Adoption Terms

I wanted to post this chart of Negative and Preferred Terms to use when talking about adoption. Many people tend to use the wrong terminology so I wanted to share the "right way" to say things. The one that probably bothers me the most is when people say "gave up." That is Wrong, wrong, wrong! To "give up" is saying the birth moms don't want their children. In all actuality they DO want their babies very much...but they also want what's best and it's a very hard decision.

Negative Terms	Preferred Terms
Gave up her child for adoption	Placed her child for adoption
Real parent; natural parent	Birth parent, biological parent
Adoptive parent	Parent
His adopted child	His child
Illegitimate	Born to unmarried parents
Adoptee	Child who was adopted
To keep	To parent
Adoptable child; available child	Waiting child
Foreign adoption	International adoption
Track down parents	Search
Unwanted child	Child placed for adoption
Is adopted	Was adopted

Serve Me Up Some Humble Pie

Last Tuesday, the 17th, I bid adieu to my always annoying...tonsils. They have bothered me for years and years, but it seemed that every time I thought about getting them out, something else would come up. Well, the time finally came that I could stand them NO more. I scheduled the date, prepared my clients, and prepared myself...so I thought.
The doctor warned me it would be a pretty painful thing to go through and that I would have to take AT LEAST two weeks off work. I did as he said, but in my head I thought, "wow, I'm going to be pretty bored that last week."

It just so happened that Gregg's coworker got hers taken out a couple weeks before me. Her complaints were never ending, but Gregg and his manager assured me she was weak and that I am much tougher. It shouldn't be so bad for me. I agreed, because I deal with pain every day due to my endometriosis. I believed I was strong. I did have two surgeries just last year and they seemed simple enough. Bring on the pain! I am STRONG! Well, ladies and gentlemen, this is where the humble pie comes in....

OUCH FRIGGITY OUCH!!!! What the heck did they do to my MOUTH?! I knew I was in trouble when I woke up from surgery and already, I was in immense pain. I still tried to be strong and told the nurse it was a three on the pain scale. She supposedly gave me some morphine through my IV, but I felt nothing. She gave me a little more and still nothing...maybe, my IV was just poked through skin not the vein it was suppose to be, who knows? So after that she wheeled me through to the recovery area where Gregg was suppposed to meet me. The pain grew to a ten and I kept trying to tell the new nurse how much pain I was in, but something was wrong with their computers so she was busy on the phone taking care of that. After asking me twice who was here to get me, she finally went and got Gregg, which happend to be an hour after they told him they would come get him. When she finally listened that my pain was at a ten, she said "well, lets get you home then so you can take some painkillers." Um, HELLO!? Can't you shoot me up with some more of that morphine? I thought the first day of surgery was suppose to be painless. Man, was I wrong! It took until the middle of the night for the medicine to catch up to my pain.

The next few days were a blob of pain. I remember looking in my mouth and it looked like someone shot mildew all over it. My Uvula was GINORMOUS. It appeared like something out of a horror movie. Thankfully, my mom and dad came to take care of me after Gregg went back to work. I wasn't eating or drinking enough and taking the whole painkiller was too much for me. I started losing it. I kept seeing black and green dots and when I tried to write to my mom I couldn't remember how to spell anything. I would think of a word and spell a completely different one. Oh, and I almost passed out in the shower. My mom called the Dr. and they got me some nausea medicine and she forced me to drink even though it was excruciating. I later wrote Gregg and note saying, "Amy*(his co-worker), was not over exaggerating."

I'm slowly recovering as of right now. I'm not talking very well quite yet, hence the long post, but I just had to laugh at myself that I thought I was so tough! I wanted to make home made rolls for Thanksgiving and that's NOT happening. I even had tickets to see New Moon on opening night and thought for sure with enough drugs I could go. I completely underestimated the effects a tonsillectomy would have on me. Who knew two little things could cause so much grief?

Has there ever been a time in your life you've had to have some bitter Humble Pie?

November IS...

Most of you know (maybe not everyone) that Gregg and I are awaiting our approval to be parents through adoption. We are SO excited! November is National Adoption Month and we wanted to make everyone aware. Please pray for those hoping to adopt, but most importantly for Birth Mothers. They are truly AMAZING!

New Blog!

I decided to make a blog for just our photography because: First of all, I'm a nerd...Second of all, I wanted to make the pictures bigger so the quality shined through better. Oh, and I'm a huge nerd and can't get enough. Oh wait, I think I already said that. So feel free to check it any time! It will not be private.

*just click on the button

Fall fotos

What a great time of year to take photos! We weren't quite used to the sun going down so fast, so we lost a lot of our light before we were tired of taking pictures with Jossy. It made a couple of the photos a little grainy, but she still looks like a doll.

I love this pic of Makadee running on Halloween. I have a ton of other photos from that night with her, but I can't get them to upload. She posed like a champ for me.

Happie Halloweenie

Another successful year of Halloween has come and gone. As you can see Gregg is Spock from Star Trek and I'm his girlfriend?. I'm not really sure what I was other than someone from Star Trek. Although, when my niece Kenzie asked me she wouldn't settle for that answer, so I told her I was Zoe. The rest of the night she kept running to us yelling "pock, pock, oee!" Cute girl!