Our Journey Through Life

The last 5 days have been ones that I won't forget. I have loved holding my new son! It still doesn't seem real and I keep thinking I'm in a dream. Everyone in the NICU has been amazing. They are so perfect for their job. Our first visit with him was Monday. As soon as the papers were signed we went in to be with him. We were with him for about 15 minutes before a good friend who works in the hospital came to visit. We all cried because we still didn't believe he was ours. We know we have a long road, but God wouldn't have given us this if he didn't think we were the perfect fit for Calvin. T got to be in the NICU and see his brother. One more thing of God's hands and his perfect timing. They told us that they were going into restricted visitors beginning Saturday. We were so glad T got to meet Calvin. Later on, grandparents came down and couldn't wait to get their hands on them. He loves to be held and cuddled.  We spend about 5 hours with him on Mond...

Last Monday 12/14 we received a call that we were not chosen again for a baby. We were devastated. This was the 3rd time in 2 years. We thought for sure we would be picked this time. Our hearts were heavy, tears were many, and life seemed hard. We cried, cried, and cried tears of sorrow. We didn't want to start over again. We were tired and ready to quit. We didn't understand why God was allowing us to have more suffering. Our son was tired. I cried out to God, wondering when my time would come. I cried out asking if we could just have an easy situation and it be over. We picked up and moved on...continued with our week as normal. As if nothing had happened, as we normally would each day. Then it happened. I was scrolling through Facebook, just randomly looking at different things & noticed someone had posted something new in an adoption group I am in. I clicked over just to check it out.  This person was asking if anyone knew of home study ready families that would be i...

This will be a quick update as I have lots going on with Christmas just around the corner. We have been busy preparing and spending extra time as a family.  I just love Christmas, it is my favorite time of the year and this year I had all my gifts bought before December. Yay, for time to enjoy Christmas! The agency has been slow lately, there hasn't been much of anything going on. Usually there is at least out of state birth moms that they are sending out, but even those have been slow. It has been about a month since we heard any updates or have had any new birth moms.  We got a call last week that a birth mom wants to meet with us! Yay, we are excited. We meet with her tomorrow. This time the agency wants us to bring T. They feel that it could be good for the birth mom to see him. They feel that since we homeschool, seeing how he interacts with others and how we parent him would be beneficial. We are hoping so too! T is very outgoing and told me just today that he i...

I have decided to explain this entire process for those of you who may not know or have always wondered what goes into getting matched and being chosen for a child. How does the process start? Once we had our home study & classes done then paid the initial agency fees we were considered ready to be shown to birth moms. We created an online profile that is on our agency's website. Then we created a profile book. How do you know about birth moms?   We then wait for our agency to send out profiles for possible opportunities. When we get a profile on a girl who is planning to do an adoption plan for the child she is carrying we look over it and chose if we want our online profile to be shown to her. In the information on the girl we get her medical history, if she has done any drugs or alcohol while pregnant, when she is due and what the gender is if it is known. Most of them are usually unknown genders. We are told if the birth father is in the picture and how he feels about ...

It's time for an Adoption update:  As most of you know we were not chosen for the birth mom that I wrote about in my last post. We thought the meeting went well, and we felt we connected with her. Unfortunately we didn't connect enough. While we were told she really liked us, but she chose the other family. When I asked the social worker why, the social worker said she just couldn't get over the fact that we homeschool. We were both very frustrated and didn't understand why it mattered how we school our children. We really didn't understand because the birth mom wanted no contact with the child once the adoption happened. We don't know God's plan. He already knows what will happen with this child and the family. He knows whether the BM will actually parent or if she will allow this child to be adopted. This has allowed us to look at our profile books and see what needs changed. We took out that we homeschool, added some adoption photos to the book and ...

Three weeks ago we got a situation about a new Birthmom in Ohio. We had to let our agency know asap if we wanted to be shown to her. We didn't get much information because she hadn't been to an OB yet. She had gone to urgent care to get have a pregnancy test done. She had been referred to the agency by someone at the urgent care. We submitted our profile not knowing what the gender or when the due date. We figured it would turn out just like all the other Birthmom's we have submitted too, wouldn't hear anything for a couple weeks then we would get an update saying she was matched. Then we would move on to the next one. A week and a half later, when I had written her off as not interested in us, I noticed I missed a call from our agency. We had also put in for a Birthmom who was having a set of twins, secretly I hoped it was about meeting her (I would love twins), but it wasn't. When I returned the call they said Birthmom _____ is wanting to meet with you on Sept...

We have many updates to tell you about. We are getting lots of situations with the new agency. In 5 months we have gotten almost as many situations as we did in 20 months with the other agency. For whatever reason we are still waiting. We still don't know God's plans for our lives. We don't know when or if we will bring that little one home. We are beginning to talk about adopting an older child instead. Maybe that is the way we should go. We don't really know right now. We are currently waiting to hear from 4 different Birthmom's. We are being shown to all of them right now and hoping that we will hear soon and get an interview with one of them.  Our agency says they are busy and anytime we get updates they let us know there are more girls they are working with. We are praying this agency will be better for us. We have updated our profile for our adoption agency. Here is the new one. Take a look at it, read it, and pass it along.  Please share it and post it ev...

I cry, yes in this adoption journey, I cry.   I cry A LOT!!!!    I cry for many reasons. I cry because I will never get to tell my husband or family we are having a baby.  I do not get to surprise them with a I'm going to be a Dad, Grandpa, Grandma, ect. shirt, or picture, or anything that goes along with that first time of being parents. I cry because I don't get to a gender reveal party. I don't get to plan special things for people to decide what we are having. I don't get to be surprised when I look at that ultrasound. I don't get to pick out colors or styles to do with my nursery. I have to be neutral because I don't know if I will get a boy or girl. Even once we are matched I don't know if that one will be ours. I won't know for sure until we can bring that baby home. I cry because I don't get to see an ultrasound of my child. I don't get that first glimpse of them as a peanut. I don't get to watch them grow or move. I don't ...

This past Sunday was Resurrection Sunday. The day we chose to specifically celebrate Jesus' resurrection from the dead. It is spring and life new life is all around us. Spring is a time when I am reminded that I am a new life in Christ. He has washed away all my deadness (sin) and given me new life in him. While I still sin, I am forgiven of that sin because of what he did for me on the cross. He chose to die for my sins, he was perfect & flawless, and he chose to take all the evil, bad, selfish, prideful things I do on him so that one day I can be with him. I am so thankful for what he did for me! I would love to say that we have a new little life in our life , but I cannot. It is not yet in God's plans for us to meet him/her. We have finished our transfer paperwork and have submitted to one birth mom. We are excited for this new hope in this agency and to be matched with our child soon, we are still very cautious to guard our hearts and wait patiently on the Lord. Wai...

As we begin a new year, we have made many new decisions that involved our adoption agency. After waiting 18 months and only being shown to around 20 birth families we have chosen to move to a new agency. We have been frustrated and have struggled with our past agency for the majority of the time we have been with them. We didn't do any research or ask our agency any questions in the beginning because we used them to adopt T and loved them! We never thought we would struggle with them. While we have been in constant contact with our past agency about our concerns and frustrations they have done nothing to change or help us feel that this was the agency we should stay and adopt through. We along with our families, have been in prayer asking God to open and close doors as needed. During some of the communication with our past agency God made it clear that it was time to move on. We applied to our new, current agency and were accepted. They were searching for families that were open ...