Switching gears

Hey sweet friends and family, 

We have decided to continue blogging but we have a new blogsite - http://osters.wordpress.com

I will print these pages and put them in a journal to wait for the day when this story is picked up again... 

for now, osta life will be blogged on this new site. 

the support from this site gave us great joy, thank you, 

Ashley and Stephen

And the delay is...

it has been so hard not to want to write everyday to let everyone know what was going on. thanks for the kind questions and pursuit. writing today is both a great joy and at the same time I have large sadness to be changing courses. I am three months pregnant. 

against all medical odds, here we are. and i know, you've heard the story before, i have too, it's just you never ever think you'll be the one given that story. and more than anything we are so so humbled to be reminded that God is indeed in control. Not our timing or medical advice or any effort on our part couldn't have written this story out. we are so moved by the Creator's design once again. 

we found out very early on and the last 8 weeks have been all over the board mostly staying in the fear and confusion phases. "God, i came to not only accept adoption as our journey but feel great passion for it. i have a huge space in my heart for little o. i have seen their face, i have traveled to Peru many times in my head and my bookshelves are ready with knowledge of this culture and country. this was good too. how and why now? what do you have for me to learn here? "

and at the same time trying to switch gears physically to create a safe growing environment for the baby inside me. to try to go grab the book of what to expect and learn all the eating rules. and be asked not to excercise. it was a huge transition with just enough complications to keep Stephen and I on our knees again. 

and here we are at 12 weeks and i feel you have spoken back to me so clearly. thank you. I feel one major work that you were doing was in our marriage. the infertility journey completely changed us and we will expand our family in September as a completely different set of parents that we would have ever been had we been able to get pregnant right away on our perfect timeline. our faith and team have been strengthened in trial. thank you. 

likewise even with the beginning of Sprout's life (this is what we call the new baby), we have been postured to humility and prayer more than ever in our lives. day and night we have been praying for Sprout to sprout and grow safely. i feel the last two months are marked by prayer and we have learned quickly of our need of surrender when it comes to beginning to know how to care for a child. 

God, you have molded us, moved us, changed us, broken us and we give all glory for the current story to you. we can only hope that it won't take fear or brokenness to keep our hearts knit closely to yours and to one another. 

Little O will forever be in my heart and I feel confident the adoption journey will return in our future. we may just be hoping for little o longer than we ever even imagined. 

For today, we are beside ourselves moving into hope for Sprout. thank you for this miracle. 

Hablas Espanol?

wow. it has been a while. many other pieces of life have picked up as we have entered the new year. there is never a day when i don't think of little o, there is just not always updates. we have experienced a delay to the process, and i'll keep you all up to date on that. 

the fun thing to share is that I enrolled at UNC Charlotte in the Spanish department! Btwn my suits and wrinkles, I didn't quite blend in as much as I was hoping to with the other students.  But they are nice to me, and my Profesora is AWESOME! She has the spirit of the Latin culture that I have seen so many times before. She speaks muy rapido and with full expressions of her hands and face. It is a conversational Spanish class so we are talking, watching movies, listening to conversations, and acting out small escenas. It is just what i need to immerse back into the language. I sure wish i had more friends to practice with b/c I would love to speak it as often as possible. I did have a mini dream the other day of having a Spanish morning at the osta dome and all the mini's in the neighborhood could come over for some comida and espanol! 

Always dreaming... 

graceful outsider

i know she meant well. I know he meant well. it's just never easy to prepare yourself for some conversations. the days aren't predictable where i may be a walking disaster seconds from exploding into tears. I have been so sobered by this journey in so many ways. i never realized how many conversations happen where the majority is the right or only voice, how many great, natural dialogues exclude consciousness of any marginalized group that may be present. 

maybe you are single or divorced, maybe poor or stressed, maybe you don't actually care about sports (i know this one is unbelievable) or politics, maybe you are infertile, maybe you aren't southern, BUT you must endure conversation after conversation that assume you fit into the majority, the happily married fertile family that cheers for Carolina and eats fried green tomatoes and grits and buys Vera Bradley bags in their stress free 3 figure salary family. 

what i have realized isn't that we shouldn't say nothing to make sure and offend no one. we shouldn't read up daily on the PC language. we shouldn't only have conversations that include the majority.  i have been so humbled to realize that i should be more aware and available to who is around me. I should be more bold and willing to look them in the eye too, to realize even if we are in the middle of a conversation on marriage, that i could risk asking the single person their thoughts too. they aren't invisible and have so much to contribute. they dream too. 

while volunteering in sunday school i was asked if had children. i answered no. moments later i said but we are actually in the adoption process now. the person then asked me, "by choice?" in a bit of confusion but also trust in their good nature, i answered, "yes, and we aren't able to have children." she then proceeded to tell me two stories, back to back of people she knew who adopted and then by a miracle got pregnant. I appreciated her stories and her kind heart to relate with me. i just felt oddly pricked and unknown as i seem to feel CONSTANTLY in this season. Because here's the deal - We choose to adopt. They will be our children. They are not less than or second best. We in fact as parents are not less than. I am not waiting to get pregnant, I am waiting to visit an orphanage in Peru and meet our child.  As weird as it may sound, i do not prefer the miracle of pregnancy at this present time, i prefer the miracle of adoption. 

I have two other examples from yesterday alone. you don't even want to hear them, you will feel bad for these persons. 

we can't know everything when we are talking to friends or strangers. we can't understand a million world views. we can't pretend to be in a circumstance. we also can't think the world is out to get us with some ignorant conversations or with the silence. we CAN look around us, we can RISK asking more questions, talking less, trying to recognize and appreciate difference. I have never been in an "out" group in my entire life and i want to be here gracefully. I am motivated to try this. 

cranky gym-goer

For reasons unblogable, I don't seem to like anyone right now. this includes me. i am cranky and have a lower level on the patience scale than normal. Alli told me to pray, i am considering this.. but it sounds difficult b/c this would mean stillness and clarity. i'm not interested in stillness right now. 

For example, this afternoon i went to the gym. i went a bit early hoping to miss the new years resolution wanna be's. i have a love hate relationship with them. i love that they are trying. i love that they set goals. I hate that this is causing me to wait longer and longer and longer for the machine i want to use. i hate that they are crowding the class that there is nowhere left to lay my mat. i especially dislike the little ones who set a new years goal to lose like 3 pounds and tone up. to double my pain they also wear the coordinated nike outfits. how rude. 

what i try to make sure of in my sweet competitive nature is that i cannot possibly be viewed as a newcomer. i cannot be a weight loss resolutioner. while my physique and my attire does me no favors to prove to these people that i have actually been a gym goer for 10 years, 4x a week minimal. i grabbed the class schedule as i always do at the beginning of the month and quickly realized that toting this around in the open send signs to the other peeved off regulars that i am not one of them. just to show them who's boss, i ignored the 30 min. rule on the machine. 

how this relates to o your wondering... well two things: one, there is little chance that you will not turn out pretty darn competitive b/c of your father and i. people may think he is nice and not as competitive, that is until they play one single game with him.  two, somedays, i don't know how to write, i just know that i am cranky and longing and it gets me nowhere fast. 

good design

From Mexico, Canada, St. Louis, Washington DC and Charlotte, the Wilson and Oster clans connected for the celebration of Christmas. 

Beginning in Blowing Rock with the Wilson clan, it was a wonderful time together of hiking, painting, praying, antiquing, strength-finding, dreaming, and feasting! Thanks mom and dad for all you did to make this a wonderful holiday!

Day after Christmas we headed to Roanoke for time with the Osters. It was a great time of resting, game playing, talking, cooking, and loving on our niece, Ella.  

They very thoughtfully surprised us with the two gifts pictured on the right. i can't even capture the flutter of my heart in opening both of these gifts. Anna and Sarah, the sisters, had the softest blanket embroidered with "Pequeno O" on it (gasp) and Tom and Sherry put together a frame with a picture of Peru drawn by Tom and it reads "I'm growing in my mommy and daddy's heart." It's our sonogram and i treasure it. 

PH and I took advantage of the time off work to dive into some more paperwork. We both wrote our autobiographies, completed the homestudy history, and are gathering together documents for the financial statements.  there were low and high moments in working on these documents, low moments include questions like: applicant's skin tone, build, weight, childcare plans, beliefs and values, budget sheets and spending habits. i don't know another expectant family that had to answer those questions. maybe they should have too also, who knows, but all we know is that each time we dive into the work, we have to change our mind frame and take this on as our journey to our child, we need to put our head down and go after them well, knowing that this is just a piece of the process for our family, for this fantastic God given journey of adoption. 

one morning of devotionals with my Wilson family, we discussed gratitude and reflected on what we may feel worthy of praise and thankfulness from the last year. Stephen encouraged us to think about PRAISE as a reflection on God's character and person to us and THANKFULNESS as the actual showing up in our life. with a bit of a trembling voice but an assured heart, i praised God that He is the GREAT designer, that He has created GREAT plans for us and others. I thanked God that Stephen and I now more than ever feel a part of that privileged plan when we were disrupted from our plan (graduate, get married, get great jobs, birth children, buy picket fence, so on and so forth) and led to adoption. I thank God for the reminder that He is control and of His DEEP love for His children, us and the orphans. I have never felt more lucky b/c with this disruption of my plans for the world, we have been gently led to God's plan for this one little family. 

Thank you God. We praise your GOOD design. We will take on this paperwork with lifted spirits and zealous hearts to unfold your plan. 

As you celebrate and usher in the New Year, I hope too you have a chance to reflect and praise. 

not yet

some mornings I wake up and i feel like I met you little o, like I spent the night talking to you. I love it. 

i have to admit that you feel so so far away, and i believe appropriately so. we have so many steps to accomplish to get to you and most of the times when people ask about you I immediately tense up because i just feel like i could spend all day making progress on paperwork to get closer to you. 

i am not there yet where i can dream past the paperwork. i am not there yet when i can allow my heart for one second to believe that this will all work out. i am not there yet when i would have to consider making a kids room. I am just not there yet. i can't predict when or how or gender or age or anything, i can't even imagine that the paperwork will be finished. i literally can't even imagine getting a referral. i can't even imagine meeting the social worker for homestudy! 

i so appreciate the generous hearts around me that are believing for me, i know i need you. Know that i am not there. 

even the very title of this blog scares me, i fall apart if i allow myself to hope too much for you. but everyday you are in my thoughts and graciously it seems at night i can safely hope for you in my dreams.