Working Through the Home study

We haven't blogged for a couple of weeks as we took a small break from our home study packet. We have a couple of things we need to complete before we can send our packet in--but three of the things are dependant on outside resources. So tomorrow we get our TB test (but we had to wait for our appointment so we had to wait for that "resource"). In two weekends we are taking our CPR/First aid for infant class (but had to wait to take it for when there was a class opening). And our final check list item is getting our physical, however, our doctor office doesn't have an opening until APRIL!! So we are hoping tomorrow we can show them what the physical consists of and they can squeeze us into some random appointment time :) Then just a few more worksheets to work on and we'll be DONE with the packet itself. After our packet has been recieved, we will have our interviews that we will need to set up with our social worker. If you can all be praying for our birth mother (that may or may not be working with Bethany/even be pregnant at this point) right now that she is feeling loved and is working through her adoption plan and that God is protecting her--that'd be great!

______________________________________
So as we work through our packet, I wanted to share with you something that was read to us while we were at our training.

It is called, "Different Trips to the Same Place: A Story about achieving parenthood through adoption vs conception" by Diane Armitage, an adoptive mother.

When you decide you want to have a baby, it’s like planning a trip to Australia. You’ve heard it’s a wonderful place, you’ve read many guidebooks, and you feel certain you’re ready to go. Everyone you know has traveled there by plane. They say it can be a turbulent flight with occasional rough landings, but you can look forward to being pampered during the trip.

So, you go to the airport and ask the ticket agent for a ticket to Australia. All around you, excited people are boarding planes for Australia. It seems there is no seat for you; you’ll have to wait for the next flight. Impatient, but still anticipating a wonderful trip, you wait…and…wait…and wait. Flights to Australia continue to come and go. People say silly things like, “Relax. You’ll get a flight soon.” Other people actually get on a plane and then cancel their trip, to which you cry, “It’s not fair!”

After a long time, the ticket agent tells you, “I’m sorry, we’re not going to be able to get you on a plane to Australia. Perhaps you should think about going by boat.”

“By BOAT?!?” you say. “Going by boat will take a very long time, and it costs a great deal of money. Besides, I really had my heart set on going by plane.” So you go home and think about not going to Australia at all. You wonder if Australia will be as beautiful if you approach it by sea rather than air. But you have long dreamed of this wonderful place, and finally you decide you travel by boat.

It is a long trip, many months over rough seas. No one pampers you. You wonder if you will ever see Australia. Meanwhile, your friends have flown back and forth to Australia two or more times, marveling about each trip.

Then one glorious day, the boat docks in Australia. It is more exquisite than you ever imagined, and the beauty is magnified by your long days at sea. You have made many wonderful friends during your voyage, and you find yourself comparing stories with other people who also traveled by sea rather than air.

Other people continue to fly to Australia as often as they like, but you are only able to travel only once, perhaps twice. Some people still say things like, “Oh, be glad you didn’t fly. My flight was horrible. Traveling by sea is so easy.”

You will always wonder what it would have been like to fly to Australia. Still, you know God has blessed you with a special appreciation of Australia, and the beauty of Australia is not in the way you get there, but in the place itself.
______________________________________

We hope you enjoyed the story! I will post more another time on why I love this story :)

This weekend rocked!

This past weekend, Mark and I had the privilege of going to Seattle to complete our training and orientation! We had a great weekend of being able to hit the town of Seattle Friday evening--which included going to Pike Place Market and Hard Rock Cafe. We LOVE Hard Rock Cafe and visit every one in every state we go that has it. So it was fun to accomplish adoption items as well as sneak in a date night in there :) We also got to stay in a great hotel at the base of the Space Needle. We left our blinds open so Saturday morning we woke up to the Space Needle-It was simply amazing!!

AND, to top it all off, we had a great time at our training and orientation. For the first time in this whole process, I didn't feel alone anymore!! We were in a room of people who understood where we are at emotionally and what it is like to be "paper pregnant". That's kind of a joke among adoptive families since we are "concieving" a baby out of paper (all of our home study paperwork and other documents that are needed) and then you stay "paper pregnant" until your baby arrives home with you...so sometimes I feel like I even have the hormones of a pregnant lady :) I met some great people and finally have some people to talk to through this process. Don't get me wrong--our family and friends have been very supportive in the adoption process, but it is different to have someone who KNOWS what it's like to be in our shoes.

We now are just waiting on getting our homestudy packet in the mail--I was hoping it'd be waiting for us when we got home from our weekend trip, but sadly it wasn't. So we will wait for that to come and then get hauling on it. I asked what the fastest time someone completed the packet is--and I was told two weekends...so my goal is to get it done in a month--because yes, I do want to get it done quickly, but I also want to take it seriously because this is for our child :) We get to turn in our fingerprints in on Tuesday as well...so now we just get to wait for the FBI to process that too--which takes about 8 weeks.

This past weekend, we found out that during the homestudy process and especially after the packet is turned in, we really need to get our nursery in order--which seems weird to me. I mean, I know it's because at any point after the homestudy is approved we could get "the call" telling us that our baby has been born and we were chosen, but it's hard to wrap my mind around it all. I was talking with a few of the other adoptive moms saying that it's to prepare for a baby that isn't growing inside of me, I may not know the gender (especially when we are making the nursery), or when they'll be born--so we'll be going gender neutral for the nursery and for a lot of the clothes. We plan on buying a crib, changing table, dresser, a few outfits, a couple of boxes of diapers, formula, bottles and pacifiers probably until our baby comes whenever that is.

We are excited to see what God has in store for us in the phase of life and we will continue to wait patiently to hold our little one for whenever God's plan comes to be.

We are moving forward!!

We got a packet in the mail that had our contract with Bethany Christian Services (BCS) and our fingerprint/background check forms. We are so excited to be moving forward and making a little bit of progress towards having our future child with us in our home.

In this packet, we also found out that we need to be at a training up in Seattle this coming weekend--so we booked our hotel and will have a little night out on the town as we get to work towards adoption--YAY! And, the domestic coordinator up in Seattle was nice enough to let us do our orientation on Friday so we get to get two things out of the way, instead of spending two different Saturdays doing the training on day and the orientation on the other day. Thanks to the coordinator for doing this!!

And this morning, Mark and I went to get our fingerprints taken! It was a weird feeling going in to get it done. I kept saying, "we are doing this to work towards adoption." OR "We are doing this for our adoption" just so everyone didn't think we were getting booked into the jail for something. Haha!!

We are excited that we can be pro-active in this stage of the adoption--because from all of the adoption blogs I've read, waiting is the HARDEST because there isn't much you can do once you've turned in all your paperwork and your homestudy is approved, the only thing you're waiting on is for a birthmother to choose you and then for the baby to be born. There isn't much you can do while you wait besides sort of prepare your home for a baby whom you don't when he/she will arrive--you can be waiting for one day after your approved home study, or you can be waiting for years. So I am glad that I am in the stage where I can check things off and move forward at this time :)

Well, off to clean the house, but just wanted to update people as we had some info.

The agency we are using is...

Hello All,

We PROMISE to get better about posting...since it has been a while since we've posted (again).

We were waiting to figure out what doors God was opening before we posted. The Lord decided to shut some doors that were very unexpected (and some of them heartbreaking) but we kept praying for the Lord's will to happen. So, after much, much, MUCH more prayer than I thought it would take, the agency we are going to use is Bethany Christian (www.bethany.org). We did the pre-application last night and tonight we finished (and submitted) the formal application. Once we are accepted from the formal application, our home study process will officially begin and we will also spend a full Saturday in January for training. We are SOOO excited!!

My sister in law is pregnant with their first baby--so it's been hard for me to see her growing belly that has a "time table" on it. Their baby will be here in June 2012. For us, we have no idea when we will have a child in our arms. It could be a day after our home study is approved, it could be 5 years after our home study is approved--it is all dependent on when we are chosen by a birth mother. It's taken us 11 weeks to find the agency that was right for us and the only way I remember that is because my sister in law announced she was pregnant to the family at 4 weeks and is now almost at 15 weeks. I am learning lots of lessons that comparing myself to anyone doesn't get me very far. This has been a conviction that God and I have been working on for many years-it's just interesting how these little things I thought I learned a long time ago still sneak up on me as something that I'm still learning :) But, we are also so excited for another niece or nephew to be added to the family coming June 2012!!!! I cannot wait to love on this new niece or nephew! :)

So there you have it-excitement, heartache and more excitement and the agency we are going with!!

Picking the agency

Sorry that it's been a while since we've updated our blog. We took a couple of weeks off from updating people where we were at--because we didn't even really know. The last few weeks have been filled with interviewing agencies, attending informational seminars, and we even went to an adoption fair where there were about 10 agencies and all day "classes" that covered small snipets of what will be covered in the agency's educational classes.

Before tonight, we picked three agencies that we really liked, all for different reasons. Our "perfect" agency would be if we could pick the great parts about them and combine them into one agency. Unfortunately, that agency doesn't exist...so we have had to take time to pray, think, talk and figure it out. After tonight, we are 99% sure which agency we are going to work with. We went to their informational meeting tonight and fell in love with them all over again. I (Kelly) think it was exactly what I needed this evening. We are planning on driving over to their agency next week and fill out an application...and once we've been accepted for that, we will announce which agency we plan on using :)

So there you have it-it's an update, but not too much of one.

Watching a 4 year old

This past Thursday night, Mark and I had the honor of watching my friend's daughter, Shelby. I knew Shelby when she was born (see the first picture), but then my friend, Kristin and Shelby moved out of state so she could work. After that, Mark and I moved out of state at about the same time that Kristin and Shelby moved back into state. So I didn't really get to KNOW Shelby until she was around 2 or so. I have always called her my little buddy. Now she is 4 and is truly the greatest kid ever (and cute too!!! See the second picture) For a while now, she has been asking to spend the night at our house and I kept putting it off. When I think of watching a kid during the night for the very first time of them being away from their parents, I think of screaming and crying THE WHOLE NIGHT. I think of a kid needing to sleep in my bed while kicking me basically out of bed. I think that it is going to be a nightmare. But in reality, all of my "fears" never came true. Shelby ROCKS! Kristin and I decided not to tell Shelby that she was spending the night at my house until it was almost time to leave for my house, or else that would be all we would hear all day long. So when it was time to leave her house to come to mine, she was super excited. We got to my house and she played hard with our dog, Bailey. She loves that dog and Bailey loves that girl :) I'm not sure who is more worn out--the dog or Shelby. And then we just played, watched 'Ice Age,' ate dinner, she took a bath and then for bed time, it was so easy. She is such a well behaved kid and knows how to put herself to sleep. It is so refreshing to see a kid who is only 4 years old, but just rocks!

I think watching Shelby was good for my soul. Ever since I was 5 years old, I have wanted to be a mom. I have grown up in a huge extended family on my dad's side and I am one of the older cousins in this line of many kids. So I have gotten to hold many babies and fight aunts and uncles to hold such babies. I have known in my heart of hearts that being a mom is just right for me, and I have felt called to be a stay at home mom. With the whole health stuff that has happened between Mark and I, we found out that having a biological child just wasn't possible, and it was a huge truth pill to swallow. It still is. But as I grieve that loss I also get SO excited about adoption. But when I think of adoption, I think of all the time it is going to take us from when we apply to getting placed with a child--and it kind of seems overwhelming. It's also overwhelming to think that once we get our home study approved, the very next day there is that possibility that we could be placed with a baby (however slim that chance may be). When a woman is pregnant, she typically has 9 months to prepare herself (and the husband/father has the same amount of time to prepare himself) to become parents. And parenthood seems to be this looming, crazy but awesome responsibility, but abstract. While taking care of Shelby, it helped me feel that parenthood wasn't impossible, but rather, do-able. I know that it is going to be hard (don't get me wrong there), but it seems like I can actually do it. That even though I have felt called to be a mom, I now feel completely ready to be a mom. I am sure that there will be moments when it feels like I can't do it--but I will always get to look back at this moment of watching Shelby, knowing that I was able to watch her for 16 hours, got her to sleep, no tears, no broken bones or blood, and back to her mom all in one piece and for her to ask when she can sleep over again.

:)

Adoption

Mark and I wanted to take the time to announce to the world that we are going to adopt! Through a series of health issues and conversations, we have decided and feel called that this is the way that we are going to add to our family. We have only gone to a couple of informational meetings with adoption agencies, but we plan to sit down and interview one of them in the next couple of weeks. We are VERY excited to see what God has in store for us during this new journey. We would appreciate all your prayers, thoughts, and also if you have any help or suggestions for us--we would welcome it. We cannot wait to share this new journey with our family and friends as we take a leap of faith into the world of adoption!!!!