We will be hitting the road and returning home early. The birthmother that has been in contact with our agency is no longer returning calls. She has decided not to place her baby for adoption and possibly never planned to place at all.
We are obviously disappointed and so heartbroken. Please pray for these birth parents and this baby girl in North Carolina. It hurts us to realize that the parents could be using their daughter to manipulate others and get money. Pray that this baby has a loving bond with someone who will take care of her.
While this is hard to experience, we know there is a reason, even if we don't understand. We are so thankful for our adoption agency, Graceful Adoptions in Iowa. They have worked so hard this past week to support the birthmother, but also to look out for us and to protect the funds we've raised and saved for an adoption. Although we've had travel expenses, our financial loss has been so small compared to what often happens in a disruption situation. We are grateful for the work they are doing to bring adoptive and birth parents together in a God-glorifying way.
Please pray for this family and for us as God shows us His plans. We are so thankful for all of you. Your support and prayers have been overwhelming.
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Friday, July 25, 2014
MATCHED!
We are excited to share an update on our adoption!
Yesterday, I received a call from our adoption agency in Iowa. We were talking about and finalizing our family profiles. We talked for a bit about some changes that may be taking place, and the fact that if we were going to complete a domestic adoption in this way, it would need to happen quickly. We already knew that a match doesn't usually happen quickly for Caucasian couples who have biological children. But we also know that we are not in control of what happens. The director of the agency reminded me that they don't make the decisions, they just wait for what God has planned. We decided to make our profile "live" and become active and see what happens....
I got a call THIS morning from another lady from our agency. They had gotten a call this morning from a birthmother who has a two week old baby girl that she has decided she needs to place for adoption. I was told that the birthmother likes reading, writing, cooking, and sports...if you know us, you know this fits! She requested a stay-at-home mom. Despite attempting to take another position through the summer, God has seen fit for it not to happen. As of now I am, for the first time, a stay-at-home mommy. The most AMAZING request was that she was looking for a Caucasian couple who has children! This almost never happens! After presenting us to the birthmother, I received a call quickly after to say that she had selected us to adopt her child!
As of now, things are happening quickly! We have felt SO many emotions all at once! We are surprised and excited and uneasy and scared and worried and oh so happy! We will be traveling out of state in the next 1-3 days, where we will stay for up to 10 days (or maybe a little longer). Since this is a last minute situation, there is a lot of paperwork from a lot of different people that needs to be gathered and completed, along with many other steps in the process. We all want them to happen as quickly as possible, but realize that it will take some time.
Right now we are making some arrangements for leaving town and working on gathering the very large amount of funds that will be required in the next couple of days. Although we are so excited, there is SO much that we are unsure of right now. We don't know how a lot of things are going to work out, but we are once again amazed at how God is working and showing us that He is in control.
We need your prayers! Until everything is finalized, the decision isn't final. Please pray for this baby girl and her birthmother who is making a selfless and brave decision that is unimaginably hard! Pray for us as we prepare to leave our little guy during this time to travel out of state. I have only ever spent one night away from him in his 16 months of life! Pray for us as we adjust quickly to being parents of two blessings and for us to bond quickly with this new baby. Please pray for our funds and financial situation for this adoption. We began fundraising over 2 years ago, and although a very small amount has been used for small fees up to this point, there is still a little left. We are SO thankful for this money that was so graciously given to bring Baby King home years ago, and excited that it is happening! But we are in need of a lot more in just a couple of days. We have no doubt that if God has planned for this child to be a part of our family than it will all be made clear! If you would like to donate at this time to help bring Baby King home, you can follow our link on the upper right side of this blog to our PayPal account to make a donation, or contact us directly. We are more thankful than we could ever say for your prayers and support and are SO excited!!! Thank you so much for supporting us through this journey!
Yesterday, I received a call from our adoption agency in Iowa. We were talking about and finalizing our family profiles. We talked for a bit about some changes that may be taking place, and the fact that if we were going to complete a domestic adoption in this way, it would need to happen quickly. We already knew that a match doesn't usually happen quickly for Caucasian couples who have biological children. But we also know that we are not in control of what happens. The director of the agency reminded me that they don't make the decisions, they just wait for what God has planned. We decided to make our profile "live" and become active and see what happens....
I got a call THIS morning from another lady from our agency. They had gotten a call this morning from a birthmother who has a two week old baby girl that she has decided she needs to place for adoption. I was told that the birthmother likes reading, writing, cooking, and sports...if you know us, you know this fits! She requested a stay-at-home mom. Despite attempting to take another position through the summer, God has seen fit for it not to happen. As of now I am, for the first time, a stay-at-home mommy. The most AMAZING request was that she was looking for a Caucasian couple who has children! This almost never happens! After presenting us to the birthmother, I received a call quickly after to say that she had selected us to adopt her child!
As of now, things are happening quickly! We have felt SO many emotions all at once! We are surprised and excited and uneasy and scared and worried and oh so happy! We will be traveling out of state in the next 1-3 days, where we will stay for up to 10 days (or maybe a little longer). Since this is a last minute situation, there is a lot of paperwork from a lot of different people that needs to be gathered and completed, along with many other steps in the process. We all want them to happen as quickly as possible, but realize that it will take some time.
Right now we are making some arrangements for leaving town and working on gathering the very large amount of funds that will be required in the next couple of days. Although we are so excited, there is SO much that we are unsure of right now. We don't know how a lot of things are going to work out, but we are once again amazed at how God is working and showing us that He is in control.
We need your prayers! Until everything is finalized, the decision isn't final. Please pray for this baby girl and her birthmother who is making a selfless and brave decision that is unimaginably hard! Pray for us as we prepare to leave our little guy during this time to travel out of state. I have only ever spent one night away from him in his 16 months of life! Pray for us as we adjust quickly to being parents of two blessings and for us to bond quickly with this new baby. Please pray for our funds and financial situation for this adoption. We began fundraising over 2 years ago, and although a very small amount has been used for small fees up to this point, there is still a little left. We are SO thankful for this money that was so graciously given to bring Baby King home years ago, and excited that it is happening! But we are in need of a lot more in just a couple of days. We have no doubt that if God has planned for this child to be a part of our family than it will all be made clear! If you would like to donate at this time to help bring Baby King home, you can follow our link on the upper right side of this blog to our PayPal account to make a donation, or contact us directly. We are more thankful than we could ever say for your prayers and support and are SO excited!!! Thank you so much for supporting us through this journey!
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Update
For the past month and a half I have been working on typing a lot of information and submitting pictures for our family profiles. We have told information about us as individuals and as a couple, our immediate family, our extended family, our neighborhood and community, things we value and think are important to teach our children, what we do for fun, how and where we spend holidays and vacations, and lots more! We have also submitted pictures to show all of these things and another fee.
I am so excited to have these things submitted. The next step will be for our agency to begin putting our profiles together so they are ready to be presented to birthmothers. We may still have some edits to make before they are completed, but once they are finished we will be able to be presented to birthmothers who are planning to place their babies or children for adoption.
During this time we have been presented with a few other situations with babies and children that were, or would be, placed for adoption. Although the two agencies that will work with us primarily to find a placement anywhere in the country, our home study agency often forwards some situations from other contacts she has around the country, or from birthmothers who are in Kentucky that are working directly with her. Tyler and I have no preference of gender or race of a child we will welcome into our family. For now we are more comfortable with a child who is younger than Grayson at the time of the adoption, but are open to considering situations that involve children of other ages on a case by case basis. Over the past month we have been informed of some situations involving children who are African American, Caucasian, and biracial, boys and girls, some with special needs and some who are "healthy," and ranging in age from pre-birth to 2 years old. For some of these situations we would have a very high risk of losing $20,000, or more, and we don't feel like this would be a risk we are able to take at this point. Another situation with a 2 year old boy would not accept adoptive parents from Kentucky because of additional laws. We were presented to a birthmother the day she had her baby girl. She was very sweet and in the end made the decision to parent her child. Leigh said this was the best possible outcome and, although we would have been so excited to welcome the baby girl into our family, we praise God that she has the opportunity to know and be raised by her birthmother.
We are looking forward to our profiles being finished and becoming "active" with our other agencies. We are also figuring out and praying about the large portion of our adoption costs that will need to be available at the time that we do have a match.
God is teaching us so much right now. Right now there are a lot of unknowns for us, some related to adoption and others not. God is teaching us to persevere, and more than anything, to trust and have faith in Him and His plans. We know that God's plans are perfect and our hope is that whatever happens in our lives will bring Him glory. We are so excited and anxious to meet baby King when the day comes and to see how God is working other things out, too. We continue to pray for that time to come quickly!
I am so excited to have these things submitted. The next step will be for our agency to begin putting our profiles together so they are ready to be presented to birthmothers. We may still have some edits to make before they are completed, but once they are finished we will be able to be presented to birthmothers who are planning to place their babies or children for adoption.
During this time we have been presented with a few other situations with babies and children that were, or would be, placed for adoption. Although the two agencies that will work with us primarily to find a placement anywhere in the country, our home study agency often forwards some situations from other contacts she has around the country, or from birthmothers who are in Kentucky that are working directly with her. Tyler and I have no preference of gender or race of a child we will welcome into our family. For now we are more comfortable with a child who is younger than Grayson at the time of the adoption, but are open to considering situations that involve children of other ages on a case by case basis. Over the past month we have been informed of some situations involving children who are African American, Caucasian, and biracial, boys and girls, some with special needs and some who are "healthy," and ranging in age from pre-birth to 2 years old. For some of these situations we would have a very high risk of losing $20,000, or more, and we don't feel like this would be a risk we are able to take at this point. Another situation with a 2 year old boy would not accept adoptive parents from Kentucky because of additional laws. We were presented to a birthmother the day she had her baby girl. She was very sweet and in the end made the decision to parent her child. Leigh said this was the best possible outcome and, although we would have been so excited to welcome the baby girl into our family, we praise God that she has the opportunity to know and be raised by her birthmother.
We are looking forward to our profiles being finished and becoming "active" with our other agencies. We are also figuring out and praying about the large portion of our adoption costs that will need to be available at the time that we do have a match.
God is teaching us so much right now. Right now there are a lot of unknowns for us, some related to adoption and others not. God is teaching us to persevere, and more than anything, to trust and have faith in Him and His plans. We know that God's plans are perfect and our hope is that whatever happens in our lives will bring Him glory. We are so excited and anxious to meet baby King when the day comes and to see how God is working other things out, too. We continue to pray for that time to come quickly!
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Home Study Update: Complete and Sent!
Well, the home study update has taken a bit longer than we expected. We are thankful that the process was much simpler this time around since we have already completed a home study. Most of the background checks were completed and processed quickly, and the visit from our home study agency was also scheduled and completed quickly. It was great to catch up with Leigh from Heart-to-Home Adoptions and introduce her to our sweet miracle baby! However, the process was held up by one background check that took several weeks to process.
Once our home study update was finished, there was a bit of confusion with getting it sent to the agencies we will be working with. Even though I thought it had been sent and was waiting for a call from the agency to begin moving forward, I found out 3 weeks later that they still hadn't received it. Once we figured it out the problem was resolved quickly.
Our next step with this new agency will be a phone interview with the service director that will last about an hour and a half. The objective of the interview is for them to obtain a better understanding of our preparedness for the adoption process, as well as determine if we think we are a good fit to work together. This interview will take place tomorrow afternoon. Tyler and I will talk to the service director together on speaker phone (so Grayson will probably chime in, too)!
We are excited to be moving forward. Sometimes I'm tempted to think that we are now behind and that we could have moved forward weeks ago if there wasn't confusion. We pray daily for the child that will one day be part of our family. We're so anxious to meet him or her and the process can be long and at times frustrating. But then I find peace in remembering that God knows our child, and that he is working each step of this process according to His plan and for His glory. What an awesome God we serve!
Thank you for your continued prayers for our family, and birthmothers and adoptive parents all over the world!
Once our home study update was finished, there was a bit of confusion with getting it sent to the agencies we will be working with. Even though I thought it had been sent and was waiting for a call from the agency to begin moving forward, I found out 3 weeks later that they still hadn't received it. Once we figured it out the problem was resolved quickly.
Our next step with this new agency will be a phone interview with the service director that will last about an hour and a half. The objective of the interview is for them to obtain a better understanding of our preparedness for the adoption process, as well as determine if we think we are a good fit to work together. This interview will take place tomorrow afternoon. Tyler and I will talk to the service director together on speaker phone (so Grayson will probably chime in, too)!
We are excited to be moving forward. Sometimes I'm tempted to think that we are now behind and that we could have moved forward weeks ago if there wasn't confusion. We pray daily for the child that will one day be part of our family. We're so anxious to meet him or her and the process can be long and at times frustrating. But then I find peace in remembering that God knows our child, and that he is working each step of this process according to His plan and for His glory. What an awesome God we serve!
Thank you for your continued prayers for our family, and birthmothers and adoptive parents all over the world!
Monday, January 20, 2014
Moving Forward
I can't believe so much time has passed since we made the announcement to our friends and families that we were expecting a miracle baby!
To catch us up just a little: My pregnancy was so wonderful! I was high-risk from the beginning because of pre-existing health conditions. As a result, I had SO many appointments...lots of ultrasounds, non-stress tests, meticulous log-keeping for weekly reviews, and lots of other things to keep track of our baby boy. I had a wonderful team of doctors to help make sure our baby and I were healthy and growing the way we should! Aside from a couple of unexpected (and overall minor) things, my pregnancy went so great! I felt wonderful. I couldn't possibly explain the joy I felt during my pregnancy. Seeing his little body on the screen, feeling him kicking and moving, and listening a couple of times a week to his sweet heartbeat coming from inside of me were some of the best experiences of my life! I was told all along by my OBGYN that if I made it to 39 weeks, he didn't want me to go much passed that point since I was at a higher risk for complications that could occur later in the pregnancy. When I got to that point my doctor told me it was time to get the baby here because of some issues that weren't harmful to the baby yet, but could possibly become dangerous. He scheduled me to arrive at the hospital at 9:00pm on Monday night to begin induction. At about 12am Monday morning I began having irregular contractions. When I got to the hospital at about 10:30am I was about 9 1/2 centimeters dialated! At 2:16pm on March 11, 2013 we welcomed Grayson to the world! He was 7lbs 5oz, 20.5 inches long, and the most amazing thing I had ever seen! I loved being pregnant and am so thankful to have been able to experience such an incredible miracle as pregnancy and childbirth that was supposed to be impossible!
After considering many things about the situation and spending a lot of time in prayer, we felt that we needed to put the adoption on hold until after Grayson was born. Due to the nature of this kind of domestic adoption, it was very unlikely that a birthmom would chose to place her child with a couple who were expecting at the time, or with a couple who would have a very young child. It was recommended to us by one of the adoption agencies to wait until Grayson was 1 year old to begin again. I remember when they said that thinking of how long away that seemed! While we were ecstatic about our biological child I was carrying, our hearts still ached for the child or children we had been working to adopt! But, as we had been shown so many times, we knew God's timing is perfect.
Some people would expect that after being able to parent our biological child that our desire to adopt might not be so strong, but in fact the opposite is true. With our own son here with us, our eyes are opened even more to the reality of the millions of orphans around the world who are without a family. And so we've continued to pray and have kept our hearts open to God's timing and call. Grayson is now 10 months old and we have recently started taking the first steps to begin the process to adopt again! We have made some phone calls to one adoption agency we worked with before and to a new one we hope to begin working with this time. We have contacted the social worker from Heart-to-Home adoptions to see what steps we need to take to update our home study that has expired. In the last two weeks we have recieved and completed the beginning paperwork for the home study update. We have gotten fingerprints done, several other background checks have been completed again, physicals for both of us and Grayson have been done, and our home study visit took place earlier today! At this point we are waiting for one letter from HR where Tyler works. Once that is done and sent our home study update should be almost complete.
Once our home study is complete, we plan to work with two adoption agencies. We will begin the application process with the new agency and send our updated home study to one of the agencies we worked with before. Soon we will begin creating new family profiles that will be presented to birthmothers who are looking for adoptive couples to place children with. Then we will go from there...
Throughout the last several years we have been so grateful for your support and prayers through our issues with infertitlity, to beginning the adoption process, and then through the birth of our biological child. We hope that you will join us in praying for our adoption as we begin again. There are many things you can specifically pray for at this time. Please pray for the decisions that have to made at this time regarding the agencies we will be working with. Finances are a big part of this decision and process. We want to be faithful that God will provide the means needed to adopt how and when He plans, and at the same time we want to make the decisions that will allow us to be responsible with the finances that will be required at different times throughout the process. Since we are beginning again, a lot of the fees that we have right now are ones we paid before (background checks, application fees, home study updates, creating new family profiles, etc.) and need to be done again. Please also pray for our patience during this time and that we always remember that God is in control. This time around is different for obvious reasons. The timeline for a completed adoption could be significantly longer than it would've been for us before. When birthmoms are looking for families to place children with, couples without children will be picked first, then couples with other adopted children, and couples who have biological children are often picked last. Since Grayson and I are blonde, we are told that will also cause us to be picked even later. Even once we are active with the adoption agencies it is likely to take several years to be matched with a child. This can be discouraging and overwhelming to think about. God has proven to us already that we don't always see or understand His plans clearly, but that His timing is perfect. Even though we can be impatient we know that God already knows the child we are to adopt and when we will adopt him or her. Pray that we will follow Him faithfully during this time, trusting that He is leading the way, no matter how long it may take.
We are overwhelmed and yet so excited to be moving forward with our adoption at this time! We are so thankful for the unbelievable support that our friends and family have been to us the past several years and are so excited about the day we will be able to tell our child about how you all helped us to bring him or her home! Thank you!
To catch us up just a little: My pregnancy was so wonderful! I was high-risk from the beginning because of pre-existing health conditions. As a result, I had SO many appointments...lots of ultrasounds, non-stress tests, meticulous log-keeping for weekly reviews, and lots of other things to keep track of our baby boy. I had a wonderful team of doctors to help make sure our baby and I were healthy and growing the way we should! Aside from a couple of unexpected (and overall minor) things, my pregnancy went so great! I felt wonderful. I couldn't possibly explain the joy I felt during my pregnancy. Seeing his little body on the screen, feeling him kicking and moving, and listening a couple of times a week to his sweet heartbeat coming from inside of me were some of the best experiences of my life! I was told all along by my OBGYN that if I made it to 39 weeks, he didn't want me to go much passed that point since I was at a higher risk for complications that could occur later in the pregnancy. When I got to that point my doctor told me it was time to get the baby here because of some issues that weren't harmful to the baby yet, but could possibly become dangerous. He scheduled me to arrive at the hospital at 9:00pm on Monday night to begin induction. At about 12am Monday morning I began having irregular contractions. When I got to the hospital at about 10:30am I was about 9 1/2 centimeters dialated! At 2:16pm on March 11, 2013 we welcomed Grayson to the world! He was 7lbs 5oz, 20.5 inches long, and the most amazing thing I had ever seen! I loved being pregnant and am so thankful to have been able to experience such an incredible miracle as pregnancy and childbirth that was supposed to be impossible!
After considering many things about the situation and spending a lot of time in prayer, we felt that we needed to put the adoption on hold until after Grayson was born. Due to the nature of this kind of domestic adoption, it was very unlikely that a birthmom would chose to place her child with a couple who were expecting at the time, or with a couple who would have a very young child. It was recommended to us by one of the adoption agencies to wait until Grayson was 1 year old to begin again. I remember when they said that thinking of how long away that seemed! While we were ecstatic about our biological child I was carrying, our hearts still ached for the child or children we had been working to adopt! But, as we had been shown so many times, we knew God's timing is perfect.
Some people would expect that after being able to parent our biological child that our desire to adopt might not be so strong, but in fact the opposite is true. With our own son here with us, our eyes are opened even more to the reality of the millions of orphans around the world who are without a family. And so we've continued to pray and have kept our hearts open to God's timing and call. Grayson is now 10 months old and we have recently started taking the first steps to begin the process to adopt again! We have made some phone calls to one adoption agency we worked with before and to a new one we hope to begin working with this time. We have contacted the social worker from Heart-to-Home adoptions to see what steps we need to take to update our home study that has expired. In the last two weeks we have recieved and completed the beginning paperwork for the home study update. We have gotten fingerprints done, several other background checks have been completed again, physicals for both of us and Grayson have been done, and our home study visit took place earlier today! At this point we are waiting for one letter from HR where Tyler works. Once that is done and sent our home study update should be almost complete.
Once our home study is complete, we plan to work with two adoption agencies. We will begin the application process with the new agency and send our updated home study to one of the agencies we worked with before. Soon we will begin creating new family profiles that will be presented to birthmothers who are looking for adoptive couples to place children with. Then we will go from there...
Throughout the last several years we have been so grateful for your support and prayers through our issues with infertitlity, to beginning the adoption process, and then through the birth of our biological child. We hope that you will join us in praying for our adoption as we begin again. There are many things you can specifically pray for at this time. Please pray for the decisions that have to made at this time regarding the agencies we will be working with. Finances are a big part of this decision and process. We want to be faithful that God will provide the means needed to adopt how and when He plans, and at the same time we want to make the decisions that will allow us to be responsible with the finances that will be required at different times throughout the process. Since we are beginning again, a lot of the fees that we have right now are ones we paid before (background checks, application fees, home study updates, creating new family profiles, etc.) and need to be done again. Please also pray for our patience during this time and that we always remember that God is in control. This time around is different for obvious reasons. The timeline for a completed adoption could be significantly longer than it would've been for us before. When birthmoms are looking for families to place children with, couples without children will be picked first, then couples with other adopted children, and couples who have biological children are often picked last. Since Grayson and I are blonde, we are told that will also cause us to be picked even later. Even once we are active with the adoption agencies it is likely to take several years to be matched with a child. This can be discouraging and overwhelming to think about. God has proven to us already that we don't always see or understand His plans clearly, but that His timing is perfect. Even though we can be impatient we know that God already knows the child we are to adopt and when we will adopt him or her. Pray that we will follow Him faithfully during this time, trusting that He is leading the way, no matter how long it may take.
We are overwhelmed and yet so excited to be moving forward with our adoption at this time! We are so thankful for the unbelievable support that our friends and family have been to us the past several years and are so excited about the day we will be able to tell our child about how you all helped us to bring him or her home! Thank you!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)