Thankful for infertility???

It is fitting to be talking about being thankful since this week is Thanksgiving week! I could go on for a very long time about all the blessings we have in our life, but I will try to keep it somewhat brief. Bryan and I are so thankful for our amazing friends and family, the opportunity to make a difference in peoples lives in the careers we have chosen in the medical field. We are thankful for the opportunity to have been able to be brave enough to pick up and start over in a whole new place, Hawaii has been such a healing and such an inspiration for our lives and has impacted in ways we never thought imaginable. Of course I am not going to give Hawaii all the credit in this..obviously the one who's master plan this was all along should get all the credit! We are thankful for God's love and his master plan. After years of hurting God has finally brought us to a place of happiness & acceptance. We are at a point now where we are thankful, yes THANKFUL for our infertility. If it wasn't for the struggle we wouldn't be where we are today, stronger in our relationship with each other, stronger in our relationship with friends & family, and stronger in our relationship with God. Ultimately God knew we needed all this before he offered us the opportunity for adoption. He was preparing our hearts for a stronger love than we ever thought imaginable. Crazy how you can love something/someone you haven't even met yet. God has placed this on our hearts and we could not be more thankful. 

When we were home this past October we got the opportunity to see many friends and family! We got to enjoy the beautiful crisp, fall weather that we don't get in Hawaii! We got the opportunity to have a professional photo shoot with some of my favorite people, Scott & Jen from Midwest LifeShots Photography. All the pictures on this post are done by them!! Amazing!! Scott, Jen, & their family have such a special place in our hearts as we have been able to be present in each other's lives for very special moments. I got to be a part of the birth of 2 of their children while getting the opportunity to be their Labor & Delivery nurse. They were there for me during some very dark times and took me under their wing and taught me everything photography which I will be forever grateful for! I'm a firm believer that God places people in our lives for very specific reasons, and for that I am so thankful!!

After looking at all these photos, I have such a deeper appreciation for a photo. It freezes that moment in time, makes you feel like when you look back at it that you are still there! When I look at all the pictures of Bryan & I, I feel so crazy grateful that God gave me Bryan. Bryan has been my rock and he truly cares. He has such a big heart and when I see the way he looks at me, it makes me want to cry. That deep of love I know is hard to find and I feel so blessed to have married my best friend and I get to spend the rest of my life with him. This journey has made us realize the importance of leaning on each other. It taught us to communicate, forgive, love, support, and hope. I am so thankful for Bryan <3

We were able to check another thing off our adoption list as we turned in the 100+photos our agency needed and we sent in responses to many questions that they compile and put together a paper profile for us and it will be another form of advertising to birth mothers. We haven't gone "active" with our profile yet, we are hoping by this summer. We got our video profile back and love it, we will share that once we are active! Next steps are to continue working hard and saving money. Our next thing to check off our list is the home study which we plan on tackling this January! Thanks to everyone for their support and love!! We feel so blessed for all of you as well!!

Our puzzle is still a work in progress! Let us know if you want to sponsor a piece and we will put your name on it!! More info in the HONU adoption puzzle fundraiser post! 

Hope you all have a blessed Thanksgiving!

Aloha & love from our family to yours,

Bryan & Jen

Hurry up and wait

I am sure everyone has done a lot of this at some point in their lives. "Hurry up and wait". It is so easy to always look towards the future at what we want and dwell on that, but whats important we have found, is to dwell on the now! God has so many wonderful things that he is providing right now. 

Waiting to grow our family has been one of the most frustrating and most amazing experiences of our lives. On one hand it has been a very draining, emotional, and heart wrenching experience when you have a 4 bedroom 2 bath home & an SUV that you have prepared for kids and you can't fill it. We tried with all our might and it just wasn't happening. Letting go of that anger and control took time, it took healing. 

On the other hand this whole experience led us to a beautiful island that we never thought was possible to move to. We laughed and joked that we would move to Hawaii after our first 2014 vacation and then as the heartbreak continued we thought, why not? If God wants to stop us from up and leaving everything he will. AND he didn't and it has been such an amazing and positive experience. It led us to what we are going through now, the adoption process. Hawaii led us to healing and led us to grow stronger in our faith, which obviously was all apart of God's plan. It has been so comforting knowing God is in control and I don't have to plan as much as before. He will choose the child that is meant to be with us and all we have to do is love him/her :)

We know the meaning now of Let Go and Let God. Its crazy, we look back and see the dark place we were in and to be on the other side of that now, being able to look back and be thankful is so relieving. We have been able to talk to others going through similar situations and reassure them that God is still with them, even though its hard to see in the thick of things.We would not wish infertility heartbreak on anyone, if you are going through this or have in the past I pray for you, that God leads you to a place of healing and gives you hope. 

While we "hurry up and wait" I recently joined a joyful devotions group and I started a 6 week devotional series called "In the wait". Could not be more fitting! So I am excited to learn more about how God works through us in the wait!

So currently we have reviewed the Adoption video profile that we took a bunch of clips and interviews for and the company at our adoption agency put it all together for us! So we can check that off our list. It turned out so nice and brought tears to our eyes. We can't share it just yet, not until we "go active" and are open to birth mothers seeing our profile which probably won't be till early summer, but again its not my plan so we will see how it goes!

We are just wrapping up our online & paper profile and then starting after the new year we will get our home study started!! In the mean time we are both working hard full time at our jobs and continuing to fundraise :)

If you would like to contribute, there is still time :) The HONU adoption puzzle fundraiser is still growing and in need of sponsored pieces! Check out our blog post HONU adoption puzzle fundraiser to learn more about the meaning of the puzzle!!

You can click donate on the upper right hand corner of our blog or just email me at jkguderian@gmail.com for our our address :)

We appreciate all the love & support thus far. God is so good!

Aloha & love from our family to yours!

P.S. if anyone knows someone who can paint the top picture above, I would be forever grateful! It has so much unspoken meaning, for a Honu to be bringing a baby home to us. I want to hang it up in the nursery! :)