Story of Us

My bare feet are propped up on the railing of a lanai in Central India. The breeze, while warm to me, has the locals in their winter wear. I feel it rolling off the water in front of me as I look out and see the most vast, open, unpopulated area I’ve seen since we arrived in this country two days ago. It’s the only space that hasn’t inhabited people upon people and I prefer to look out at it.

The ride to our tiny hotel was New York City on steroids. Horns honk constantly and outside the window tuktuks share the road with mopeds, walkers, cars, bicycles, and motorcycles. The weaving and beeping is unreal as the road lines are completely ignored by all who dare drive them. Entire families squeeze on motorcycles, the women with a side saddle approach and the kids sandwiched in between their parents or the handlebars. I had to look down a couple of times so I wouldn’t see how close we came to grazing people who didn’t even flinch.

The lush landscape boasts beautiful flowers and the city walls and structures are a sea of color. I’m romanticizing it, though. I’ve never seen such far stretching poverty either.

I feel sad here.

My Ari Jo spent her earliest days here without a family.

It’s not ugly to me, but the dense smog drains the sky of all color and makes me feel dreary. Inside I see my husband covered completely in a blanket, trying to shut the world out. I did this to him. The last time he was in the East, he was at war and ask any veteran, it’s hard to separate the two. I see him trying, though. It’s the way he calls her “our daughter” and “our little girl” that remind me he would do anything for us, even facing his biggest fears. I hope he sleeps. Tomorrow we get to meet our daughter for the first time and life will never be the same.

In my early college years, I always imagined I would adopt. Looking back, I see that it was a desire God planted in my heart, but at the time I think I just wanted to keep my body to myself. Little did I know, there’s no mother on Earth, biological, step, adoptive or otherwise that gets to keep a little privacy. Every bathroom trip or shower, every bottle or breast, every sleep deprived night, is shared with the little ones you love.

I grew up in a small town outside of Knoxville, Tennessee. I decided to leave that little town for a slightly bigger one in a college town in Middle Tennessee. My husband Jordan did the same, although I didn’t know him yet. We met thanks to his matchmaking mother and my talkative sister who were working together in the same office. They exchanged our facebook profiles and the rest is all history.

Jordan and I talked back and forth online and through texts. I thought he was becoming a friend. I agreed to meet up with him when he got into town. He was stationed at Ft. Wainwright, Alaska and was set to deploy in the coming months in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Before he left, he would come to Tennessee to visit his parents.  The night of our anti-date, I stressed for hours on what to wear. I suppose that should have been my first hint that I might care a little more than a friendly meeting encompassed. I finally landed on some black shorts and a floral print, silky top. I truly don’t know why I remember that. I recall very little in my head.

He picked me up in an old white Toyota Tacoma truck and we set off for an Italian restaurant that no longer exists. He talked the whole time, asking me questions and getting very little of a response. I liked to hear his stories and I liked sharing mine less. I think it made him uneasy, this woman of few words. He later told me he didn’t think the date was going too well because I was so quiet. By the end of the night, he walked me to my (parents’) front door and told me goodnight. I told him I had a good time and made a bee line to get inside. Upon entry, I wondered if he would ever try to call me again. I knew how I was coming across. I wasn’t not interested, though. On the contrary, I had this gut feeling that I was going to marry him and I told my mama so when she awoke early the next morning.

We spent the next year conversing over emails and AOL chat sessions. We talked about everything under the sun. Everything except adoption.

I put my desire to adopt away for awhile as I fell in love with him and an idea of a family one day. We were wed on a snowy day in January in the hills of Tennessee and we started our lives together in the Alaskan Winter of Fairbanks after he returned home from the Middle East. We knew we wanted to have children and so we wanted to get started quickly if we could. We struggled for awhile in the beginning. About eleven months after we were married, I found out I was pregnant. It was a beautiful, scary, and special time in our lives. After that, the babies kept on coming. It wasn’t fair, I knew. There were so many people hurting, struggling to become mothers. I sat on my couch with four kids surrounding me and felt overwhelmed but happy. The urge to adopt was faint, if not all together gone.

I can’t say when it changed, but change it did. I started feeling very aware of the great need for parents for children domestically and internationally. I became involved in foster care and then started testing the waters of international adoption conversations with my husband. Over that year, every sermon I heard was pointing me to His plan. Every song in worship brought me to tears. I knew I was standing in direct opposition to what God was calling me toward. I felt miserable not walking with Him. Jordan’s stance was clear. “We have four children, Kacy. Now, you want five? Why did I have a vasectomy if that was the case?” The conversations never went well and I decided that I had to give it to God. For the following year, I didn’t bring it up, not once. Instead, I prayed, “Lord, if this is not for us, please remove the desire from my heart and Lord, if this is for us, please give the desire to Jordan.” Then I waited.

At the close of 2019, he took me out to a nice dinner and told me he wanted to talk to me about something. We dressed in our best and sat down in an elegant steakhouse we could ill afford. It was there over flickering candlelight and boozy coffee drinks that we toasted to our next adventure: international adoption. He had come to me that night and said he had been thinking and he thought we should move forward in what God was calling us to do.

Obedience. That’s what has me listening to Hindi into the setting sun and typing up this love story for a girl who has for two years been on the other side of the world, but who is now just on the other side of town and tomorrow will be on the other side of this couch.

That conversation my husband and I had over two years ago happened right around the time that a beautiful, worthy, image bearer of Almighty God was born in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India.

There are no mistakes.

Ocean Treasures

No one writes blog posts anymore because no one reads them anymore. By no one, of course, I only mean very few. But most people seem to only want their information in the abbreviated squares of Insta or the shortened text of a tweet. No one reads blogs anymore like no one writes letters to mail off or how no one picks up an old book to read to drink in the smell of the worn paper or feel the rough edges of a well-loved classic.
I can be guilty of it, too. Scrolling through my feed, I think- Get to the point. What's the article about? I prefer the bullet points. Perhaps that's the problem. No one is taking the time to craft their words. No one is taking the time to read. To quote Brooks Hatlen, "The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry."
But reading and writing is a part of so many of us. We need the words like we need other things. Flossing. Water intake. Coffee. If I don't partake in those, I'm going to surely regret it. Reading and writing is the same for me. Many times I fall into a rhythm of snapping eighty five photos of one single moment thus barely stopping to take it in. It's like that photo of the elderly woman with her hands resting folded over some gate with no camera, no phone, and a contented smile while an enormous crowd around her is excitedly taking picture after picture of whatever or whoever they are there to see. I thought of this while we were at the beach last week. I live with one foot in a world where documentation is paramount and the other foot back in a simpler time when the thought to take a picture hardly ever crossed the mind.
Some of my favorite memories do not have a corresponding photo to accompany them.
It was our honeymoon. We took it six months after getting married, but we called it a honeymoon just the same. Any break after a long Alaska winter was to be celebrated. Our celebration of choice? The Big Island of Hawaii. Our adventurous spirits left us with an over-planned vacation and the goal to be certified scuba divers at the conclusion of it. That meant, we spent a ton of time on a boat and under water instead of drinking up the sun on the rocky beaches or laying in a hammock intertwined as would have been appropriate for two people newly in love, yet to be distracted by children or work.
It was a wonderful break. We took a few photos, of course, but for the most part our bodies were exhausted from fighting the ocean. Kicking and fighting, wave after wave. I don't regret anything. It was an amazing experience to be able to breathe underwater and swim alongside exotic fish and even sharks. One day, we had double dives planned. If you want to be certified, you have to have a certain amount of hours and dives logged underwater. We were living in Alaska and were not interested in a cold water dive, thank you very much. We had to get our time in while we were in Hawaii. Anyway, we had finished our first dive and were waiting on the boat with the captain and crew for the next one to start. Muscles sore from the exertion and eyes tired from the lack of sleep, we were fine to lean up against the starboard side and sit there until the time expired. But one of the dive instructors, a native Hawaiian with his long hair in a bun and his love for the water ever apparent, made his way over to tell us of a pod of dolphins that were approaching the boat. "You do this at your own risk, but do it! Quick! Grab your snorkel gear and jump in!"
That's how we managed an experience of a lifetime- swimming with dolphins in the wilds of the Pacific Ocean. It was intimidating and exhilarating. The precision of their movement is incredible. Fast, sure movements. Superior, free swimmers darting all around us. We became their school, their pod. We could reach out and touch if they would let us, but I didn't dare. I just watched, amazed. Now, every time I see a dolphin from far out, I remember our days in Hawaii and how we were the lucky ones. I have only my memory and a few words to recall that day, but man, what a treasure.

SIX

Six years ago to the day, I woke up and began getting ready for my wedding day. Our day did not consist of nerves, tons of money, or preparations. It DID consist of a tiny white dress and a handsome Army Officer in dress blues. He picked me up at my house, all decked out, and drove us to our little ceremony in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, just the two of us. It was snowing and beautiful as we started our lives together. These six years have been wonderful, difficult, happy, exciting, and full of change. We have moved houses nine times. We've lived in five different states in that time. We've created four sweet souls. We have transitioned through some hard times and been joyful through some really great times. I'm thankful for a man who will orient us to our Heavenly Father to lead us through this life together. I'm thankful to God for bringing this man home to me from war and blessing our marriage on that snowy Tennessee day six years ago.

* Not pictured: His Ranger Tab! He left his Ranger Tab in Alaska and he was very disappointed to not have one while swearing his brother into the Army AND getting married in his dress blues. For his sake, just pretend it's there, ok? :)

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, BABE!

Captiva

In my last post, I talked about a yearning I had to just get away. After a quick family text reading, "Can you watch the kids?" Jordan and I were off on a birthday get-away to celebrate the big three o. The kids did everything in their power to keep us from boarding the plane. Their bags had been packed for days, but the morning of I was frantically tossing in my summer clothes, trying to think of everything I might need to spend a weekend in South Florida. I forgot my makeup and all hair products and tools, but perhaps it was better that way. Anyway, that morning I had our babysitter coming over until the kids would be divided up among family members when they all got off work. Abel woke up feeling a little sluggish and by the time we were "ready" to leave, he was burning up with fever. Of course. Then Merit's diaper rash was the worst I've ever seen it when he woke up. And Kinley? He was insisting he join us as the beach, his favorite place. I told him that his Pap was coming to get him so he could spend the weekend there and naturally, he expected that to happen RIGHT NOW. Our poor sitter is a trooper to inherit those three as we took off flying to the airport so as not to miss our flight. We were off to a rough start, but by the time we arrived our worries were behind us...

We booked ourselves a mini vacay in Captiva Island, FL in a resort on the island. We appreciated the small things, though. A cat-nap on the beach. Time to read. Sunsets. Not having to prepare food for little people that would soon be refused anyway. Sleep. Chatting with new friends. Sunrises. The beauty of being alone together. It was perfect, honestly. The best birthday.

We also took time to fish, ride bikes, go down water slides, swim in the ocean, dip in the pool, and remember what it was like before we had all these little people to attend to. It was great, but our little clan was beckoning us back home because even though we enjoy a break every now and then, these kids make our lives worth living!

Hopefully the next time we get away alone won't be another five years in the making!

Keeping Up With Us

Did I really just google "blog topic ideas"? Are we back to that? Who remembers that I blogged DAILY on my previous blog site? The pull to write is there always, but mustering the creativity to form sentences and paragraphs and remember to properly punctuate is daunting now. I go, go, go all day long and the last thing I ever want to do is sit down in an old, hard chair and talk about my day to an over-sized screen that is blinding me in the darkness of the room. Just so you know, when I googled that earlier one of the warnings that popped up was "Whatever you do, don't whine and complain." Note taken. For now anyway.
Jordan has been gone a lot lately with his new job. Mostly, his hours are longer, but lately he has had business trips to take. When he is here, we've tried to make the most of it! With three young children, it's sometimes hard to make yourself get out there and take them places. Thinking of activities that are usually fun just seem like more work in your head. Still, if it makes enough sense to us- we'll do it! We did once go camping with two toddlers and a newborn! Anyway, we played putt-putt last weekend and I had my best game EVER. Pretty thrilling in my world, folks.

We are settling in in our new town. It's good to be home and it will be even better once we are in a home of our own again. Our marriage sure has been through a lot, hasn't it? In five years, we've had more than five houses, three kids, and hardships we never dreamed of. Moving is often listed as one of the major stressors and we average a move a year. We are so excited that one day that will stop. Hopefully, our next house will be our forever home. I'm still happy to be doing life with this man:

We have our flaws, for sure, but at the end of the day I want him right here beside me and I hate to have it any other way. He's my lobster.

I've talked a lot about Abel lately and have neglected the other two wild ones on this blog. Kinley is doing well. He has always been a challenging tot. On my last blog, he was lovingly referred to as Cray K. Not much has changed there. Being three is hard, apparently. BUT! I often get glimpses into his heart and he can be so sweet, encouraging, and joyful. Many times when I pick him up from places like the gym childcare, he says to me, "I'm so happy to see you, Mom." He no longer calls me "Money". My big boy is growing up. He still says some things all wrong and I'll probably never correct him. He calls his bicycle his "mo-bike" (Motor bike?) and our car has the long name of  the "bye bye car truck". I wonder what goes through his head. He can be so funny!

Merit is getting big, too. I can't believe my baby is already eight months. Everyone says that, don't they? But seriously. It breaks my heart. He is so happy! I want to keep him and hold him and not let him grow up. It seems like his little life is slipping by faster than the others. It seems like just yesterday I was pregnant with him. Now, he's a sitting, drooling, talking, smiling eight month old. I love him to pieces. He's a social butterfly, too.

We are making it, the five of us. It's just about getting up every day and doing what we have to do. Some days are so hard, but there are so many that are pretty great, too. We're trying to cling to our faith and family. That's what we've been up to. We're eager to see what else God has in store for us.

Thanks for checking in.