The Waring's Journey: Birth Families

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Busy, Busy Week

This week has been packed with family and projects to keep us busy. Addison has a market project at school where the kids earn play dollars for points earned during the weeks prior. Then, they have to come up with a project that they can make and sell at market. On market day several class rooms participate and sell their items and buy other kids items with the dollars earned.

Are you confused? LOL

Here is Addison's project for this market. She made creative magnetic clips...to hold pictures and such. She worked hard on them and I think they turned out cute!...Yes, I helped her some and it was fun! LOL

The pollywog's are made from fishing lures without hooks.

This is how well they work. Pretty cool huh!

Also, this week we've had Reiko & Gabby, Pollo & Jauni and Heidern over for a BBQ. Look how cute the boys are. Heidern is getting so big! It was great to see Levi loving on him. All night long he kept saying.... "Can I hold my birf-half-brother, Keiden?" That's quite a mouth full for a three year old to say and understand. But we love that he's sorting it all out and putting his genetic roots in order for his relationship with Heidern. We just hope that soon he will be able to correctly pronounce his name before Heidern is older, so he won't get confused with being called both Heidern and Keiden. LOL

And last but not least, we had a full day with Michelle (Bailey's birthmother) and her graduation from Phoenix University. I couldn't be more proud of her.

Yay Michelley....We love you!!!

( sorry the pics were dark at the graduation but it was the best I could do)

Kathryn loving on her Grandma during the ceremony

Bailey and Addi...I love my girls seeing Michelle work so hard and graduate.

Levi was a ham during the ceremony. He befriended a sweet little old Grandma on one side of us and also a cute little boy on the other side. The boy is not shy and wants to know everyone. It was funny!

It's so important that our kids have these bonding and memorable events with their birth parents. Michelle overcoming her difficulties and fears to finish school like this, is such a testimony to my girls. You can do anything you set your heart and mind to do. We are blessed to have our kid's birthparents in our lives and treasure them so deeply. They truly are a part of our family and our lives are complete with them in it.

Kathryn loving on her Mommy :))

Here is the reception party for her graduation. It was fun.

Her hubby David and my Richard carried in the cake. They acted like it was heavy to get Michelle and my sympathy for having to carry it.

What nuts! Too funny!

Levi couldn't wait to dig into the cake :)

Michelle's Mother-In-Law and some Aunts, Grandmother, Parents and even her Pastor and His wife all attended. It was great to see everyone.

Michelle's parents :))

Loved getting to talk with them and we had plenty of good laughs as Bailey told them of her recent new car and how she wrecked it 5 days later. Geeze!!! Teenagers!!

Megan loving on me :)) It was great that they came and showed their love for all of us.

Michelle, you've worked so hard... Couldn't be more proud of all you've accomplished!

You go girl!

Love you!!!

Thank you Lord, Jesus for Michelle!

We pray that You will bless her and her family and bring her the most awesome; perfect employment for whatever career path she chooses... and that all of her hard work will seem worth it very soon.

In Jesus name....Amen!

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Pizza, Parade, and a Wonderful Day With My Kido's

For St. Patricks Day, Michelle (Bailey's birth mom and Kathryn her 1/2 birth sibling) joined the kids and I for a day of fun. Aaron, Bailey's friend came along too.

Here is a shot with me and the kids. Getting them all to smile is something else. LOL

Before the parade started we went to a little pizza shop called Rudy's for lunch.

Kathryn and Addison

Michelle and Kathryn

Me and Michelle :))

Bailey and her friend Aaron

Me :))

Levi was telling me that he could see two fish in the fish pond. I thought it was so cute that I took several pictures of him.

The pizza was awesome! Yummy veggies with a wheat crust.

This was Aaron's pizza when he was done. LOL

As you can see, Michelle and I had no problem eating all of ours. Hahaha

Addison being a goof and missing her mouth with the breath spray. That's my girl!

After lunch and after I spend a good 20 minutes drying my son's jacket from when he decided it was a good idea to try and catch the fish in the fish pond (thank goodness for the hand dryers in the bathroom),... we still had to wait a good 30 minutes for the parade to start. Levi brought his own drum so time went a bit faster for him.

He was such a happy boy when he heard the music and saw the parade coming.

After the parade, we all went to the Goodwill and had fun shopping. Yes, I will admit that I'm always on the hunt for a second hand deal whether it's from a discount store, garage sale or the local Goodwill. Aaron was a trooper and we all had a good laugh when we found some funky big glasses.

And to top off the fun day we all went back to the house and had a girl + Aaron hair party. I told Aaron that he will make is wife a very happy woman, if he's willing to do her hair for her. It is the test of knowing if you've married your best friend or not. He thought it sounded fun and to be honest, he was pretty good at it too.

Here the girls are all letting the goop sit on their hair and process.

Wish I had the after pictures to show you but after they finished their hair, everyone scattered and went their own way. Everyone's hair turned out beautiful and even Michelle and I got ours done. Aaron texted Bailey and said he had a blast so I guess we didn't scare him off with too much girly stuff.
He was a trooper.
All in all, it was a great day and we enjoyed our time together. So far spring break has been fun and it's got me looking forward to summer when the kids are home more often.

Our Hope To Adopt Embryos

Hi, my name is Tracy and here is our story,

My husband, Richard, and I have been happily married for 21 years. Early on in our marriage, we were diagnosed with complete male factor infertility. We have been blessed with three beautiful children through separate open adoptions. Bailey, now 17, was born during the time of our lives when my husband and I were grieving the loss of our only pregnancy from donor insemination. She was born when our baby would have been. Her birth was like a healing salve to our hurting hearts. Once we discovered that the Lord could fill our aching arms with such delight through adoption, we began to pray for the Lord to bring us another child.

We hoped and prayed for 6 years when Addison was born. She is now 11. In the time of waiting until the Lord brought our second child into our lives, He did an amazing work upon our heart towards opening our relationship up with Bailey's birthmother. We started out slow and before we knew it, she was a full active part of our family. Today, she is my best friend and we share many of our life experiences together. When Addison came into our lives, her birthparents were already friends that we had known for some time and loved dearly. Keeping the doors of our relationship open throughout her adoption was easy and our hearts today love them with even a greater love than ever before.

Levi is 3 and we just had his birthday party with many friends, our family and his birthmother and her family also. Reiko, his birthmother feels like a daughter to us and her presence in our family is wonderful. She has recently birthed another son named Heidern (pronounced Heiden), that we consider our grandson even though he is Levi's 1/2 brother.

We love all of our birth families very much and have contact with them on a regular basis. We have five birth families for our three children. Keeping everyone up to date with all that goes on in our family is much easier done with updates on our family blog.

For me, the road to motherhood for the past 21 years seemed only possible through domestic adoption. Now that the Lord has opened my eyes to embryo adoption, the longing to birth is again revived and stirred within me. The thought that there might be a way to hold a child of mine without traveling through the pain of another person, is something I look forward to. I love my children so dearly but I also know that their birth parents felt deep sorrow during my greatest time of joy (their birth). That realization is so hard on my heart because of the love I hold for them.

As a profession, I am a labor doula. I watch families birth without sorrow and it is so different than what I've witnessed with the births of my children. I pray that the Lord will allow me to experience this side of motherhood and to have joy without sorrow as our sweet new baby/babies come into our lives. We are praying that the gift of someone's embryos would be this for us.

We are so excited to meet and get to know the family of the embryos and make them a part of our family. We promise to love and cherish the children that come from them and the door to our hearts and home will always be open for you to get to know the children born. Honestly, there is nothing more precious to us than the lives of our children and the hope of the children to come.

We will continue to pray for this dream to come true and place our hope and trust upon the Lord to continue to build our family. We know that in His perfect timing He will bring us our precious little embryos, and bond us to (hopefully) you , a beautiful genetic family.

I have a life verse that has encouraged me throughout our journey.

1 Peter 5:10

But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.

Waiting for the joy set before us,

Richard and Tracy Waring.