Woe is me. We’ve had two miscarriages. We’ve had to change agencies. It’s been a long time…I mean a really long time (or at least it’s felt that way). We’ve wrestled with decisions. We aren’t exactly sure of the outcome. Another baby shower to go to or our friends having their second kids and we haven’t even added a child to our family (really, we promise we’re happy for you—just stings a bit). Man, this is rough.

Well, got grit? Show that you can be that gritty girl that you aspire to be. Every experience offers you an opportunity to gain insight and wisdom. Open up your eyes, get tough, and be thankful.

Hello…my name is Chelsea and, yes, I sometimes have pep talks with myself. The fact of the matter is that I know our story can sound a little sad at times. I know that I can get a little weepy, and hey, I definitely know that I’m dramatic. But the honest truth is that I’m happy. No, really…I’m so happy and it doesn’t take all that much to make me happy.

I love watching my husband dance in the kitchen. It makes me laugh. No, I mean it really makes me laugh. You know, those deep belly laughs that make your sides ache. He claims that he can really move his body (now if you know my husband, just imagine that). It’s something else.

I love the mornings in spring when the sun is out and it’s already warm at 7:00, and my sunglasses are on, and I’m belting out my favorite tune.

I love trying new and different types of food and beer. I know it sounds simple, and yes, very Wisconsin, but I LOVE it.

I’m so thankful for the house that I live in. It may seem small to some people, but I love it. I love living on a camp. I love looking out my windows in my living room and seeing the sunset over Amy Belle Lake.

I’m so thankful to have such incredible friends and family. The love and support of the people around us is not only amazing but it feels limitless.

I’m so thankful to be able to express myself through writing.

Honestly, the list could go on and on when thinking of what I love and am thankful for: trees, the right to demonstrate/protest/assemble (those of you that know me know how I feel about activism), my health, my amazing co-workers and students that I get to work with, traveling, and so much more.

But bottom line, I’m thankful for this process. I may need to vent every now and then or get a little weepy, but I am happy and thankful for this process. I’ve needed it. My future family, God willing, will be made through adoption, and although the world looks at adoption through this lens of “how wonderful it is to give a child in need a home” it’s not that simple, nor is it true. This journey has taught me to dig deeper. To look past this privileged life I’ve been given. Adoption will be a blessing, a joy in our life. However, there is loss in adoption. And let’s face it, my road, my journey has been paved in comparison to the loss that many first families (birth parents) and their children, my future child/children experience.

See the simple thing is being happy. The complex thing is being happy but still having your eyes wide-open to the truths and experiences around you. So, as Rend Collective said, “Take me deeper than my feet could every wander, and my faith will be made stronger.”

~Chelsea

 

 

For the last few months I’ve felt like I’ve been standing at the edge of a dock, toes dangling over the edge, just waiting to jump into cold water. The water won’t hurt me, and I know that I’ll get used to it and my body will adjust, but I’m still a little anxious, a little scared to take the leap.

In late autumn, we had some fall out with our adoption agency and what we envisioned our future adoption looking like. I don’t know why I was surprised that our journey took a slightly different turn; I mean that’s life, right? Things happen; we adjust. I tried really, really hard to just keep moving forward, but it really had a bigger affect on me than I had planned. I’m not sure if any of you noticed the sometimes forced smile. I tried to hide the red around my eyes after thinking just a little too much on my way into work. I’m not sure if you could tell that I had a lump in my throat when you asked how our adoption was going (please, never stop asking, even if it’s not going great).

It took me awhile to work my way through some of the sadness I felt that things didn’t work out the way I wanted them to. It took me awhile to get over the anger that things just weren’t easy for us. I had a storm cloud over me for a little bit. But with time my heart healed. My eyes didn’t well up with tears every time Eli brought up our adoption. I stopped being as angry that things weren’t easy. But I was not ready to figure out what to do next. I still had time. I wasn’t ready to trust another agency. I wasn’t ready to jump into the icy, cold water.

This weekend Eli and I were sitting in our kitchen talking about what to do next (adoption is always a part of our discussions in some fashion or form). And I don’t exactly have an answer for you on that one. But what I do know, and what I realized, is that I know that I don’t ever want to act out of desperation, but I also don’t want to stall out of fear. I know that I can take that next step. Bit by bit we’re starting to figure out where we will go next. We are making progress and are pretty sure of our next move. The next step is a little scary. I’m a little anxious. And I’m not quite sure how it will turn out. It’s hard to jump when that’s what you’re jumping into–uncertainty.

So what do I plan to do? I plan to take a calculated leap of faith. What is that you ask? It’s weighing our decisions. It’s looking before we leap, and then jumping with wisdom, grit, perspective, and a whole lot of faith.

~Chelsea

 

 

There isn’t anything better than finding that exact color of nail polish that you really like. There isn’t anything better than spending the first beautiful spring day outside. There isn’t anything better than singing to a song that you love as loud as you can in your car with the windows down.

Isn’t it amazing how much the little things can make all the difference in the world? Perspective is everything. Two miscarriages…and some heartache. Choosing adoption…and the unexplainable joy and affirmation that this is what we are meant to do. Choosing an agency…and just thinking of our future child/children. Leaving our agency…and feeling like we are going through a breakup. And now…continuing to head down our road (even if we’re not quite sure where it is going) to build our family through adoption. It’s been quite the road.

During the wait and decision making time of an adoption experience it can get easy for us and everyone to focus on the difficulties our journey has and will have. But I want to be really clear on our perspective. We choose to be joyful. We choose to be happy. We choose to soak in every experience and to learn as much as we can. We have already experienced so much joy in our pursuit to build our family. Yes, leaving our agency was hard but what we learned from our experience with them was invaluable. Waiting can be super frustrating at times but developing the patience that we have has been incredible, and I’m sure super useful in raising children. The wait has allowed me to research, reflect, and prepare.

In general, as humans, it’s hard for us to accept agitation, pain, feeling uncomfortable. There’s no getting around something like that; you just have to walk right through it, and that’s not such a bad thing. It’s our perspective that dictates how we feel about that agitation or pain. Our wait, this journey has hardly been painful, but at times it has agitated me. That agitation is good to an extent. It has forced me to think outside myself. It’s given me perspective. There is so much to be happy for. The beautiful day we had today. My right to share my voice and opinions with others. The sound of the spring peepers coming to life right outside our window.

As we wait to build our family, I know that someday (just not quite sure when) my child or children will come to me, and there may be some pain surrounding that (a child leaving his/her birth family is always painful, no matter the circumstance). I hope that the perspective that I have gained in my waiting will help me to be the best possible parent that I can be to my child/children.

There’s nothing better than having the windows open and listening to our earth come to life. There is nothing better than navigating the joy and simplexity of adoption.

~Chelsea

Spring has sprung! It couldn’t have come soon enough for me. I love the winter, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, trapping, hunting, ice fishing. There is a lot for a self-proclaimed outdoorsman to keep himself busy with in the winter. I also LOVE when winter comes to an end. I’m sure I am not the only one who gets the winter blues. That is always the place I find myself in about a week into February. Thankfully not a deep dark depression, just a little bummed out. I’m sure I can attribute some of that feeling to constant need to be busy and not being able to do all of the other things that I love doing outside the rest of the year.

Yep, I’m a busy body. I love to be busy. If I’m not busy I find a way to make myself busy. If I can’t find a way to make myself busy I make a list of things that I could potentially be busy doing. Oh yeah, I’m a list person as well. Sometimes I put things on my list that I’ve already done just so I can cross them off. Feels good right? The point is I always find more things to do, either around our house, a hobby, or at work. Some of this comes from growing up on a farm where there is ALWAYS more work to do. That’s part of why I love camp because the two are the same in that way. I also have to be busy in the spring because that is the camp “ramp-up” season. You can just feel the energy increasing as we ramp up and prepare for the summer. This time of year as we look to the start of the summer there just never seems to be enough time to get everything done. My personal life is no different.

So here is what is currently on my list:

• Bury fence for garden (that darn woodchuck)
• Build steps to lake
• Chip all cut brush
• Try my hand at brewing beer
• Fix closet doors
• Finish building canoe trailer
• Clean up sticks in yard
• Get fountain running
• Reattach dock
• Fix canoes
• Finish annex (a building we are remodeling at camp)
• Router camp signs
• Paint signs
• Till garden
• Apply for deck permit
• Build deck (thanks Chelsea)
• Rebuild entrance to house

So, there are more but you get the picture. No sense boring you with the rest of my “to-do” list. Not going to lie. This list even stresses me a little. I have no doubt I will get it done this spring…that isn’t the part that stresses me. The part that stresses me is at what expense will it be to me to get this all done. I’m super thankful that Chelsea gets me so I’m not so worried there. She knows the ebbs and flows of my busyness and understands that I will be putting in some pretty long hours getting everything ready/done.

Sometimes we keep ourselves busy to avoid hard decisions. We happen to find ourselves in the midst of a very hard decision. There are so many different avenues and roads to pursue to build our family. Choosing the one that is right for us and for our future family is the hard part. So this is a question that has crossed my mind: Are you making yourself that busy to avoid this hard adoption decision?

A question I would be remiss to not ask myself. So I thought about it today. And I came to this conclusion: I’m definitely not avoiding it, I have never been more resolved that adoption is the right choice for our family, I need more patience like my wife, and this is a REALLY hard decision. Let’s not get that last point twisted in the least. This decision is one that will affect our lives and the lives of all of the other people involved in the adoption process, forever–a fact that isn’t lost on me. And guess what, this is one of those decisions that in a normal circumstance people could/would avoid making.

But this isn’t a normal circumstance is it? I don’t want anyone to confuse avoidance with discernment. You see both of those things take a long time. So while exercising discernment in our adoption we have already had some people confuse that for avoidance. This is a decision that is going to take time, prayerful consideration and lots of patience. It doesn’t mean the resolve is any less or that anyone is avoiding anything–quite the opposite in fact. We are always thinking, discussing, contemplating, educating, and praying about adoption. Which is exactly what we should be doing; you don’t just jump into this, it takes time.

We want to build our family—simple. But the way we are choosing to build our family, it’s a bit more complicated, and so much more than just adding another thing to the list.

~Eli

Recently on our vacation down south, we were able to take in a lot of sun. Beautiful beaches, 80 degree temperatures, and the sun kissing our very pale Wisconsin skin (in my case, extremely pale). I remember the first day I sat on the beach. I felt like a plant just trying to soak up as much sun as possible. I couldn’t believe how deprived my body felt of the Vitamin D it had been missing for the entirety of the Midwest winter. It was great! And then after a long day, lots of sun, and some fantastic food, we got to the place we were staying for the night. My face felt a little warm, and my shoulders stung just a bit. I looked in the mirror, and low and behold, my pale Wisconsin skin was as red as the crab legs I’d just eaten. My precious sun that I had missed for so long had given me a sunburn. Ouch!

There has been an abundance of life lessons that I have learned throughout our journey to adopt. These life lessons have been revealed to me in so many different ways. In the last few years I’ve learned what it really means to have grit. I may not have it yet, but I sure am working on it. If you’re not familiar with the term grit, it means to have “perseverance and passion for long-term goals”. I love the idea of having grit. I mean listen to how it sounds when you say it: G-R-I-T. It sounds tough, doesn’t it? Adoption and the pursuit to adopt takes grit (and a whole lot of faith). That’s not a bad thing, even though at times developing that grit can be painful. It’s easy to be passionate and to persevere during the “mountains” of an experience. You feel elated. You are driven and that passionate feeling during the good times is what propels you forward. We felt like this as we made the decision to adopt, completed our home study, and had our profile shown. It’s a little more difficult to be passionate and persevere in the valleys of an experience, but that’s where you become tenacious. That’s where you develop that grit. Sure, at times it can be painful, but with that pain the purpose of what you are pursuing becomes solidified. That’s where you really, truly, in the depths of your bones realize how worth it the journey and your goal is.

See that’s what I’m learning about this grit concept. Our adoption journey is so incredibly beautiful in the highs and lows and everything in between. Our journey has made us laugh, cry, dance, and love more than we’ve ever thought possible. Even with those tears, do you see how worth it it is?

As humans, we naturally want a blissful, peaceful, pain-free life. I mean that’s correct, right? Who walks through life hoping to get that bad sunburn? Not anyone I know. But the fact of the matter is that we don’t stay out of the sun even if we don’t use quite enough sunscreen one day. We dance in the sun. We feel the warmth on our skin, and we enjoy our Wisconsin summers no matter how sunburnt we get. How’s that for grit?

~Chelsea