely no control over having one.  I have given control over to my Heavenly Father and while I know He loves me and I know He has a plan for our family, I do not know what His timeline is or that it will match what I want.  Knowing that He has a plan has not yet changed the aching in my heart hold my little baby, to know where in the world my baby is sleeping tonight or if my baby is even alive yet to be tucked in.

So, the hard part, for me, in adoption, is trusting God.  Trusting His will and His plan.  My uterus is screaming to have another baby and I have to quieten it at the prompting of my God.  It is hard to actively prevent pregnancy every month, when my strongest desire is to have another baby.  It makes no logical since to me.  Everything in my knows that God has called us to adoption. When I dream of our family growing, it is through adoption.  To be honest, I just don't want to wait.  I dream every night of the new little child or children that will run through our home.  I sit at the playground, watching kids, and wonder if my child will look like that or have hair that color or eyes that color.  I wonder when my child will be home and my family whole.

I know many adoptive parents who have had said to them, "Well, at least you got your kids the easy way."  I said it earlier and I will say it again...Adoption is not for the weak or the faint of heart.  This journey has been harder than the journey to having our first two children.  At least when I was pregnant, I knew where my child was and I knew when I was going to meet them.

It is the not knowing that haunts my dreams.

Audrey and Katherine

I had the privilege of photographing this sweet mom and her precious baby girl last week.

 I met Audrey through mentoring in the A Way Out organization here in Memphis.  Audrey came to AWO from jail.  She was pregnant and desperately looking for a way to change her life. She had tried to change before but always held on the the past and ended up back on the streets.

 Audrey's life on the street started early, being introduced to crack and prostitution, by a family member, as a young teenager.  As she would tell you, her time on the streets was not glamorous or fun; it was hard and empty.  She was beaten and raped and consumed by the drug that was destroying her life.  Audrey had spent almost 20 years on the street before coming to AWO.

God has used A Way Out to change Audrey's life.  It is amazing to see the ways Jesus is moving in Audrey.  She gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl less than a month after she entered AWO.  She has been an amazing mother since day one and strives to learn more about raising Katherine in a way that honors God.  She shows that baby girl the love of Jesus every day.  Audrey would tell you that God has used Katherine to save her life, but what I hope Audrey sees is that God is using her to give an amazing example of His grace to Katherine.  Audrey has completed the intensive recovery program offered by AWO and is currently working on getting her GED.  She has been clean around 8 months and inspires the new girls, that come in, to stick with the program.  God is working miracles in Audrey and her story is a testimony to God's love, grace and faithfulness to finish what He has started.  I am so proud of Audrey and smitten by Katherine.  It is an honor to know her and to be a part of her life.

Thank you, Audrey and Katherine, for letting me capture a little piece of your life.  I love you guys!

God Provides

Here are a few pictures from my latest photo shoot.

God is providing throughout this adoption process in amazing ways.  He has provided families, like the Swetts (above), that allow me to capture moments of their family while providing money to grow mine.  God sold our truck in less than a week, which provides half the money for our adoption.

The finances are a huge part of all of this, but the most amazing way that I have seen God provide for our family has been in the peace He has given us as we walk through each step.  Adoption is a wonderful, but very hard process.  It is hard to have so many people taking part in such a personal part of your life.  It is hard waiting on reference letters, fingerprints to return, money to come in, home study being complete.  It is hard not to have any control over these things being done.  I have learned...God is teaching me that He is in control, not our case worker, not the people processing our background checks and not our friends who we have had to count on the provide references.
                                                              GOD IS IN CONTROL!
We will have a baby when the baby that God has for us, that God knows is our baby is ready.  Paperwork, timelines...all that mess doesn't matter!
                                                              GOD IS IN CONTROL!
All of this process is just the stuff that we humans do while God is really taking care of everything.  That is what lets me sleep at night.  That is what makes it ok that I don't know when my baby will be born or if he or she is already born.  That is what makes it ok that I don't know the sex, race or health of my baby.  God does and He is taking care of everything.

                                                              GOD IS IN CONTROL!

Thank you Doug and Holly for being a part of the process!

If you are interested in a session email me at janalynn82@gmail.com  Feel free to pass along the info!