adoption and some clarificiation :)

A couple days ago, our amazing adoption consultant, Carlee (www.fathersheartadoptions.wordpress.com) , started a group that would be an interactive place where former and current clients of hers could talk, share, rejoice, and support one another in their adoption journeys ... because adoption is SUCH A JOURNEY, and having support is absolutely invaluable!!! She asked if former clients could share their adoption blogs with the group.  And yes, this is our adoption blog, but it has also become a blog about our sweet daughter, Carsyn Grace, and all things family.  So if you pulled up this blog expecting to see our adoption story, it is there :) Just scroll down to the beginning of the blog (I think it started July/Aug 2011), and that is where we start our story of bringing Isaiah home.

Regardless of whether you pulled up this blog to know more about adoption or more about Carsyns story, and whether we actually know you or not, doesn't really matter ... we want to share our life with others, we want to share our story with others, because we believe hope and faith and love are contagious and are meant to be shared.  So, please feel free to contact us if you have any questions about adoption, or spina-bifida, or raising a child that has unique special needs, or if you are dealing with any of that or know someone who is and you just need some encouragement.  Support and encouragement gives such strength and is so important ... we know this well! My email is grubb.jen@gmail.com.

If you're new to the blog and don't really know us, here is our brief family summary ...
Our family is so awesome ;) haha ... i know i'm a little biased, but really, I am so in love with my family and we have so much fun together.  Our kids are so amazing.  We have 3 and they are all gorgeous and all so very different in looks and personalities ...

We have one loud -incredibly loud actually- active, strong, beautiful 4yr old, Riley Elisabeth, who is the most amazing big sister in the world.  Ugh - i just have no words for her ... she is so special.  She is so strong, and so sweet.  Her heart is huge.  Everything she does, she does in a big way ... and she loves like crazy.  She loves Jesus, she loves her family, she loves her friends ... she even loves strangers ... she just knows how to love so good. She is a rock and such a gift.

Then we have our sweet, gorgeous Carsyn Grace. Read the blog and look at the video if you want to know more about her...shes a gift from God and her birth radically changed our lives in the most amazing ways.  She touches a place in my heart that I never even knew existed and its a place that no one else could ever touch ... there is something so very deep about the emotion that she brings me ... what a gift she is .. what joy her life brings us.

And then, our little stud, Isaiah Michael.  What an amazing story of Gods love he is.  Read the posts from earlier in the blog to see how God brought him to us.  Isaiah is a stud ... he rolled over before he was 3 months, his little body is like one big ball of muscle ... its crazy ... (i brag about him as if he has my genes or something ;) haha) ... but he also has a smile that lights up the world.  He is half hispanic, half african-american, and 100% made in the image of God.  He is so loved and so special and brings such joy to our family.

Our family doesn't look like most, and to us, thats the coolest thing in the world.  Our children are so unique, so different, so awesome ... we are blessed and life with Jesus is so fun ....

So, here is our blog about all things adoption, spina-bifida, family, love and Jesus.  We pray it brings HOPE to you, wherever you are.

And this is our newest addition ... Isaiah Michael ... what a stud he already is huh?!? :)

the video testimony ...

Just figured out how to add the video directly to blog rather than having just the link posted ...

this should make it easier to find ....

i know, i know, i'm a little slow with the computer stuff ;)

carsyn grace

Feb.18, 2012 I walked into Carsyns bedroom to get her from a nap, and when I opened the door I saw Carsyn was standing in her crib.  JOY JOY JOY ... overwhelming joy ... overwhelming emotion.  I laughed, I cried, I jumped up and down.  She smiled her huge, gorgeous, amazing smile.  We rejoiced.  We celebrated.  And we are still celebrating.  She stood on her own, without braces, unprompted by anyone.  She stood up.  It still takes my breath away every time I think about it.

If you don't know Carsyn or her story, you might not understand the hugeness of this moment.

 When I was about 18wks pregnant, we found out that she had spina bifida.  The ultrasound showed an opening in her back, fluid accumulated around her brain and spine, and her spine was actually crooked.  We were told that she would be wheelchair bound and have a very rough road ahead ... that is, if we wanted to continue the pregnancy.  Of course, ending her life was never ever an option, so doctors tried to prepare us for what life would be like when she was born.  We knew our lives had forever changed that day when we got this news, but we didn't know exactly how.  No one can every prepare you for that.  But truth is, even in the darkness of that moment, when we saw the ultrasound, when we heard the news ... even in the despair of that moment, we felt hope rise.  We felt strength from a place deep within.  Isaiah 50:7 began to well up within me,

'Therefore, I have set my face like flint, and I know i will not be put to shame' ...

And that is the stance we took from that day forward.  Focusing on the promises of God, the truth of God, the goodness of God ... setting our sights on things above, not on things of the earth.  Our faces set like flint ... like a stone ... set, hooked, holding on to the promises of God.  Holding on to the fact that He is good.  Choosing to hold on to His goodness without wavering.

I am not going to lie, this was not easy.  And there were times my mind went crazy and my heart felt broken in a million pieces.  Nights that Jeremy and I just held hands in bed and spoke out loud truths like, 'God you are good... We trust you God ... We give you Carsyn ... We love you God' ... truths that we knew in our heart were true, but ones that our heads were having a hard time really catching a hold of in that moment.  Giving Him Carsyn, surrendering her life to Him ... which felt so hard to do sometimes ... most of the time really.  We had to talk ourselves into faith over and over.  We had to make a decision to speak out loud what we knew to be true rather than allow ourselves to dwell on the present reality that filled our every moment.  We had to choose faith or fear ... and we decided to chose faith until fear died.

For the last four months of my pregnancy, we knew her diagnosis ... with every ultrasound, we walked into the room holding hands, committed to believing in what we did not see more than what we did.  I would lie on the table and they would scan my belly ... our sweet Carsyn on the screen ... they would show how her legs had not moved since the last time, they would show that opening in her back again ... but we kept our minds on the things of God.  I kept a picture in my mind of her dancing with angels, a picture of her running, a picture of her smile ... mental pictures God had given me, that I fed myself on.

Again, this was not easy ... not at all.  But a decision had been made, and our faces were set like flint. And there were times where he struggled more than I with this, and times where I struggled more than him ... but we held each other, and God held us ... our family, our marriage, our lives, deeply impacted and strengthened in the most amazing way.

Over these four months we learned to trust Him ... really trust Him.  We learned to believe in His goodness.  We could be torn apart because of the stress and pain of the situation, or we could be knit together by the hand of God.  We could cry about what this pregnancy was not, what they said her life would not be, or we could rejoice about what God was doing in our lives and would do in hers.  We expected God to show up.  Every day, every night, we expected God to hold us.  We expected it.  We could not breathe without him, so we expected Him.  We expected miracles.  We still do.

And the night I went into labor, there was this amazing peace over both of us.  It could have been a day of extreme stress ... knowing what we had been told about our baby, but not knowing what exactly was going to come.  But, really, there wasn't stress ... there was peace, there was joy ... we were so covered by the presence of God.  His presence was so thick around us.  It was so special.  We expected Him that day, and of course He was there.

She was born with no fluid buildup around her brain or spine.  Her brain and her spine were perfect.  The doctors were surprised and amazed with how she was born, because it was not what the ultrasound had shown.  We weren't surprised though ... God had told us her brain and spine would be born perfect and we expected it.

There was a small hole about the size of a quarter in the base of her back which needed to be closed up surgically.  I was able to hold her for about a minute before they took her to the NICU.  The next day she had surgery to close that hole.  The following week she had a shunt placed in her head because after her back was closed, fluid slowly began to accumulate, and she needed a shunt to keep it drained.  She was in the NICU for 5wks.

And her first 21months of life have not been like most.  She has overcome things that most never will have to overcome.  And because of this, we have had the privilege of experiencing celebration in so many little things that we would have taken for granted had it not been for Carsyn.  We have been honored by God with the opportunity to experience joy at a level that so many will never even know.  And there has been so much beauty birthed out of the struggles.  So much celebration.  So much joy.  The little things are so big.  

So, when I walked into Carsyns room on Feb.18, and she was standing in her crib waiting for me, I was overwhelmed by Gods goodness ... a joy filled me that cannot be described.  Hope was renewed, and I was strengthened.  And what Jeremy and I recognized that day is that the joy that we feel, the hope the we hold, the strength that we carry because of Carsyns life, needs to be given to others.  We want to share what her life has given us.  

Hope is contagious.  And hope inspires.  It gives life, it gives joy.  And our prayer is that her story gives hope.  That it inspires you to see God in all things.  That it causes you to live a life of celebration in the smallest things, even in the midst of hardship.  That it encourages you to make the decision to rejoice in the midst of the unknown ... when life is hard and nothing seems to make sense.  And that you choose to live abundantly as a victor, not as a victim.  Knowing that your life is meant to be beautiful and celebrated, and that you are here to give hope to others and to let your light shine bright.

And so we made this short video of pictures that chronicle the victories she has had already in her first 21 months of life.  We want to share with you this celebration, this joy, this hope that we have.  He is so good and we are so blessed.  Thank you for your continued prayers for our sweet Carsyn ... we know we will see her dancing on her own two feet soon ... God told us she would dance, He is faithful, and we expect it.

click on this link to watch the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUOm7okf7CQ&context=C37c0f47ADOEgsToPDskK_Km3Yj8soHovrzqB90Gi5

'Your faith being tested produces endurance. Let endurance have its perfect results so that you may be complete. The whole point of a trial is to give you something, not take anything away from you. It is to advance you and add something to you. Thats why you should be joyful, because God allows in His wisdom what He could easily prevent by His power.'

-graham cooke