I Get By WIth A Little Help From My Friends.

Guys, February was rough.  Both Cory and I spend February in what seemed like a deep fog.  We ended January with the promise of a finished home study, only to find out about a week later that we were looking at mid march at the earliest to have it finished.  We were supposed to finished in November! This news sent me on a quick downward spiral.  A few days after that, out of no fault to any of them, I had four different Facebook friends announce their pregnancies on the same day.  It hit me like a ton of bricks.  For the first time in my life I didn't want to leave my own house.  I just wanted to sit there, with my cat, and cry.  The combination of the two things combined did something to me that I never expected to happen.  I actually felt depressed.

It is no ones fault, and I am happy for each of our friends that are getting to welcome new little ones into their home.  I think that was just the tipping point.  So much doubt started going through my head.  Are we doing the right thing? Should we have taken more chances with infertility care? Was this all a big mistake? I just kept spiraling further and further.  It brought me to a fact that I'm still struggling with today.  I am so excited for this adoption to take place, and i want my family so badly, but how do I deal with the fact that for my family to begin, someone else's has to end?

When we were doing our adoption training, one thing really stuck out to me.  When learning about grieving and loss, it talked about how all adoptions start with loss on all ends.  A birth mother losing their child, and child losing their birth family, and the loss of an adoptive family losing the chance of a biological child.  It tried to teach that because adoptions are often times born from loss, they can become something even more special.  I've been feeling this weight so heavy lately. I know somewhere out there a birth mother has or is making the ultimate sacrifice for their child and our family.  I'm just trying to learn how to not feel guilty about it.

As February moved on, it dragged.  We were teased later in the month that our home study was finished and we could finally pick it up.  We were so excited! I called our social worker the next day, only to find out that she jumped the gun and we still have to wait till hopefully mid march to have it in our hands and move on to the next step.  The world came crashing down all over again. 

Our Disneyland Annual Passes expired at the end of February, and that was not helping me my mood either! Thankfully we had made plans with friends to go one last time, our last time going without our children. The last time before everything changed.  The week leading up to it I found myself wanting to just sit at home and be sad. I didn't even have to desire to go to Disneyland.  That is an entirely new emotion for me.  It's my second home, my retreat, yet for some reason it seemed like so much work. I didn't feel emotionally capable of going.  I was so worried that I just wouldn't be able to handle seeing all the happy families on their Disney Vacations. None the less, you never pass up a Disney trip (especially one that's been paid for), and I'm sure glad I didn't!

I don't think I'll ever be able to thank our friends enough for that trip.  It was seriously the perfect trip.  I couldn't have asked for anything better.  It was so needed, and so appreciated.  I don't know if anyone knew how much we were struggling, but thanks to everyone's support I think we'll be ok. We were able to let lose, have fun, and actually talk about our adoption in a fun light again.  It made me hopeful of the day we can bring our kids to this place we love so much, and hopefully with the people that we love so much.



At one point we were walking around, and I don't even remember what we were doing or what we were talking about.  Without hesitating someone mentioned something about us coming back with our kids with their "Uncle Greg, Uncle Jason, and Uncle Ben."  I couldn't even tell you the context, and it's something no one else probably remembers, but it seriously meant so much to me. It made me hopeful and excited once again.  The fact that these people are excited right a long side with us, and are already accepting us as a family made my heart soar.  As it always is, it turned out to be the little moments that meant the most.  I didn't once look at another family and feel jealous or jaded (a common feeling for me lately).  I just felt happy for being in the place I love with people I love.

Days are still hard, but we've come home from our trip excited again.  We talk about the adoption and we daydream about what it will be like when we finally get to see the first pictures of our little one, something we haven't done in a while.  I'm back to excessively researching and constantly searching #internationaladoption on Instagram.  I'm once again excited for that day in mid march when we can close this portion of our adoption, and start the next. I'm dreaming of dropping our I-800A application in the mailbox, and dreaming even more of our final clearance and then the words "we have a match for you."

The Best News Comes From Disneyland

“To all who come to this happy place: Welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here, age relives fond memories of the past, and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America, with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.”

Alright, you get it. We love Disneyland.  I'm sure you're ready to get back on track. This is an adoption blog for heavens sake! I promise, this is all going somewhere. 

Since we established that so much of our story started at Disneyland, let me add that so many big things happened in our life there. From getting good or bad news, to life events, Disneyland for us is more than just thrills, turkey legs, and long lines. 

Here are a few of the snapshot of our Disneyland memories:

March 20, 2010. Cory proposes in front of sleeping beauties castles.  He asks me "if you could wish for one thing, what would it be?" I of course respond with "a cat" right before he gets down on one knee.  Lets just say I got something better than a cat (and later still ended up with 3 of them).  We then call our families to tell them the news while waiting in line for The Matterhorn.

May 02, 2011.  While walking around in the park, we hear the news that Osama Bin Landen was killed.  I know, a weird thing to put here, but it's one of those things we'll always remember. 

February 2013.  Not only do I survive life with a dark brown pixie cut, I get to celebrate getting my dream job as a flight attendant with Skywest Airlines.  I fly home early for training, and my hair eventually grew. 

January 2014.  Just one year later, while we are walking to the park from our hotel, I get a phone call from Delta Air Lines recruiting that I've been selected to do a face to face interview with them. Moving to a mainline airline would mean better pay, international trips, and more flexibility in my chosen career.  I again have to cut the trip short a day and go home before everyone else.  I land the job, and get the career of a lifetime. 

August 2015.  We attendant our first D23 expo, and are in the room when Bob Iger announces that Disneyland and Disney World are getting Star Wars Lands.  I can't even describe the electricity of being in the room when something big like that is announced.  We are huge Star Wars fans, and are still counting down the days till 2019 when it opens. 

July 17, 2017. While riding Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout, I feel my phone buzz. Minutes before this picture was taken I read the email stating that despite our small issues, Hungary will accept us as adoption prospects!

Yeah, you read that right. We finally have a little more progress into our adoption! We had been waiting to hear back from Hungary about adopting while on anti-depressants and they did not seem to want to get back to us. We had been patiently waiting for a response for almost a week, and when I finally got an email, I thought we would finally have some progress. Turns out all the email told us was that they were forwarding our question to the ministry of children, to really ensure it wasn't an issue.  We were told it'd be at least another week until we heard back from there.  This was the one thing standing between us, and finally starting this processes that could take us years. We had been told to expect it to take a weekend to hear from Hungary, and patience isn't something Gifford's are known for.  Lucky for us, this past weekend was the D23 Expo 2017.  

I LOVE going to D23. It's a crazy, exhausting, exciting, and informative weekend of all things Disney. Disney holds it every 2 years at the Anaheim Convention Center, and it's where they announce all of their new movies, TV shows, video games, theme park changes, and just about everything else.  There are signings, and panels with Disney Legends. It's pretty much a Disney fans dream come true.  We were able to do so much fun stuff, and above all we are able to see a lot of our friends that we don't get to see very often since we moved.  Sure, we had to wake up at 3am to wait in line to be in the standby for the live action panel that didn't start till 10:30am, but we're some of the only people in the world to have seen scenes from Avengers: Infinity War. All in all, the convention proved to be a great distraction. It was the first time in almost a month that I wasn't refreshing my email like a madwomen. It was exactly what I needed. 

On Monday after the convention, we decided to go to Disneyland for a half a day before driving home.  The first thing we did was run over to California Adventures to ride the new ride, Mission Breakout - The ride formally known as Tower of Terror.  I absolutely love the ride.  We had already ridden it our first day, and needed to do it again. Just as Tower of Terror was, the ride is a complete dead zone for cell coverage.  I wasn't expecting an answer till later in the week, so I wasn't worried.  As we were on the ride, catapulting to our doom, I felt my phone buzz.  I didn't think much of it, and so I didn't even bother to check it.  After going through the gift shop, (I'm a gift shop addict. It's not a problem, I could quit if I wanted to!) we went outside and I found the guy with the sign celebrating Disneyland's Birthday.  I chased him down, and when I pulled out my phone, I saw one sentence in an email that will change our life forever. “according to their (the ministry's) reply the family can apply to Hungary”.

Now that we know we can adopt, it's time for more waiting! I know that was the first of many hurdles to jump over, but it was the one we were facing to even get to the starting line. We have an appointment scheduled on the 26th with a home study group, and hopefully we can start that process soon.  Once our home study is done, we can submit our Dossier to Hungary to await a match for a referral for a child! 

From Utah to Disneyland - Our History

As anyone who knows us should know, Disneyland is a huge part of our story.  When I met Cory I was a college freshman, working on my degree in dance education, and mostly failing out of college.  My roommate and best friend has started dating an awesome guy (they're now married), and he set me up with his co-worker. One afternoon over Thanksgiving break, I received a text from an unknown number.  All this message said was "Hey, this is Cody's friend Cory.  Do you know how much a polar bear weighs?" Being the smart alack I am, I of course responded with a perfectly googled measurement of what a polar bears weighs in both pounds and kilograms. Turns out all he wanted to say was, "enough to break the ice!"

We went on our first date the next evening.  If was a night of Kermit the Frog impressions, bonding over our same love of music, our love of Disney and Marvel Comics, and a whole lot of giggling on my part.  We had gone to Temple Square to look at the lights, and were so caught up in everything, he even forgot to feed me dinner.  We ended up staying up till 1am, just talking on the couch in my parents basement.  He scandalously kissed me at the end of our first date, and the rest is history.

                  

Everything was near perfect.  He was kind, hilarious, and had a sweet car. (Honda Elements, always a lady killer.)  There was only one little problem. The summer prior my older brother and his wife had taken me to Disneyland.  I fell in love.  It was the costumes, the music, the food, and the magic.  I felt at home.  I spent my entire first semester in college focused on doing well enough to get into The Disney College Program.  Lucky for me, I was working for Radio Disney at the time as a dancer doing live events and promotions.  It gave me a good reference, and less than a month before meeting Cory I had been accepted into the program.  I was overjoyed, excited, yet still heartbroken to leave this awesome guy that I had fallen in love with in such a short time. We had just over a month before I packed up my Chevy Aveo with my sick collection of pop-punk CD's and headed to Anaheim.  We spend that month practically inseparable, but the time still came to leave.


My college program experience was a unique one.  As I look back on it now, it was some of the best times of my life.  However, if you were to have met me then, you might have thought I hated everything about it. The hours were long, it was my first time living more than an hour away from where I grew up, my roommate could only fall asleep while listing to the score or book on tape for Lord of the Rings, and I was incredibly sick. (I was diagnosed with Celiac disease during my program, which is why it was cut short.) Despite all of that, it was still an amazing experience.  I made awesome friends, went to Disneyland almost every day, and ate too many Churro's to count. If you asked me today if I'd do it all over again, I would automatically give you a big yes!

Working at World of Disney meant awesome tapestry vest, and Deny's trips
 at 3am after the park was asleep for the night.

One of the best parts of working for a Disney park, is the free sign ins for your friends and family.  You're essentially given a certain number of free park tickets every year.  Because of this, Cory was able to come and visit a few times.  Despite us both being huge Disney fans before we ever met, I think our relationship starting with Disney definitely helped add to the craziness. So if you're reading this and think, "these people are insane, why are all their pictures from Disneyland?" You can thank a couple of nerdy college kids, and the Disney College Program.

Brace yourself, another Disneyland post is coming.