Happy National Adoption Day!

Today is National Adoption Day!  Although this second adoption journey is not going quite like we had hoped, we are thankful that we can trust Jesus in all the details and every winding road that we are being led on.  Last week, I did attempt to reach the birth mother of the baby girl, but our call was not returned.  So in our hearts, we are once again moving on, and waiting to see who God will have for our family.  It was quite difficult this time around as we had so many baby girl clothes given to us through donation and some by gift, that I had to get all of those things put away so I wouldn't be having to look at them.  The crib has also been put away in the attic, so we won't have to look at that anymore either.  The day we had received the call from our attorney saying we shouldn't hold out much hope on this case, I had sold our baby boy book.   I thought it would be really neat to purchase a girly one, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it, and opted instead for a gender neutral one.  An hour or two later, I received the devastating call.  God is faithful even in what may seem like "little" decisions.  God is teaching me that I need to take things a day at a time, even a moment at a time.  Things can change so quickly, whether positive or negative.  Instead, my instincts are to go directly into high planning mode!  Jesus has been teaching me a lot in regards to trusting Him, and looking only to Him for the strength that I need.

On the positive side, we have so much to be thankful for.  We have three wonderful children, one of whom we have been able to enjoy through the gift of adoption.  Oh, how my heart is burdened for those other children, and if we are only able to help one, then we will do that to the best of our

ability!  We have gotten a couple more books about adoption to read to Adia and she really likes them.  She enjoys: My Family is Forever, A Blessing from Above, and God Found Us You.  She is starting to talk and ask more and more questions about her birth family and it has been neat to see how well she has been responding to everything!  It has also been neat being able to observe her birth parents on facebook.  By all appearances, they have not only gotten married, but also appear to be growing in their relationship with Jesus.  That is something that will be so exciting to be able to share with Adia as she gets older.  God is faithful and we pray that the end result will be that one day she will allow Jesus to adopt her into His family. 


Thank you so much for all of your encouragement and support!  It means so much to us as there are times, when we feel like giving up!  This journey has been so different from the first one, that we weren't prepared for how emotional this journey could truly be.  However, it will be worth it in the end, no matter the outcome, as I have learned so much more about Jesus through this time, that I might not have otherwise learned.  We have about a year left in our contract with Angel Adoption, so will see what happens during that time.  Thanks for coming along with us on this journey!

Heartache

I write you in tears as the attorney called and said that after meeting with the birth mother that he feels it is highly unlikely that she will follow through with the adoption plan.  She has hidden her pregnancy from her parents thus far and with Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up, and having 2 other children, how will she be able to hide her pregnancy then as they get together?  If she told her parents about her adoption plan, she told the attorney that they would not be supportive of her decision.  She relies so heavily on them for her 2 current children I don't understand how she has been able to hide the pregnancy from them this far.  She has had the support of her cousin throughout this ordeal, which has helped keep her going. 

As a result, our profile has gone active again!  We are encouraged however, to keep the door open to this birth mother if in case in the end, she does follow through with the plan and place.  How am I to plan?  We may not know if we are going until the last minute!  And then we take the risk of her backing out after we get there (which could happen with any placement).  Angel Adoption recommended I call her on Friday and see how she responds.  Angel wants to not abandon her completely yet, but will definitely let her be making the moves.  We will not be giving any form of living expense to her until afterwards, in the event that this does all come together.  We are waiting to retain any attorney until we see how or if things will progress.  The Louisiana attorney will not be charging us for his time thus far, which is a huge blessing.  We will however be billed for the social worker's time.

Adia's birth mother was able to hide her entire pregnancy from her family, besides her sister, until Adia had been placed with us.  So I know that if its the Lord will it can still happen.  This is one of those cases, where if things fall into place, it is clearly the LORD working and that it will be meant to be.  Thank you for praying!  Hope all of these rambled thoughts made sense as right now, my mind is kinda going crazy!

Phone Call from Louisiana Attorney

On Friday, I was given the phone number and name of the attorney that we would be working with in Louisiana but unfortunately I didn't receive the information until it was too late to call him on Friday.  So this morning I called and left a message with his secretary and waited until he returned our call this afternoon.  Needless to say my bubble of excitement was popped a little with a sharp needle of reality.  He felt the need to share with me, which I am thankful for, that honestly only 20% of adoptions in Louisiana are actually completed.  Another way of saying this is that 80% of birth mothers at some point will back out and change their minds.  Culturally it is very difficult for birth mothers in Louisiana to place their children.
 
He has already spoken with the birth mother over the phone but plans to have a face to face meeting with her within the next couple of days.  He will be taking along a social worker and they will be conducting a mental evaluation, financial needs analysis, see if she is being truthful about the whereabouts of the birth father, better determine if there is any family involvement and also trying to get the motives behind her decision to place.  In other words, see if they can get a clearer picture as to how solid of a case this really is for us.  Thankfully this attorney is not requiring us to pay him before he meets with her as he wants to get a clearer picture if at all possible before we continue.

The plan would be to finalize in Kansas, but I am to wait on contacting the KS attorney until I hear back from the Louisiana attorney to see if we should even try to proceed with this case.

This wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear, but am thankful for his honesty and thoroughness.  The odds of this placement happening are NOT in our favor, but know that Jesus is not limited to odds and that if this is God's will, we can be a part of that 20% of successful placements.  Will you please join with us in prayer?  Pray for the birth mother as she meets with the attorney, and that the attorney will have the wisdom to ask and say what needs to be said.  I'm not sure when we will hear back from the attorney following his meeting with the birth mother, as our phone call got cut short, so praying for peace of mind as we once again wait for the next step to be completed.

We're Getting a Girl!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can you tell that I am excited???!!  I was able to reach the birth mother, "A", this morning.  She had her doctor's appt this morning and the baby is growing and everything is fine!  This baby will, however, be a smaller baby (which will be fun - Adia was small as well).  She is very ready to move on and take the next step!  We are too!  We will be in quite a bit of contact with her until the baby is born but afterwards it is still up in the air as to how much we will communicate.

The baby is due December 29, and her two previous pregnancies both came a week early so we are looking at possibly spending Christmas in LA.  Now to see where we can stay. :)

Please be praying for "A" as she continues on with this pregnancy as well as raises a 5 year old and a 9 month old.  She knows that this will be a difficult decision and that this is what she needs to do.  So will pray that whatever is best for the baby will be done.  As we know, it could still fall through, but she is a really neat person who has been quite open and honest with me as we have talked.  I am looking forward to building a relationship with her.

The next step will once again be lining up attorneys.  Angel Adoption will line our attorney up for us in LA, and then will see if she finds one for us in KS as well.  If she doesn't we will need to find another attorney, one that is not the same that we were using when we were matched with Alexis.  I believe the law in LA is that the birth mother has 3 days to change her mind (as opposed to 10 with Alexis).  We will still see if we can get the attorneys and the birth mother to go with KS law, but if not, 3 days isn't too bad.  We should hear back from Angel Adoption either tomorrow or the latest next Tuesday as to where we are at in the attorney process.

Another prayer request is that I just learned that parts of LA are being affected by a sink hole.  Please pray that all will be safe as the sink hole isn't too terribly far from where she is living (its in another city at least).

What a great way to start out National Adoption Month.  Tomorrow is my birthday, so I couldn't ask for a better birthday present! :)

Lastly,  please be in prayer for our family as we have had sooo many changes going on in our lives over the past few months.  We are in process of making another change, which has been quite painful, so please be in prayer that we will sense the Lord's peace as we make what we feel is a necessary change. With all the ups and downs with adoption and the other major decisions and changes, I am physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted.  I am praying that through all of this that I will be more like how Christ wants me to be!

Thank you for praying!

Thank you for being excited with us!

Quick Prayer Request

The birth mother was to have more tests run, and if it was exactly from 2 weeks ago, it would have been that the tests were run on Tuesday (yesterday).  So today I emailed Angel Adoption to see if they had heard anything and they had not.  I then asked Angel Adoption that since the birth mother knew I had her number and she had told me I could call her at any time with questions, if it would be appropriate for me to try and call her.  She said yes.  I wasn't sure it would be appropriate since we haven't yet been formally matched.  So...I will attempt to reach the birth mother tomorrow to see if I can get any updates on the tests and how everyone is doing.  When I talked with the birth mother 2 weeks ago, she had mentioned that she would want us to call every 2 weeks for updates, if we were matched, so I am not sure if she is waiting for me to call or not???  Please pray that I will be able to reach her and that I can be an encouragement to her!  Hopefully we can get some more answers so we can both know how and where we should proceed.

Thank you for your continued prayers.  We will let you know when we know more!

Waiting

After seeking medical advice, having a mostly sleepless night, and receiving counsel from Angel Adoption, we have decided to hold off on making any kind of decision in regards to this precious baby girl until further testing has been done.  I believe the next ultrasound is in 2 weeks.  After we get more testing results, etc, it will help us make a better decision as to what we need to do for our family.  This will also give us time to be in deep prayer over the whole matter.  Angel Adoption was of the utmost encouragement and support to us and I am so thankful for their wisdom.  They plan to contact the birth mother today to speak with her and see if they can get any further information and let her know of our plans. 

In the meantime, our profile with Angel will remain active and be shown to any prospective birth parents that may come along.

I apologize if it seems like I am blogging too often, but so many of you are praying for us and I am doing my best to keep you as up to date as possible so you can know how to more specifically pray.  Thank you so much for going to the Father with us to present these requests.

Phone Interview

I talked with the birth mother for 30 minutes this evening and the conversation overall went pretty well.  In fact, her personality kinda reminded me of Adia's birth mother, which was fun!  The big concern that has arisen, however, is that today, she found out that her 30 week old baby's head was measuring a little bit smaller than it should.  So they will be redoing an ultrasound in a couple of weeks to check the status of the baby's head.  If the ultrasound is accurate, we could be looking at microcephaly, and I'm not sure that this would be best for our family.  So please pray for wisdom as we try to get some more answers. I am to call Angel Adoption in the morning to let them know how the interview went, and maybe they will be able to get some more information??  This is so heartbreaking, but this dear birth mother, is just as scared.  She just wants someone to love her baby and love the baby regardless of if there is a birth defect or not.  Thanks for continuing to pray!!

An Exciting Development

We received a call from Angel Adoption that there was a birth mother who would like to talk with us!!!  I wanted to cry right then and there but needed to quickly pull it together so I could pay attention to the details she was excitedly trying to tell me.  This mother, Allysa, is due with a girl, on December 29.  She had been matched with another couple, but they had only wanted a boy, so when they found out that she was having a girl, chose to back out.  Allysa, had been sent our profile on July 23, with a few others and still had our profile.  She called Angel Adoption today and asked if we were still available!  What timing!!  So... we have a phone interview with her tomorrow evening around 6:30 and we'll see where God leads from there.  Allysa, has two other children, boys, and is without a job.  Again, we are faced with the issue of where and who is the birth father, but will deal with that as it comes.  She is from Louisiana so we will still get to travel a bit to go if this should all work out.  There is also the possibility, depending on how the phone interview goes tomorrow evening, that she may want to meet with us before the baby is born.  Thankfully Skeeter gets 4 weeks of vacation with his adoption benefits so hopefully if we need to go to LA, twice, that we can use part of that time for those trips.

Another HUGE praise, is that we received our letter from the Georgia attorney giving us the details of our refund.  We knew that part of the fee was unrefundable and then 1/3 of the rest would be as well.  However, in God's graciousness, she chose not to keep the extra 1/3 even though she had done some of the paperwork.  Now we just need to pray that if this new development comes through, that we will get our refund processed quickly as it was credited back to our credit card that was cancelled.  However, Discover said that it would transfer over to the new account, but that it could take 7-14 business days to do it.

We would appreciate prayers for all of us involved as we talk on the phone together tomorrow evening that we will say what we are to say, ask what we are to ask, etc.  God is faithful, and I know this might not work out either, but its kinda hard not to be excited and just enjoy this hopefulness!! :) 

A New Journey Begins

We received a call from Angel Adoption this afternoon and it has been decided that our profile will once again go active and be shown to prospective birth mothers.  If we have not been matched, and Alexis happens to reappear, we will be notified.  Although its sad that we are closing this chapter and saying good bye to our baby, we have several things to be thankful for.  We should get a decent amount of our money back that we paid to the GA attorney.  We had not started paying the living expenses to the birth mother, so we're not out any money in that respect as that was to start shortly.  Humanly speaking, I would like to know what happened.  It would be so easy to point fingers and blame, but ultimately, despite all the obstacles of phones being shut off and a slow attorney, etc, God could have made all of the necessary details work out.  He chose not to and we need to trust that He knows what He is doing and that He loves us and has something better for us.  I have struggled at times with being mad at God for allowing us to be matched if in the end it would just fall through, but I know He allowed us to go through this growing and stretching time to help us lean on Him and grow stronger in our relationship with Him.  In our ladies Bible study we are studying the book of James and how we need to patiently endure trials and temptations and how we need to count everything joy - - the Lord's timing and teaching is always right on time, even if it is painful! :)

Now mentally, I have to transition from thinking about baby names and getting everything ready for our baby (the car seat had just arrived right before we were notified that Alexis was missing) to waiting again for the call to say that we are matched with another baby.  As someone else has shared with me, who lost their adoptive baby, that it is very much like losing your own child.  So true!  Once we are matched, in my heart, that baby and birth mother, become a part of me.  So please continue to pray, as we continue to say good-bye.  Looking back, I guess I sensed that something might not be right with the match, but there was nothing specific that I could point to - - just figured it was fear and the fact that we had so long to wait until the baby would be born.  So maybe, God was preparing me ahead of time and I didn't realize it until later.  Although, there is hurt, there is also peace, for which we can thank the Lord! 

Now we are in process of trying to tie up lose ends with both attorneys so that we can start over with a clean slate so to speak.  Thank you so much for joining us in this journey.  God is faithful even when we don't understand why!

Bit of An Update on Alexis

I called Angel Adoption yesterday and left a message for our worker to contact us.  Since I didn't hear anything, I called back again today.  Our worker answered the phone and acknowledged that she hadn't returned our call because she was still waiting to hear from our GA attorney.   We found out today that they still have not been able to have contact with Alexis.  Alexis' phone had been shut off, and so they don't even know if she was receiving their emails.  I am wondering why if Alexis was still interested why she hasn't contacted them by a pay phone or some other means.  Anyway, our worker with Angel is speculating that we may have lost a "solid birth mother", due to the fact that our attorney took a month and a half to get his part done and that was just way too long.  Therefore, we were told today, that we would need to make sure to correct this problem in the future.  When I asked if it was time for our profile to go active again, she said she would try to contact Alexis again as well as the GA attorney to see if there were any other updates.  She was hoping to call me back later today, but we didn't hear.  Thanks for continuing to pray.

Still No Response

Just wanted to quickly update you on the news from Angel Adoption that I received today.  They said that they had emailed Alexis and had not yet received a response.  They have sent her a letter in the mail to see if she will respond that way.  They hope to know more by the end of the week. 

In my heart, and through lots of tears and prayers I have been in process of saying good-bye to "our baby".  Thank you for praying!

Where is Alexis?

It is with a heavy heart that I am beginning to prepare myself for what could be an "emotional miscarriage".  I contacted Angel Adoption last week to see if they had any updates on Alexis.  They said that they hadn't had contact with her but thought that the GA attorney had.  So today I contacted the GA attorney to see if she had an update and this is what she said:

I have not been able to meet with her yet.  I sent her a letter and an e-mail, but she has not responded to schedule our appointment. I also have tried her telephone number a few times and am not able to leave a message.  I offered to travel to her home so that she does not have to travel to Atlanta. Do you have any contact with Alexis?  If so, please encourage her to call me.

My heart fell when I read these words!  Per Alexis' request, we unfortunately do not have contact with her.  Therefore, the GA attorney has contacted Angel Adoption to see if they can make contact with Alexis.  

Why isn't Alexis responding?  She seemed to be so eager and wondered why the process at the beginning was taking so long. Alexis has been extra heavy on my heart and mind lately, enough to cause me to lose sleep so then I spent that time in prayer for her.  Is this why?  Is she struggling with making this decision now that she is 23 weeks along and feeling the precious life move inside of her body?  I don't really know what to think, but I do know that God is in control. I have also been praying lately that God would help Alexis to make the right decision and that whatever was best for the baby would happen?  Is God preparing me to say good-bye to this baby???!  Of course, humanly speaking, my mind is rushing to all kinds of places, so I am working on trying to trust and rest in Jesus' love for me and that He knows what is best.  

So would you please join us in praying for Alexis and that Angel Adoption will be able to make contact with her.  Even if it is to get the answer that we don't want, that Alexis has changed her mind?  We might not like the answer, but at least we would know.  Maybe there is a good reason that she has not been responding?  Only the Lord truly knows, so I am praying also that I will have a peaceful heart as I wait.

Maybe we will have more answers by the end of the week??  Whenever we learn more, I'll be sure to pass along the information!  Thanks for praying!

Finally!!

It has been over a week since we heard from our GA attorney saying that she had emailed our Kansas attorney asking for the documents he wanted Alexis to sign after birth.  We hadn't heard anything so I kinda figured no news in this case wasn't really good news, so this morning I bit the bullet and emailed the GA attorney to see if she had heard from our KS attorney yet.  She sent an email back, saying no!  Skeeter and I have been so discouraged with how our attorney is handling things, that this just kind of added to that frustration.  Our minds even had the thought of do we need to find another attorney who will work and get things done?  But in my mind, I kept hearing Jesus tell me that all of this timing was happening for a reason and that I needed to trust HIS timing rather than my own.

So with that said frustration, I emailed the GA attorney back and asked if there was anything further we needed to be doing.  No response. 

This evening, as I was checking email, I found this in our inbox from our GA attorney:

I am still in the office and have good news for you.  R.P. (changed for privacy) sent me the documents and I can now contact the birth mother to schedule an appointment. 

YES!!!  FINALLY!! 

There have been times, when I have wondered if Alexis even exists.  Is this all some sort of a game?  I think part of that is due to the fact that we have no contact with her per her wishes.  This is the total opposite of how it went with Adia's adoption.  Once we were matched we were on the phone 1-2 times a day with her birth mother (granted Adia was already born when we were matched).  I had even won an auction on ebay today for a brand new travel system for the baby as well as our new carrier cover that arrived in the mail today and that still didn't quite give me the great hope that this email offered to me that yes, Alexis does exist, I just need to trust!  Waiting is hard for me, so God is having me learn to lean on him as we WAIT until January. 

Our family is going through a lot of big changes right now and will continue until our new baby arrives.  Skeeter is taking EMT classes 3 nights a week and then when he is home, he is studying.  So our family time is very limited, but very treasured.  The kids are feeling that daddy is gone so much (classes end in December) but Jonathan is especially struggling.  Please pray that I will be the godly mother to know how to deal with him as we all work through this. 

We are also having some major vehicle issues, one of which almost caused the children and I to be in an accident last night.  It seems like since May (Anne's breaking of ankle), the Lord has really been putting us through the refiner's fire.  I pray we come out as gold as He desires!

Thank you for continuing to pray as we learn (which is a not so fun process sometimes) to WAIT on the Lord and His plan for our family!

New Prayer Request -- Attorney

I received an email from the Georgia attorney that had been sent to Angel Adoption as well as to our KS attorney stating that we had retained her.   Now she is requesting some forms from our KS attorney that he wants Alexis to sign following the birth.  It sounds as though she WILL NOT meet with Alexis until she receives these forms.  So we need to pray that our attorney will "move" in a professional and timely manner!!  On the plus side, the attorney will still at least contact Alexis to start the introduction process.  

Its cool to think about how each and every step of this adoption needs to be bathed in prayer and how we have so many who are doing that alongside of us!  Thanks for praying!!

On a fun note, thanks to a friend of ours, who knew we were looking for a baby name book, found one for us this weekend.  Choosing names is a bit more difficult than I remembered. :)  But fun, nonetheless!!

Making Progress

After waiting a week for our attorney to forward us the retainer letter from the Georgia attorney, I contacted the Georgia attorney to see when she had mailed it.  It had been done last week!  So I called our attorney to find out if he had received it - - he wasn't sure and would need to check and call me back.  When he called me back, he said that he had received it and would get it to me in that day's mail. 

Thursday was a busy day for us as we started compiling and signing more paperwork for our home study review.  We had to get more reference letters, background checks done, and our fingerprints taken.  We also are needing to get physicals redone and letters from the doctor sent. 

Friday, I was able to drop off the documents that were completed and the fingerprints at the office in Andover.  When we got back home from Andover what should we find in our mailbox??  Our retainer letter that we had been waiting for.

This morning we faxed our signed retainer letter and sent payment to our Georgia attorney, who will represent Alexis, and not us.  I emailed her letting her know, not expecting to hear anything back until Monday, since this is over the weekend.  Not only did she take our payment, but she emailed back and said she would be calling Alexis on MONDAY!  AHH!!!  Please be in prayer for this phone call as I'm sure they will be working on setting up a time to begin meeting with Alexis.  Since the attorney will be representing Alexis and not us, I'm not sure what to expect in terms of her communication with us as to what Alexis reveals during their sessions.  So...hopefully this week, Alexis will be able to meet with the attorney and start to feel like things are progressing as she has been wondering why it has taken so long for the attorney to contact her.  Please pray that she will be open to going with waiving her Georgia rights and going with Kansas law as our attorney has requested.  I'm sure that will be one of the first things that would be discussed.

Things could get "busy" again for a little while as they start the whole process, especially of seeking out the birth father, etc.  I know God is in control, but there are times when I am fearful as she is only 18 weeks and so much could happen between now and January!!  This has been a wonderful learning time for me to remember to trust!!  Thanks for coming along with us as we start a new road on this journey!

God's Handiwork

As we have been thinking about our pending adoption, we have had several items of planning that we have been thinking about.  Do we rent a vehicle for this trip?  Do we leave our 3 children behind with friends and family or do we take them with us?  Where will we be staying for our likely 2 week visit since our contacts are limited in Georgia?  I am excited to share that God has been working out some of those details for us!!

I remembered (or more likely God brought to my memory) that one of my good friends from high school had lived in Georgia at one point.  I wasn't sure which part of Georgia she was from, but thought I would message her yesterday to see if she knew of anyone in the Atlanta area that wouldn't mind hosting us.  Well....low and behold there was such a friend that she knew, who quite amusingly lives in SNELLville. :)  lol  This dear, sweet lady is not only willing to host Skeeter and I, but also our children.   What a huge relief and answer to prayer as this mommy's heart wasn't too sure about going 16-17 hours away from home and leaving her children for 2 weeks!! 

We are still waiting to hear from our local attorney as to our retainer letter for our Georgia attorney.  Hopefully by the end of this week or the beginning of next week, we will have that squared away! Thanks for your continued prayers!

Attorney Update

Yay!!  I received an email this evening from our Georgia attorney - - our two attorneys finally made contact with each other!  Now for the additional prayer request - -our Georgia attorney will be sending our Kansas attorney her retainer letter to be forwarded to us.  Please pray that once he receives this retainer letter that it will be quickly forwarded on to us as the Georgia attorney can not meet with Alexis until she receives her payment as being retained as our attorney!

Our Kansas attorney is requesting that Alexis sign over her 10 day waiting period and go with Kansas law, making her signing in the hospital irrevocable.   Please be in prayer for Alexis that she will be open to these laws.  Also be in prayer as they will also start seeking further information in regards to the birth father and his whereabouts.

Attorney Dilemma

Today has been quite the roller coaster ride emotionally as my baby girl had her first day of Kindergarten.  She was so nervous and uptight that my poor girl had a stomach ache. :(  But thankfully she got into the groove of orientation and seemed to enjoy herself. 

Once we returned home, I was checking email and received a couple of discouraging ones in regards to our attorney situation with our adoption.  I had made contact with our attorney to contact our Georgia attorney, waited a week, hearing nothing.  I contacted the Georgia attorney and she had heard nothing.  So I contacted our attorney again yesterday and asked him again to please call and he said he would try to do so that day.  I emailed the Georgia attorney and told her that and she emailed this morning saying that she hadn't yet heard from him.  I get another email from Angel Adoption saying that Alexis is getting concerned because she hasn't heard anything yet from our Georgia attorney.  Our Georgia attorney can not contact Alexis until our attorney has contacted her AND we have retained her as the attorney.

So I emailed Angel Adoption back and told them to please tell Alexis that we are trying and that we have NOT lost interest in her or her baby.  If our attorney has not contacted our Georgia attorney we will be contacting a different attorney tomorrow.

I know that God is in control, but it is frustrating when we are doing everything we can to fight for our baby and it seems like it still isn't enough and the people we keep running into to work with seem to handle things so unprofessionally.  Praying that God will continue to work out all the details and that our attorney dilemma will quickly be resolved.

Birth Father

I was able to make contact with both our Georgia and our Kansas attorney today.  Now, they must "get together" and talk before the Georgia attorney can have us retain her.  So after they talk, and she sends us her retainer letter, we will officially have an attorney in Georgia.    She can not meet with the birth mother until we have retained her, so it could be a couple of weeks before she gets to meet with Alexis to get some more information about the case.  It does appear though, that we will get to finalize in Kansas because Georgia law won't let us finalize there because we aren't residents of that state.

Anyway -  right now there is very little information about the birth father.  It sounds as though he isn't currently in the picture so we don't even know if he is aware of the pregnancy much less the adoption plan.  So please be in prayer for this specific situation and that he would be located and willingly sign over his rights.  Thanks for coming along with us on this journey! :)

We Have a Name :)

We were finally able to make contact with Angel Adoption today and was able to find out the name of the birth mother with whom we are working.  Her name is Alexis.  Would you please be praying for her, along with us, as she has quite a bit of her pregnancy left to go?  Pray for safety and health for her and the baby and that ultimately she will make the best decision for her and her baby (selfishly speaking that would be for us to be able to add them to our family).

Also we are in the beginning stages of getting the legal side of the ball rolling, as in retaining attorneys for the Georgia and the Kansas side.  We started on that process today and I am pretty confused as we didn't have to do all of this with Adia as it was done for us. :)  Hopefully tomorrow the attorney from Georgia will be able to call me back and we will be able to clear up some of this confusion.   With Adia's situation, everything happened so fast and had to be done now, and with this one, it seems like everything is moving SO slowly - - but after all we do have time!!  The attorney that I spoke with in Kansas mentioned that there is a waiver that the birth mother could sign where she could give up her 10 day waiting period to change her mind and go with Kansas law instead, making her signing in the hospital the final deal.  I will definitely bring this up to the attorney in Georgia to see if we would at least be able to present the idea to the birth mother. 

Thank you for praying!!

We've Been Matched!!!!! :)

At 3:22 p.m., we got a call from Angel Adoption, saying that we had been chosen by an 18 year old birth mother in Georgia (location is close to Atlanta).  She has good support from her family in regards to the adoption plan so that is encouraging.  She is due January 20, and does not yet know the gender of the baby.  She may or may not find out.  Sue, with Angel Adoption, after sharing what information she could, said that we would need to get back with her either tonight or tomorrow morning so that she could let the birth mother know.  After talking with Skeeter, we decided to say YES!! :)

I then returned the call to Angel Adoption and she will be contacting the attorney in Georgia that we will be working with tomorrow and will then call us tomorrow and let us know what the next steps will be.

According to Georgia law, even though the birth mother signs over her rights in the hospital, she still has 10 days afterwards to change her mind - -so that will be a HUGE prayer request.  We would, however, be able to take the baby from the hospital. We won't be able to leave Georgia, for a good 7-10 business days afterwards.  As far as the birth father, it sounds like they will start working on the birth father's rights, right away and if they "summons" him and he doesn't respond, his rights are automatically terminated after 30 days.

I hope to learn the birth mother's name so to at least give you an initial so that you can be praying for her.  The social worker said that she is a sweet person, who was very specific as to who and what she was looking for.  If you're familiar with adoption, you know that nothing is a done deal, until its finalized but at least now we have some specific prayer requests for you to be keeping in mind.  I will post more when I know more. Thanks for praying for and with us!  Its so nice to finally be "expecting" and have a DUE DATE in mind. :)

New Contact

Its been a little bit since we've given an update on our adoption status and for the most part its been pretty quiet.  A lady whom I had contacted in April, who runs a maternity home, referred me last week to an attorney in Wichita who does adoptions.  I had called and left a message and was excited to hear back from her today.   She is so graciously willing to show our profile to prospective birth parents without charging us first! :)    If we were to get matched with her, it would be within our budget which is another huge blessing.  This afternoon she emailed me with the questionnaires that needed to be filled out as well as what she would need to show to the birth parents. 

So this evening my project has been to fill out the answers to the questions and gather everything together.  I don't know if anything will come as a result of this additional contact, but I am hearing more and more how you have to search for your baby - - -little did I know how much more we would have to search than what we did with Adia. (Although whatever we have to do will be worth it!) Ultimately, we could search until we are blue in the face, as it is entirely up to the Lord as to how He will bring our next forever child into our family.  However, if a door opens, you can bet, we will be walking through it until it shuts. :)  I have also been contacting local attorneys and have found at least one that would be willing to show our profile as well, so will see how that pans out as well.

Thanks for your continued prayers!

Our package ready to go!  Of course with the address on it.... :)

Profile is Complete

We have been asked if we have heard anything in regards to our adoption, so here is our latest updated information - -

On June 25, we received our paper copy of our profile in the mail.  After looking through it, we asked if a couple of changes could be made to our profile, as the front picture was blurry and there were a couple of typos.  They emailed us back yet that night and told us that they would make the changes and then send us another copy. 

On June 27, our 14th anniversary, we received an email from Angel Adoption that the corrections had been made and our copy was in the mail to us.  We received the copy today and it looks great!!  I am so excited!  I will post some pictures below of what the paper profile looks like  - - even though I know you probably won't be able to read what it says, hopefully it will give you an idea of what it looks like.

Front cover

Middle pages

Back page

Insert front - -chart that compares what Skeeter and I's favorite things are in certain categories

 

Insert back - - letter to birth mother

  

Here is a link to our online profile in case you would be interested in sharing with someone you know that might be interested in placing their child for adoption.

http://www.angeladoptioninc.com/component/option,com_family/Itemid,138/id,486/view,detail/

Thanks for continuing to pray!

Entering a New Prayer Phase

Last night we posted about receiving a call from Angel Adoption in regards to our profile being completed.  I was under the impression that since they told Skeeter that they would be sending us a profile to look over to see if any changes needed to be made that we would not be going active until we "approved" the profile. 

Today we received an email from Angel Adoption and part of the email said:

Now that your profile is completed, we are going to start sending

 it out to potential birthmothers. 

YAY!!  We finally get to go active, even if we haven't seen our profile yet - -
Skeeter was told over the phone what changes had been made so I'm sure it will be fine!  It is so exciting to be finally taking the next step and for once have someone be serious about showing us to prospective birth mothers.  So will you be in prayer with us as we enter into this new phase, that God will be working already in the hearts of the birth mothers that will be shown our profile and that God will just make it distinctly clear which birth mother will be a part of our forever family?  We will be hearing status updates every 2-3 weeks from what I understand as to how many birth mothers have viewed our profile, both paper and on the web so now we just ......sit back and wait and pray (easiser said than done at times).

One Step Closer

On June 5 (our last post), we sent in our 'baby' for the workers to put our profile together.  On Friday, June 8, we received an email stating that they had received our disc.  Have I mentioned how much I love their communication with us? :)  On June 14, I called them to see if they had received our home study from our social worker - - YES!! they had!  That in and of itself is a huge answer to prayer.  Now when our profile is ready to be active, we can be shown not only through paper profiles, but also go active with an online profile. :)

Today, we received the call that our profile was DONE!!  They will have a paper copy sent to us and will go out in tomorrow's mail, so hopefully early next week, we will have our profile in hand.  We are to proof it and then get back with Angel Adoption and then my understanding is that we will then go ACTIVE to be shown to prospective birth parents!!

There are times when this process seems like it is taking forever and that we have practically "wasted" a year of our time with our other social worker.   But we know that God is in control and I am anxious to see what His plans are for our family.  Thank you for praying!!

Sent Off Our 'Baby' Tonight

Yesterday and today we have been busy compiling pictures, answering questions and writing a birth mother letter.  We then were able to burn these important items onto a disc - -"our baby".   Tonight, we were able to drop off our baby into the mail to Angel Adoption, Inc. :)  Now, unless they have something else that they need us to do, they should have all the information they need to build our profile and begin showing us to prospective birth parents.

Our 'Baby'

We are also praising the Lord, that one of our social workers appears to be trying to get our home study to Angel Adoption, which is HUGE for this agency to move this quickly! :)  Thanks for praying!

We finished off the evening by celebrating and going to get some ice cream cones. :)

Full Speed Ahead with Angel Adoption

After last week, we were wondering where God was leading us in regards to working with Angel Adoption.  After our contact with our social worker with a possible lead, we followed up, almost daily with our social worker, and each day we got the same response, she hadn't been able to follow up with the birth mother yet.  So after prayer and discussion, I contacted Angel Adoption this morning to find out if we could even get our money back if this birth mother did pan out.  We could not -- so there is our answer!! 

So, this week, we will be working on trying to get all the information together to send to Angel Adoption so that they can officially start advertising for us.  I have contacted our social worker and asked her to stop showing others our profile and to let her know we will contact her if we need their help with the legal side of finalizing our adoption.  I also told her we need our home study sent to Angel Adoption. :D 

So thankful for God's clear cut answer!!  Now we will get busy, so we can let Angel Adoption do their work and then we can both watch and see how God works!  Hope you all have a great week!

Contact with Social Worker this Morning

On Monday, I posted how our social worker from Andover contacted us with a couple of possible options for babies.  I hadn't heard anything so I contacted her this morning to see if she had any updates.  The baby that was already born, did not work out.  Which I am fine with as I am still recuperating. :)  There is another one, that we had already been presented with over Mother's Day weekend, that we had already turned down.  Then there is still one that is due in September with a boy.  This one sounds like the most "promising". Our social worker hopes to meet with her either today or tomorrow to present her with our profile, amongst 1 or 2 others.  I am to call our social worker back tomorrow afternoon to see if there are any updates.  This birth mother has about 4 other children, with 3 of them farmed out to others.  She is due at the beginning of September and sounds to be a Christian without drug and alcohol issues.    This would also be a local birth mother so we wouldn't have the extra expenses that come with travel.  So, we will wait and see if we can get some closure on this birth mom and then decide where we need to try to go with Angel Adoption.  I did attempt to let our social worker know what kind of pressing situation we are in in regards to Angel Adoption in hopes that she will finally step up and get serious.  Will see how God leads!!  Thanks for continuing to pray!  Will post when we find out more where we stand on this case! :)

Quick Correction to Last Post

I can't begin to tell you how much it meant to me to know that so many people were praying for me while I was in the hospital.  Thank you so much!! 

In the last post, I mentioned that the nurse predicted I could go blind - - I don't know that at that point they were necessarily concerned about permanent blindness but more "blindness" from both eyes being swollen shut.  However, when the doctor had me try to open my eye, and I was able to, he did ask if I could see from it.  I s'pose that since they didn't truly know what was going on they had to cover all their bases.  Anyway - - just wanted to quickly clarify that and apologize for my phrasing on that one.  Only God knows if it would've been permanent, but praise the Lord He chose to heal me this time!!  You don't realize how important everyday activities are and how we shouldn't take anything for granted.

Hospital Vacation

The afternoon of my last post, May 18, we received an email from Angel Adoption confirming that they had received our contract and check.  The following week we would receive an email with all the details of what they would need to get working on our portfolio.  After the week we had had with Anne breaking her leg, I was ready to get started again on our adoption pictures and try and get back to 'normal'.  We were looking forward to a nice campout over Memorial Weekend so that we could kinda regroup as a family after all the stress.  Well God, had another vacation in mind...

Many of you have asked what happened - - well here is the best of the story as I can remember.  Sunday night/early Monday morning (May 20 or 21) I woke up for some reason touching my eye lid.  The pain that shot through me was intense.  I touched the eye lid again, and the pain was enough to make me cry.  However, the strange thing is, is that it was like I was in a dream and just went back to sleep.   Monday morning, when I woke up, my eye felt swollen.  At 6:46 a.m., I knew Skeeter was going to need to take me to the doctor to see what was going on.  However, I didn't want to wait for a regular dr appt and we chose to go to Same Day Care to hopefully get in quicker so Skeeter could get to work.  So we dropped the kids off around 8:00 a.m., and went to the doctor -- at this time, my eye was swollen but was still poking through.  The doctor diagnosed it as cellulitis and put me on an antibiotic and steroids.  After the appointment, around 9:00 a.m., my eye was completely shut.

Around noon, I noticed the swelling was getting worse and called the doctor.  They said it would get worse before it got better - - boy were they right!!  By 2:10 p.m., my eye had developed a lovely blister.  These pics are on the cell phone so will have to forgive the quality.  The pic below shows the blister if you can tell. :)

 

I called the doctor again and they said to get in right away and that they would work me in.  So I again had to call Skeeter home from work so that he could drive me to the doctor.  Suffice it to say, they didn't know what was going on, but was definitely thinking it was a reaction that was moving quickly and would need to have some stronger attention.  By 4:00 p.m., we were on the move packing and arranging for child care.  We dropped off the kids around 4:30 p.m., and was in the hospital by 5:45 p.m., waiting on an iv and CT.  They were wanting to see if the CT would show any absess behind the eye that was causing the fluid to build and then that would require surgery to drain.  Praise the Lord there was not an absess!!  However, there was some possible indication that there COULD be some cellulitis.  So they put me on 2 different antibiotics and steroids to help with the swelling.

Tuesday morning, the Infectious Disease Doctors became involved.  They were uncertain that there was an infection, because my lab work was coming back ok and there was not a fever, but to be on the safe side they would keep me on my antibiotics.   I had to stay elevated as much as possible so that things would drain down to my heart rather than my brain.  I had swollen up into my forehead, out to my ear and down to my neck.  The family doctor just kept saying over and over that I just wasn't sick enough to have cellulitis (maybe we caught it in time), but that I didn't have enough redness and misery and that it was just a lot of swelling indicating an allergic reaction.  But since we don't know for sure what happened, we don't know what we are allergic to.  By Tuesday evening, things weren't looking good for my good eye and the nurse predicted that in about  hours I could be blind.  How I pleaded with God to let me keep that eye or if not to give me back the other one.  I was petrified to go to sleep not knowing if I would wake up and be able to see.  But I knew that worrying about it wouldn't help and so I did come to rest knowing that God would be my strength.  However, each time I woke up, you can be sure I was praising the Lord when I could see.  Thankfully, He did let me keep my eye! :)

By Thursday, they decided to take me off the antibiotics and switch me to oral steroids so that I could get home.  Thankfully that worked. I had and continue to be on higher doses of Zyrtec as well.  Friday morning, I was discharged from the hospital!! :)  All the doctors and nurses kept saying over and over again that they had never seen anything like this before!  Think I should win a prize or something for this one! :)

Here is my eye as of Sunday.

We may never know what happened, and that is very frustrating for me, one who likes to have answers.  But we have sprayed the house and are carrying on as though I was bit.  Maybe once the swelling is completely gone, we will be able to see something, I don't know. I go back for a follow up visit on Friday.

As for the adoption - -I was so disappointed knowing that while I was in the hospital there was an email for me with a project of something I could be working on.  What was/is God doing???  So we emailed Angel Adoption and told them what was going on and told them that we hoped to get on to the pictures when we got home from the hospital.

Here we are with a new week - - hoping to get started again as my strength and eye sight increase.  I received a call from our social worker this morning (from Andover) saying that she may have a couple of possible cases for us and needed us to again send her our portfolio.  One of these babies was just born and another one due in September.  What is God doing to my heart???  What is He wanting us to do?  Are we to work with Angel Adoption??  If this works out with our local social worker, can we get at least a partial refund of what we sent to Angel Adoption?  Praying that God will clearly lead us and that we will know what HE is wanting for us to do.  So as we recuperate from our health issues and broken bones, we will see what excitement we have this week in the world of adoption as Angel Adoption will need to know what is going on.  What will we tell them??!  Gotta love this journey!  Thanks for coming along with us!

New Start!

This week has been a bit slower on the adoption front, which is ok as we were dealt a blow with Anne breaking her leg over the past weekend.  She got her cast today so hopefully will be on the mend soon.

As for our adoption - - on Tuesday we mailed our 18 mos contract with a nice sum check to Angel Adoption to start their advertising for us.  It has been such a PLEASANT change to email someone and actually get a response, much less that same day!  Amazing - - so not what we are used to!!  I gave the fax number to our social worker so she would know where to send our home study.  I did not hear a response back, so checked with Angel Adoption to see if they had heard anything.  Not surprisingly, their answer was no.  So next week, I will again try to pursue getting our home study to Angel Adoption.

Once Angel Adoption receives our check and contract, we will begin more frequent communication with them as they send us requests for what they need to build our profile FOR us.  So hopefully, next week, we can get started on that process as well.  Can you tell I am excited to start working with someone who will be doing the work for us???! :)

Our biggest hurdle that I see right now is once again involving the home study. :(  The home study needs to be valid in all states, and I have asked about that, but have not been given a response.   So we are praying that: 1) Our home study will be valid for all states, and 2) That our social worker will quickly get our home study to Angel Adoption.  Thankfully, I do think we have a bit of time, as it will take 1-2 weeks from what I understand for our profile to be ready to go active, but I don't think we will be able to be shown if they haven't received our home study.  

Thanks for continuing to pray as we wait on our next forever child!

God's Answer in regards to Angel Adoption

Today has been an emotional day for me.  It reminded me of when we were struggling with infertility and I would think I would finally be pregnant, test, and then see the negative results.  After you keep getting negative results you tend to not want to test because you just know that it won't ever be positive.  I knew that today we would get the results from our "test" with Angel Adoption and in my quiet time today, the first line that I read was, "Thank Me for your problems".  Great!  I might as well start preparing myself for another negative result.

I avoided email as much as I could today because I knew either way there was going to be an answer in there at some point   I wanted to know, but I didn't want to see the negative.  By 3:00 p.m., I had to check - - nothing.  By 5:00 p.m. - - nothing.  It was after 5:30 p.m., and I needed to go to the store.  I thought, maybe I should check one more time.  If nothing was there, maybe I'd need to wait until Monday??

I checked, and the answer was there and had been sent at 5:10 p.m.  Here is what it said --

Dear Skeeter and Joy,

I would like to thank you for your interest in Angel Adoption. It was a pleasure talking to you and getting the opportunity to tell you about Angel Adoption’s program.

I would like to formally extend an invitation to you to join Angel Adoption in the month of May; I feel that you would be an asset to our program.

Everyone in the neighborhood could probably hear me shouting as I was so excited to finally see a POSITIVE!!  I finally feel like we are in the stages of our paper pregnancy!  

What does this mean for us now?  Well, basically, we are starting over.  We will begin working on sending in pictures, etc, so that Adoption Angel can build a profile for us to be shown to birth parents.  They will build an online copy as well as a paper copy.  They will work and do things FOR us instead of me always having to do everything - - which will be a huge relief.  It will be a relief to work with someone who responds to my emails and my calls, rather than me always having to keep trying due to lack of response.  There are so many other things that will bring great relief as well!  Another nice thing is that most of the birth parents they work with are not heavily influenced with drugs and alcohol.  

We are so excited and can't wait to see who God will bring along for our family!!  We had a family from our home school group come over yesterday and they had an almost 6 month old baby.  It was so cute to watch Adia play with her and soothe her and be ever so gentle.  After they left, Adia asked me when we were going to get our baby.  I know the "excitement" stage won't last forever once the baby does come, but it does this mommy's heart good to watch these developments.

Our next big prayer request is once again in regards to our home study. :(  We will need our current social worker to get our home study to Angel Adoption.  It should take 1-2 weeks or so before our profile goes active, so hopefully this will give them enough time to get the home study to where it needs to go.   Pray that this will be a smooth process and that I won't have to keep asking to get this done. 

Thank you for continuing to pray!

Phone Interview Update

Today, at 5:00 p.m., we had a phone interview with Lori, who is with Angel Adoption Inc., that lasted over an hour.  We felt like it went very well and now will be in prayer as to what the Lord's next step should be.  On Friday morning, Lori, will be looking over the profiles of the adoptive parents that she has had interviews with to best see which ones would work best with their birth mothers.  They only accept 6 new adoptive families each month and right now their website is saying they have room for only 2 more families.  She said we will receive an email either way, sometime Friday afternoon.  If they say no, but we feel like we would like to work with them, we do have the option of emailing them and requesting being considered for the next cycle of adding in new families.

Please be in prayer for Lori, especially on Friday morning as she looks through the profiles of adoptive parents that she will have the wisdom she needs to select adoptive parents, even if that ends up with us not being chosen (although we'd really like to work with them :) ).  We will be eagerly checking email on Friday as we await the answer and seek the Lord's will as to our next step based upon their answer.

Thanks for praying with us!

Phone Meeting on Tuesday

Thought I would take a moment to update you on what is shaping up for this week in our adoption journey while I am staying home from church with 2 sick kiddos.  Last week I did a lot of research on different adoption agencies as we have been feeling like we might need to check out an additional agency as our current agency isn't being able to network out very well as she is so busy.  In contacting other agencies, I was amazed at how many were telling me that they were full and had more adoptive parents than babies to adopt out.  This seems to be a different trend than what we encountered 5 years ago - - which is amazing!!  I am glad that there are more families out there feeling the need/call to add to their family through adoption.

Anyway - - we have settled on checking out Angel Adoption.  Not only did they have a free online application (which is very rare), but they fit our budget range.  They also appear to be aggressive with advertising, which is not what we are used to at all.  We have a phone meeting with them this coming Tuesday, at 5:00 p.m.  We then wait to see if we have been approved as they only accept 6 new families a month. If we are approved, they give us a list of what they need so they can build a profile for us that can be shown to prospective birth mothers.  They would do the work for us - -which will be a huge relief for me as I feel like right now, I have had to be the pusher, instigator, etc, for any possible leads, which is what we are paying our social worker to do so that we don't have to.

It has been nice to have a slower week, so that we could recover from our emotional roller coaster ride from the past several weeks.  God is good and we know that in HIS timing, the right child will come along.

 “Before you were born, I dreamed of you, I imagined you, I prayed for you. Now that you’re here in my arms - I hope for you, I love you … I thank God for you.” ~Unknown

In the meantime, we are feeling that with the "shortage" of birth mothers available, we might need to expand our searching capabilities.  If we are accepted with Angel Adoption, we will drop out of the Adoption Share group (which we have to pay to be a member of), as most of the contacts from there have been way above our budget.

So for this week, you can be in prayer that both the agency and us will clearly feel God's leading and peace as we try to apply for membership with Angel Adoption.  I will update you when we find out where our status is at in regards to Angel Adoption.  Thank you for all of your support for us!

Moving On

Thank you to all of you who have been asking about our adoption, especially in regards to our most recent development.  I had not heard anything Friday evening, in regards to the birth mother being shown our profile so I had already begun to process that this case was probably not going to be for us.  I needed a sense of closure on the case so I contacted the social worker to get an update on where the case was at in regards to our family.  They encourage the birth mother to choose 3 profiles so that in the case the adoptive parents she chooses, does not wish to proceed then they would move on down to number 2, etc. Another family has been chosen, but the social worker made it sound as though they may not be ready to commit??.  She didn't know where we are at in the lineup, since she was not the social worker that presented the profiles to this birth mother.  I really do not want to sit and think about if we were number 2 or 3 - - I don't want to build up any false hope.  So we are moving on....waiting to see who God will bring along. 

On Friday, we were told by a friend to contact one of her friends who has connections to a maternity house in Wichita.  So we did, and emailed her our profile to be shown to any prospective birth mothers.  I don't know if anything will come from this contact or not, as the counselor told me to contact her once a quarter.

Anyway - - my lesson for now is to let go, and let God.  Very easy to say, not so easy to put into practice!

Pray about this coming Friday

We have been on quite the emotional roller coaster over the past week, and have also been frustrated as to what we should be doing in regards to our adoption budget.  Most of the adoption opportunities that we have been given (we have had a couple more presented since last weekend) have been more than what we have originally budgeted.  This caused us to think that maybe we needed to re-evaluate our budget a bit more and take into consideration that adoption expenses have gone up since our previous one. :)

Today, I checked with an agency in Ohio, that seemed to be so promising and could maybe even fit into our budget perfectly.  When I called, however, I found that their website might have been a bit misleading as most of their cases are not at the price that they mentioned.  So I decided I would check out the listings of pregnancy care centers in Kansas with the possibility of calling some of them to see if they would keep a copy of our portfolio on hand to show any of their clients.  While doing that I also checked to see if there were any other adoption agencies in Wichita - -there was one.  So I called them to see if they would be willing to network with our current agency and told them what we were looking for.  Unfortunately they don't network with our agency, but they are willing to show our portfolio to a birth mother who is scheduled to come in to see them on Friday evening, sometime after 5:00 p.m.  They are willing to show her our information without us even having filled out an application yet, which is pretty amazing!  If she chooses us and there is a match, then of course we would need to fill out the application, etc.  So the only two things they need as of right now, is our portfolio, which I have sent to them, and of course a copy of our home study.  We do not have a copy of our home study, so this will require our social worker to forward this on to them.  She is out of the office all day today and so my prayer is that she can get this done tomorrow as the agency presenting us needs this before hand.  Friday morning would be the latest they would like to see the home study come through so that they can have a chance to read it and get to know us a little bit better before presenting us.

The birth mother that is to come in, is AA and due with a girl at the beginning of July.  Our portfolio will be among 3-6 other portfolios, I believe, that will be presented.  So we will be praying for her as she makes a difficult decision as to whom she should entrust her child, even if its not us.

I don't really know how to feel or what to think, to be honest, as we've had so many ups and downs so close together.  But I do know that God is in control and I have to learn to trust Him, and continue to pursue all of these open doors until He closes them.  If the birth mother chooses us, we could find out as early as Friday evening.  So, will you join us in prayer for this specific situation that God will clearly guide this birth mother as she chooses a family for her daughter?  If our social worker does not get our home study to them in time, that automatically withdraws us from the "showing" so that is a big prayer request in and of itself.  Thank you so much for all of your support!

Update From Friday's Post

Friday, I posted how we had been contacted by a social worker to see if we'd like to learn more about one of their birth families.  Once we would receive the info, and if we "approved" of the birth family we could send the social worker our portfolio, etc, to be shown to the birth family. 

Friday evening, with great excitement we saw that we had received the email that we had been waiting for - - to learn more details about this birth family.  Looking through the information, pieces started falling into place - - there hadn't been drugs, alcohol, smoking, etc during the pregnancy, the mother was receiving prenatal care, they were looking for a Christian family to love their child unconditionally, and wanted to receive pictures via the adoption agency every couple of months.  A perfect scenario in our minds as to what we have been looking for and waiting for in prospective birth parents.  It seems like these kind of birth parents are rare anymore - - so we were getting excited!  Then, the final piece of the puzzle that needed to fall into place, was how much the agency would charge us for this placement.  Unfortunately, it was DOUBLE the amount of what we have budgeted for our adoption plan.  Plus it did not cover any of the travel/lodging fees that would be required to go receive our child in Florida.

I wrestled with God for hours as to why these birth parents seemed so perfect, someone that we would actually like to pursue, but couldn't.  Why did He allow us to be presented with this situation, when it would be out of our reach?  I don't know the answer to this question, but emotionally and mentally, I kept trying to figure out a way to make this work.  Finally, I had to come to the realization, that this puzzle piece was just not going to fit into this puzzle. :(   This was by far, the most disappointing of all the cases we've been dealt so far.  But, in God's timing, we will just need to wait for God to bring ALL the puzzle pieces together for our next forever child.

So, tomorrow, I will contact the social worker and let her know that we will need to decline on this case.  Again, thank you for all of your continued prayers!

New Possibility??

We have been remembering all the excitement and emotions that filled our lives as we reflect on Adia joining our family 5 years ago!  What a blessing she has been to us! 

In reflecting on where we are at with our current adoption, we began to wonder if we were putting "God in a box" by seeking to adopt a specific gender.  We don't want to be caught in the attitude of saying we will adopt, but only if it is a boy.  Therefore, today we contacted our social worker and said we would be open to any gender - - all we really want is a healthy child to love and treasure!    Why not let God decide what is best for our family?!?  After all, if we were to get pregnant, we couldn't care less what gender of the baby, we would just be elated, knowing that we were having a baby, and know that God knows what is best for us!!  Why not do the same with adoption?!?!

After I got off the phone, I changed our status as to what we are seeking on our site through Adoption-Share.  I then posted our status, much like how you'd change your facebook status, so that others could openly see that we had changed that status as well.  Adoption centers, crisis pregnancy care centers, birth mothers, etc, all have access to our profile there on that site.  Anyway---I was excited to see when I checked email that an agency had emailed us asking if we'd like more info about them and a birth mother they are working with!!!!  Of course, I quickly responded, saying yes!!  This baby would be due the first part of October and the gender is unknown, at least at this point.  It is incredibly difficult to not get excited, knowing that this one may not work out either.  But I look forward to getting some more information and seeing how God leads. Thanks for praying and going with us on this seemingly quite bumpy emotional roller coaster of our 'paper pregnancy'.

Lessons in Waiting

Hi!  Thought I might recap a bit for some of you who missed all the activity in our family yesterday and today. :)  Yesterday morning, our social worker called us and asked us if we'd be willing to take a risk and wire some money to a birth mom who was wanting to place her 8 mos old mixed race boy up for adoption.  This birth mother has been known to lie in the past, but we wanted to try and give her the benefit of the doubt that people can change and that maybe she'd start thinking about her children over herself.  It wasn't much money, just enough to help her get a ticket for the bus, but it was a risk all the same.  It was cool though, that God knew we wouldn't get our return back on that risk, and provided ALL the money back that we lost via a gift yesterday afternoon. :D  Isn't God, great?!! 

The bus was due to arrive this morning, so after she "should have been here", I contacted the social worker to get an update and found out that she had not taken the bus.  Instead she had offered the excuse that she needed more money.  So therefore, we are wondering if she isn't using this innocent child as a means for her to gain more money.  Her lifestyle is that of prostitution, etc, so our hearts are heavy for the children she has (she was going to keep one of them, and place the baby for adoption).  Even though, in our minds, the baby should be rescued, God is ultimately in control and we are at peace with His decision for our family.  This doesn't mean we aren't disappointed, but are anxiously waiting to see who God has in mind for us.  Instead of discouraging us to stop, it encourages us that much more to keep going!

God had to teach me something through this ordeal though.  He had to teach me that I need to open my heart and life to the child he has for me instead of just giving God my limited expectations.  Although I do believe God gives us the desires of our hearts, if our hearts are right with Him, He will change our desires to match His.  I was partially disappointed when I found out that he was already 8 mos old - - I had missed so much of what I hoped to share with our adopted child.  I was prepared for an infant, clothes and all -- - - I wouldn't have anything much for this 8 mos old child.  But I came to peace with the fact that God would provide if this child was for us.  God gave me such a peace and a love for this child, even though he wasn't the age that I at first would have chosen.  This is only my preference, not everyone enjoys going through the stages of newborn, etc.  I knew this child could reject me at this age, and I had to try to prepare myself for that when I look so forward to cuddling and rocking our new child. 

Anyway...sorry for rambling.  Again, these are only my thoughts and for those who wish to adopt older, that is awesome!!  God is good and I know that whoever He has for us will be a child that I will dearly love, now matter how old he is!  Thank you for your continued prayers for us and our family!

Confusion Brings Excitement

We applied for Adoption-Share last Friday.  The only other requirement that needed to be fulfilled for our membership to be accepted was to have our social worker acknowledge the email sent to them, and copied to us, that our homestudy was current and complete.  With it being a Friday, I figured it would be this week sometime before our social worker would be able to get that done.  I had even sent a text to our social worker telling her to expect an email and then forwarded the email to the social worker who wrote the homestudy to keep everyone in the loop.  I also had hopes that between both of them knowing, our chances would be higher for a speedier response.  Anyway, I waited and waited and nothing seemed to be being verified.  We planned to wait until Wednesday and then would try to contact the social worker to see if she had received the email.  After all, we had received a notice that we had been billed for this month's cycle.  We didn't want to have to pay for something that we weren't being able to use. 

Through a series of events, which I am sure the Lord allowed, I ended up needing to look for a 'lost' email that had been sent to me from someone else.  It must have been the Lord that prompted me to check my 'Spam' folder.  While searching through those emails looking for the lost email, I discovered that there were 2-3 messages from Adoption Share in there.  Why on earth???  I had received emails from them before, in my Inbox.  Anyway---- the emails confirmed that our membership had been approved.  Not only that, but that we had been approved on FRIDAY!! :D  So, I am now trying to set up our profile and figure out how to maneuver myself through this sort of adoption like facebook. :)

Praise the Lord!

Thank you so much for all of you who prayed after our post yesterday!  In my inbox this morning was an email from our social worker saying our HOMESTUDY WAS COMPLETED!!  Praise the Lord!!

As a result, this morning I started the process of applying with Adoption-Share.  We are now in the waiting stage to be approved to join.  Just in case anyone is interested in learning more about this 'group' here is the link for more info: http://adoption-share.com/.

Looking forward to starting this new phase in the process and seeing how God leads!  Thanks again for your continued prayers!