Small World

It's such a small world! During our preparations these past few days I've been making a bunch of crazy connections.

When we signed up with our new agency in Indiana I was excited that if we were matched through them I would get to meet some very lovely bloggers - Beautiful Day, All Things, and Andrew and Julie's Adoption Story!!  Plus my dear friend and sorority-college-roommate also lives in the area with her family and her four darling kids. What are the chances that all these people would be near by??

My former spiritual director - he is a Holy Cross priest - now lives back at Notre Dame and will be teaching in the fall. I emailed him because I thought it would be fun to see him. He told me that his uncle is a priest in the diocese we will be visiting AND he happens to be the chaplain at the hospital where the baby is being born. Are you kidding me??

Also, I probably have never mentioned this before but my mom was born in Indiana and lived there for the first 10 years of her life (before moving to California.) She still has a lot of extended family in the area and we visited quite a few times when I was growing up. She told me this weekend that her great-grandparents were from the SAME TOWN where the baby is being born.

Her great-grandfather built one of the covered bridges near by and apparently it is still standing. (My parents took a picture of the bridge during one of their last visits.) My mom's relatives are buried in the cemetary there and apparently the tombstone of her great-grandfather reads, "Here lies James ________ - the most popular guy in town" or something like that. Crazy!

One of my dear friends left a sweet comment on my last post.  She said, "Did you know Aug 20th is the feast of St. Bernard of Clairveaux (sp?) who wrote the Memorare? Maybe that'd be a good one to toss up for all these intentions! I will start!!! :)  I LOVE the Memorare and have prayed it regularly for years since one of my former spiritual directors suggested I pray it.  I am so grateful for Our Lady's intercession and I will be calling on her a lot during these next couple of weeks. 

I love making all of these connections. It helps me feel a little more peace that all of this is really happening. I texted with the birthmother today and it was nice to communicate with her. Although I get nervous about having this much contact with her because we haven't decided on what kind of open relationship we are going to have after the baby is born. I trust that we will work it out when we meet in person.

She asked if we had decided on a name yet and I told her that we had. It turns out that she has family connections to the name as well and that if she were going to name this baby, she was going to use the same initials!  I keep thanking the Lord for these small consolations.

We continue to make preparations around the house. People have been so kind to offer help. I have to keep telling myself one step at a time...