Different Trips to the Same Place

by Diane Armitage from April 21, 1995 Dear Abby Column

Deciding to have a baby is like planning a trip to Australia. You've heard it's a wonderful place, you've read many guide books and feel certain you're ready to go. Everyone you know has traveled there by plane. They say it can be a turbulent flight with occasional rough landings, but you can look forward to being pampered on the trip.

So you go to the airport and ask the ticket agent for a ticket to Australia. All around you, excited people are boarding planes for Australia. It seems there is no seat for you; you'll have to wait for the next flight. Impatient, but anticipating a wonderful trip, you wait-and wait-and wait. Flights to Australia continue to come and go. People say silly things like, "Relax. You'll get on a flight soon." Other people actually get on a plane and then cancel their trip, to which you cry, "It's not fair!"

After a long time the ticket agent tells you, "I'm sorry, we're not going to be able to get you on a plane to Australia. Perhaps you should think about going by boat."

"By BOAT!" you say. "Going by boat will take a very long time and it costs a great deal of money. I really had my heart set on going by plane." So you go home and think about not going to Australia at all. You wonder if Australia will be as beautiful if you approach it by sea rather than air. But you have long dreamed of this wonderful place, and finally you decide to travel by boat.

It is a long trip, many months over many rough seas. No one pampers you. You wonder if you will ever see Australia. Meanwhile, your friends have flown back and forth to Australia two or three more times, marveling about each trip.

Then one glorious day, the boat docks in Australia. It is more exquisite than you ever imagined, and the beauty is magnified by your long days at sea. You have made many wonderful friends during your voyage, and you find yourself comparing stories with other who also traveled by sea rather then by air.

People continue to fly to Australia as often as they like, but you are about to travel only once, perhaps twice. Some say things like, "Oh, be glad you didn't fly. My flight was horrible; traveling by sea is so easy."

You will always wonder what it would have been like to fly to Australia. Still, you know God blessed you with a special appreciation of Australia, and the beauty of Australia is not in the way you get there, but in the place itself.

And off we go...

Well it's official! Chad and I began the long journey to become adoptive parents! It started many weeks ago when we attended an orientation through LDS Family Services. We had prayed and thought long and hard about the decision and decided it was the right path for us. We knew that there were going to be lots and lots of challenges involved in it, including the cost, but we know that we will be able to overcome them and get through them. We turned in all of our paperwork and were eager to get started. Weeks went by and we finally got a call from our caseworker! Today we had our first intake appointment, put down our homestudy payment and off we go! There's more paperwork, more interviews, and tons more steps involved, but we're ready for the challenge. Our caseworker was wonderful to make such an effort this week to fit us in or else we would have to wait a few more months to complete our adoption training courses, which we start this weekend.

Words can't express how grateful I am for the help and support that we have gotten from our friends and family. We will forever be indebted to you and thank you for your words of kindness and encouragement.

Our New Little Project

Well as many may know, and I guess some may not, Chad and I have been looking into adoption to help us start up our family since the traditional way hasn't seemed to be working out so well for us. We've already done the initial paperwork and during orientation, it was suggested that we start up our own "adoption" blog. I'm hoping to find some time in the near future to start this up, but since I am sometimes lacking when it comes to creativity, I need some ideas on names and other fun ideas. I haven't seen any other adoption blogs and I don't know if I should just go ahead and use our current blog for it, so any ideas would be helpful!

My Total Meltdown Courtesy of Hollywood

Well I realized that I haven't really blogged in a while, so I thought I would share this funny little story. Plus, I'm absolutely bored at work and can't write anymore court reports, service plans, and assessments or I'm going to go crazy! A couple weeks ago Chad and I thought that it might be fun to head to a movie just for the heck of it. After assessing what was out, we voted to go and see the new Nicholas Cage movie, Knowing.

I must say that I really enjoyed the movie, except for the part where it sent me into a major freak out like I haven't had in a while. The next couple days were spent with me analyzing and comparing parts of the movie to references to the last days, the plan of slavation, etc. I decided that this was how it was going to happen (I won't ruin it for anyone who hasn't seen it!) and I was not even slightly prepared. This then led into my obsessivness with working on our food storage, 72-hour kits, and all that good stuff. In the last few weeks I have searched the Provident Living website probably more then most people do in a year, researched what we need to get in order to live for a year, figured out what I should be doing to have a three month supply, signed up for an Enrichment activity to make four 72-hour kits (2 for each car!), gone through my already existing 72-hour kit, counted and gone through our existing food storage, arranged with a coworker to go to the canary to work on my year supply, talked to everyone at work about my new hobby, considered getting a handgun to defend my supply in the event that people go crazy (which if anyone knows, I have always been WAY against owning a gun), and even called my mom to tell her that all I want for next Christmas and my birthday is anything related to food storage particulary one of those big Shelfreliance can shelves and a fire/water proof safe!

So I've turned into a crazy person, but I figure that at least it's something productive! I was talking to my supervisor/friend at work about it and he commented that he thought it was funny that all the Ensign articles, lessons at church, and direct words from the prophet to work on food storage and become prepared have no impact on me. But I see some totally fictional Hollywood flick and I'm sent into some major panic about getting prepared for the worst. Oh well.

Provident Living -My new favorite link!

That Can't Be Good...

Thanks Melissa for reminding me that I should not be a parent or care for my parents when they turn 90! Guess it's up to my sister!


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Rilee's Favorite Trick

Well we've all seen what a character our dear chunky Rilee is, but she's taken it even further now! I have this old blanket that my grandma gave to me like a million years ago that I still have around and still love. A while back the binding started coming off of it. One day a couple months ago, I pulled it out and Rilee showed us her new trick! She started playing tug of war with it! We're starting to think she's part dog or something.

Fight FOCA

Hey guys, I get into politics occasionally, but never really voice my opinion about things too often. I saw this on Jayme's blog (I hope Jayme doesn't mind that I cut and paste her blog entry!!!) and thought I would pass it along. This has always been a major issue for me and after really reading up about exactly what partial birth abortions are, I can't help but want to stand up for what I believe in on this subject. I had no idea that there was a petition out there that you could sign to help support the fight against FOCA.

So here is the post from Jayme's blog:
I am by no means a one issue voter. However, abortion is a huge issue for me and especially with the extreme radical views that our new president has on abortion, I feel the need to speak out. Obama has stated to Planned Parenthood that, "The first thing I’d do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That’s the first thing I’d do."

What is the Freedom of Choice Act? It basically eliminates EVERY restriction on abortion.

1. Partial-birth abortion will now be legal.

2. Parental consent laws for minors will no longer be in effect. Although a seventeen-year-old girl has to have her parents present in order to get acne medicine, a thirteen-year-old can get an abortion without her parents knowing.

3. Laws prohibiting public funding of abortion will be struck down. The American taxpayer will now have to fund something many of us consider to be murder.

4. Laws requiring women to be shown information about (including being shown ultrasounds) and alternatives to abortion will be struck down. Think about any other surgery that's performed: you are bombarded with information. And yet, in one of the most invasive medical procedures, women would be kept ignorant of the facts.

5. Laws allowing medical staff and hospitals to refuse to perform abortion on grounds of conscience will be struck down. (Where's the freedom of choice here?)

6. Laws prohibiting medical personnel other than licensed physicians from performing abortions would be invalidated because they may "interfere with" access to abortion. (Talk about protection for women!)

7. Government agencies and officials are prohibited from taking any action that would "discriminate against the exercise of" the FOCA-created legal rights, with respect to any "benefits, facilities, services, or information," would leave government officials open to lawsuits for anything that anybody thought "discriminate(s)" against abortion.

Basically, people that are PRO LIFE are given NO CHOICE in the matter of abortion. Catholic hospitals have threatened to close down if this passes because they will refuse to do abortions and Obama does not want them to have that CHOICE. Obama already took away our choice to use our taxes to fund abortions.

SO...what can we do? Here is a website to sign a petition against FOCA.
Fight Foca Petition- Click and sign

The better thing to do, in my opinion, is to email your Congressman to make sure that this bill never even gets out of Congress and to Obama's desk. http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/


Thanks Jayme for your thoughts and I hope that you don't mind me sharing with my blog viewers!