2010 year end review

ok so i know it's mid-december, but to be honest i can't see how 2 weeks will change anything and i am not sure i will do it later if i don't do it now, so just give me this one. :)

this has been a year. (i would like you to reread that sentence and stress the words "a year"). it's been every single emotion, sometimes with the polar opposite emotions running rampant at the same time. but i am going to do my best to break it all down, mainly for myself to look back at years from this moment because i want to remember it all.

january:
chris and i started the year off by submitting our formal application right at the close of 2009, so entering january we were excited about moving forward in our adoption process. in fact, i was so excited that i deemed 2010 "the year of baby lawson". towards the end of the month we started working on our taxes and realized we owed 1200 bucks. super fantastic news to the couple who is trying to scrape together the money to adopt. we were very irritated, but God provided for us and we didn't have to dip into our savings for the adoption.

february:
this was a busy month for our adoption prerequisites. we did full day of required training and had several parts of our homestudy done. we purchased a crib and dresser/changing table combo that was in great shape and matched our current furniture on craigslist, and found our bedding on clearance at a store in north carolina. once again, i continue to press on believing strongly that we will be parents in the very near future. i also started back at my old branch working with the girls at the west knoxville branch and could not have been happier to have gotten out of the branch i was in and back to familiar territory.

march:
oh blessed march. a season marked by new beginnings, thus, new challenges. march was an expensive month. i had a minor wreck, got 2 traffic tickets, chris had dental work done, oh and lest i forget, my car had to have almost $2000 of repairs done. we really struggled with the car and how to repair it- finance, sell drugs, set it on fire, etc. and when we were pouring our hearts out to our good friends jesse and leslie, God showed us exactly where He wanted us to take the money from- our adoption savings. march was a pivotal month in our faith journey part of the adoption process. at this point we had not run into any real obstacles with the adoption and had already begun saving a good amount of money, and this really stretched us. but we submitted to God's plan and trusted that as we took this flying leap off a cliff that He was going to catch us and provide in ways we couldn't understand. this is also the month when we began our cookbook fundraising campaign. i also got to spend several days with my sister who flew out here to visit me during her spring break.

april:
i turned 27 and it was emotional, for reasons that i don't really understand. the only thing i could really put my finger on was i always expected that by the time i was 27 i would have at least1 child, if not 2 or 3 and here i was with none. but i believe it was about this time that i had to make a choice to rejoice for the time i had with my husband, uninterrupted by the demands and needs of a child. in april we had wrapped up our homestudy's with our caseworker, i had spent hours upon hours creating our 3 identical profile books for the birthmom, and we were able to turn in the final application fee.

may:
on ma 14th we got our approval letter from our agency letting us know that our profiles had gone live and we were an official waiting family. that phrase is so funny to me because we had been a waiting family for years prior to that letter, but i guess the :official: part is what makes this different! :) i believe it was may when my sister in love, maggie, came down for the weekend and i got to help her purchase things for her upcoming wedding, and just spend some great time together.

june:
the 10th of this month marked 4 years of marriage for chris and me. we were very reminiscent of the past 4 years and really looked at where God brought us in not only 4 years, but really just the past 6 months in the adoption process. we really began to see how His plan is so much better than ours and we were able to rejoice for what adventures and journeys we will face in the coming years. we were presented with a potential situation out of memphis with a baby boy, but the birthmother chose to find adoptive parents outside of the bethan christian services network. i saw an amazing family go through the heartache of an adoption disruption, and come out on the other side looking more like Christ than i could ever hope to in a similar situation.we were also immensely blessed by 2 anonymous families at our church with a large financial gift to go towards our adoption, and then several other wonderful families in our Bible Fellowship class donated as well. i wish this was all for june, but unfortunately, i had a little slip up at work on some water and injured myself pretty seriously and even knocked myself out cold.

july:
chris turns 27 and we had a big soiree at the house with loads of kabobs and homemade ice cream, and big chunks of a tree in our backyard falling on our power line. thankfully our friend, Mike (aka Gary Bunyon, Paul Bunyon's brother) came to our rescue and helped move it off the power line before it snapped. july is when doubt and fear began creeping in that we were not going to have a baby by december 31st, but i continued to place my trust and hope in the Lord. for the 4th of july we were able to hang out with some new friends we had made at our monthly adoption meetings and it was a grand ole time meeting more of their support system.

august:
we found out that we had been selected as the top family for a baby but at the hospital the birthmom decided to parent. we had never been informed of the situation because the staff at bethany was afraid she was going to waver, and through their infinite discernment, they saved us some heartache. it was still very emotional to think that we could have had a child, but the reminder that we have a special birthmom and child for us helped us get past it all. we were also so thankful to know that we are chooseable! I believe it was the end of this month when we got a grant from phillip and tiffany rivers for the remaining balance of our adoption fee. More than what we spent on my car in february. :)

october-present
i haven't written since october and even now it's hard to break down everything that happened month by month so i am just going to write a generalization of events. at the beginning of october i had a miscarriage, the night before i was scheduled to go out of town to shoot bridal portraits of my sister in love, maggie. the miscarriage was my first indication that i was pregnant and the shock of what was happening and what had been growing in my womb rocked me to my utmost being. my last post was probably the most raw and open post i have ever shared with such a large audience. through the next several weeks, in fact, almost the beginning of december, i had some medical issues with this miscarriage that were scary, frightening and at times overwhelming, because this one was so different from when i miscarried kya joy. i was in such a different place this time on so many levels. i wasn't expecting a pregnancy becaus e i was so focused on adoption and seemingly so close to expanding our family via adoption. a great friend of mine made the comment to me that perhaps God allowed me to get pregnant in order to remind me that adoption is His plan for us right now and that if He wanted us to have a biological child, He can do it. and how true i believe that statement to be. i have held on with both hands and my teeth for dear life to that statement. i absolutely have to, because if i allow myself to ponder the what if's of this loss, i will literally go insane and i will miss out on the blessings of this journey. do i mourn for what is lost? absolutely. but i have never been more confident that adoption is God's plan for our lives right at this moment.

as i go into 2011 i am going expectant. expectant to hear and feel God's voice and presence guiding chris and me through life and through this painful, excruciatingly difficult journey we are on in our efforts to expand our family. trying to plan it all the way i wanted it to be has obviously not worked out the way i intended it. and how bold of me to act as though i have some say or control in how it will work out for who knows where and how it will end up but God?
so 2011... the year of baby lawson? hopefully. but even if it isn't, it will still be the year of expectancy. because i am expecting God to continue to blow our minds and rock our world with His faithfulness and goodness in our life.