T-Shirts! Get Your T-Shirts!

Hi!  I know it’s been quite awhile!!  Life has been a little crazy!  But guess what?!?!

We are officially homestudy approved for adoption!!  YAY!

Thus begins another fundraiser!!

Through a GREAT website, I’ve designed a t-shirt (well, with the help of J and A, and after some voting) and officially launched our campaign!

The way it works it is – starting today, you will have 17 days to choose between a t-shirt, a woman’s fitted tee and a hoodie!  You will be able to choose between direct delivery, or if you live close to us, free pick-up!  You will “pay” for your t-shirt, but won’t actually be charged unless we reach our goal!  I know that the direct delivery option can add up depending on how many products you purchase, so if you’re going to purchase quite a few and it might save a few $$’s to set it up as free pick-up and sent to us, we can work out a way to get it shipped to you!

We’ve set the goal at 50.  Once that goal is reached, they will begin printing t-shirts and they will ship about 2 weeks after the campaign has ended.  Unfortunately, if we don’t hit our goal, the t-shirts won’t be printed…  but the upside is, you won’t be charged!  Whether or not we hit our goal, we will likely re-launch it when the campaign ends, and we may even change-up the colors a little bit!

We will receive a great percentage of the profits that will go straight towards our match and placement fees!!

So, if you’d like to help us and get a cool t-shirt in the meantime, please click below to check it out!!

T-Shirt Fundraiser to Bring Home Munchkin McNabb!!!

Thank you all SO much for all of your love and support!!  Not to mention patience with me being such a non-consistent blogger!

Dear Munchkin

Wow!  You would be 1 year old next month!!

 

There’s so many first’s that we’ve missed – First smile.  First tooth.  First word.  First roll over.  First time sitting up.  First Christmas.

I still wonder about you every day.  Were you a girl?  A boy?  (There’s a couple of us – including me – that just have a gut feeling that you were a boy!)  Would you have had a lot of hair?  Would you have your daddy’s calm personality or mommy’s rambunctious temperament?  What color would your eyes have been?  Would you have had my nose?  Daddy’s ears?  Would you have been tall?  What would you have wanted to be when you grew up?

I may not have held you long enough when I lost you to really know much about you, but I do know this:  Your daddy and I love you very much.

I wish that we could have met you.  That we could have held you in our arms just once.  But I know that if I’d held you only once, it would have never been long enough.  We will hold you forever in our hearts though!

I have a friend that is going through just what I went through when we lost you.  It brings back so many emotions and memories.  Even ones that I’d pushed way down.  It’s so hard to listen and not want to – or be able to – fix it.  It makes my heart ache.  Mostly because I know that her and her husband will ask all the same questions we ask.  Will you find their child and hug him or her for them?  And squeeze extra tight so that they are also hugging you for us.

I want her to know that – while the hurt never goes away, it does subside.  That while it still aches when I think of you, I can talk about you more without that throat-closing, eye-burning feeling being as bad.  That while my arms ache to hold you, my heart fills with hope for the future instead of sadness for the past.

 

It still seems so surreal sometimes…  that I am a mom.

Don’t worry – your dad and I are working very hard to have a brother or sister for you!  While it’s tougher than we thought it would be, we are learning so much!  We are learning how to be strong.  We are learning how to trust.  We are learning how to lean on each other.  We are learning that while we dream about the life we want, that God is preparing us for something bigger than our biggest dreams!

Thank you for giving us hope.  Thank you for letting us love you.  Thank you for being our angel.

All Our Love,

Mommy and Daddy

3 Days And 4 Letter Words

I did something today that I do every day.  I looked at my phone.  But for some reason – about the 1,893 time I looked at my phone today – I could only see one thing.  The date.  Sunday, December 22.  SERIOUSLY?!  Surely my phone was lying!  I’ve even changed the mouse in our Countdown Calendar every day and it STILL didn’t hit me… THERE ARE ONLY 3 DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS.

My life isn’t counted by days or years anymore.  It’s counted by months – 25 to be exact.  25 long months have come and gone.  Some brought more pain than others.  Some have been bearable.  Some have been good.  Some have been miserable.  We’ve been waiting for one to be great.  I’ve ALWAYS dreamt of giving a card that said “Merry Christmas, Daddy/Grandma/Grandpa/Aunt/Uncle”.  Oh, how I prayed this year would be it.  But instead, in some cruel twist, I’m supposed to receive a “gift” that I dread on Christmas Eve.  Of all the family coming to town, this is the one that I would like to just skip this holiday all together.  My dreaded aunt.

You know how when you have allergies, you go in for shots to desensitize you?  I’ve been practicing that concept since the day after Thanksgiving, with Christmas movies and music.  I figured – the more I exposed myself, the less I would feel.   Part of me has wanted to fake some kind of illness to get out of the family get-together we have every single year, so I don’t embarrass myself in some sobbing, messy display.  (Although at the rate my husband and I are going with illness, I may not have to fake ANYTHING!)  Today, I realized that my desensitization process may have worked!  While I haven’t quite hit ‘happy’,  ‘numb’ is going to have to do.  Although, I feel the emotion building as I think about it.

Apparently, infertility is an invitation.  People come out of the woodwork with advice, ideas, opinions, diets, exercises, etc..  I appreciate the intentions behind (almost) all of them.  We’ve gotten support and love.  Recently, I’ve also gotten chastisement and scolding.  Some of it was directed.  Some of it was indirectly directed.  Some that know of our struggle, yet post about how people who complain or whine about not having kids not knowing how good they have it.  People are just plain mean.  And then there’s those who are supposed to be the closest to you that, no matter how many times or how many different ways you try to explain it, still just don’t get that just because THEY think that it should work a certain way, doesn’t mean that it WILL.  ‘Relaxing’ and ‘letting go’ works just as well for getting pregnant as it does for curing cancer.

And then there are the days that my husband tells me that not everything has to be about that 4 letter word – “baby”.  I try SO hard not to make every day about that!  I wish I could explain to him just HOW hard I try not to make every day about that!  I know that he just wants his fun-loving, spontaneous, confident wife back.  I wish I could wrap that up and put it under the tree for him.  I wish I knew where to find her.  I miss her, too.  I had a friend that I’ve met through this journey tell me the other day that she feels like 2014 is OUR year.  It’s the year of the 4 letter word.  OH, how I pray she is right!!