is this thing on?

I wrote the words below last year for National Infertility Awareness Week but then chickened out and never posted it. I just stumbled across it and decided I wanted to publish, even though I'm on the 'other side' and am now a parent. Reading it now makes me so grateful and relieved to know the parts of our story that were unknown to me for so many years. Infertility doesn't go away, but the emptiness has become eclipsed by the joys of parenting and it no longer consumes my emotions and thoughts. Glory be. _______________________________________________________ ( written 4/23/2018) It's National Infertility Awareness Week (NIAW) and I've been reading story after story of other's experiences with infertility and it has made me reflect more on my own story. The stories I'm reading are from women who have found their children via treatments or adoption, and they are sharing their story now that they know how it 'ends'. My story with infertility ...

Warning This post is long so get comfortable (or go ahead and leave, I won’t be mad). I mentioned in my previous post that our lives took a drastic turn when we became parents. It all happened in August 2018 and this is my version of that story. Thwarted Plans In my last post I said that we spent our spring and summer training for a 5-day backpacking trip in Washington that was planned for Labor Day weekend. You may have noticed there was no update and no pictures from that trip. In August, fires were wreaking havoc on Washington so I kept checking the trail conditions for our trail only to open the website one day and see a giant notice that the whole thing was closed due to the fires. I continued to monitor in the hopes that they could get the fire contained, but a week before we were supposed to leave I decided to call the USFS in WA and ask what they thought our chances were for doing the hike. He simply said, “not good, don’t come”. We quickly contacted my brother-in-law,...

Long time, no write! If you follow me on social media you know that our lives have drastically taken a turn so I do have a decent excuse for not writing much last year. I promise I will go into more detail about it later but it will likely be a long-winded post and I need to find the time to sit down and get the words out. In the meantime, it appears the last time I wrote it was March...*gasp* it’s worse than I thought... I successfully turned 37 and the sky didn’t fall (go figure). The spring and summer were easy, breezy, and beautiful, aside from all the forest fires. We took it easy with no big trips but we did some camping and hiking and trained for our 5-day backpacking trip in the Cascades with my brother-in-law that was planned for Labor Day weekend. Here are some pics for those who prefer visuals: Savage Lakes Savage Lakes Kayaking Chapman Lake That sun on my arm makes it look really defined. Me likey.  Thomas Lakes- I'm picking up a lake theme... ...

Tomorrow is my birthday and I’m turning 37. I’ve always had a fragile relationship with my 30’s but it has definitely improved the further I’ve gotten into it. I’ve learned my 30’s are refreshing because I feel more grounded and more comfortable with who I am. I’m less apologetic and also more empathetic toward others. I’m established and growing roots and most days I find myself feeling so freaking happy in my life. That is a very, very good place to be. However, I’m struggling with the idea of now entering my “late 30’s”. I don’t know why this is a recurring theme for me; I remember having these same panicked thoughts about turning 27. If I had to guess the reason I would say it’s our lack of children and that birthdays are a reminder how far away we keep getting from the plan in this area. I always expected to be a mom by at least the age of 28. Deep down I continuously find myself white-knuckling that plan and I can’t seem to come to terms with the fact that it has long flown o...

If you follow me on social media, you saw that I recently met up with my 2 best friends from high school in NYC for a 20+ year friend-iversary rendezvous. It was the perfect trip in so many ways. We had a great time reconnecting and reminiscing. I walked away from that trip super sad it was over and super grateful for such great, long-lasting friendships and the fact that we all found great husbands. If you haven't seen your long-time besties in a while, plan a trip with them for a long weekend! I highly recommend it. That trip really made me nostalgic so I came home and started reading my journals. I was blessed with a mentor in high school who really encouraged me to journal through all my teenage angst and I have always felt that was so crucial for me to work through all those awkward years. And now I have volumes upon volumes of journals walking me through the majority of my life. What's great about having those journals is that I continue to learn from them, even 20 y...

The other day my husband asked me if he could write something for my blog. Of course I said yes! He is an excellent writer and doesn't do it enough (if you ask me), so I'm excited to share some of his writing with you today. It probably won't surprise you that the topic is adoption. As we continue down this journey we find ourselves doing a lot of processing and learning; we're excited about what we're learning and we like to share it with others as much as we can. The topic he wanted to write on today is the birth mother in the adoption triad (triad: Birth Mother/Parents, Adoptive Parents, Child). Birth mothers/parents have been on our minds a lot these days as 2 weeks ago we received our first profile notification of an expectant mother who was considering adoption. We said that we definitely wanted our profile thrown into the mix of couples from which she could choose, and while we've waited to hear if she would like to get to know us better we've been ...