End of June, already?

So next week it's going to be July, and my brain just can't believe it. I really wanted to participate in ICLW this month, but I had my boss in town Monday and Tuesday for my last days with him before I start with the new company. My first day is July 5th (well, 6th because of the holiday) and who knows what or where I will be in the coming weeks. I have received minimal information from them regarding customers, products, structure, training, pretty much everything--so I'll just be glad to have a job/pay check until I know what I'm going to be doing. Hopefully, it will all come together soon.

Some bullets, for simplicity:

• Tulip is doing wonderfully. She is working on adding a 5th bottle most days, increasing from 23-24oz per day to 26-28oz. This is great because she's starting to put on more weight and even though I don't know how much, she feels so solid of late. She is still sleeping through the night, but naps are less consistent. We work every day to get 14-15hrs of total sleep for her, but sometimes it comes in long naps, sometimes in a bunch of short naps. She does well once asleep...it's just she doesn't want to miss anything during the day so she fights going to sleep. I guess if this is our biggest problem, we are doing pretty good.
• We are getting together with Tulip's first parents on Sunday. This will be the second time we've met up since her birth, the first was when she was about 5 weeks old. She has changed and grown so much since then. I am nervous already, and excited to hear what they think. They've seen lots of pictures and even some video, but it will different to see her in person I am sure. We are looking forward to getting some more photos of her with them, as she looks JUST LIKE her first father. It is almost scary, because when I look at her, I can see him almost exactly. I am so very thankful that he is in our lives for many reasons, but especially because she resembles him so much.
• BigTex and I are going on a little get-away to a nearby city over the holiday coming up. It will also be our 7th wedding anniversary. We have so much to celebrate--I think we both just wanted to share this with each other, to re-energize a bit and to have some grown-up fun. And Grandma isn't too sad that she'll get Tulip all to herself for a couple nights! It will be sad to leave her, and I know I will miss her like crazy, but this will be very good for us as her parents. That is important too.
• Big news--we put the first money into our adoption account for adoption #2. We have a LONGGGGG way to go (probably at least 18 months), but by next summer we hope to have our homestudy update completed and be working on our profile for the agency. Maybe by fall of 2011 we will be ready to go back on the list. Wow, that seems so close! But we don't know how long we'll wait, so we'd rather just get back into it than be ready and have to wait a year or more for a placement. I'm sure I'll discuss this a lot in the future, but we might be making some changes to our match criteria for the next one and it will likely affect how long we wait. More to come on that, but we are certain that our family isn't finished at just us 3.

So to conclude, do any of you go back and actually read from your own archives periodically? I do once and awhile, just to see where I was and to remind myself of how far we've come. But what I wasn't prepared for the other day was just how insightful my prior writing had been--at least when it comes to my own heart. I came across this post from August of 2009 and was utterly amazed at how it settled my heart after last week's unrest. The message to my aching self was right there--in my own words. See...

There seems to be no greater truth to me than this--what we have been through, every painful, heartbroken step of infertility, has been guiding us, redirecting us. This baby that will be ours through adoption will never be a replacement for the child that we could not or did not have on our own, just as I will never EVER replace the woman who will give birth to my adopted child. But we will be beautiful additions to each other--to our lives, to our hearts, to our complete, inner souls.

It IS a gift to go through this. Doesn't that sound so wrong? I'll say it again, it IS A GIFT. God has seen and known all along that I need this gift, that my future child needs this gift, that our child's birth mother needs this gift. And more importantly, He has CHOSEN us to bear the weight of this gift forever, in my mind because He knows it can be done.

This human journey requires that I ebb & flow; my heart seems to get caught in one direction sometimes. My faith, however, shouldn't. And I know I feel the challenges even more when I do not have my faith fully front and center in my life. When I question why I am here, why am I Tulip's mom, why why why...the answer is always right in front of me even when I stop seeing it. Because He has planned it, He knows it is possible, and He knows it will be done.

That I seem to have known this before I even needed to, it is simply amazing to me. And no coincidence.

Happy Thursday everyone!