Our Journey Through Life

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 ...

It has been a year since we started our 2nd adoption journey.  Our home study has been finished for over a year & we are closing in on the one year mark of being in the search process and we are still no closer than we were a year ago. We have had only a handful of leads that have went no where. We have only been looked at by birthparents through our agency maybe 4 times. This just seems really odd to me since I have known others who were looked at around 50 times in their first year.  While I know God is sovereign and he works in his own timing, it still has me wondering why so little in so long. Living in Ohio has its pros & cons about adoption. One great thing is that there is only a 3 day revocation period, while a con is that the agencies cannot advertise and the only way they get birth mothers is through word of mouth. Our agency is unable to reach out to birth mothers, they have to wait until the birth mothers contact them. This is something that is hard to wa...

I ask myself why is it so hard for me to be open in an adoption? Well because I don't want to share my children. Many people will see this as selfish. I look at it this way. If you can have biological kids do you share them with another family, let the other family call them "aunt so & so"? Do you schedule visits with them so they can see your child? No you don't. So why would you expect me to give this lady, yes who did carry my child & allow me to adopt them because they are unable to care for them for whatever reason it may be, all the same rights as any parent or any visits?  You gave this child into my care for me to raise trusting and knowing I would make the life for this child. Why shouldn't it be my decision to decide who they spend time with. I get to choose where they go to school, who they play with, what I allow in my home, but an agency is going to tell me I have to let someone I am not comfortable with visit with my child. No, that doesn...

March, you mean the 3rd month of the year, already. Wow 2014 is going fast, just like every other year goes fast. Why does it seem that the older you get the faster the year goes even when you slow down to enjoy it. The saying goes "time flies when your having fun" so I guess I am having fun! T is growing up and turned 5 last month. 5 wow...has it really been that long, seems like just yesterday we brought him home. Now he is growing up, no longer a toddler, getting ready for Kindergarten. He is almost as tall as me! And Superhero's all the way!! Everything he does involves a superhero of some kind in some way. I never knew this much about superheros!  While T is growing up and time with him just goes by so fast waiting to hear about a new baby goes by so slow. It has been 7 months since we started the search portion of our adoption with our agency and still no word. We have had a couple opportunities that we have put our names into, but have not been chosen. Each ...

Hello, First we want to thank you for taking time out of your day to review our profile. We also want to thank you for thinking and choosing an adoption plan for your child. Lastly we want to thank you for choosing life for your child. We know this is a life changing decision and it isn't taken lightly. We pray you find the perfect family for your child. About Us We are Justin, Lori, & Titus. We have been married 10 years and have grown closer and more in love each day. We enjoy life and make sure we spend time together at least once a week as a family. We are a Christian family and are very involved with our church. We work along side some other wonderful leaders in our church's youth group and love working with teens. We have many friends and members of our church that have adopted. We love that our church has such a heart for adoption. We adopted Titus in 2009, he was 4 days old when we brought him home.                 ...