Sunday

Well here it is Sunday and I can hear the icy rain hitting the windows.  Jimi left for work a bit ago and I am praying he gets there and back safe as well as everyone else who has to be traveling on the roads in this weather. 

I did some more reading on the situation in Haiti last night but there is not much new to report.  There were some conflicting reports going on that the two sisters who run an orphanage there got the clearance to airlift the kids out and into Pittsburgh but that was false.  It is hard wanting to help and not being able to do much.

I have been reading some good books by Linda Dillow.  The first book of hers I read was Calm My Anxious Heart: A Woman's Guide To Finding Contentment.  It was recommended by my niece on Jimi's side and I enjoyed it but it always brings up a lot of questions that I would love to discuss with someone who has read the book.  I then liked her writing style so much that I ordered another of her books, Creative Counterpart : Becoming the Woman, Wife, and Mother You Have Longed to Be.  I am about halfway through this book and last night as we lay in bed it opened some really great dialogue between Jimi and I and I even learned things about him after all this time that were new to me.  It was really great and I am so thankful for that.

I have been so conflicted lately about where I should be in my life.  I mean I was trying to explain it to Jimi last night and it was so so hard.  I am so thankful for all I have been blessed with but like I was telling Jimi how do I know that I should have not worked with the Peace Corp or been missionaries.  He told me I could not have had the kids if I had been in the Peace Corp and I did something wonderful by having them.  I agree, I totally love my kids and would not trade them for the Peace Corp.  Then I explained but while we may have not been able to have kids in the Peace Corp, what about being missionaries in other countries with our children.  The Dillows did it and they had 3 kids and adopted one.    I am probably not making a lot of sense right now and I think maybe my feelings are hormonal.  As I reach the last five or ten years of my childbearing years I guess I am thinking about my worth as a woman.  I don't think it is right for our children to have another child because my back is finally in a good place and another pregnancy or birth could cause the herniated discs to worsen and leave me not able to care for my family and in great pain.  Beyond that with my anxiousness about all the things that can go wrong and the big worry I have about somehow contracting CMV during pregnancy and harming my unborn baby it makes the pregnancy very difficult on everyone.  It does not help that I have actually heard of a friend's friend who unknowingly had the virus during pregnancy and gave birth to a baby who was affected by it.  It makes it more real to me and I know I would not be able to allow Ethan and Luke to be kids, and go and mingle with kids who go to day care or nursery school and that is just not fair to them.  So when I think of that I am pretty confident that we will not actively try for another child.  I do however have an undying passion to adopt, so I think that is the best way to add to our large family. 

I get discouraged by all the bureaucracy and red tape involved.  It seems like it takes so long and there is so much jumping through hoops to be done and time to wait.  It is sad that these children wait, when there are so many families who would welcome them.  Some just do not have the initial thousands of dollars to begin the process or cannot travel to other countries for two visits and escort services are only available in very limited countries. More frustrating is that the countries keep changing laws and policies and some even halt adoptions altogether. I keep telling myself that if it is meant to be it will be.  I have to do what I can and have faith in that.  I also am conflicted as I would like to work with either Catholic Charities to somehow assist in the adoption process of children or open my own agency.  I feel I really have a calling for this.  So now that I have truly rambled on and on here and not made a lot of sense, you may get all that is going on in my head.

I better stop writing now as I am sure if you made it this far your head may be ready to expload.  God Bless us all!