::Patience is the Art of Hoping::

Here's some new updates regarding our adoption process:

1.  Our home study is FINALLY notarized and ready for us to apply some adoption grants! (The hold up was our DC clearances.... if only we didn't live all in so many different states, this process would have gone by quicker!)

2. One of the two boys that we earlier mentioned turned out to be not a good fit for us. They discovered that he wasn't deaf, just non-responsive due to some severe neurological issue. We are still waiting on the first boy with PFO (condition where a hole in his heart has not closed) to receive his file, but there are other families who may be interested in him as well... we simply cannot have high hopes for this one. 

3. Our agency just found a little girl who is deaf-- but we received inadequate information on her. All we know is that she has GDD (global development delay) and was severely malnourished, too.  She is two years old. We will get her file within a week to see if she is a good fit for our family.

4. We received a surprising anonymous donation from Network for Good (some kind of online fundraiser) towards our adoption! Thank you to those who generously donated!! <3 

5. We also want to sincerely give thanks to Adobe for their donation (with awesome help from Uncle Larry!) It is exciting to see our adoption funds grow towards helping us bring our child(ren) home!

6. We will have two upcoming fundraisers later in the spring: Noonday Collection (gorgeous handmade items!) and another tee-shirt drive (custom designed by Jennifer Cavalcanti). We will keep you posted. The Noonday Collection fundraiser will start in late April. 

7. Our puzzle fundraiser's current status: 188 pieces out of 500! :) We love how this is assembled together with everyone else who donated as a part of our adoption story! You can contribute by donating $10 per piece via AdoptTogether.org/AdoptingASipek.

188 out of 500!

Over our recent spring break, we decided to start transforming our current guestroom to our future child(ren)'s room. We added some floating shelves to display some art/donations on the wall and also bought a floating picture frame for our fundraising puzzle once it is filled! The room is slowly coming in together. We painted one accent wall a "chilly mint" and it turned out looking great! There are a few more things that need to be done for the room. We plan to keep the room as gender neutral as possible. This is such a fun project for us!

A work in progress!

We will continue to keep you updated with our adoption progress. It definitely has been a long ride for us. Patience is hard. Sometimes, no matter how much you want things to happen, all you can do is wait. And usually, waiting is the hardest part. It's so true.

Off we go to apply some adoption grants!  If you know of anyone who has applied for adoption grants or has some advice/direction for us, we would love to hear from you!

Oxox,

Brian & Brooke

::Subsidy Shades Fundraiser::

Yay! This is a nice surprise! We are one of the featured families for adoption on www.SubShades.com Subsidy Shades to gather funds towards our adoption for two weeks! 100% of proceeds from all purchases through Subsidy Shades will be donated towards our adoption! The last day for this fundraiser will be on April 2, 2014. They have a variety of sunglasses, watches, and love knots. You can click on "Make a Difference" and view all the items.

www.subshades.com

Please be sure to put down "SIPEK FAMILY" in the "Note to Seller" bar when checking out for your purchases to assure that we receive the funds! Thank you in advance for being a part of our future child's story! We appreciate it very much.

Much love, 

Brooke & Brian

P.S. We will be sharing some new updates really soon!

::National Endometriosis Awareness Month::

March is National Endometriosis Awareness Month. 

It's time to raise awareness about this invisible disease: endometriosis. Approximately 176 million women are affected by this disease.. it's the same amount of women who suffer from diabetes as they do endometriosis!? But only 20% of the public have heard of endometriosis compared to 80% for diabetes! Unbelievable. I will be sharing with a lot of different information regarding endometriosis in this post.

 

After researching more about endometriosis (fyi, I am constantly learning a lot of new things about endo everyday!), I learned there are a lot of celebrities who are diagnosed with endometrosis such as Julianne Hough (dancer from Dancing with the Stars), Jillian Michaels (Biggest Loser trainer), Neve Campbell, Celine Dion, Pamela Lee Anderson, Bethenny Frankel (reality star from Real Housewives of NYC), Tia Mowry (actress), Whoopi Goldberg, Khole Kardashian, and many more... Even Hillary Clinton. Endometriosis is shockingly prevalent today with insufficient medical research about it. I mean, 1 in 10 has it (actually, it's now statistically increasing to 1 in 8).

Ok, I'm not alone. There are a lot of women out there who are battling endo everyday and the silence needs to be broken. It's ok to share and speak up about it. I'm grateful for the power of social media because it really helps me to get connected with other endo fighters by reading their stories and experiences (that I could relate to!)....and sharing different opinions on pain-reducing solutions. The social media also (instagram, twitter, and blogs) puts me as the patient in a much better position in terms of access to information about my condition and the power to make better informed decisions. 

There's one celebrity who surprised me with her severe endometriosis issues-- Marilyn Monroe. Do you know the story behind her issues that led to her unfortunate death? Read on...

"Marilyn was an American actress, model, and singer, who was 36 when she died. She never had children though fell pregnant numerous times. All of her pregnancies ended in miscarriage and reportedly, at least one ectopic pregnancy, due to her severe endometriosis. There is a rumor that she went in to one surgery with a note taped to her stomach, pleading with the doctors to not remove her reproductive organs. Although, there is much mystery surrounding her death, many think it is indirectly linked to her endometriosis. The disease, endometriosis, caused her to become addicted to painkillers, which in turn aggravated her psychological problems."

Padma Lakshmi (lead host/judge from Top Chef show) is one of the co-founders for  Endometriosis Foundation of America. Padma suffered with pain for more than 20 years and was told it was "all in her head" before she was diagnosed with endometriosis. She had surgery when it was revealed she had two cysts on each of her ovaries.

You will be surprised with how many doctors say, "No, no, no. You're young. You're fine." I was misdiagnosed with "stress" at first until my laparoscopy. Oh! Turned out that I actually had Endometriosis Stage II (which was considered mild) afterall. See the common endometriosis misdiagnoses in the infographic below:

Here's one article example from Cosmopolitan about the journalist/reporter, Lizzie O' Leary, who previously worked as CNN's Aviation & Regulation correspondent:

The reporter's battle with endometriosis recently forced her to step down from her high-powered gig as a CNN correspondent. But how did her chronic condition go undiagnosed for more than two decades?

 "We may not look sick, but turn our bodies inside out, they would tell different stories."

"Endometriosis is unpredictable, capricious, tenacious, a destroyer of careers, families and relationships, and it is worth more money and research effort – not only for what we would learn about the disease itself, but for the light that would be shed on infertility, immunology, and the connection between illness and psychological states." 

 

With my on-going research, I have decided to try the Eastern treatment by using acupuncture (with cupping therapy) with Chinese herbal medications since my endo has returned (probably for the worse). I started my first Lupron Depot injection four weeks ago and will not continue for another five months for the treatment. I didn't respond very well to Lupron Depot due to many irritating side effects (more cons than pros).  For the past year, my body did not respond well with Western treatments (although laparoscopy was helpful for a short term)-- which weighed out my decision to go with the holistic approach (Eastern treatments) as an alternative option to try.  I had my first acupuncture appointment last Saturday with my first cupping therapy experience! They cupped my tailbone area where my most intense pain was.  It was a weird feeling when the cup sucked my lower back's fat.. However, it surprisingly helped with the pain (so far)! They suggested me to continue with my acupuncture appointments 2x a week for a month before reducing to 1x a week. I took my first Chinese herbal medication, Shao Fu Zhu Yu Pian (Abdo StasisClear) today. We will see how this will turn out for me. *fingers crossed* 

Meanwhile, it is urgent that doctors, nurses, teachers know about endometriosis and act on their knowledge, to spare young women years of pain, loss and emotional damage.

Blogs regarding Endometriosis:

http://emlwy.blogspot.com/p/endometriosis-library.html 

vintagelib.blogspot.com.au
http://happyhealthyendo.com/
http://foodie4healing.blogspot.com/p/the-endo-diet.html

http://myendodiaries.blogspot.com/ 

http://www.millionwomenmarch2014.org (The march will be in Washington, DC on March 13, 2014 at the national mall.) 

If you have any stories regarding endometriosis, feel free to share with me!

Fighting like a girl,
Brooke