The Phone Call That Changed Our World

On Thursday, August 20 at 11:45 a.m. my cell phone range and my world changed... I was told I was going to be a mother. A mother to a 6 month old baby boy. I saw his picture and my heart melted. While I won't be posting any pictures of him until after we have him home, I can tell you, he's BEAUTIFUL! Amazing big brown eyes, thick eye lashes, the most amazing eye brows, a round little head, and perfect little ears, lips, and nose. And for now on this blog, he will be referred to as Little Bee.

"So, now what?" you ask... Now, we wait. We wait for a court date and then we keep our fingers crossed that we pass court quickly and that they will tell us he is ours and we can bring him home. Our best guess is some time in late November or December we will travel to go pick up our Little Bee, but we also have to remember, this is international adoption which can be unpredictable... But true to Darcy form, I will remain optimistic and remain hopeful that Little Bee will be in our arms before Christmas.

One of Many Reasons I Know We Can...

Can what? Can parent. Can provide a loving, supportive, nurturing environment for another person. Can make it through the tough times, exhausting times, frustrating times, and maddening times. I know it won't be easy, but I know we can.

From what I hear from family, friends, and parenting class, parenting isn't 'always roses'. Not that I had this expectation when starting this journey, but it has become clear that it is one of the hardest things you'll ever do. As my sister-in-law says, "Parenting is one of the toughest jobs you'll ever love."

For the past 2.5 years as we've walked the path of expanding our family I seem to have tried to try to draw parallels between things going on in my life and how it's preparing us to be parents. Raising and caring for Riley and Wallace, our golden retrievers, has taught us how to negotiate responsibility, clean up poop and puke, be patient, and learn to discipline. These are only a few things we've learned from our 'fur-children' that we hope we can apply to raising a child. Struggling with infertility taught us to let go of expectations and 'your plan'. Things don't always work out the way you plan, but they do always work out... I'm sure this learning will come in handy frequently throughout the rest of our lives, not just in dealing with our child, but other areas as well.

The most recent parallel I've drawn is how cycling is preparing us to be parents. I know, I'm sure it sounds crazy, but just bear with me... As I've stated in previous posts, cycling has been Dave's and my biggest coping mechanism while waiting for our Little One. Last Saturday we completed our 2nd of 3 century rides we registered for this summer. For those of you who are unsure what a century is, it's a bike ride, that is at least 100 miles, that you complete in one day. You might compare it to what a Marathon is in the running world.

In July we did a 112 mile ride over three mountain passes near Steamboat Springs, and this weekend we did a 102 mile ride that started in a little town called La Veta. Both amazingly beautiful rides. Anyway, so much of completing a century ride is doing just that, completing it. It's not about how fast you do it, but the fact that you actually finish it (maybe someday we'll go for speed). During this kind of ride, it's a given that for a 10 -20 mile stretch somewhere in the ride you think to yourself, and maybe even say to someone else, "This stinks! I'm exhausted and I can't go any further!" For me it usually happens between miles 60 and 80. And usually there's a point where it happens for Dave too. When it happens without even saying a word, Dave and I know what the other person is thinking. Until this weekend it had always been that when one of us felt like we were going to die, the other person would be feeling great and could take the lead to pull the person along a bit (drafting), slow down the pace, and lend a few encouraging words... But this weekend it happened to both of us at the same time... After lunch there was a horrible head wind we were fighting for about 20 miles and it zapped the energy and motivation right out of both of us. We both said to each other around mile 70, "I don't know if I can do this..." "Uh, oh..." I thought to myself.... Well, we stopped at the next aide station, ate some yummy homemade brownies, took a couple of Advil, rested in the shade for about 10 minutes, and were on our way again. The wind settled down and we began our long climb before a fun 17 mile descent back to where we started. We made it... We made it because we are a team and can often times communicate without saying a word...

I know this will come in handy when we bring our Little One home, there will be times when I'm fried and Dave takes over, times with Dave's fried and I take over, and times where we'll both fried but will still have the strength to pull through. This is one of the reasons I know we can... can be parents.

The view during our ride... This picture doesn't com

e close to doing it justice.

View from the first aide/feed station... Not too bad.

Me at the top of "Soul Crusher" as the locals call it... 2 miles of 10% - 15% grade.

Self portrait of "the team"

Still Waiting... and Trying to Maintain Patience

Just wanted to let everyone know I haven't forgotten about you, or this blog... No movement on the wait lists since I last posted. We're still just patiently waiting... some days we're more successful at the "patient" part than others. In the mean time we've been riding our bikes a lot, a little bit of camping, and now spending 5 days with my dad in Montrose, all of which make the time pass a little bit more quickly.

I find myself struggling between wanting the time to pass quickly and not wanting to wish these next several months of my life away and it's proving to be a daily challenge. I keep saying, "my head is somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean on our way to pick up our little one." This has resulted in some silly mistakes like, leaving my cell phone on the bumper of my car and driving away, and writing a check for numerical one amount and then writing in out long hand for another amount. Both very honest mistakes, but nonetheless frustrating for me. So, now I'm trying to focus on being present in the moment both physically and mentally... Wish me luck!

6, 5, 4, and 3!!!

It seems like just yesterday I received word we moved up to #5 on the baby boy list; it was actually 2.5 weeks ago... I was going to post immediately, but got carried away with life and now, now we are #3! We are also #6 on the sibling list and #7 on the baby girl list. So what does this mean??? Well, first off, it's looking pretty promising we'll be bringing home a little boy! Still, only time will tell, however we have a feeling we could receive a referral much sooner than we had originally anticipated; maybe even as early as August. We still then have to then get a court date, pass court, get an embassy date, travel to pick up our Little One, and a lot of other small details in between. With all that said it feels like we're so much closer!

Being #3 makes this adoption process feel so real. Initially Dave and I said, things will start to get really exciting when we're above #5. Then when we went on the list at #6, we thought, "Okay, I guess things will get "really exciting" when we're #2 or #3... Well here we are, and yes, things are indeed "really exciting"! I told my mom I found myself gasping for air when I got the e-mail from our coordinator with the news this afternoon... I think it was an attempt to fight off the tears of happiness and excitement. A little piece of me can only imagine the feeling and reaction I'll have when we get "the call". The call that tells us there's a little one over in Ethiopia waiting to become a part of our family... I can only imagine and I can't wait! But for now I will do just that... Wait... Wait patiently and with excitement...

Weekend Fun

A couple of weeks ago my mom told us about a ride in Colorado Springs called the Starlight Spectacular. It's an event to benefit the Trails and Open Space of Colorado Springs that started at 11:59 pm with either a 14 or 24 mile loop and ended with breakfast. We thought, "That sounds like fun, but can we stay up that late?!?!" In an effort to prove we're not complete old folks, we registered and decided to go for it. Well... It was a blast!!! There were so many people and it was such a beautiful evening we were completely energized and forgot it was so late.

Here I am. You can't tell, but I had my bike tricked out with battery powered, LED Christmas lights...


Each of the aid stations had a theme... the one we stopped at was the Wild West; complete with a tipi, campfire, and covered wagon.

Full of pancakes and tired from a 24 mile, surreal ride in the dark, we crawled into bed at 3 am...

We had so much fun, we decided this will become an annual event... Next year will be complete with a bike trailer and bambino in tow!

Let the Waiting Begin!!!!

Well, it's official, we're waiting!!! We received our certified documents back from the state on Friday and were added to the official waiting list on Saturday after our final parenting class. We are on three waiting lists with our agency: baby boy, baby girl and siblings. We had anticipated going on this lists some where between #10 and #15 and were very pleasantly surprised to be added as #10 on the baby girl list, #9 on the sibling list, and #6 on the baby boy list!!! So, what does this mean... we're actually not real sure. We still anticipate it will be 5-6 months before we receive a referral, but maybe, just maybe since we're entering the lists so much higher than we anticipated it will be sooner. Please, please, please let it be sooner rather than later. With that said, I know I need to begin the exercise of practicing patience and living in the moment, but it won't be easy. A quote that Dave's mom put in my birthday card will be my mantra as we wait...

Nature does not hurry, yet everthing is accomplished. -- Lao Tzu

Pathetic Blogger and Other Updates

So the biggest news flash, that you have all figured out by now, is that I'm a pathetic blogger! Yes, it has really been 2 months since I've posted anything. It's not that nothing is going on, or that I don't have time. I think it's just that I feel like every time I post it has to be something big and earth shattering, which I guess defeats the purpose of blogging. So, here's to turning over a new leaf and posting more frequently...

On the adoption front, we have made a lot of progress. We officially passed our home study and our dossier documents are in the process of getting certified as we speak! So, we should officially be on the wait list the middle to end of next week! And you bet there will be a post when that happens!

So, we made it through the scary home visit with no problems. Our cute little house passed as a fit place to raise a child, the dogs behaved beautifully (quite frankly this was my biggest source of angst, since they usually do nothing short of back flips due to excitement when new people come over), and the 3rd interview in which they interviewed Dave and I separately went just fine . Other than that it's just been pulling together stacks of paper... We sent 1 document to Michigan, 1 document to North Carolina, and 21 documents to Colorado to get certified. Once I got my system down (excel spreadsheets are my friend) the paper work became much less daunting. We also attended our last 3 parenting classes, actually the last one is this Saturday. Much to our surprise, they've been really helpful and well worth our time.

On other fronts, Dave and I continue to fill our spare time with cycling... This past Sunday was our 6th anniversary and we celebrated by riding 62 miles in the Elephant Rock ride and buying each other new bike helmets (old helmets pictured below, picture of new and improved coming soon). We were supposed to do 100, but I had a nasty cold and Dave was on his back the day before with a fever and still felt pretty rotten on Sunday morning so we decided to take it easy on ourselves. We're registered for 3 more centuries this summer, so we'll have a chance to redeem ourselves...
We also bought my mom a new bike for her 60th birthday... It's 3 months early, but we wanted her to be able to get use out of it while the weather's nice. Everywhere she goes, so does her Boston Terrier, Zoki. Here he is in his side car sporting his riding goggles. This picture makes me laugh every time I look at it.