Memories

We have been spending the majority of our days settling dad's estate. Literally hours days at the attorney...going through his personal effects...trying to make sure his final wishes are honored. I can say two things. I didn't know how much honoring my father's wishes would mean to me, and I didn't know how much his "things" would mean to me.

One of the things that has brought me comfort is looking at pictures of my dad when he was young...when I was little...when we were a family. When I remember my dad, I don't remember him old, gray, and sick. I remember him young and vibrant.

I'm exhausted. I am taking tiny steps forward, because I have to, but otherwise, I feel like I'm stuck. I can see the past, the present, but not the future. I just feel stuck. I know it will get better. For now, here are some pictures of me and my dad...the way I remember him.

My Dad

I sat for 20 minutes thinking of how to title this post. It might be the most incoherent thing I have ever written, but I need to say these words. I think there will be many more posts to share my feelings about my dad, but I need to share these words now. At some later time, I will share the moments leading up to my father's death. Why? Because this is the story of my life, and I want desperately to remember those moments. They were beautifully painful. For now, I'll only say a few words....the words I can manage while drowning, suffocating in grief.

I loved my father so much. He was so proud of me. He loved me. I loved him. One of my most favorite memories of him happened at my undergraduate graduation from Furman. When they called my name to receive my diploma, my father got up and walked to where I was and kissed me on the cheek as I walked down the stairs to the stage. He always told me that the day I got my Ph.D. was one of the happiest days of his life.

I held his hand while he died. His life was cut short-and I got short-changed. I'm 31. He was 60. He will never know my children. I can't sleep...and then it's all I can do to stay awake during the day...grief comes over me in waves. I am exhausted.

In some moments, I am fine.....in the next 20 seconds I can fall to the floor or into my husband's arms in grief. I've been sleeping in my dad's Citadel sweatshirt and wearing his watch. I miss his smell. I miss his smile. I miss his voice. I have a voicemail from him the day before he went into the hospital. I have listened to probably 100 times in the last three days....it's the last I have of him. At the end of the message he said "I love you". So thankful for a memory of his voice.

I don't know how to move forward. I feel as if I'm trying to walk in the deep end of a pool with my head barely above the water.

I'm trying to honor who he was. Phillip and I have decided that regardless of the gender of our child, we will honor his name. It is so difficult to know that we were so close to him becoming a grandfather to our child, and that will never happen.

I am finding comfort in his things, pictures of his life-from childhood to now. I am finding comfort in the fact that I know, without a single doubt, that he loved me and was proud of me, and that I loved him.

I miss him. I am in a type of pain I have ever known. Losing your father after your parents have been divorced for 17 years is bizarre. Losing your father after your parents have been married for almost 20 years is even more bizarre. We were a family, and for so long, I felt like it wasn't okay to say that...to acknowledge that for most of my childhood, we were together. There are so many memories I can't let go of. So much history. Christmases in our house in McLeansville and at my Gram's house in Sanford, riding on the truck on the farm with Ralph and Boo, going to the beach house, and eating dinner together as a family in our kitchen, riding around in his diesel fueled Jetta jamming to Boston...and the memories go on and on.

I had moved on from my parents' divorce....accepted that they weren't together and tried to accept, with kindness, the life partners each of them chose. But the reality is that when my father passed away, I wanted my original family to be together. I didn't know I would need that, but I did. Right or wrong, it's what I needed for closure. I got that, and I'll forever be grateful for it.

I am so grateful to be surrounded by my family right now. People who knew my father and love me. It's the only thing that's helping me put one foot in front of the other.

National Adoption Day Celebration

We really wanted to find a way to celebrate National Adoption Day, to create a tradition that we could continue as a family. We're big on tradition around here, but we like to keep things pretty simple. Little or no money, lots of meaning.

We decided on two specific acts of hope: releasing balloons and lighting a candle.

People release balloons for lots of reasons--remembrance, to let go of grief, to celebrate, and in our case, to show hope. We got two plain balloons, one pink and one blue, and released them from our deck. We watched them fly far into the sky until they disappeared beyond the clouds. It only took about a minute for them to be out of sight, but it felt like we were releasing our hopes, dreams, and prayers into the universe. I personally felt a peace come over me as they floated into the distance.

After we released the balloons we lit a candle. Lighting a candle is a symbol of hope, for sure. I thought long and hard about what kind of candle to light. Should we buy one especially for this occasion? Ultimately, we decided to re-light the unity candle from our wedding 8 and a half years ago. Why? Because, that was the day we became family, so it just seemed right to light it again with the hope of expanding our family. It has been on display in our china cabinet since we got married, but hasn't been lit since our wedding until today. Phillip said a simple prayer. All in all, it was a simple, but powerful way to express our excitement and hope for what is yet to come.

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Tomorrow is National Adoption Day...Celebrate with Us?

Tomorrow is National Adoption Day! We have decided on a way to celebrate our "expectancy", but I won't reveal that just yet. Tomorrow. You'll see. We're sending out our hopes, dreams, and prayers in a couple of ways. It's crazy to think that a year ago we weren't yet on our adoption journey, and almost exactly a year before that, I was pregnant for the first time.

If you remember, we set a fundraising goal for our adoption for November. A little over $1,000. Between direct donation, the baby bottle fundraiser, coffee fundraiser, and Mary Kay fundraiser, I'm estimating we've made about $250. That's about $750 to go. Probably a lofty goal. That's okay. We promised to save double that amount on our own, and so far we are on track (we have saved $1,000 so far in November). To do that, we had to choose not to travel 6 hours to see Phillip's side of the family in North Carolina for Thanksgiving, because it would cost lots in gas and boarding fees for our three dogs. Definitely a sacrifice. Worth it, but a hard choice to make. I miss my nephews, my sister in law, and my sweet in-laws. So, for the first time ever, we will be alone on Thanksgiving Day. We're not dreading it-no pity here-we're finding ways to view it as special time together, especially after all the traveling I have done this fall!

National Adoption Day gives us reason to pause and consider all that we have done to build our family through adoption. We completed a home study. This is no small feat! If you have ever been through it, you know that it's an endless mound of paperwork and proving to people that barely know you that you are fit to parent. It would be easy to become jaded during a home study...to focus on all the things "other" people don't have to do to have children. We tried not to focus on that. We have also  saved and raised a truly amazing amount of money. We have raised over $10,000 in less than 6 months. That's divine intervention-there's just no other way to say it. We prepared a nursery, and prepared our hearts for a baby. We let go of pregnancy. We let go. We. Let. Go. It's been a big year!

So, tomorrow we'll share our celebration with you. But today, tomorrow, or the next, we ask you to help us celebrate. When I posed the question of how we should celebrate National Adoption Day on Facebook, one of my friends suggested that everyone donate $5. Imagine if 300 people donated $5? We would be $1,500 close to our goal! I wasn't even thinking about fundraising when I asked the question, but her suggestion made a flood of thankful feelings come over me. We are SO INCREDIBLY THANKFUL for the donations you have made, continued to make, and will make. We can't do this without you. Every time I send out a baby bottle, I write a thank you note telling you how special you are to us...how excited we are....and how thankful we are. And we mean it, to the bottom of  our hearts.

I have learned many lessons on this journey so far. So. Many. But, the most important lesson I have learned is humility. I never thought we would need or have to ask for help to make a family. It's hard to put yourself your soul out there for the world to see. Every day I wish we could do it on our own, but we can't. That has probably been the hardest and most rewarding lesson I've learned.

So...if you can give...$5? $10? $20 Please do. www.adopttogether.org/babyk. If you can't, please pray. Please share our story. Please send good vibes our way.

Tomorrow we will share how we're celebrating National Adoption Day. :)

10 Reasons Why

I am slowly but surely coming out of my adoption blues....remembering what the outcome is....remembering that it's a marathon, not a sprint. I can't really explain the uplifting, just that is happening, and I'm grateful. I looked at our Lillypie Adoption Ticker on the side of our blog today and realized that we've been "officially" on this journey for 8 months. It seems so much slower and faster at the same time.

I have come to realize that my journey to becoming a mother through adoption is a roller coaster of emotions. I'm betting that's the case for all moms, but I can only speak for myself. My journey, my roller coaster, my emotions. On any roller coaster there are pits and peaks. To be transparent, I HATE roller coasters. No big surprise there, right?

But, I have made a decision. To try my best to see the upside. To enjoy the journey. I can't promise I won't have more "pits".....actually, I can almost certainly promise that I will. But today, I want to focus on the 10 reasons why I'm looking forward to adoption and parenthood. So here goes.

1. I can't wait for the day when we have the full match amount. The day we go active and birthmothers view our profile. I don't know when that day will be. I anticipate many months.

2. I can't wait until that day when my phone rings that someone has chosen us.

3. I can't wait to hold my child for the first time. I have no idea what the circumstances will be surrounding this. I know it will likely be in a hospital in a state where we don't live. I don't know if we/I will be in the delivery room or not. It doesn't matter to me. I just can't wait for that moment. I don't care that our first days as parents will likely be in a hotel room. I just can't wait.

4. I can't wait to find out if our baby will be a girl or a boy. It doesn't matter to me either way. We have solid names picked for both; family names that carry important meaning for both of us. I can't wait to call my son or daughter by his/her name.

5. I can't wait to feed my baby for the first time. I don't know why this seems significant to me, but it does. Perhaps it's the innate need of a mother to take care of her child. I always wanted to breastfeed; that won't happen, but I still can't wait to bond with my baby by feeding him/her.

6. I can't wait to watch Phillip hold our baby for the first time. He will be unable to contain himself. I will be unable to contain my emotions.

7. I can't wait to meet the birthmother. What an amazing woman. I love her already. The love you must have for your child to do what she will do. It's unfathomable. Amazing. Brave.

8. I can't wait to introduce our baby to the family. To envelope him/her into a safety net of love and adoration. This kid will have grandparents, aunts, uncles, and more to love him or her. People who have been so incredibly supportive of our journey to become parents. I'm thinking I'll have to pry him/her out of these people's arms. Not a bad problem to have.

9. I can't wait to have maternity leave. A time to bond with my child. I'm so lucky that JMU has a wonderful maternity leave policy. I look forward to spending that time focusing on my family. Given that I've been in school, teaching school, or teaching college since I was five with NO breaks; I think maternity leave will give me space to focus solely on my family....if even for a short time.

10. I can't wait to be a family. Yes, Phillip and I are a family. But we are incomplete. We do love each other enough for a lifetime. We have both said that if we never had a child, we are enough for each other. I know that to be true. But, I also know we were meant to parent, and I cannot wait until our tiny family of two is expanded into three. Baby Kretlow. Real. In the flesh. The wait might be long, but I'm willing to stay the course. My eye is on the prize.

National Adoption Month-Help us Celebrate!

November is National Adoption Month! I didn't know this until I changed the calendar that our adoption agency sent us to November. I've been doing some research...it's kind of a big deal, and I'm grateful for that. National Adoption Day is November 17th. Phillip and I are trying to figure out a way to celebrate that day as we wait to become a family. This is kind of long post, but please make your way through it to the bottom. :) 

Here is the official presidential proclamation for National Adoption Month. I don't discuss politics publically, but regardless of your party loyalty, it's nice that our country recognizes adoption in this way. 

"As a Nation that believes all children deserve the chance to reach their full potential, we have a fundamental responsibility to ensure each of them grows up knowing the love and protection of a permanent family. During National Adoption Month, we give voice to children who are still waiting for that opportunity, celebrate the bond that unites adoptive parents with their sons and daughters, and recommit to providing every child with the care and security that will nurture their development and well-being.

Later this month, many Americans will also mark National Adoption Day by completing a foster care adoption and embracing a new member of their family. Driven by reasons unique to their households but united by the spirit of compassion that moves all who choose to adopt, these parents will take up our country's most important task -- the work of raising our sons and daughters. As we celebrate the contributions of adoptive parents across our Nation, let us also strive to eliminate discriminatory barriers that would separate children from a loving family. Adoptive families come in many forms, and it is essential that all qualified adults have the opportunity to care for a child in need."

To celebrate National Adoption Month, we are going to set a goal to raise $1,072. This might seem like an arbitrary number, but it's the exact amount we need to make it to the $10,000 mark on our adopt together.org site.  Phillip and I have also set a personal goal to save exactly double that amount, $2,144 of our own money during this month. Here's how you can help. As always, if you cannot donate, please share our story with those who can. 

Fundraiser #1: Just Love Coffee. 

This is a new fundraiser we recently heard about but decided to wait until the holiday season to promote it. Just Love Coffee has a mission to roast small-batch artisan coffee, but to also donate proceeds toward adoptive families. This coffee is Fair Trade and organic. The company researches the co-ops they work with and are diligent about sustainability. For every bag of coffee you purchase, $5 goes toward our adoption. We have a goal of $200 set for this fundraiser. I have often put coffee into Phillip's stocking-it makes a great gift for anyone you know that loves coffee. They also sell travel mugs and other items as well. You can purchase the coffee here: 

https://justlovecoffee.com/about/beneficiary/babyk/

Fundraiser #2: Mary Kay for Baby K. 

I have already blogged about this one, but so far only one person has purchased anything. My friend Sara who is a Mary Kay consultant and has agreed to donate 50% of her sales toward our adoption. This ends on November 15th! You can purchase makeup and other items directly from her website: 

www.marykay.com/sbilliot

Her email address is also on the website should you have questions or need individual assistance. 

Fundraiser #3: Baby Bottles 

We are continuing with the baby bottle fundraiser. So far, we have received about 10 bottles back for a grand total of over $350! We have about 6 bottles left right now. Loose change is making a huge dent into our adoption fees. This will likely be an ongoing fundraiser as we continue to receive empty bottles  back. 

Fundraiser #4: Direct Donation

As always you can directly donate to our non-profit site. Remember, it is a tax deduction for you. The funds are held in escrow and sent directly to our adoption agency when we have enough to be active. We have been incredibly blessed to raise almost $9,000 in four months on this site. We need $6,000 more. This is in addition to the rest of the match fee that Phillip and I have committed to saving on our own (about another $15,000). 

Here is the website: www.adopttogether.org/babyk

If you are concerned that your donation is too small, I can promise you, it's not. Also, you can donate anonymously OR you can choose for the amount not to be shown. 

Thanksgiving is right around the corner. We are SO thankful for all the support, financial and otherwise, that we have received so far. Although it's hard to wait, hard to ask for help, and hard to imagine that it will ever actually happen, we are in awe of the support we have already received, and we promise you-we will pay it forward.

Happy Birthday!

Phillip turned 36 this week! It was so nice to have a special occasion to celebrate; it feels like the last few months have been mired in work insanity, traveling, saving, and thinking way too much about our family building process.

He always asks for the same things for dinner every year, so that's what I made. This man loves any reason to create a tradition!

We celebrated on Sunday evening because of Phillip's coaching schedule, but it turned out to be a wise decision considering we lost power on his actual birthday from hurricane Sandy.

Here are some pictures of our just-the-two-of-us birthday celebration.

I asked Phillip what he wished for (I know you aren't supposed to do that, but I'm not particularly superstitious, so I asked anyway). He wished that this would be his last birthday without having a family. We did use his birthday as a way to fundraise for the adoption, and our friends and family were WAY more generous than our goal of $360. For his birthday, he received well over $500 toward the adoption. That was his favorite present. 

Happy birthday, Phillip! You are my sunshine.