This is the book that expectant mothers get to review when considering us as adoptive parents for their child. It took a lot of thought, consideration, and time to develop this very personal book. We tried to include as many family and friends as we could. We tried to find a balance of pictures to words. We wanted to tell our story, but to also show our story. It was hard to condense our amazing life into only 23 pages. That is why we have added more pictures below and why we've created this site. 

When we set out on our journey to adopt we felt strongly that we were meant to adopt a newborn. We pictured baby snuggles, onesies, and lots of firsts. 

However, God has His own plan and sometimes it doesn't align with what we think we want. He knows what we need and His plan is perfect. 

With that said, we were called to apply for a situation very different from what we originally pictured. A mother, whom is terminally ill, was setting out to make an adoption plan for her two children, a son who is 2 years old, and a daughter who is 7 years old. So, we applied, as we have for 30+ other situations, and we didn't expect to hear anything back. But, we waited and waited , and then, we got the call. The call that could forever change our lives. The mother picked our profile and she wanted to meet us! 

Sorry, we are going to stray from the story for a little bit here. We promise we will tell you more in a little, but just stay with us. We want to share a little with you about how the adoption process works so you'll have a better understanding and appreciation of this story. 

First, we applied to our agency. We received a mountain of paperwork that took weeks to complete. We each completed something like 4 or 5 different background checks. Then, we had our home study. For this, our caseworker came to our home for two visits, each around 1.0 - 1.5 hours. We answered LOTS of very personal questions, we asked questions, and we showed her our home. After those visits a formal report was written and approved, declaring us eligible to adopt. 

From there, we were invited to an online page that our agency uses. This is where we can see all available "situations" that are posted. A situation is when a birth mother has made an adoption plan for her child. The situations share all the information that is available. They usually include information about the birth mother, birth father, state, costs, health information, sex of the child (if known), if there has been exposure to drugs/alcohol/tobbaco/etc. Most of these posts are very short (less than a paragraph) and they don't offer much insight. Very few contain all of this information. This is why our quote by Brooke Randolph (in the left side margin) is appropriate. You are taking risks, a leap of faith, but you do the same thing when you choose to have biological children. If you feel that a situation is appropriate for your family, you submit for your profile to be shown to the birth mother. (Note: You can see our profile up above.) 

The birthmother then looks through the profiles for all of the hopeful adoptive families (HAF) that submitted. Sometimes this may only be a handful of profiles, other times it may be hundreds. After she looks through the profiles she usually picks one or two families that she would like to Skype/FaceTime with or meet in person. From there if both parties are in agreement, a match is made. 

Now, usually these matches work out and in a few months the family takes a baby home from the hospital. But, sometimes a match fails. Sometimes a birthmother has medical issues (such as a miscarriage), sometimes she chooses to parent (not a bad thing, just hard for the HAF), and sometimes the agency loses contact with her and nothing else is ever known. Sometimes this happens early on and sometimes it happens as late as after the baby is born. Every state has different adoption laws and timeframes that give the birthmother the right to change her mind. If a failed match occurs you are often out thousands of dollars that is non-refundable and, if you choose to do so, you start over by beginning to apply for new situations and wait to be picked again. 

Our agency states that the average wait to be matched is 6 to 18 months, but that is an average and sometimes you may be chosen much faster or you may wait longer. How specific you are in your search definitely affects this time frame. Just as a birth mother can choose what "type" of family they want to adopt their child (i.e. traditional, hispanic, stay-at-home mother, muslim, etc.), a HAF also gets to make "choices" (i.e boy/girl, newborn/older child, race, location, cost, exposure to drugs, etc.). 

Okay, now that you have a better picture of the process, let's get back to our journey thus far. We left off with the fact that a mother had chosen us to meet. So many emotions! We never knew we could feel so many different emotions all at once--uncertain, sorrowful, grateful, anxious, sullen, confused, and completely overwhelmed. It was at this point that we truly realized the magnitude of the decision to grow our family through adoption. Up until this point we were hopeful and happily waiting to have a child. It was at that moment that we realized that adoption is not all sunshine and roses. It is messy, traumatizing, scary, sacrifice, and most importantly it's unconditional love. It hit us that this mother is losing her children and her children are losing her. That is NEVER something to celebrate. This causes trauma for her, the children, and for us too! Wow, what a revelation to have at that moment. 

But, we gathered ourselves and accepted the offer to meet. We scheduled a meeting and anxiously awaited the meeting. But then, the morning of, we got another call. The meeting was cancelled, the little boy was sick and had been admitted to the hospital. This was sad and scary, wondering what was wrong and if he would be okay, but, as bad as it may sound, it was also a relief because now we had more time to gather ourselves and we could work through our emotions, and it was also disappointing because we still wanted this meeting to happen. So, we rescheduled the meeting. (Btw, the little boy was fine and released the next day.)  

Another few days go by and again, we are ready for the meeting. Then, the day comes again to meet and we get another call. This time they hadn't been able to get ahold of the mother, so the meeting was cancelled yet again. This time we weren't sure why or what was going on. It wasn't until over a week later that we learned that the mother had been hospitalized (remember she is terminally ill). The director of our agency said she would try to get in contact again and hopefully we could set up another meeting. Well, another week went by and nothing, no knew news. So, we contacted our agency and they still had not been able to get ahold of the mother. Now, we are totally invested in this situation, we have thought about it non-stop since that first call, we have prayed about it daily, and now we are left in limbo. We just have to wait. We just have to pray that the mother is okay and that when she is ready and able she will get back in contact to move forward with her adoption plan. But, until then we must continue to apply for other situations and wait.

October was a very emotional month, with lots of ups and downs. But, one thing remains the same, we have faith that He has a perfect plan for us and what is meant to be will be all in good time.