Happy Thanksgiving! We can hardly believe that so much time has passed since our last post. Today I awoke early with a heart full of gratitude. Today (and every day) we give thanks for the blessings we have received and are about to receive. We have been filled with gratitude for all of the prayers, love, and light we receive every day from all of you who are with us on this journey. We give thanks for the possibility of starting a family very soon. We give thanks for our beautiful home, our dear friends, our loving families, and jobs that provide us income to make our dream come true. The list goes on and on, really.
When I was growing up and starting to feel a little down or negative, my dad always reminded me to "make your gratitude list". It always worked! I have not been feeling down, but I realize that I am always making this list in my mind. I am thankful for all of the abundance in our lives; and for the roads we have traveled. It takes a lot to be able to say that because many have not been smooth and we have experienced great loss - but I am!
I reread some of the pages of a daily mandala journal that I made during the months that we were in the process of having a surrogate carry our child. I was taking hormones, she was taking hormones, she was far away and we knew it was probably our final effort to have a child that was biologically ours. We had lost two children already and I had almost died. This felt like our last chance. I made a drawing every day and then wrote about it. It was a way for me to be present in the process and to stay connected to what was happening when things sometimes felt so surreal. Reading through them recently, I saw the word "hope" over and over - on almost every page. It is no accident that we named our blog "hoping4baby". One of the paintings I did after a very disappointing loss is entitled "Window of Hope". Throughout all of the adversity in the past seven years, Tony and I both have remained hopeful that one day we will be a family. We decided that "hope" will part of our baby's name when he or she arrives because through our hope, our baby has been with us all this time.
We are thankful that God has always provided us with the hope we needed and we pray that soon our baby Hope will come to be with us and make us a family. We are grateful that our hope has already made us stronger. May God bless each of you with what you need and may you always live with hope in your heart.
With love and hope,
Tamara and Tony
