Isn't she cute? I am the youngest child and she gave birth to me just a few months before her 45th birthday. I read once that women who give birth after 40 are twice as likely to live to be 90 as those who don't.

I found myself thinking about this the other day when I was pondering how slow our adoption journey has been. Maybe I should have just tried to get pregnant again?

International adoption is definitely not for the faint of heart. I have been having this nagging feeling over the last few weeks that we should change agencies and adopt older children. Our current agency won't let us go out of birth order. I understand their reasoning, but my heart feels like all of these man made rules are not allowing God to work in our lives. When we started this journey we really wanted to adopt children that were between Paige and Garrett in age. Their is a five year age gap (they are currently 5 and 10) and I really felt we should adopt children in this age range. Then we were told by our agency that we could not adopt out of birth order. It was not until much later that we found out this was not an Ethiopia rule but the rule of our agency. We thought at the time about switching agencies, we prayed about it, and I still wasn't sure.

However, I am having that feeling again. My stomach has been churning and I am feeling very unsettled. I do see the hand of God in our timeline. Paige is in a much better place to welcome a sibling into her world. I have talked before about how far she has come and we talk about her getting a new sister. She seems excited and asks when her new sister will get here.

God's timing was much better than mine. I can see that now. My only question is if he is now nudging us in another direction. We would lose money. People would think we were crazy. I want to have the peace that God is leading us toward the children that were meant to be ours. I am really not feeling that right now. Maybe I am in a pre-adoption funk and it will pass?

We are praying hard at our house for some guidance. Any additional prayers would be greatly appreciated.

Now, back to the cards.

This is the very cute cake my brother in laws mother made my mom for her birthday. If you play pinochle you will recognize it as a double jack of diamonds/queen of spades. This is called a double pinochle and is worth 30 points (or 300 if you don't drop the last number when you score). Needless to say she loved her cake.

Thanks so much, Shirley, for making it for her.

Now, just to confuse you a little more here are some of the men of the family. My Dad is sitting with the blanket on him, he is seven years younger than my mom. She was way ahead of her time on that front. The man on the right is Bill and he is my sister Stacey's father in law. My kids love him. The man standing behind them is my sister Candy's husband, Nino. All of these guys are about the same age. My sister is 18 years older than me and then she married a man 15 years older than her. I know our family is very confusing.

The funny thing about Nino is that I worked in his doctor's office (he was an anesthesiologist) when I was 16 as a summer job. It wasn't until many years later that he started dating my sister and they would marry. It's funny how life turns out sometimes.

Here is some of the crew playing there beloved game.
Three of my kids now play and grandma couldn't be happier about this. Well, as long as they are not beating her. She does not like to lose!
Here is Uncle Barry who moments after this picture was taken put Jo Jo under his jacket and tried to leave with her. As you can imagine Samantha would have none of that!

Well, that's what's been going on here. Thanks for all your prayer's regarding our adoption journey, as always, I will keep you informed.

Labels: Adoption, birthdays, friends and family