Introducing Peighton Hope

I would like you to meet my granddaughter.  You have heard much about her, but here she is!  She is perfect.  She will be going home with us.  We are praying and trusting that all will be as needs to be for her to stay.  Paizley did an amazing job during labor and delivery.  It was fast, but she was a real trooper!  We laughed about the fact that this is one time she can be thankful she is adopted....she doesn't have my baby birthing genes! It was a great day, and I felt the prayers of many.  We were in a good place to have a wonderful day to remember when Peighton Hope entered the world!

My Gethsemane

I want to start with a disclaimer to this post....I am well aware that what I am suffering right now does not even compare to the cross.  John and I have a saying when things get tough and one of us wants to throw in the towel in a particular situation.  We always encourage each other by saying, "We have not suffered to the point of sweating blood yet, so we can press on and do this."  I have not suffered to the point of sweating blood on this journey I am sharing with you now, but I think God put the struggle of Jesus in scripture for us so we can know that even Jesus did not go to the cross without at least a slight pause and a request to opt out of the task.  It gives us freedom to without guilt or shame do the same.  We just must be careful that when we walk out of our Gethsemane we are at the same place Jesus was - totally and completely yielded to the will of God whatever that means!

Paizley is set to deliver in a couple of days.  The reality that the last few months will end with a innocent life being born into this world has pressed in heavy on me the past few days.  I knew I had to deal with all that was going on in my heart.  I knew I had to get with God and allow Him to sift my heart like wheat.  I had to get in a place where I was ok with God and could walk wholly and fully into the days ahead whatever they might bring.

I haven't shared details to protect the privacy of our family.  But I know you know from what I have shared, this has been a rough 8 months!  I honestly have never suffered more intense heartache and personal injury in my life.  I have had heartache, but not as often and as concentrated as has occurred in the past few months.  God has miraculously brought me to a place of healing each time...a place of forgiveness and restoration where I could put the hurt behind me and move forward in the relationship with my daughter.  However, the past 4 weeks were the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back for me.  Nothing happened that was big, and in comparison to some other events they seem trivial.  But for whatever reason, they were the hump I couldn't get over.  The hurt that welled up in me when I would think about Paizley giving birth and bringing the baby here to raise and all that meant for me emotionally and day to day was almost paralyzing.  Some days it was paralyzing.  Once I wrestled with the emotions, I was too drained to do much but make it to the end of the day so I could crawl in bed and pray sleep would come.

As the time has drawn closer for delivery, I knew I had to bring the hurt to the surface and deal with it.  I had to get on my face with God and find a way to face the coming days and months.  When I would think about the baby being born, I would feel like one of the Israelites at the Red Sea.  There were two options: bring the baby home or place with another family for adoption.  I shared from the beginning that it has been our desire and our goal for Paizley to parent this child.  But as the time drew closer and closer we were not sure that was going to be possible.  I felt like her bringing the baby home and parenting in our house was the Red Sea in front of me that would wash me away if I stepped in, and placing her with another family was the Egyptians in hot pursuit behind me.  And I heard myself grumbling much as the Israelites did.  "God, PLEASE take me back!  Take me back to days when life was easier, when I didn't have to think about being a grandmother or helping a wounded teen learn to parent. Take me back to a familiar place without the pain."  I am not saying I regretted Paizley or the life that she carries, don't hear that...I regretted the circumstances of our life.  I don't even know if regret is the right word.  I mourned the circumstance of our life. I mourned what I left behind in my Egypt and cried out in fear for the sea that lay in front of me.

In the last two weeks, I have found myself locked in my bathroom and falling to the floor completely overwhelmed with the tasks that lay ahead.  It was in these moments that I would remember Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane and would pray Jesus' prayer many times on my bathroom floor.  I would cry out to God and ask Him if there was any other way to please remove me from this situation.  Take away all of it.  Rewind somehow or miraculously do something..I didn't even really know what I was asking.  For the first few times, I had to pray that several times before I could get to the next part...BUT no matter what, not my will, but GOD's be done!  I didn't really mean it the first couple of times I prayed it.  I guess you could say I prayed it in faith.  But I followed those prayers with surrendering my heart to God and asking Him to heal the wounds and bring me to a place where I could walk this out.  God is so faithful!  I even had an amazing friend who text me and said she was going to start her first ever fast - a fast from Dr. Pepper - to pray for us! I put it on Facebook which I don't normally do that we were not in a good place for Paizley to give birth and asked for everyone to pray.  I now it is cliche to say you "feel prayers" but in the places I have walked the past several years, I can say I have truly felt prayers...and this time was no different!  I began to feel the hurt lift.  I began to think of the baby coming...something I hadn't been able to do up to that point.  There was a mental and emotional block that wouldn't let my heart and mind go there.  It was like nothing I have ever experienced.  I began to experience the healing that only comes from the Holy Spirit cleaning house in your heart!

We sang a song yesterday in church about the power of God parting oceans.  I knew God was parting my Red Sea.  I wasn't totally sure what the "dry land" was going to look like that I would cross over, but I knew God was parting the waters of my heart.  I knew the prayers I had cried out on my knees for God's will to be done were unfolding as He was making  way for just that.

It all culminated in a very needed, healing and God ordained time between me and my daughter yesterday.  I kind of feel like the Israelites again in that there will be obstacles, famine, drought, wars, etc even after we walk across the Red Sea.  But I will have this time to look back and remember that God brought us through.  And He has taught me to rely on Him in a way I never had before and taught me even more about Himself and His character through this journey.  As I prayed with Paizley yesterday I was able to honestly and earnestly thank God for the lessons this time has brought.  When the drought or famine does come, and it will because we still have a LONG way to go, I will not run in fear but look to the heavens and wait for the manna and quail to fall that will sustain me for THAT day!  It's the biggest lesson I have learned from my Gethsemane - when God's will is not for the cup to pass, but for me to walk out the dying of myself, I will remember the cost of the cross and say YES - and God will then provide whatever I need daily to continue to walk out the road to my cross!  No more and no less than what I need for THAT day!  And on the other side, I will look a little more like Christ than I did when I started the trip.  And that is why I say YES!

A Successful Fiesta!

We had our first Hope's Promise event last night!  It was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!  We hosted a casual dinner for a few couples in Joel and Brooke's backyard.  Brooke is one of the amazing team members working to get Hope's Promise up and running.  We called it "Nacho Average Fiesta"!  As I walked around the yard praying before everyone got there, I asked that God would bring exactly who needed to be there in order to accomplish His will for last night.  I also asked that those who came would be moved by the Spirit with what they heard to not just hear and walk away, but be doers to take action and own the crisis we have in teen pregnancies.  He answered every one of those prayers!

We didn't have a huge crowd...about half of what we expected....expecting less than half of who we invited. But the disappointment over numbers did not last long!  Brooke introduced me with an amazing devotion by Joyce Meyer about God using people to do His work.  The amazing thing is that devotion was true of every member or our team that put together last night!  I don't know that I have ever been a part of a group of people who stay so focused on the common goal and purpose in Christ that nothing stands in their way!  These ladies and Jon ROCK!!!  As I shared the statistics for teen pregnancies:

• 79 percent of teenagers who become pregnant are unmarried. 
• 80 percent of teenage pregnancies are unintended. 
• Nearly four in ten teenage girls whose first intercourse experience happened at 13 or 14 report that the sex was unwanted or involuntary. 

• The main rise in the teen pregnancy rate is among girls younger than 15*
•  
• The United State spends $7 billion each year due to the costs of teen pregnancy. 
• Only one-third of teenage mothers complete high school and receive their diplomas 
• By age 30, only 1.5 percent of women who had pregnancies as a teenager have a college degree. 
• 80 percent of unmarried teen mothers end up on welfare 
• Within the first year of becoming teen mothers, one-half of unmarried teen mothers go on welfare.* 
• The daughters of teen mothers are 22 percent more likely than their peers to become teen mothers. 
• Sons of teenaged mothers have a 13 percent greater chance of ending up in prison as compared to their peers.

The people were listening. I could see it in their eyes.  Then Jon and Sarah Stepan shared their experience with a maternity home and the difference it made in the life of the birth mother of their son.  It was moving!  I finished the evening by sharing our solution to the teen pregnancy crisis.  The national trend is that teen pregnancies are declining, but in Texas the rate of teen pregnancies is rising.  And in our little corner of Texas, there are 6 counties in the top 25 in Texas for teen pregnancy rates.  The issue is to the point that news media is picking it up sharing the fears of medical community and the schools as they fear their systems can't support the number of teen moms coming up.  We believe we have the solution!  And more government involvement is not it!  Not because I am taking a political side of whether or not government should or should not be involved but because I have a Bible that tells me I am to be Christ to the world.  I am to be the hands and feet of Jesus, and when Jesus walked this earth He was ministering and supplying the needs of the harlots, the tax collectors, the outcasts of society.  So I believe I need to do the same in the 21st century. In fact, the pastor we heard this past Wednesday said it this way, "If God is going to accomplish anything on this earth during this time, it will be through you and me."   Amen!  Those at the dinner got it!  There were tears over the heartbreak of my friend who was forced to have an abortion because her family said abort or get out and she had nowhere to go.  Only to discover about three months after the abortion that she had been pregnant with twins and they had only killed baby A.  Baby B was still alive.  So her middle class, Christian, church leader parents took her back to the clinic for a late term abortion to terminate the pregnancy of Baby B.  My friend is an amazing woman of God who has overcome these trials in her life, but her story is what God used to prompt me that N.O.W. is the time to do something!

We were giving $10,000 last night plus some checks that had been donated before the evening.  I am talking off my head and from memory, not the books here, but we are at about $10,800 toward the property.

That is very short of what I had asked God for last night.  I had a number that I had specifically prayed and it was big...impossible most would say, but I believed it was what God asked me to believe Him for.  It didn't come in last night, but I believe it is on its way!  The encouragement from those who were there last night was unbelievable!  They believe in what we are doing and are committed to walking with us and sharing our vision..and while we need the actual cash to buy the property, the belief of others in what you are doing is huge when you are walking in ministry!  It is an encouragement that keeps you going and keeps you believing in the next step to finish what God has asked you to do.  

Before the night began I promised God that despite the outcome, I would trust Him.  Can I tell you the peace in that?!  No I didn't get the number I prayed for....not yet.  But I totally trust that God brought exactly who He needed to the dinner last night to accomplish His purposes for last night.  I trust that those who heard it are going to share with whoever else needs to hear it and the money will come in.  The longer I walk with God the more I learn that I only have to do what He asks and the outcome is up to Him!  We put on the dinner, we planted the seeds.  Now He will water how and when He sees fit to bring about the harvest He desires. It is not mine to worry about or fret over or even be disappointed in.  

Next week we will be getting a Hope's Promise page up on the Addy's Hope website so you can watch the progress.  We are still praying about where and how to open the first home.  Obviously we can't do anything until we have the cash to pay for it.  But we can plan and keep walking in faith step by step as He gives us direction, and that is what we will do!

A HUGE thank you to the team of "doers" who made last night happen because if they were waiting on this visionary we would still be trying to decide on a font for the invitations!  Thank you Robin Nash, Brooke Holland, Jon and Sarah Stepan, Stormy Johnson, Brandie Harris, and Emmy Shepherd.  It is surreal that this blog post  less than three months ago sparked what is now a reality!  Let me just encourage all of you to walk in what God has asked you to do even if it is to "just" cast the vision!  He will send who and what you need to do it!  This project is walking proof of that!

I survived!

There are a couple of defining moments in this journey of becoming a pre-mature mimi that I have dreaded since I got what has become known as "the nod that changed my world" (that would be the nod to the 'are you pregnant' question asked).  One of those moments was birthing class.  I don't know why I dreaded them.  I mean regardless of the circumstances surrounding the conception of a life, the birthing of a new baby is one of the most precious and miraculous events on this earth, and being there at the birth of my grand baby will truly be an honor no matter what lays on the other side of the birth.  But the dreading of the birthing class is just one of the myriad of emotions this journey has taken me through that I really can't explain or even understand...something very difficult for a woman who typically is in control of her emotions and knows why she feels how she feels and how she will "fix" the feeling if it needs fixin' (that's the southern way of saying that for those not from around here!).  That has't been the case the last 7 months.  It's different than the hormonal ups and downs of a pregnancy, it's deeper.  The emotions cut to the core and effect my every fiber.  That is one of the things that has made this journey so difficult.

But I digress....the closer the time drew to leave for the class, the more I wondered if I would truly survive!  No, it doesn't make sense!  Its just a class, I get it!  But for whatever reason, I nearly lost my breath thinking of having to sit through the class as her coach.

Got off to a rocky start because she had the wrong location.  So to make matters worse, not only was I the grandma in tow, we had to walk in after the class was started!  Honestly, I just prayed it would be obvious who was there for the class, and they wouldn't mistake me as a participant also! Seriously!

I glanced around the room and quickly realized this would be four Monday nights of me....and the dads!  Yep! There are teen classes, but Paizley waited too long to sign up and they were all full...need even more evidence of the need for a teen maternity home here?!  The teen birthing classes fill up faster than the traditional class!

But about half way through the class, I realized my nerves were gone...I thought back to the ride to class and realized Paizley and I had some very candid, authentic conversations....the most intimate conversations we have had in a while.  And I immediately knew why!   I have a group of friends who have committed to pray for me each day of a week, and then some friends who I know are prayer warriors in general.  I had sent these women a message letting them know my apprehension and asking them to pray! I know how cliche it is to say you "felt" prayers, but let me tell you, I felt the prayers!  I was able to lay aside the emotions that have been between my daughter and myself for the past weeks based on events out of my control.  I was able to be there for her in a way a mother always wants to be there for their children!  It was a good experience!  I didn't just have to endure it, but God made a way for it to be a bonding moment for me and my daughter in a very struggling relationship.

So now I am left to practice my back and neck massage techniques and my hee-hee-who breathing!  Very different being on this side of things from the birthing classes I took 12 1/2 years ago!  For all you bonding and attachment gurus out there from the adoption world, you will be glad to know this nurse said the first thing you do when you get your baby is rip off the blankets and the gown (yours and the baby's) and get skin to skin for at least the first hour and a half!  Love that lady! :)

But I did leave the class with one very unexpected emotion!  I think it would be amazing to be pregnant again........

ok...I couldn't just leave it there!  I tried!  I really started to post it with that cliff hanger....but if I came up pregnant, I would not want my mother thinking I planned it or she would disown me! :)  I sent a text to my group of friends during the class saying, "ok now you need to pray for John because I think I want another baby" to which my amazing mentor replies "if God answers you with a smoking tablet written on by His finger..... :/" But even then, I don't think John would go for it!  So relax Mom!  There are no plans for number 8! :)  But then again, there were no "plans" for number 3 or number 7 either......

It's Prom Night

This has been one of those tough days for me. It's prom night.

A year ago, that would have excited me....even 7 months ago, that would have brought giddy anticipation.

When we were contemplating adopting a teenager, it was the football games, the tack meets, the dance teams, the youth group functions, etc that we dreamed about. We got excited about getting to be a part of those events with our new daughter!

And one of the nights I dreamed about most was prom. Who would ask her? Of course someone will because my daughter is beautiful and has an amazingly fun personality! I knew once she got into the high school building, someone would want her to be their prom date. Where would we go to shop for a dress? What kind of dress would she want? There would most definitely be disagreements about dresses due to my standard for modesty, but we would find one that made her look like the princess she is, and our eyes would meet in the mirror and we would both know that was "the" dress!

Those were the dreams I had. Those were the dreams I have had to let die. Those are the dreams I have had to keep from dwelling on as the pictures go up on Facebook of my friends' children in their prom attire with their prom dates. She and I talked earlier today about Prom....she might get to go some day, I know that. But today, she isn't. And next year, even if she gets asked, she'll have to get a babysitter to go.

I keep thinking this journey of mothering a pregnant teen daughter will get easier. It hasn't. Nothing about it has gotten easier. It stinks. If I am not consoling her about the life that she has had to leave behind, I am trying to pull myself up out of the pain of what the past held and the fear of what the future holds. I truck along ok most days, but then nights like this hit where the reality of what has been lost for my daughter, and the dreams I had for her are driven like a stake through my mommy heart.

We love the baby...she and I both do. This isn't about that baby...it's about my baby! The baby I had dreams for....my baby whose having a baby.