The Longest Weekend Ever!

We have been listed on our agency's website for approximately 5 days. Check it out!
Within 12 hours of us being listed the first day...we got a call from our agency. An emergency. A pregnant woman with a sad, sad, story and an even sadder story surrounding the baby, was being induced on Tuesday (like this past Tuesday...like YESTERDAY). Did we want our profile to be included in the set that the agency was giving her to look over? After talking it over, we decided YES! of course we wanted her to consider our family! They overnighted 5 profiles (including ours) to her on Friday and then we waited...and waited...and waited...and started thinking through what accommodations we would need to make if we needed to go get OUR BABY this week.

And then the phone call came on Monday afternoon while I was at a home visit for one of my foster families at my internship. I stepped out to take it because I couldn't go any longer without knowing something. And then the news came flooding out of the other line so quickly I could barely hold on: another family was on the top of her list. We weren't it. This wasn't our baby. And my heart broke even though I had peace about it. Something I've noticed is that, as Christians, we compartmentalize having peace and having raw emotion. Like if we trust God and have peace about a situation, then we can't be heartbroken or sad or angry. I know that we will be matched eventually and I know that God has a plan for us specifically. But I'm still sad that this situation didn't work out. I never expected the ups and downs of adoption to come so quickly. It would've been an amazing story, too. But the one God has written for us is pretty amazing, too. :)

LIVE

Within the week, our adoption profile will be live for women choosing adoption to look at. It'll be on our agency's website and they will also have hard copies to give to interested birthparents who come to the agency in person. This is huge. We're finally here! From here on out...we wait. It could be a day, it could be a year. We don't know what God has in store for us or how long we will have to wait. But we know we've been obedient. We know we've done what He has told us to do.

And we're so close to being able to pay for it all. But we're not quite there yet. We have anywhere between $3000 and $8000 left to raise. We have seen God provide VASTLY already yet we are nervous to see how the rest of it comes. We know God's got this. But we also know that we have to be proactive. We're just asking that if anyone is willing to donate or knows someone who might be willing, please direct them to our blog. You can donate through Paypal on the right side of the page or through a check to us. We know that most, if not all!, of the people reading our blog have already donated time, talents, money, etc. to us. If you guys could just keep us in your prayers that this money would come in some way, some how. We will be forever grateful :)

I will be making some fall and Christmas wreaths to sell soon, hoping that might bring in a little bit more since most people bought wreaths from us around springtime. Keep your eyes open! I also have about 7 clutch purses already made and sitting on my counter for whoever is interested! $20 a piece.

We're in the home stretch. Let's make this happen. Thanks for loving on our family so much with help, support and prayer!

Pressing On

This process has been painfully slow for us. We went to our first consultation at our agency in February and it's now July. And we're still not finished with our home study. BUT...we will finally be completing our home study-tomorrow! We have our last visit in the morning and then we will go in for one more consultation and then we wait to be matched! It feels good to be so close to having our end of things finished. Then we can just wait for God to do His thing. We are feeling good about things!

Me and the Hubster

We also have been offered a $3500 adoption grant to help with our expenses! The money has not been sent yet, though, so we're not posting anything about where we got this grant or that we have received anything yet. But it's there, God is providing. He has provided in amazing, crazy, off-the-wall ways and I am absolutely LOVING experiencing it. I'm for sure an idealist and so, at the beginning of all of this, I was researching all these crazy ideas for saving money for the adoption and The Husband kind of thought it was all quite cute (he's the realist in this relationship--the yin to my yang) but didn't think it would really help. He's been working SO hard so we can save more for the adoption. He's pretty amazing. But it has been so awesome to watch God provide through handmade wreaths and clutches, a Facebook auction and a grant.

We should be done with everything and waiting to be matched in about two weeks. I'm sure that then the roller coaster will only have begun.

Fourth of July

We spent the 4th at home just hanging out as a family. It was really nice. The Husband's parents and brother came over for an early cook-out and the kids played outside. We ventured out to fireworks for the first time with children this year! Fireworks here didn't start till 9:15 pm so we were a little worried how the kids would handle a bedtime about 4 hours later than normal! They. Did. Great!! It was so worth the late bedtime! Bubba kept asking, "How'd THAT happen?!" every time he saw a big firework. Sissy thought they were Tinkerbell.

Bubba also had his first karate class last week! He did SO well! He was very shy and timid because it was his first time but seeing him get the punches down after one try and hearing him say, "Yes, Sir!" "No, Sir!" was so awesome. I see so much potential in that little boy. Here are a few pics from the past week.

The Secret Lives of Parents after Bedtime

I don't know about any other parents of young ones out there but I know that the husband and I sometimes feel like agents in covert ops after bedtime. From 7 PM to 10 PM we let loose and enjoy our time sans-kids. We watch shows that we would never let them watch (Walking Dead, anyone??), we eat food that we try to monitor with them (Fat Boys, Tastee Bite, our town has WAY too many delicious bad-for-you places to eat!), we listen to music with "naughty" words, etc. Sometimes I feel like I hide a big part of me from my kids because it's the adult side of me that they don't see during the day. During the day, I am (or try to be to the best of my ability) fun-loving mommy, pancake cooker, pirate, "bad guy" for Bennett to beat up, referee, boo boo kisser, keeper of the Fruit Loops, hair dresser, world-class singer, chef, maid etc. They don't get to see the adult side of Mommy! Anyone else have this feeling?

On a separate note, working at this foster care agency
has really opened my eyes to the needs of the foster child. My heart breaks on a daily basis for these kiddos. There is so much hurt and abandonment and rejection going on with these kids. I really believe that if the husband and I ever decide to adopt a second time, I will convince him to adopt out of foster care. That process is so difficult for many because most foster children are not legally free for adoption. So you foster children that you want to adopt KNOWING that they may be reunited with their biological family. Which is bittersweet I am sure. Because deep down I'm sure this is what many foster kids want and yet, as adoptive families, we want to "save" these kids...which is not always our place. I'm really seeing many different sides to orphan care through working at this agency and just continuing to do my adoption research and training for our adoption. Orphan care really doesn't just mean adoption.

Foster care is such a HUGE part of it and I think many great families are too afraid to do it because they fear they'll become too attached or they fear the children will have too many "issues." But that's really painting these kids with a broad brush. Yes of course they come with "issues"...kids come into care because of issues at home so of course they're going to bring that stuff with them. But this doesn't mean they're incapable of so much more...of love and attachment, friendship and kinship, desires and talents. As the church I think we need to look at serving more in this way as well as adoption...

Current Home Study News

We've completed two of our three 3-hour long home study meetings. Our last one is in two weeks and will be at our home. We are so blessed with our social worker as she is a believer so we have been able to be VERY open and vulnerable with her about our motivations for wanting to adopt. We've had to talk through some really tough decisions regarding our openness in our adoption including what limits we're willing to go to to protect our child if he/she is of a different race than us. These are really difficult choices to make because we know that not everybody will be comfortable or accepting of our choice to adopt outside of our race and we know that some of these people may end up being people we know very well. But we've decided not to let the unjust thoughts of others make our decision for us and we will continue pursuing an adoption of a child of any race. We will also accept a child who has many mild to moderate special needs.

Once we're done with our home study, we will write a "Dear Birthmother" letter, submit it to the agency for birthmoms to see, and then WAIT. This is partly a breath of fresh air because everything on our end will be done but I know I am very nervous about how long we will have to wait to be placed and how many failures we'll go through till we're placed with our eventual child. We're really trying to leave this up to God, as He has the final say anyway, but with so many possibilities, it's difficult not to wonder and dream about the "what ifs".

We are doing SO WELL with our fundraising. We are now able to pay our first big placement fee of $4400 as well as about $3500 of the matching fee of $4000. After that, we're really relying on God. Depending on the race of the child, we will have a final payment of between $2600 and $7500 plus our legal fees which will most likely be about $2000 and any birthmother expenses we see fit to pay. We feel like we can see the light at the end of the tunnel but there's still work to be done. We applied for one grant and are waiting to hear about it still. If we get it, it may cover up to $5000 of our expenses which will cover almost everything we have left!!

Keep us in your prayers as we continue to find unique ways to pay for this process that we know the Lord has called us to. And consider ways that you can help take care of the orphan. :)

Raising Kids is Cray Cray!

We took Bubba to the allergist last week at the recommendation of our pediatrician. He's been struggling with pretty bad eczema since he was a baby and he has since developed allergies and possibly asthma. Here's what the allergist suggested (we decided not to do testing at this point because he is pretty sure it's environmental allergies that aggravate his eczema...and he tends to kick doctors when they touch him so testing with needles would probably not be a good idea at this point!):

1) Rip up the carpet in our entire house (we compromised on Bubba's room only)
2) Get rid of the stuffed animal overload in our house
3) Get Bubba on a strict skincare regimen (This includes a slew of mild soap, steroid and non-steroid cream, lotion, allergy medicine etc...)
4) Get Bubba using the neb twice a day to confirm if he's got asthma or not

He promises it will be labor-intensive but worth it. Especially if we don't have to test Bubba for allergies because we narrow it down based on these suggestions. It's been 4 days and we're doing good. I have a hard time remembering to do the skin regimen in the mornings because I usually get him dressed downstairs but his spots are clearing up!! We've been able to narrow grass down as an aggravate because every day that he plays in the grass (if we forget the zyrtec before bed) he wakes up late at night screaming and crying and scratching like crazy. :(

But so far we're getting positive results! And Sissy has started the temper tantrum stage. Oi. We love our kids!!! :)

I'll be starting my internship this week. I'll be doing lots with foster kids, their families and foster families. I'm very very nervous but I've met with the people who work at the agency a few times and they are really awesome people. I'm excited to work with people who have the same passion that I do. :) Daddy is a wee bit nervous to be switching roles with Mommy but excited to take the kids to the zoo...every day (according to Bubba).