The Day We Met

Now that the adoption is final, I thought I would tell the story of the day we met Kaden!  The day started as a typical Friday in April.  The plan was that after work Mike was going to run a couple of errands and I was having a girl's night out with my best friend Elizabeth.  When I was getting ready the phone rang and sure enough it was DCS! They started describing Kaden and his situation, and I immediately started getting excited.  It seemed like the perfect match for us, especially for our first placement.  I wanted more than anything to say yes, only there was one little problem keeping me from it.  Mike and I had promised each other we would not make any decisions about a child without consulting the other person first.  I immediately started calling Mike, but he was not answering!  About 8 minutes, 20 phone calls, 4 voicemails, and 6 text messages later (and no I'm not exaggerating) I decided to make this decision myself.  I was not about to let this little boy go anywhere but with us.  I sent one final text saying "ready or not we are parents" and called DCS back.  We worked it out for Kaden to be brought to our house because we didn't have a carseat for a 14 month old at the time, and I really had no idea when Mike would be home.  I immediately called Elizabeth to get everything I needed (lucky for me her daughter is four months older than Kaden)! In the middle of talking with her, Mike FINALLY called me back, apparently he was donating blood and couldn't get his phone out of his pocket.  Mike's first question was "are you serious?" The second question, "do I have time to mow the lawn?" Seriously, we were about to have a 14 month old boy in our home and he is worried about mowing!  I quickly persuaded him that instead of mowing our time and energy would be better spent at Target purchasing things like diapers, wipes, and milk.  We went to Target and immediately starting throwing everything we could find in the cart.  Then we got another call from DCS asking if we could meet them at children's hospital instead so Kaden could be checked out.  So the cart got left and off to children's we went.  I laugh when I think about how we must have looked to other people in the ER waiting room.  Two very anxious adults and no child.  Needless to say, when the DCS worker walked in with Kaden she knew exactly who we were!  We both fell in love with Kaden immediately.  We cried when they had to draw blood, and then laughed with Kaden for a long time while we waited on the doctor.  About two hours later we got the all clear to take Kaden home! Nothing has been the same since!

Oh how things change...

Here is a little recap of the last few years of our lives.  God has given us both a huge desire to be parents, but we can't get pregnant.  Therefore, God's plan must be for us to adopt a newborn baby, become a perfect little family, and live happily ever after, right?  I mean that is what would make sense and seem logical to me.  One thing I have learned is that God's plan is not always the one that seems the most logical to me, that is why it is God's plan and not mine.  Over the past few months God has really been working and changing our hearts which has led us to a new path.  We have gone from only wanting to privately adopt a newborn to being open to becoming foster parents!  We decided we wanted to foster, with the intentions of hopefully adopting.  We are still interested in private adoption, and haven't changed anything about that, we just feel like this is a different path God might be leading us down.  If you had asked us 6 months to a year ago if we would do foster care the answer would have been NO WAY without even giving it a second thought.  Oh how things change.  We have already completed the training we have to do and are in the home study process.  We are both very excited to start this journey!

Thank You!

This post (like all of my others) is long overdue.  We would like to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who was involved in the fundraisers we have done recently for the adoption!  We had a garage sale and I also had a 31 party where the consultant donated all of her proceeds to the adoption.  We had a lot of friends and family come to both events, and also had a lot of stuff donated for the garage sale.  I can happily say that both events were incredibly successful!!  The grand total for both events came to $1,050!!  Again, thanks to everyone who donated, helped and purchased items to help us bring home Baby Gray!!

It Has Arrived!

Our approved home study came in the mail today!! We already knew we were approved and had read a rough draft, but it was so amazing to see the real thing.  I honestly felt a little nervous just holding it.  So now we are legally ready to adopt at any time!  It is going to be strange now without having something specific to focus on.  This entire journey we have been focusing on something that need to be completed, whether by us, our social worker, or someone with the adoption agency, and now there really isn't anything to fill our time (other than just waiting and praying of course).  Well I take that back, I guess now we can turn our focus to fundraising.  As I'm sure I've said before, adoption isn't cheap.  We are trying very hard to do as much as we can without creating any debt.  Some people have been saving their change for us, and you would be surprised at how quickly that adds up.  The change is actually the main reason we put the donate button on the blog.  I felt weird doing it, like I was begging for money, but please understand that is not our intention at all.  It just seemed to be the easiest way for people who don't live close to send the money they have collected.  We are working on several other ways to raise money.  In fact, a friend of a friend is a 31 consultant and has offered to do a party as a fundraiser for me!  It is going to be on July 14th, and if anyone is interested in attending, please just let me know.  Thanks again for all of your support!

Here it is!! The most beautiful paper I have ever seen!

A Lot of Exciting Waiting

I can't believe it has been an entire month since my last post, it feels like just a few days.  As you know I am a teacher, which for me means May is the craziest, busiest month of the year.  I read somewhere that the last week of school alone is enough to make a person appreciate summer break, and as all my teacher friends know, this is so true!  Anyway, on to the real reason I blog.  Even though we have been waiting the entire last month, it has  been incredibly fun, and there is a lot to update everyone on.  First off, we finished our scrapbook!! It took a lot of time and help from a friend, but we got it done.  It was a lot of fun to create it, and look back at all of our memories.  It was also emotional creating the letter to the birth family.  It's a lot to think about when trying to tell them about us and our lives, all while making sure they know we are thinking about them, their bravery, and how difficult this decision must be.  We also got the nursery painted! Mike did an excellent job and it looks awesome!  I'm adding pictures to the blog of everything we have done.  We went ahead and purchased some of the big items (crib, dresser, bookshelf, and car seat), because of an excellent deal that we couldn't pass up.  Next thing is we hired an attorney!  Mike's attorney with work recommended a guy to us, and he seems like a great guy.  He has done a lot of work with Harmony in the past, and we are really excited.  It feels really good already having a contract with someone. In case something happens quickly, that is one less thing for us to worry about.  Now, on to the most exciting part!  Even though our home study stuff was finished up a month ago, we knew it wasn't actually legally written out.  Our social worker had told us it would take her a while, but everything was there and together so if something were to come up and we needed immediately, she could have it to us within a day.  So, we were waiting patiently until Wednesday when we just couldn't handle it anymore (I mean seriously it had been a month, that was a long time to me), and so we emailed to see how it was going.  She said ours was the next one to be written, and she would have a draft for us within a week or so!  Well, skip to Thursday night, we were going to sleep when my phone beeped notifying me of an email.  As always, Mike started complaining about me having the phone upstairs when it should stay downstairs so it doesn't bother him.  I usually just ignore the beep, but for whatever reason this time I checked it.  It was an email from our social worker with a draft of our home study attached for us to read over and approve!!! I jumped up to download it and attempt to proofread it, but realized I was too sleepy to catch any mistakes.  So first thing Friday morning Mike and I both read it separately, and emailed her back the changes that needed to be made (a couple of dates were incorrect, but that was it).  Now she signs it, our agency representative signs it, and everything is completely official!! I'm sorry this post has been so incredibly long, but I have one more thing.  We wanted to say THANK YOU to all of our family and friends who have been saving change for us.  If anyone has been saving change for us, let us know when you are ready and we will be more than happy to come pick it up! Also, if you are saving but don't have a baby bottle to put it in and would like one, we will get you one.  It's a good way (for us anyway) to remember what we are saving for.  We are also going to put a paypal donate button on the blog so that the people who are helping, but don't live close can just send it that way.  Thanks again for all of your love and support!  Please continue to pray for us, baby Gray, and his or her birth family as we continue our journey!

Our Scrapbook

A burp cloth I made (yes, I'm attempting sewing!)

The quilt Mike's mom is making (not finished yet)

The bumper pads Betty made also!

Hurry Up and Wait

I'm a little behind on the blog, so I need to do some catching up.  If we had to sum up our lives recently into one line it would hurry up and wait.  Two weeks ago we had our individual interviews, something that completely terrified me.  In case you didn't know, I tend to stress about things that I shouldn't.  Anyway, the interviews were very easy and relaxed.  Our social worker is great!  Monday was our home inspection and a couples interview.  That went great as well, again I stressed over nothing.  We are working on our scrapbook that the agency shows to birth mothers to pick who they place their child with, and hope to have it finished this weekend.  Other than the scrapbook, there is nothing else for us to do!  Our social worker said it would take a little time for her to get everything typed up, but we have everything we need!  So we have spent all of our time rushing things like paperwork and interviews, and now all that is left to do is wait!!!  Even though we should be pros at waiting by now, it still isn't a strong point for either us so we are trying to do lots of things to stay busy.  We are working on getting the nursery painted and put together and have been picking out a lot of things for Baby Gray.  Most women get 9 months to plan and prepare, but I on the other hand have no idea how long I will have so we are trying to be ready.  Its crazy to think that we could be parents any day.  I know chances are it will take some time, but it could happen at any moment.  We were told a story about one young couple who got the call about a child ONE week after their home study was complete.  How crazy is that?  As crazy as it would be, it would be incredibly awesome for it to happen that quickly.  So for now we wait, and hopefully will be getting that very special phone call soon!

We Have Contact!

Our social worker finally contacted us! Ok, I'm sure it didn't take her as long to call us as it seems, but it felt like forever.  We have scheduled our individual interviews for a week from Monday, and will schedule the home visit from there.  It is crazy to think that in just a few short weeks, we could have an approved home study, and be ready to adopt at any time if a birth mother picked us! We are also starting to do a couple of fundraisers to help with the cost.  Please continue to pray for us as we continue on this journey, as well as Baby Gray and his or her birth family.  Thanks for all of your love and support!