January's Quick Takes

Sometimes it's easy to stop blogging. Like around Thanksgiving and other holidays. The easiest way I've found to jump back in is with some Quick Takes! Fair warning: this is going to be incredibly random.

1. It's November 30th already! Happy Feast of St. Andrew! It's the first day to pray the beautiful novena. (Thanks to Becky for the reminder and the gorgeous chaplet).

Hail and blessed be the hour and moment

in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary,

at midnight, in Bethlehem, in piercing cold.

In that hour, vouchsafe, O my God! to hear my prayer and grant my desires,

through the merits of Our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of His Blessed Mother.

Amen.

2. As I was eating breakfast this morning, my cat started chasing something. Something that I couldn't see. But it wasn't just that she had the crazies, where she sprints all around the house. It's clear that something very tiny was there to chase. But she kept stopping and looking around, like she had lost it. And now I know that there's something so small that it's nearly invisible somewhere in my house. Eek!

3. November and I, we have really deep discussions. Like this week, when we talked about pee. The pee of children. The pee of cats. Pee being in really, really wrong places in the house. Yes, anywhere that is not a toilet, diaper, or litter box is the wrong place. It's amazing how something as basic and ordinary as pee can ruin a mother's day or add strain to the marriage of cat owners. I think this take will ensure that you think of us next time you encounter pee where it doesn't belong.

4. Speaking of...children, the brother and SIL of one of my best friends had a baby this week. They lost their first baby in utero to a terrible physical defect, so the healthy birth of this baby is quite the blessing. Speaking of pee (ok, I went there again), baby boy was born with only one kidney, which at this point doesn't seem indicative of any other problems. I'm hoping it stays that way!

5. Like everyone else, I was crushed to learn that Carla's son Henry passed away this week. I am so thankful that he got to know the love of a family during his lifetime on earth. Praying in a special way for his mom, dad, and siblings.

6. Tomorrow is World AIDS Day. There have been years (mostly in school) where I've observed this, and years where I missed it completely. I live near (and used to live in) a U.S. city where there are a staggering number of HIV and AIDS cases; the percentages rival underdeveloped countries on other continents. I have absolutely no answers or good ideas for this huge problem, but I finally feel connected to the problem, because I am in love with Marjorie and many of the little kids who are HIV+ on Reece's Rainbow. Let's do what we can to prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS. Even if the best we've got right now is to pray.

7. By the way, Marjorie just got a huge donation to her adoption fund! It wasn't there yesterday, I promise. This means other people are looking out for her too! And maybe her fund will get big enough that adopting her will be easier. Someone out there needs her in their family! Maybe you know them. Please let them know that Marjorie is waiting.

 

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at Conversion Diary!

I shall not leave you orphans

I've gone and done it. I think my heart has been "sealed for the orphan," as I heard someone say once. Oh dear.

I didn't think it was going to happen to me. Husband and I are still committed to trying to figure out this IF thing, and I swore up and down that I wasn't going to learn about adoption until we were both ready. With Husband taking so much longer than me to even come to grips with the fact that we're experiencing IF, I knew that I should put it out of my mind.

For months, it was ok. I'd occasionally visit Leila's Orphan Report and maybe got onto Reece's Rainbow once to donate to Larisa. I poked around the site for a bit, said a few prayers for the kids, but then I moved on. It wasn't making an impact. Or maybe it was, just in tiny, tiny ways.

Leila posted a link to the documentary Bulgaria's Abandoned Children, a 9-part series that you can watch on youtube. It's horrifying; there's no other way to describe it. If you watch, there is a shorter follow-up series that's totally worth watching, so you can get to see some of the kids a year or so later.

Becky, who makes my favorite rosaries, has an adopted nephew, Alex, whose parents blog about bringing him home and helping him flourish. That blog regularly moves me to tears. Seeing that child smile, it's just incredible. But seeing the hard work that the adoption took, that parenting a special needs child who doesn't speak English (though that's changing) takes, that dealing with the medical system takes, honestly, it wasn't inspiring me to adopt. It was making me see all my flaws; I do not have the strength and wisdom to do what these people are doing.

Recently, I've been following this couple's journey to adopt two children. One is a 10-year-old girl, Maria, and the other is a little boy, Elijiah, whom they met on their first trip to meet Maria. Somewhere in the midst of reading about their adoption journey, I think I lost it. I started visiting Reece's Rainbow pretty regularly.

And then I saw this little girl:

Marjorie

My first thought upon seeing Marjorie was that she looks just like me! Really, she's basically mini-January, folks. Except that she's an HIV+ Eastern European orphan. Looking at her breaks my heart. Life for these kids after they age out of the orphanages is very, very hard. The idea of Marjorie ending up in any situation other than that of getting adopted by a loving family is something that's starting to keep me up at night.

I've still only learned a little bit about adoption, because Husband isn't ready to go down that path. I purposefully did not want to get ahead of him, because being ahead of him on our infertility journey was and is hard enough. We discussed it recently, and he's not in adoption land yet, much less international, special health needs, older child adoption land. But this little girl, she is my wake-up call. Whether or not we have biological children, it's time to learn about adoption.

So, I want to ask if you'd please pray for Marjorie. If you have extra spending money some month, think about making a donation to her adoption fund. If you know someone whose family is incomplete without this child with the big smile and even bigger personality, tell them that she's out there waiting. I might not get to be her mom, but I'd really like to help her mama and daddy find her.