What hope looks like

So, I'd planned on writing my next post in June.

But now it's July.

It's midnight on July 2nd and I can't sleep... once again.

My last post, in November, was a declaration that Mateo wanted a sibling, and we'd decided to take a leap of faith and figure out next steps in growing our family. We just put it out there, with zero direction and zero answers, but we were ready to think about it, talk about it, and simply allow ourselves to imagine it.

Less than a month later, things started to actually take shape. 

To be more specific...

Someone had offered to carry our baby.



Whaaaaaaaa?!?!

I'll give you a minute.
Trust me. I know. It took me days to actually acknowledge and fully grasp what had been offered to us.

(It's a fun story.
I’ll tell it in the next post.)

But I'm writing here now because so much has happened since December.
2020 happened.

Initially everything actually moved really fast. December wasn't even over and we had already contacted doctors, lawyers, and made appointments with all the proper channels. Time flew, and by February we were all cleared and ready to go. Yeah. That quick. We just needed to decide on a date.

But then March happened.

It's funny, right? Just because God seemed to have flung the door of opportunity wide open, didn't mean we were going to actually walk through it, at least not right away. We have always understood that none of this, ultimately, is about our timing and so we've just been kind of standing there, patiently, holding the door open.

Collectively, the four of us decided we should wait.
There was just so much uncertainty and we wanted to make sure that when it happened we'd all feel a peace about it. In March, there was very little peace, at least not for me. There were a lot of unanswerable questions and we all agreed to just take some time, focus on our new work-from-home world and re-visit later. I am so grateful that we've all been on the same page and we know that this will happen when it's supposed to.

Which leads me to my next thought.


The world is freaking crazy.

And though that is a truth as old as time, I can't help but feel overwhelmed when I think about the future. What is the future we are ushering forward for our children? How are we going to navigate these waters in a world that seems so volatile? How will we raise these children to live, thrive, and find joy in a world filled with so much injustice, ignorance, and fear.

All I could come up with is,
We will Love them.

And we will not hide from them, these ugly truths of the world.
We will show them that they exist and give them the tools to stand up against them.

We will show them what compassion looks like.
We will show them what forgiveness looks like.
We will show them what empathy looks like.
We will show them what grace looks like.
We will show them what healing looks like.


And they, in turn, based merely on their existence in the world, will show us what hope looks like.

To find out more to our ongoing journey (and who our surrogate is...) click here: Let's go back...

This is a piece by one of my favorite creators,
Morgan Harper Nichols.
I recently purchased her book, All Along You Were Blooming 
and she just really has a way of connecting to people through her words and images. Her work has been a blessing.

Lots of Love

Erika:

Little Love Monster Tina's daughter made from the craft set my brother's family mailed out to the kids. THANK YOU SO MUCH!

So, February was a time for lots of celebrations.  The weekend before our 24 week OB visit was Valentine's Day.

I'll quickly say that at this point we're no longer going to have any more ultrasound fun time with baby unless necessary. When I asked our physician's assistant when we'd be able to see baby again, she said, "Well, I'm thinking in... June." Then we all laughed, but I also whined a little. I went from seeing baby every couple of weeks... to now not at all. Our PA let us know that really, "Less is more," and it's better that we don't have to do any more ultrasounds because it means things are moving along smoothly and normally. So, we're grateful for that.

On Valentine's Day, none of us had any plans, so we decided to do a double date with Tina and her husband. He'd heard of this great spot called Beer Belly in Korea Town and I am SO glad we went. Between the 4 of us we ordered like seven different items... all seven were cheesy and delicious. Here's just a glimpse...

These are the duck fat fries, the grilled cheese, and the mac n cheese. We also got a humongous quesadilla, wings, and another order of french fries.

And let me also say, we did this the right way. Family style. We each ordered whatever our little hearts desired and then shared everything.... Baby ate really well that night. We were all stuffed to the brim and we rolled out of Beer Belly with full bellies and a growing baby belly.

Somehow, we found room for one more stop and we went to Urth for some delicious Chai and desserts. Super cute spot and not too far from where we were. 

We sat out on the patio and talked about our pasts and about parenting and it was honestly such a great time. Not sure how we lucked out, but God has definitely blessed us through this new found friendship through food and family. :)

We tried going to the Griffith on Valentine's Day....  Don't ever do that. We almost made it though!

And finally... 2 weeks later... we finally introduced Tina to the Grandparents! Our moms had been waiting for this day, since the day I sent them our first selfie at transfer! The whole day was fantastic. 

My dad an Ricky mostly watched AFV while we all chatted and caught up.
Luis played tetherball (or "run from the tetherball") with the kids.

You can't even imagine how happy the grandmas were. Like through the roof. 
We all sat around eating taquitos and sopes (gorditas) and talked about guesses about baby's gender. Still no clue! 
...Except for Abuelita Evelia... She has no doubt in her mind.

Their human jungle gym. Always the best time.

Epic Chocoflan. It's like magic. Tina has forever changed our worlds in more ways than one.

And even though we don't see this one enough... I know she's excited to be an auntie.
We were so happy to have her there for this.

Love. Para siempre.

I also am IN LOVE with this clip from "Envy." A movie I've actually never seen, but this literally happened with the kids as soon as we announced it was "Chocoflan Time." Arlene's boyfriend saw everyone's excitement over flan and was like... hold up... you guys gotta see this....

"Baby... I am so happy all of your abuelos got to spend some time with you! They cannot contain all of their excitement! I hope you were able to hear how excited your grandmas are. I also hope you heard Papa yell out the word, "Perro!" for the first time! Poh had snuck into the house.... I also hope you heard your Abuelo say a prayer for you. We are already so aware of the huge blessing you are.

 And guess what! I even got to feel you move around a little bit!  It was the first time ever. You swirled around and did a cute little roll. I'm sure you felt all of the belly rubs and the love and all of the joy that was surrounding you that night. 

P.S. I hope you like flan." 
---excerpt from a letter to our baby