24 hours!!

You never know what can happen in 24 hours. It seems like such a short amount of time, but then your day begins and you hit the ground running. Friday I received a message about a young darling girl, who we will call "Sarah". Sarah has a precious baby and is wanting to give this child up for adoption. I didn't know Sarah at all. My friends were at a bible study and just suggested that I call because after a prayer request for helping find this sweet angel baby a forever family...she thought of Michael and I.  Long story short, I spoke with Sarah and she had already found a family for her baby. Let me just tell you the HOPE that swelled in my heart though!!! The call for adoption EXPLODED to an all time high!!!! I've never seen a school building filled with so much hope and anticipation of what "might" happen. These ladies were an army of hugs, giggles, support, tears, but most of all HOPE. I'm SO grateful for my friends and family at work.

Well that's how our weekend started. We had several engagements, appointments and errands. Last Friday evening we were so blessed to be invited to a banquet to raise funds for thezoefoundation.com. Talk about a tearful, wonderful, BLESSING to attend such an event. The stories of how God brought little children into these couples lives were incredible. The spirit of adoption was contagious. We felt another reaffirmation for the path we are taking. Saturday morning we woke up ready to do our taxes, well as ready as one can be. After talking with our CPA and getting guidance on how to proceed with our fundraiser, we just felt a peace. SERIOUSLY, I can not say it enough...GOD IS GOOD!! He has led us through all the steps to bring us to this place.  After the tax man, off to the bank we went to create our adoption account. DID YOU HEAR THAT?? The t-shirt fever has caught on and we made our first deposit. Again, tears and giggles as I shared with our adorable bank officer the excitement and anticipation of what is to come. She even wanted me to email her our link for ordering shirts, so that all the girls at the bank could get one. TOO cute!!!! After the bank chit chatting, we headed to our dear friends Holly and Paul's Casa to celebrate Michael's Birthday.  Last Tuesday was my hunka hunka burnin love's birthday and what a better way to celebrate than with our besties!!! He does love a Krispy Kreme Donut! LOL! After the birthday festivities, we ended the day playing cards with the "Fab 4". Can I just say how BLESSED we are to have this close circle of friends??!!! Later on today I get to spend the afternoon with Whitney and Chelsea while they are taking pics of Miss Addison! Did I forget to mention she's only 9 days old!! Spank your bottom cuteness! Life is so FULL of joy!!! 

Tomorrow I have the privilege of placing my first t-shirt order with Ms. Sherri. I can't wait to see the look on her face when she sees the final count. Remember it's not too late to order your shirt, they are only $15. The shirts should be ready in 2 weeks. Thank you everyone for sharing our blog with your friends and family. The prayers and love are felt by all of you. Have a blessed Sunday!

Peace, Love, Adoption!!

Well it's time to update y'all on what's going on in our adoption journey. We are so excited to share the good news about our first fundraiser. Yup, we've decided to bite the bullet and ask for help. My dear friend Sherri offered to help us by sharing her amazing t-shirt making mad skills! LOL!  All I had to do was come up with a design. Sooooo here is my creation! Peace, Love, Adoption and my fave part in the heart "Hand Picked Heaven Sent"!!!!! LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!!!!! You can choose between a fuchsia pink tee or turquoise tee, both will be printed on short sleeved tees.  I'll be taking orders through March 23, 2012. Now if this catches on with a larger enthusiasm than I expected, I'll try to get more shirts printed later in April. I'm lacking the computer savvy skills required to set up a PayPal/purchasing link on my page, so for now just post a comment on here if you'd like to order one and I'll give you a call or email you. We can work out the details together. I emailed our darling liaison, Angie, at Christian Homes of Abilene to see how the process is going and what we needed to do. She said "Your references are coming in wonderfully. Everything looks great!"  That made me feel good about where were at right now. A lot of people have been asking me "What's the timeline?" "Why Christian Homes?" So I thought it would be interesting to share the amazing website that gives a lot of information about the adoption timeline through Christian Homes of Abilene, it's www.christianhomes.com. So many dear friends have adopted through CHA and have precious "God Designed Families" that can only be explained because of God's timing and plan.  We just felt led to go through this agency and pray that God's will for building our family will come to fruition. Thanks for reading, continuing to pray, and loving us through this process. Oh and I have to give a shout out to my darling friend Sherri, y'all go on over to her facebook page and friend her, it's called "Stitches By Sherri".  She's the bomb!

Learning a little patience...

My first entry, that I typed so eloquently tonight, vanished after my computer cord came unplugged. Ahh, yes, there's that lesson in patience. So what began as a fast paced sprint to a finish line, has become a marathon. We eagerly completed our pre-application with Christian Homes of Abilene Agency. They actively seek to find "forever families" for sweet little babies. These brave birth moms give the choice of life. LIFE!! I'm forever grateful that my biological grandmother chose life for her daughter, my mom. I'm so very blessed that she placed her daughter up for adoption, so that my mom could grow up in a Christian home that was full of love and laughter. That was a sacrifice of love.

So back to the subject of patience. I'm learning that saving a large amount of money requires patience. What bliss and joy we were feeling prior to the opening of the fees for adoption letter. (This would be the part of the movie where the director cues the music DUNH, DUNH, DUNH and horrific screams would be heard!!) So our journey that we've wanted so desperately to SPEED up has slowed down to a crawl. We are needing to save $4,000 to take our next step in the application process. This is for home study fees, our first series of legal fees, application fees, orientation fees, etc... It takes a lot of people to run a fabulous facility that truly keeps the birthmother's and child's best interests at heart. WOW-WI-WOW this doesn't even include the 14% of our gross income for the final match placement fee.  So I'm learning patience, contentment in waiting, and seeking God's peace throughout this. "His grace is sufficient" is hard to remember when you're facing your next brick wall. That's when I had to repent, because in our excitement of telling so many of our friends and asking prayers for this decision, I've not been talking to God about it as much as I've told others. I will spend 30 minutes, OKAY let's get real people 3 HOURS working on a blog page that will captivate, capture, and tell our story, but not spend 10 minutes on my knees crying out to God. My sweet friend, Jen, comforted me through a struggle last week, she said  "I pray that God helps you today. Just today. We will deal with tomorrow then, but for the next 24 hours let's remember that we are not perfect, only He is, and if we fail, IT'S OK! It's just a reminder of how much we need Him and each other. So, let's take on today with much strength and zeal." So today I seek to find patience, peace, strength, love, and zeal in God's love!   Here's a precious song that melts my heart. We are all adopted!

So as my fingers type the last of this entry I want to remember no matter what the outcome of this journey, God's grace is sufficient and in Him alone will I find true peace and happiness. Oh and a small "sidedish" of patience. Hee hee! Thanks for reading, praying, and loving us through this. Love ya!

Our quest for babies...

Yes, we are sooooo dorky, but we have fun!!!! Well 13 years ago on June 19, 1999 I married the love of my life, Michael. We have known each other since the 4th grade, but life takes you to unexpected places. He went to into the military and got married and I went off to college. After a broken marriage, God brought Michael and his daughter Tiffany into my life. We knew it was God's plan for us to be together. God was ready to show us a life of his holiness, his hope, his patience, his love, true laughter, blessing, and endurance. In 2001, we knew we wanted to build our family, so we ventured down the road of fertility treatments, not knowing exactly what all that would entail. It was our first IUI cycle, so of course I went to Motherhood Maternity and bought my first maternity top before we even knew any results because I just knew that this was going to work! Hee hee! Then after a grave disappointment we realized that this was going to take a few more tries. Three attempts and five grueling years later we decided to wait. We were told to seek out IVF or look into adoption, both seemed so impossible, so yet again we waited. In 2009, we decided to try an IVF cycle. Now this was a big investment, but we were fortunate to be a part of a study group and received a substantial discount. For what unseeming reason I lost my three embryos. I know God has a special place in his heart for all the heartache and loss of babies. Yet through it all I still had this tug, longing, desire, to have a bigger family. Our church started a new ministry that focused on adoption by helping a local maternity home be rebuilt, renewed, and new moms feel loved. So the idea of adoption went from the back of my mind to the forefront again. We began filling out paperwork, seeking agencies, looking up all kinds of amazing adoption stories...that's when it became so clear. God wants to build our family through adoption. He wants to show how much he loves his little children. So here's our story. We're fumbling through paperwork, praying for a child, praying for that child's mother, praying for what seems so distant to become near if it's God's will. Thanks for reading my very first post! Stay tuned!